Drust’s lips curled up in a sneer at Ghent’s joke about ghosts, but he didn’t comment. The Spiritayum had its secrets. Which mean the deeper Ghent dove into their side, so, too, would the boy. He could only hope Ghent would tell him if it was something he [i]needed[/i] to know. 
	One of Drust’s brows rose when Ghent agreed to take the second watch. “You already agreed to it, boy,” he reminded as Ghent took the cloak from him.
	“And yes,” he added, noticing Ghent’s contemplative glance to Elayra, “she needs sleep. The longer she’s unconscious, the quicker the curative will work,” he confirmed, guessing at Ghent’s thoughts. 
	Drust snorted at the boy’s thanks, but gave a jerky nod in a silent, ‘You’re welcome.’ He looked to the fire to compare its hunger to what remained of their small stack of wood, expecting Ghent to return to his own space. But the boy stayed. He could practically feel the unspoken questions nagging at Ghent, but his charge remained silent.
	“Rest, boy,” he said gruffly, reaching for one of the smaller dried logs. “Luck here doesn’t mean luck in Gardale. You’ll need your wits. And strength. For both travel and training.”
	As if spurred by his words, Ghent turned and went to where he had left his unusual backpack.
	Drust carefully added the small log to the flames. Using the stick Elayra had been poking the fire with earlier, he pushed the log closer to the embers of the fire’s heart. The flames flared for a moment, relishing the addition to its food supply.
	He watched the flames as Ghent settled in for the night. He focused once more on listening to the surroundings, keeping an eye on the trees encircling them. He glanced to Ghent when the boy adjusted himself, the cloak wrapped snugly around him.
	The boy’s breaths soon slowed, matching Elayra’s in slumber. 
	Growing tired of sitting, Drust got to his feet, his movements inhumanly quiet. He pulled his katana from the ground and gently rested its blade against his shoulder. He began patrolling around the perimeter. He kept just far enough from the sleeping teenagers to not disturb them, but close enough to get to them quickly if trouble arose. 
	As Drust made a round for the umpteenth time, a silvery shimmer rippled through the magic protecting the Safe Zone. 
	In an instant, Drust held his katana at the ready, every muscle prepared for a fight. He turned in a circle, searching for an intruder as he backed toward the fire to wake his charges. 
	He spun when movement caught his eye. 
	The tichari who had been in the field when the trio arrived stopped at the edge of the woods. It stared at Drust, its overly large ears twitching. The electric glow from the whitish-blue fox colored the woods and grass around it, turning the ghostly fox into its own light source.
	Drust’s eyes narrowed. He glanced behind the fox, watching for any others it may have led to the clearing.
	The tichari gave something somewhere between a snort and a sigh, a cloud of white mist curling from its snout at the action. The tichari trotted to the side. A bed of electric fog floated into the clearing behind it. Various sizes of dried logs and twigs sat atop it, illuminated by the ethereal light of the fox’s powers.
	The tichari pointed its snout toward its collected stock, then to their dwindling pile of firewood. Its translucent brows rose with surprising expressiveness, silently asking, ‘Do you want this or not?’
	Though he lowered his katana, he didn’t let his guard down. He gave a jerky nod.
	It looked almost like the youthful tichari rolled its eyes as the cloud floated toward the pile. Drust watched both the cloud and the tichari as the creature lowered its collected wood. It fell quietly to the soft grass well out of reach of the hungry flames. 
	“You have my thanks,” he said softly as the cloud dispersed.
	The tichari’s shoulders hunched in a shrug before it darted back into the forest. A line of mist trailed behind it, remaining for only a moment more than the spirit creature before even it disappeared.
	After a moment, he looked to the replenished pile. A pile stocked enough to last them the night. 
	Satisfied the tichari had brought no intruders to worry about, Drust resumed his patrol. For the remainder of his watch, he stopped only to feed the fire when it began to dwindle, and warm himself on the occasion the night’s chill began to get to him. 

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/olp6rXf.png?1[/img][/center]
	Drust hesitated. He looked down at Ghent, the boy’s back to him. A part of him didn’t want to wake his charge, wanted to let both the overworked teens rest until morning. And he still didn’t know whether or not they could trust Ghent to be even remotely diligent. So far, the odds weren’t promising.
	Drust grit his teeth and shoved the thought aside. As little sleep as he tended to need, he still needed it. And waking Elayra instead wasn’t an option he was willing to choose.
	[i]He'll do fine,[/i] he assured himself. He nudged the sleeping boy with his boot, trying to rouse him.
	He met any resistance or hesitation to wake with another, harder nudge to Ghent’s side, half-whispering, “Wake up, boy.”