"God, what was that?" Ula queried, wiping sweat off her forehead. She ripped her maze out of the ground and slipped the knives back into her sash.

"Some sort of beast, I presume." Kouh replied, taking off his jacket. He walked back over to the campfire to start it up again. It was now a small pile of hard charcoal, as the feu itself had gone out when a nearby explosion went off.

"Dudes, toi can stop hiding like wimps now!" Ula called over to the dark load of shrubbery Reddie and Earthen had taken refuge in. She rolled up her 'knived' sash and dumped it back into her backpack. The boys retreated from their hiding place, looking rather insulted par Ula. Grace snickered under her breath at their pathetic expressions.

par now, Kouh had the feu started up again...it wasn't going so great.

Grace flipped hair out of her face once more, extracted wood from not fair away and tossed it carelessly into the fire. It burned properly as she gave Kouh a look of 'really?'. They sat there for a moment, having a staring and a 'who can glare better' contest. Naturally, Grace won in the end when Kouh's eyes got too hot from the fire.

"Right, how 'bout some dîner for once?" Earthen suggested, reaching into his backpack. He then realised they had no nourriture as it was probably destroyed in one of the many explosions. Reddie made the noise of a small animal is despair. Ula giggled, her short blonde hair bouncing with her shoulders.

"Well, guess I'd better go look for dinner, then." Grace said, grabbing Kouh's arm and dragging him up with her. "This guy needs to learn some actual survival skills to put along with his martial arts, so he can come with me. toi guys watch the stuff."

With that, she hauled him away to the dark of the plantation.

<><><>

Ula, Reddie and Earthen had been taking good care of the stuff and things when a loud, manly scream sounded out over the mountain. Ula rolled her eyes. Wherever Grace was, she was definitely doing the same thing. That had been Kouh screaming.

"Honestly, you're our captain!" Grace retorted, groping her way through bushes and trees in pitch black. "Shouldn't toi only get scared of huge things like...Whalesong creatures? We have huge stuff that only toi would get scared of if only a tiny bit."

"IT BIT ME! IT BIT ME!" Kouh was shrieking, trying hurriedly to shake off a small insect on his finger. 'GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF!"

Grace slapped her forehead in exasperation. "Honestly, you've never even seen an oak silk papillon de nuit before?" she asked, walking towards her miserably pathetic captain. "It won't hurt you, they're just stable and...huge."

She grabbed Kouh's flailing arm and held it towards her. With that, she shook off the giant papillon de nuit without touching the wings. It flapped away somewhat noisily and headed towards the campfire.

Grace wondered if Ula, being Ula, was scared of insects...

Nyeh, she'll be fine with Earthen around. she thought, flipping her hand downwards in an incautious fashion. With that, she turned her attention back to her rather traumatised captain.

<><><>

"Oh...an oak silk." Earthen said, rotating his head to face the giant papillon de nuit that came from his right. Reddie stared at it completely dumbfounded. He had never seen a papillon de nuit so huge.

Ula looked up from warming her cold hands. She was even plus memorised than Reddie. She didn't even know such things existed. And god, she loved it. To see such a huge, detailed, beautiful animal was pretty awesome.

"What sort of moth?" she asked.

"Japanese oak silk." Earthen replied, reaching his hand out to the huge thing. It fluttered near his fingers for a moment before sitting cautiously on it. par then, Grace had returned with huge load of cherries. Kouh's eyes had become black, empty circles with only white inside.

It was actually really funny. He dropped down onto his knees and tried to ignore that same, huge papillon de nuit on Earthen's wrist.

Grace teleported every pip and stalk out of the cherries and dumped the remains on the fire.

"Um..." Reddie said, pointing awkwardly. "Yeah, it's actually really nice, my sister extracted the last of it once for me." Grace replied. "Seriously, toi gotta try charred cherries."

No one else looked so sure.

"Wait, toi had a sister once?" Earthen spoke up, flitting the papillon de nuit off his hand. Grace nodded as she poked a stick at the fire.

"Yeah, but she's still in Whalesong and I can't talk to her." she answered. At that, she extracted the cherries from the feu and handed them out to everyone. They all burned their hands on the hot fruits.

"So yeah, that's that." Grace said, slapping her hand together to wipe off any ash. Reddie was already eating his cherries and appeared to be choking on the taste and temperature. He spat it out.

"That tastes terrible, I'm never letting toi cook again!" he coughed, chucking the cherries back into the fire. Ula, Earthen and Kouh did the same thing. Grace pouted.

"All of toi have no sense of taste!" she snapped, crossing her arms as she sat back a bit. "Either that, or...Renya just have totally different taste buds to human ones."

"I'd agree with that." Ula said, hitting her chest with her fist to stop herself from coughing. Grace sighed.

"I bags cooking stuff toi guys will like suivant time." she said, getting up. "I'll get it right that time, I promise." With that, she walked over to her small pile of stuff and threw off her coat. "Be sure to get to lit soon, we'll rise early again tomorrow."

Reddie groaned.

"How much plus of this getting up early stuff do we have to go through?" he complained, getting up to go to his 'bed'. Ula followed him.

"Until our mission's done, I s'pose." Kouh replied, placing his hands behind his head as he walked to his things. Earthen put out the feu to try preventing the papillon de nuit from staying all night with them. He was last to go to lit that night.