Leah woke up with the blankets covering her that she was pretty sure she hadn't put on herself.

Her muscles ached, but the gentle morning light streaming through her ceiling was a welcome sight. There was a significant difference between the sunlight that touched the desert and that which touched the League, and Leah found a new appreciation for it as she lay in bed, staring at the sky.

Skies above it was nice not waking up to Kieran's voice for once.

She took her time getting out of bed, stretching out her legs that seemed stiffer than the crystalite walls themselves. Still in her clothes from yesterday, she found the energy to leave the bed and grab a fresh pair. She glanced at Illiya's Radiant garbs before deciding against it. She was going to spend most of today in her room anyway, and it was only going to get in the way.

Leah meandered down to the dining hall to disappear back into her room with the food. She'd woken up late, so there were few who had seen her. Biting into a piece of fruit, she found she was somewhat grateful for the fact. Being alone with her thoughts was the one place she was certain of where she stood, not having to worry about someone catching onto her midnight activities or impressing the people she still hoped to call colleagues.

She sat on the edge of her bed, planning how she was going to setup her room as she ate. After the expedition, she was more certain than ever she wanted to be here. There was nothing that was going to stop her finding a cure, and a smile crept onto her face as she finished her food and went about unpacking her books.

Her filled journals went on the highest shelves, the ones specific to the ruins near her home. The one under that was her general reference guides--things she'd managed to get a hold of in Teridia and filled up the sides with her own notes and diagrams. Beside them were her own self-written papers, then her blank journals and recovered artifacts she found interesting, until finally she was left with only the to-be documented journals from the expedition.

Leah set to work.

She organised them section-by-section, getting all the information down into the League's copy. Off to the side, she made her own notes of the thoughts that struck her as she worked through it, ones that were too intriguing to lose. The work was cathartic, methodical, and she made a steady pace through it, even going so far as to re-draw some of the worst of the sketches. Even so, some of them were beyond saving, and she was forced to note on the side that sufficient detail hadn't been recorded.

It was dusk before Leah glanced up from her work, periodically snacking on the remains of her breakfast to get her through the day.

Part of her wanted to keep working. She was almost done with the Leagues copy, and if she got it down tonight, she could start on her own. That was going to bring its own dilemmas--did she include the door she and Shade had found? That seemed like it might be the kind of thing to get Emrys' attention, but strangely enough, it felt like a betrayal to Shade.

She tapped her fingers on the pages before closing it, deciding she'd think some more on it before making a decision.

Walking into the dining area during dinner was weird. The breakfast hall had been eerily silent and echoed with the lack of people, but even now, the dining hall felt empty. Compared to the lively streets of Hulari and its constant noise, even the activity inside the town they'd lodged at, it felt too quiet. There were conversations, but they were constrained. Nothing like the expedition team's loud, enthusiastic discussions.

Illiya called her over to their table when Leah stood around awkwardly, unsure if she was still invited at all. She half expected to be bombarded with questions about the expedition, but after only a few, their attentions turned elsewhere. Even so, even in the background of the conversation, at least she was occasionally acknowledged as Illiya filled her in on a joke or another Radiant explained the details of some lab technique. Leah told herself she was content to sit and listen and learn, but the smile was hard to hold onto. 

Leah excused herself early citing needing to get back to the documenting.

She couldn't find the same enjoyment she had before. It felt hollow.

She still wasn't good enough.

*+*+*+*

The next day started off the same as the first, only this time, Leah specifically waited in her room until breakfast was over. She told herself it was in the interests of making progress on her personal journal of the expedition, but she knew it was the fear of rejection that kept her from attending on time.

Today, she wasn't the only one in the breakfast hall. There was a small group at the corner table lingering behind, and Leah was set to ignore them until one of them called out her name.

"Leah!" said Sef, waving from the table. "Wanna sit with us?"

Death glares from his three companions, noticably Dale, kept her away. "I'm okay. I have to get back to work, anyway. I'm already late starting today."

"Oh, okay," said Sef. "Well, if you want, I'll be in the training halls until the afternoon, so if you need a break, come find me, okay?"

Leah smiled with no intention of doing so. "Sure. Sounds like fun."

Then she went back to her room and buried herself in her work.

The sun was casting an annoying shadow of her head across the page she was trying to sketch when a knock on her door made her glance up for the first time in hours.

Leah stretched out her neck. "Busy. Come back later."

The door opened regardless.

To no surprise, Kieran walked in. "Thought I'd see how you were going with the documenting and make sure you were on the right track--not that I doubt you are. If nothing else, you have a talent for bookwork."

Leah tapped two fingers on the closed, completed expedition documentation on the side of her desk. "It's done. You can take it if you want."

Kieran flipped through it. "So why are you still working on this expedition's findings? There's much more interesting pieces out there if you're interested in studying them."

Leah shrugged. It felt stupid explaining that her worth was currently tied to this stupid book. She was starting to get sick of staring at the same damned murals, but it'd be worth it in the end. It had to be. If she couldn't do this, how was she supposed to look Emrys in the eyes and ask for a position on the cure team, knowing she could have done more?

No. This research had to be perfect.

Kieran continued when she didn't. "And how many breaks have you had in between the League's copy of the journal and your own?"

Leah shrugged again. "I don't need breaks."

"Yea, you do," said Kieran. He plucked the pencil straight from her hands, and when she reached for that, his other hand picked up her journal and held it above his head.

Leah stared at her stolen book. This situation was getting all too familiar.

"You can have them back later," said Kieran, tucking them into his belt. "You can come participate in group training. It's a requirement I have that my team is up to a certain level of fitness and physical strength."

It was the last thing Leah wanted to do, but Kieran jerked his head at the door. "Now. C'mon."

She moved.

Following him down the hall, Leah discovered the training grounds. Mostly just a large, open sandy space, there were various obstacle courses and other weird things that ringed it. Nothing exciting, but there were more people here than she'd expect. Almost none of them were anything close to a pureblood.

It was then she realised who the teal-haired Radiant was.

Sef grinned at her, waving. "Hey, Leah! You made it!"

"Yea," muttered Leah. "Guess I did."

"Leah's going to be joining us today, but I'm going to hold the rest of you to the usual standards," said Kieran. He took the lead of the group--the entire expedition team. "Two laps, let's go!"

Leah could run. She could move damned fast when she needed to, but that didn't mean she liked it. Short sprints were tolerable, a brief rush of exhiliration that ended before the breathlessness kicked in, but endurance running?

She almost died those first two laps, and that was before Kieran had them run on the spot, knees up, for nearly a minute. From there it was lunges into presses into some infernal exercise he called 'V snaps' that Leah was sure was plucked from the darkest depths of the shadows themselves.

Her lungs were burning by the time Kieran ordered them to the obstacle course.

"Surviving?" asked Sef as they waited in line.

Leah managed to squeeze a word inbetween her pants. "No."

Sef just laughed at that.

She tried to watch how the others did the obstacle course--Kieran in particular. He moved with a ridiculous amount of grace over the poles and the ropes, leaping over randomly appearing holes in the floor without faltering once. He ran at a wall and scaled it like it was a casual stroll down the hall, and daylight be damned Leah was going to die. If by some miracle she managed not to break her neck, embarrassment would finish the job.

"Let's go, Leah!" called Kieran from midway down the course.

Sunlight help her.

She took a deep breath, steadying herself before she started. She was going to make it to the end of this, she vowed. She didn't know how, but damn it all she was going to get there unless she was legitimately dead.

The first few leaps across the vertical poles weren't so bad. They were like the stepping stones across the river not far from her house, only less slippery. The rope wasn't terrible either, even if she almost fell back into the mud after failing to get both feet on the platform. The balance beams came next, but she'd always been small, and even though her limbs shook from the previous effort, she made it across.

The problems came when she made it to the randomly appearing holes in the floor bit.

Her reactions weren't in the dodge-an-arrow category. Far from it. But when she decided on a charge-at-the-other-end-and-pray approach and almost broke both her ankles in the first three steps, her nose almost joining her wrists in slamming down onto the wood, she was beginning to wonder if she'd be able to dodge a turtle if it was came at her at half speed with three broken legs.

"Get up, Leah!" called Kieran. "Keep going!"

She wanted to keep laying there until he spoke. She wanted to after he did too, but no. She would not give up. Not in front of Kieran. Not after she'd earned some tiny part of his respect in the last four days.

One knee followed another as Leah found her feet. They were unsteady, but they were there. Her eyes set on the platform on the other side of the holes obstacle. Rushing the other end wasn't going to work. She wasn't like Kieran and the others. She didn't do things that way--and so she decided to do it her way.

After all, Kieran hadn't said no Light involved.

Leah called the Light to her hands and made a narrow beam, stretching it all the way to the other platform, just wide enough for one foot to balance comfortably. Climbing onto it, she ensured she had her balance before carefully placing one foot over the other and walking straight over the unstable wooden floor beneath her thin strip of Light.

At the other end, feeling more than a little smug about it, she retrieved the remaining Light inside her beam and faced the wall Kieran had scaled in a heartbeat. Once more, she called on her Light, forming a staircase and reaching the top with relative ease.

She jumped down from the top and walked back to the group to find Kieran watching her, an amused expression on his face as a few others snickered behind him.

"In the years I've been doing these obstacle courses," said Kieran. "I don't think anyone has ever thought to use Light to get across it." Behind him, the others smirked, but his next words rubbed them right off. "In the future, I'd suggest you learn how to do them without, but improvisation is a must in this field. Good problem solving, Leah. "

With a small smile on her face, Leah accepted the praise with a small incline of her head.

That small victory became a distant memory in the next hour.

Combat training.

She was so far behind, even from the beginning. Even with Sef's attempts to help explain the basics she was completely clueless on, she was lost, and Kieran couldn't stop every few minutes to explain a new term or concept the others had mastered months, if not years ago. She tried, but she moved awkwardly through the forms, earning herself several snickers and stares despite Kieran's disapproving glares in their direction, and by the end of it, Leah was close to tears.

At some point, the torture ended.

Avoiding Sef's glances entirely, Leah hugged her waist and slunk over to where Kieran waited at the side. "Can I have my journal back now?"

Kieran handed it over. "You did well, Leah."

"Yea, sure," said Leah, holding her journal close to her chest. "Please tell me that's not going to be a regular activity."

"If you stay on this expedition team, it will be," said Kieran. "If you'd be up for it, I'm willing to give you extra lessons, one on one without the others around to catch you up. I wasn't lying when I said you have potential."

Leah curled her fingers around the spine of her journal, eyes cast to the ground. "I still want to join the cure team."

"I know," said Kieran. "But the training will be useful regardless of where in the League you're working, and Emrys is away for a few days, so you're stuck with me at least until then. At least think about it. Find me at dinner if you'd like to set up a schedule of some kind. Oh, and that reminds me." He pulled out a folded piece of thick parchment--Teridian parchment. "This came for you. It was my secondary bribery piece to get you to training if the journal wasn't enough."

Leah took the parchment, a new life in her movements. She knew this paper--her father had a whole stack of it in the study. "Thank you."

Kieran nodded. "You're welcome. Just remember you're allowed to have fun here, too. You don't have to work yourself to the bone everyday. Breathe. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Good. I'll see you later."

Kieran left, and Leah hurried back to her rooms.

Sitting down on her bed, she placed the parchment in her lap and carefully tugged the seal keeping it folded. As the pressure faded, another, smaller note on paper that was far cleaner and more refined than any Teridian-made paper would be fell out of the creases.

Her heart leaping just a little, Leah put her father's words aside and opened the smaller piece of paper.

Sorry about hijacking your dad's letter, but wasn't sure how else to get you a note. If possible, meet me at the staircases into the lower levels of the League. There's something down there that you'll find a whole lot of interesting. -Shade

Leah caught herself reading and re-reading the words several times over, gleaning everything she could from the word choices themselves, right down to the way he shaped his letters. There was an elegance about them, she decided. One that spoke of the Radiant in him, even if the general carelessness to the script tried to drown it out.

She tucked the note into her reference journal with a small smile, glancing at it for a long moment before she turned to her father's letter. The first part described how he'd got it here--some speedy-delivery system between the League and their researchers in Teridian lands. When he'd written this, she'd only been gone a day, but apparently the house was already quieter without her.

Leah's heart ached. She wanted him to hug her and tell her everything was going to be okay but she couldn't. Not just the physical distance, but she didn't want to be that selfish. He'd needed her as much as she did him. Neither of them really had anyone else. Without eachother, they were alone in this world that was slowly killing them off.

Leah's eyes lingered on her desk.

With the small note in her reference journal keeping her company, she didn't feel quite as alone as she had before.

*+*+*+* 

A/N - Wew, chapter! Guess who's rocking up again next chapter => 

Hopefully the next few chapters don't feel... awkward XD We're at the part of the book where there's like a breather section before things start really tipping the turtles so... yep. xD

Wordcount: 36,400