The girl on the bed was slow to come ‘round, but that was alright. He felt her stir moments before he heard her – probably keeping watch over her for the past three days had made him hyper-aware of her… biology? Like building some sort of connection between them? Was that even possible? 

Regardless, Sleeping Beauty was about to wake… and he really hoped it would go better than last time. 

Aries pushed his tired and aching body off the cold floor with a quiet groan and rolled his shoulders once upright. He saw very clearly how the girl’s eyelids twitched a few times before they cracked open to reveal deep azure eyes. They shifted, left and right, like the eyes of a confused person, which she probably was. She hadn’t been entirely lucid last time so it was unlikely she remembered ever seeing the cobweb-full beams overhead. Neither the person next to her. 

When she spotted him she went very still and it took him a couple of seconds to realise she was scared. 

“I’m a friend.” He preempted, saving her the effort of asking. Then again, it shouldn’t have been much effort by now; he had been healing her for days. “You can call me Aries. How are you feeling?”

Confusion returned to the girl’s eyes but at least the alarm was gone. She pushed herself up on her elbows and this time she didn’t squint in pain. Good. Her skin also bore a better colour.

“I feel…. Okay.” Which seemed to surprise her. “What happened?” 

“We’re not sure. Me and my friend, I mean. He found you in the dump of Edmonton and brought you here. … by ‘here’, I mean Jackman Flats Provincial Park, between Tête Jaune Cache and Vermount.”

“That… where is that?”

“It’s all in Canada, southwest of Edmonton.”

“I see…. Well… thank you.” 

“You are welcome.”
The girl’s nose wrinkled briefly as if she’d caught a whiff of something fowl. Her forehead also wrinkled when she realised it was her own hair. “Oh no.” She sounded mortified drawing a tired smile from him. Here we go again. “I need to use your shower.” It wasn’t a request, but rather a command. 

“You can’t. We don’t have one. And by the way, I already told you that two days ago. It was the first thing you asked about, even though you weren’t completely healed. We had to sedate you to keep you from undoing the progress we’d achieved. Then one of our girls gave you a sponge-bath but she couldn’t do much about the hair.” Was that too much information? Or too little? It was right on the fence and Aries was usual which way it would push her. If Dusk was here he’d surely tell him off “freaking the poor girl out”. 

At first she just stared at him, either mulling through his words or looking for a hint that he was joking. Well, he wasn’t, and his expression had returned to the usual blank too. 

“[i]Sedated?![/i]” The girl demanded after a second. So that bothered her more? “What do you mean [i]sedated?![/i] Did you drug me?!”

“No, no, of course not.” ‘Of course’? As if the truth was much better. Dusk was rubbing off on him. Speaking of which, she didn’t seem to remember speaking to their leader, it seemed like he had to go over the basics with her again. “We are like you. Me, Dusk, Horus, Puppeteer, Mirage, Kaesar, Ishalan, Luci and Quiet.” Aries took a deep breath and explained their situation as best he could. He wasn’t as good as Dusk, definitely lacked the experience and the touch, but hopefully hearing it for the second time would evoke some of her memories. It seemed to work as by the end of his monologue she bit her nail absently and muttered: “Jay. I chose that name, right?”

“Correct.” He smiled. She returned the gesture and stood up briskly. 

“Now then! Where is the nearest river?”