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"Oh god. Beans and toast? Good thing I'm here, because I am going to make sure you buy proper meals." Emmy followed him out the door and down the stairs, and poked him on his side playfully once she caught up to him. "Old men need to start taking care of their health, you know." 

After promising to remind him about his song, Emmy hooked her arm around Keir as they strode out to the street, humming his song with him. They passed by Mrs Abney down the road, talking to the baker across the street. She only caught the tail end of the chatty woman's conversation, but Emmy was sure she was ranting about the loud dog who unfailingly howled at 3AM every day. She could hear it from her flat, too. Mrs Abney laughed as she saw the two of them heading off, and Emmy pointed at him and winked. "See? Just saved him from death by overstudying."

It was a lovely day outside, and although the sun beat down on them, there was a gentle breeze that prevented the day from being too hot. She checked on Keir, just in case he would start to melt or something (hey, you never know, what with his super pasty complexion, he could just start catching fire right there and then!), and nodded happily to herself when he seemed perfectly fine. He even looked like he was enjoying their little walk to the park.

When Keir asked about her job, Emmy looked up at him giddily, obvious excitement glittering in her eyes. "It's top secret, okay," she said in a hushed tone, although her eagerness to tell it seemed contradictory to her words. "I just got the lead on a musical film. We won't start shooting for a while, but I am incredibly excited." She practically squealed in delight when Keir started going on about wanting to be involved with her music, and even though she hadn't been sure if it was merely an offhanded comment, she knew she will be taking him up on his offer. 

Emmy stopped right as they arrived at the park and walked in front of him. "I'll hold you to that, Mr Moray," she said impishly, extending her pinky finger. Childish as it was, pinky promises were something of a long-standing tradition between the two of them, just like their secret knock. A testament to their even longer-standing friendship. "I'm close to having an EP in the works, and I can't do it without the genius musical styling of the one and only Keir Aodhan Moray."

She twirled around before he could start his modest spiel on how he isn't as great as she made him out to be (which she just did not believe) and walked ahead of him, scouting the area. The park was mostly empty at this time of day, and there were only a handful of people about. Emmy thought about just having a nice, leisurely stroll to give Keir a bit of an exercise, but then an idea struck her. Might as well spice things up. "Enough job talk. Let's have a bit of fun, shall we?" 

One of her American friends and costar from her romcom film had told her about geocaching, or as he had put it, modern-day treasure hunting. She blanked out on the specific details—something along the lines of logging and trading things; her friend tended to talk a mile a minute, and it was hard to keep up—but she got the gist of it. Use app, follow map, find treasure. Easy! It seemed like a good way to get the studyholic focused on something else. Emmy pulled out her phone and after explaining their game, quickly showed Keir the app, which had listed coordinates for caches that were near them. She picked the one closest to them; according to the description in the app, it shouldn't be too far. 

"I'll check by that tree over there. I think it looks suspicious," she joked. "Check over there."

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It was probably an exaggeration, but Cyrill could have sworn his skin was starting to burn under the intensity of the sun as he stepped foot outside. It took him a moment to adjust to the brightness, and even then, his face was still scrunched in obvious discomfort. Gah, this was what happened when one stayed cooped indoors for weeks at a time. Sullenly, he pulled the hood of his cloak over his head, preferring to suffer the heat from the thickness of his garments rather than the prickling heat of direct sunlight. Phaylin fell in step right behind him, and he turned to her when she started saying something about flying. 

Before he could get a word in—even though all he was going to say was 'sure'—Phaylin had already dragged him along. A gust of wind formed from underneath them, propelling them upward and sending them flying within seconds. Cyrill swallowed and visibly paled, but said nothing, afraid he might lose the breakfast he'd just had. It seemed he would never get used to Phaylin's preferred means of transportation, no matter how many times he'd already done it. Each time he thought he would be prepared, but he never was. Cyrill noticed it was slowly getting easier to withstand, however, which meant Phaylin was right in thinking she was getting better. He could still remember the first time she took him flying, and that was uncontested, one of the worst days of his life.

"Sure," was all he said when Phaylin suggested taking turns. Even if she was getting better, he still would rather not risk talking too much. Flying and retching weren't the best combination. He tried to concentrate on the woods before them instead, trying to figure out where he would be able to obtain some bloodroot. They were usually found in dry woods and thickets, near steams on slopes or food plains. That means it shouldn't been too difficult to find, and the path Phaylin to looked promising. 

Cyrill's mood had lightened some thanks to the tranquility of the area (and the shade, of course), and he was admittedly getting excited. He could feel the gears slowly moving again after a week of stillness, and he was already looking forward to experimenting with other ingredients to bring out the different properties of the bloodroot. As he followed Phaylin, he randomly grabbed at the leaves of certain plants that were within reach and examined them. They walked in silence until Phaylin finished harvesting some leaves, after which she offered to switch roles as lead. Cyrill nodded and surveyed the area they were in, trying to picture the map of the woods in his head. They were deep within the woods now, and they'd just passed a small closed-in cavern that served as the halfway checkpoint.

"The area looks undisturbed," he said as he lead Phaylin northeast, to where a river was visible. "So unless they've been really careful to leave tracks, it might just be us today."

Cyrill stopped when they reached the river and traced its path up a rocky slope, continuing eastward; that seemed to fit the bloodroot's habitat to a tee. He beckoned for Phaylin to follow as he climbed the slope, his clumsy movements a telltale sign that he is unused to such physical activities, and almost stumbled over an unstable holding. Cyrill grumbled to himself as he finally managed to heft himself up and dusted his cloak, refusing to look back at his friend and face her jeering. Maybe he should brew that potion he made for Old Weston again, the one that boosted one's strength. He hadn't realized how out of shape he was lately and—

"There you are," he muttered to himself as he found some bloodroot just by the river, his thoughts quickly interrupted. He carefully plucked a handful of plants, careful to preserve their roots. After filling most of the empty vials he'd taken, he finally got up and turned to Phaylin again.

"About that waterfall of yours. If we follow the river, it should take us there. What's so interesting about it?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. His curiosity mirrored hers; it seemed he'd been out of touch of the goings-on this past week.