Shade's eyes open, the room she is in lit up by the sun shining through the small gaps in the boards of wood that composed the walls. She looks across to the bed on the other side of the room where Jason was sleeping, but the bed is empty. She goes to pull the covers of the bed off of her, but as she grips the edges her hands sear with pain. Shade removes her makeshift bandages and looks at her palms. The injuries she received scaring off the Gorfangs haven't healed at all, in fact they have been made worse by sending the message to Sylas the day before. The wounds have grown in size, dried blood on the outskirts of the slashes across her palm. She replaces the bandages back over the wounds and works her way out of the bed, opening the door to the room and heading down the stairs towards the main room where she had awoken the day before.

As she reaches the bottom of the stairs, she sees Charlie stocking a fire in the fireplace, a pot bubbling over the top of it. Her ears perk up as she hears Shade approach and she turns around to face her as Shade sits in a chair, hiding the pain in her hand as she lowers herself into it. Charlie, seemingly content with Shade's position in the room turns back to the fire. Shade looks over to Charlie, noticing that her arm that was injured is now healed completely. "I see you healed yourself then," she says.

"Yep." Charlie says, not turning from the pot over the fire.

"You didn't think to heal me then?"

Charlie lets out a hearty laugh, throwing her head back in the process. "And you would have been happy with me doing so? I assumed you would have far to much pride for that."

Shade leans back into her chair, allowing her back to fall into its shape and letting out a relaxed sigh. "You may be right. From what I recall though, we have only had a single conversation. How could you have picked up on my inner workings so quickly."

"Don't underestimate an old woman's intuition." She lifts up a finger and wags it at Shade, still not turning from the fire. The pot on the top is starting to boil over with white bubbles starting to drip over the edge of the rim into the fire bellow, causing a hiss and a small white smoke to drift up towards the ceiling. "I'm guessing you still don't want me to heal you then?"

Shade looks at her hands carefully, mulling over her options. "I don't think you can. I can sense your store of power, and it isn't that strong. Healing yourself is easy when you are sensitive to the Realm of Balance, but healing others takes a lot larger store than you have."

Charlie turns away from the fire holding a ladle filled with the white liquid from the pot. Green rings form around her arm as she rotates her free hand in the air. The ladle starts to deconstruct in the air, its parts sliding and whirling around each other as Charlies continues to move her hand in the air. The green rings around Charlies arm finally dissipate as she grabs the ladle, which is now a cup filled with the white liquid, out of the air. She hands it off to Shade as she sits in another chair just opposite her. "Seems you know your stuff. I can't heal you directly, but I have always had a certain knack for remedies. The one I just gave you is an infusion of deep root and loud wing leaf. It should reduce the pain in your hands and promote the natural healing in your body.

Shade takes a sip of the concoction. As it touches her tongue her eyes start to water. "This is vile."

Charlie shakes her head. "I never said any of those things would be easy. Honestly, how tasty did you imagine it would be with ingredients named loud wing leaf and deep root."

"I guess you are right." Shade takes another sip of the drink and grimaces.

Charlie looks over to Shade, a smug look in her eye. "Calling back to earlier, you're one to talk about power level young woman."

Shade looks at her confused. "What do you mean?"

Charlie reaches for one of Shades hands and pulls back the bandages on it, revealing the deep gashes and dried blood underneath. "I could sense you before you even decided to run towards that clearing. You seem to know a lot, so even you should know how rare it is for someone with your level of power to have such harsh side effects to being sensitive to one of the Realms. Your body seemed to literally tear itself apart when you were doing things that should be relatively easy to someone as strong as you are."

Shade pulls her hand back and replaces the makeshift bandage. Her body seems to pull into itself, starting to get defensive against Charlies mental probing. She looks around the room, desperate to change the subject, suddenly noticing a distinct absence. "Charlie?"

"Yes?"

"Where's Jason, I haven't seen him all morning."

"I sent him out to the market to pick up a few things I need."

Shade's eyes go wide, not able to believe what she just heard. "You did what?"

Charlie shrugs. "Well I couldn't go could I? I was busy here preparing the remedy you're drinking."

Shade launches up from the chair, dropping the cup on the floor as she goes. "How could you send him out there without going with him. Do you not remember why we are in your house to begin with. If the Circle of Grulm see him he will be thrown in jail, or even worse killed on sight."

Charlie watches Shade run over to the door. "Where do you think you are going?"

"I'm going to go find him and drag him back here before someone notices him and alerts the Grulm." Shade reaches for the door and pulls it open. She turns to run out and runs head first into someone. Both of them get knocked to the floor. Shade looks at the person who she had ran into. Jason is on the floor across from her, scrabbling to quickly get up and gather from the floor the items he was holding. He reaches out a hand to help Shade back to her feet. As she takes the hand, she notices something is amiss with Jason, changed from what it was before. "Your eyes," she says as she stands back up. "They're red."

Jason walks past Shade and hands off the items in his hands to Charlie. She takes two of the items and starts to grind them with a pestle and mortar, adding the same broth that she had prepared earlier, still boiling in its pot. Shade strides meaningfully over the Jason, who is standing behind Charlie watching her intently, and grabs him by the shoulder. "Excuse me, why are your eyes red?"

Jason turns to look at Shade. "Charlie changed them for me before I went out. She said this way people wouldn't realise I don't belong here."

Charlie chuckles. "Not to bad for someone with a weak store of power." She pours out the mulch from her mortar onto a slate sheet. She plucks some leaves from a nearby potted plant and lays it on them before turning to face Shade. "You really thought I would have sent him out there on his own without a little bit of protection, you really think lowly of me." Green rings form around her fingers as they twitch and move in the air. A similar green tint appears in the corners of Jason's eyes. The green sweeps across his eyes, touching the red and changing it back to its usual colour. Jason blinks a few times, like a piece of dust was blown into his eyes rubbing them as he opens his eyelids again. His eyes have been fully turned back to their original colour. Charlie goes back to the slate, rubbing the material out until the liquid has been pressed from it fully. She picks up the sheets of material and turns to Shade. She cuts thin strips out of it and lays then across shades palm. "This is a bandage, a proper one, which is what I needed Jason to get me materials for. This, plus the drink I just gave you, should heal your hands by tomorrow. But, and I can not stress this enough," she furrows her brow at Shade, "no using your powers while you are healing. Using your powers won't just add on extra pain, it will multiply your wounds. Even simple acts will be excruciating because of the open wounds you already have."

Shade accepts the bandages gratefully. Though she would never admit it, he hands are causing her a lot of pain and them healing would be a massive weight off of her shoulders. She shrugs at Charlie. "If we are as safe here as you say we are, I'll have no need to use my powers will I. I'm going back upstairs to rest, it's been a stressful morning."

Charlie smiles. "That's probably a good idea. I'll have Jason bring up dinner when it's done if you aren't down before hand."

Shade makes her way back towards the stairs, turning back to look at Jason who is engrossed once again in Charlie's work. She exits the room and returns back to her bed.

Jason sits in the chair that was, until recently, occupied by Shade. He looks over to Charlie who puts a lid on the pot and stops stoking the fire, allowing to burn lower than before. "Charlie, I have a question."

Charlie sits back in her chair. "Alright kid, shoot."

"Can you teach me to do the eye colour change thing." Jason mimics Charlie's hand movements from earlier in the air in front of him.

Charlie gives Jason a confused look. "Wait, are you saying that you're a sensitive?"

"I mean, that's what Shade told me. Truth be told I don't really have much experience with it personally. But I want to be more help around here. If I knew how to disguise myself then I could go out and do things without relying on you first. Think of how much more we could accomplish."

Charlie places her hand on her furrowed brow. "I'm not gonna fault your logic here, though I'm not sure how much saving a few seconds every day would allow us to achieve but I appreciate the enthusiasm." Charlie gets up from her chair, but doubles back. "Wait, if you are sensitive to the Realm of Balance like me, how come I had to explain the power conflict I felt when I first met Shade, surely you feel it all the time. Its not like you can miss it, its pretty suffocating."

"Sorry Charlie, I don't feel a thing when I'm around her. At least, nothing like what you described to me."

"Well, I can only really think of one reason for that being the case. I said the struggle is because the two realms try to fight each other, so you not being able to feel that must mean that your connection to the Realm of Balance is so weak that its basically been subjugated by Shade's overwhelming power."

Jason looks at the floor disgruntled. "Oh, I see."

"Chin up kid, just because you don't have a massive store of power doesn't mean you wont be able to use powers like everyone else. It just means you have to work harder. Your aren't afraid of a little hard work are you?" Charlie's face lights up with a cheeky grin.

Jason looks back to the stairs that Shade had made her way up just before. "Don't worry about that, hard work doesn't scare me."

Charlie claps her hands together. "Ok then, I'm going to teach you. Using the Realm of Balance, for me at least, is the same regardless of what you want to do. If you learn the basic techniques, you can in theory do the same powers as the most powerful sensitives."

Jason's eyes lit up. "You mean I could do cool stuff like Shade?"

"Well not really. Reality is never as good as theory I'm afraid. The Realm of Balance allows us to manipulate the natural balance of the universe. Even with the smallest amount of power people can manipulate small things, like the colour of your eyes for example. But, more heavy duty manipulation takes more and more power, something that neither of us have I'm afraid. And then there is also the small issue that manipulating the essential parts of the universe takes less power if you are doing things to yourself. You are naturally in tune with your own body so it takes less effort to change. Doing stuff to others will always cost you more."

Jason looks at Charlie in admiration, as if she had just given him the secrets of the universe to him. His mind is racing at then thousand thoughts a second as he attempts to comprehend what he just heard. "Right...I see...I think."

Charlie puts her head in her hands and chuckles. "Its ok if you don't understand all of what I just said. The history isn't necessary to anything. What you need to do to use your powers is very simple. Close your eyes. This isn't actually something you need to do but as this is your first time, it should help you concentrate."

Jason closes his eyes. "Ok, now what?"

"You need to visualise the components of what you want to do in your mind. In this case you are trying to change the colour of your eyes, so try to visualise the colours in your minds eye. Make the visualisation something you can interact with. I tend to go with pools of liquid, but anything will do.

Jason visualises a pair of orbs, one his normal eye colour and the other the colour red, the new colour he wants his eyes to be. "Ok, done that."

"This is where it gets difficult and a bit harder to explain. Everyone visualises the components differently so describing this process will be different for everyone who tries. Essentially, you are going to want to decrease the size the original component and increase the size of the desired affect. For me, the liquid from one of the pools flows into the other but for you it will probably be different."

The orbs in Jason's mind start to fluctuate and pulse. A colour stream flies from one orb to the other, the red orb increasing in size as the stream of colour flows into it. Green rings form around Jason's arms and begin to rotate, runes materialising within the circles and disappearing in flashes of green energy. The rings grow brighter and brighter before suddenly disappearing, leaving green particles floating down towards the floor. Jason and Charlie both open their eyes. "Did it work Charlie?"

Charlie looks at Jason's eyes, which have been changed into a brilliant red colour. "It's incredible. Not only did you manage to do such a good job with your low level of power, but you did it on the first try as well." She places her hand on the back of her neck and gives a half smile. "I was fully prepared to console you when you couldn't get it for the first few times."

"Wait, so it really worked? I managed to change the colour of my eyes using the Realm of Balance."

"Yeah you did. There is a mirror by the door just across the room, go and see for yourself." Charlie gestures across the room towards the entrance to the house, where a full length mirror rests against a wall nearby. "Though I guess we are both sensitives to the Realm of Balance after all, so I shouldn't be too surprised," Charlie continues. "Like I said earlier, you were able to tap into my power and use that, which would have helped you and made up for your lack of experience."

Jason goes to get up but suddenly stops. His vision goes dark, and all he can see is a silver glowing chain pricing the darkness. The chain suddenly snaps, creating an ear piercing sound. Jason starts to fall to the ground but catches himself on his knees. His vision returns and his breathing starts to become heavy. His eyes change back to their original colour.

Charlie gets up from her chair to go and check on Jason. "I guess that took more out of you than we both thought."

Jason forces himself back to his feet, although he still feels a but unsteady. "Yeah, you must be right." He replies through ragged breaths.

"You should go upstairs and take a bit of time to rest. With enough practice you'll be able to do that without knocking the wind out of you, but for now you need to recuperate."

Jason starts to climb the stairs. "Yeah I will, I'll also check on Shade while I'm up there. She's been gone a while." Jason heads up the stairs towards the room him and Shade have been sharing. He enters the room to find Shade sleeping soundly in her bed. He gets into his bed and promptly falls asleep as well.