Possibilities

Elin wasn't sure what was more embarrassing. The fact that she'd given Jonas pretty much a full frontal view of her bare body or the fact that it took her a few minutes to even realize he was there.

She only noticed him when she started to come out of the water. Though, with him unconscious, it was hard for her to say how long he'd been there at the time. However, at that moment, she thought back and realized that she had seen him, but just didn't realize it because she was thinking of other things at that moment.

Her only hope was that when he woke up that he wouldn't remember seeing her like that. Though, she couldn't think of a way that would guarantee of that happening. Even if she killed him, she doubted that it would make it so he wouldn't remember seeing her body.

When she was able to calm down, she quickly got dressed and waited. She stated the campfire, if only to help warm her up rom the cool air while she wondered how long Jonas would be out of it. She didn't know if there was anything wrong with him, other than just being tired, but somehow this felt different from what she'd seen before.

Even though the only times 'before' that she could see were all in her father's house.

Still, she wouldn't be able to do anything more for him anyway as it wasn't like she had anything to offer that would help him deal with… whatever he was dealing with.

Elin wasn't sure if she'd be able to stand the watch all night, but unless someone else showed up, she wouldn't exactly be left with many options. Not when it was more than just her life on the line there.

She wasn't sure where Ember was. But for some reason, she had a feeling that they hadn't see the last of that bird. Though she wasn't quite sure what the importance of the bird was. She was just confident that there was one.

She felt like she should know what that was, but her mind only kept drawing a blank whenever she tried to think about it for very long.

Though, despite her condition when Jonas showed up, she was at least happy that he had. As he was the one who had something to eat. Where while the river had a few fish, it wasn't like Elin knew how to catch them. All she knew was that they could be eaten and were just always out of her grasp.

However, she still would have taken the river over having brought food with her anyway. Not only was she able to drink it, but she could also bathe in it and swimming through the water would always be preferable to her than bringing some food that was rather bland and didn't do anything for her than to fill her empty stomach.

Then after she ate, she continued looking at the crystal in the firelight. She didn't know what it was for, but felt like there was something she needed to do with it. Something that would help her out in ways she wasn't aware of.

Though, she quickly pushed those thoughts away. She didn't have any reason to think that way and so she refused to let herself speculate on something that was more than likely just wishful thinking, if nothing else.

+++

Kim sighed. Why Grisha was so annoyed with her with the fact that she couldn't 'find his sister' was beyond her. She knew she'd need to tell him the results, but left out a few key parts of what she suspected. Such as how she could tell that Grisha Violet had a sister, it just wasn't the person in front of her who claimed to be Grisha Violet.

He'd apparently gone somewhere, been unhappy with what he'd found and now was apparently hoping to find that Kim's results had somehow changed. Or something else, that she wasn't quite able to put her finger on.

At least that's how she understood what was going on in front of her at this moment.

In addition to all that, he kept referring to Elysia as his sister. Almost like he was trying to make that fact true, regardless of actual facts. Including the fact that he was clearly not being upfront about everything with them.

If he really did consider Grisha Violet's sister to be his, then why not be more upfront about everything?

Not that she planned on saying anything close to that to him. Not with how volatile he seemed when he got unhappy.

Then there was the fact with how he was acting, Kim would have felt a little better if they had been in a city, or at least a town large enough for a tavern or inn present. As with how he was acting, it felt more like he was drunk, but in the middle of nowhere, she wasn't sure where he'd be able to get the alcohol, let alone enough for him to get this hammered from when she'd last seen him.

"You can't possibly think that I'd buy that you couldn't find her with your sword," he snapped after she told him during dinner, when he'd shown up.

If he was drunk, Kim was amazed at how clear his speech was. After all, he might have some stashed somewhere nearby and dipped into that reserve. Although, she really didn't think that was the case. Otherwise she had a feeling he'd have brought some for them to drink when he'd brought the rabbits periodically.

"Hey, I'm not going to pretend I know everything about it," Kim retorted, ready to throw a few punches his way if it came to that. "The sword only got changed recently and got those abilities, but that doesn't mean I know shit about what goes into locating a person with that, okay?"

"You know what? I shouldn't have even gotten my hopes up," Grisha raged. "I should have thought about finding her myself. Nothing ever good comes from relying on others to do something you should be doing yourself."

Kim didn't really disagree with him, but she was pretty sure that sentiment shouldn't be applied to finding another person. In that case, you needed to work with any possible leads you could find. Especially when there wasn't any other information to go on.

"You're welcome to come and go as you want," Kim said, not seeing a reason to try to provoke him. "I was only trying to help."

"Yeah, well maybe you should practice at helping more before actually trying," he snapped before stalking out of their camp.

Kim wasn't sure his statement came out the way he wanted it to, but she wasn't going to feel concerned about it. Not when she really couldn't care less about what he thought. Or at least not when she suspected that he might be more of an enemy, like Aquis, than an ally who was just bad at taking bad news.

Especially when she had her own suspicions about him, regardless of if his story about his sister was on the up and up. As such, she figured she'd do what she could to find the person whose location was made clear to her.

Assuming she remained in that general location long enough for Kim to locate her. Though, Kim wasn't sure she should even assume that might happen, since it wasn't like they were in a city where anything a person might need could be purchased. Not to mention a steady job so a person could afford all that.

Besides, what she needed to do now was focus on preparing for the next day. If she was planning on something that night, then she'd have to wait for Grisha to leave. While she was pretty sure he'd already searched a little of the direction she'd told him she'd found a kind of possibility, she couldn't say that he'd take it kindly if he thought that she was looking into the matter herself.

In fact, she'd prefer to go right then. However, she had the third watch that night and she didn't feel like owing anyone any favors just because of the change in circumstances with her having located someone who could be whom Grisha was looking for.

As Kim took a bite of the pork chops that she'd helped prepare, even though she really had no idea which part of the boar pork chops would come from, she considered what she'd need to do in order to conduct her search without tipping off Grisha.

She felt like she was caught between two possibilities at the moment. Both were equally likely, but only one could be true. One would be beneficial and help while the other was seeking harm for her and everyone with her.

The main problem about the possibilities was the fact that the only way to find out for certain was to dispense with the pretending that she was find with Grisha. That she didn't have any suspicions about him at all. The primary reason she didn't want to do that right now was the fact that she didn't feel like her situation was secure enough to weather any backlash if the second possibility turned out to be true.