Jonas Under the Weather

Jonas woke up, his head feeling like a hammer was steadily pounding away. Each strike sending a wave of pain through his body. His nose was stuffed up, his throat felt raw, and he felt the urge to cough, which only made things worse for him as he did so.

Jonas looked at his surroundings, not sure what to do at the change. He didn't see Ember or Elin, so he doubted it would be wise to move very far. Though, as he thought about it, it was likely Elin who'd left him there, since he really didn't see Ember being able to carry him very far. Not with the bird being the size of a falcon.

Maybe if ember was the size of a roc or like the phoenix were supposed to have in the Harry Potter series, then he'd consider that a likely possibility, but since the bird hadn't even offered to do any heavy lifting for them when they were still working in the trap, or even offering to try and carry them out of the trap, he had to assume that doing so was outside the bird's capabilities.

Still, as he started to stand up, he felt a weak wave of vertigo that made him wonder if he had somehow caught a cold or the flu. Either of which was good timing for him. Not when he hadn't a clue as to how to try and get them back to the others where they could regroup and figure out their next move. Especially since Jonas doubted that Douglas would just let Elin go, whatever the reason he wanted her for in the first place was.

Of course, coming down sick certainly wasn't going to help his ability to do so, either. Though, he supposed that he could probably walk Elin through using her system when she returned from whatever errand she was running.

The sun was high in the sky and Jonas doubted that he'd been there very long. At least considering there wasn't any firewood stocked up, their supply of water hadn't been restocked, nor had any foraging been done. Though it was nice to be in a completely shaded area with the heat of the day coming up.

Doing his best to push past the headache he felt continuing to pound away inside his head, he felt the sensation of vertigo increase as he scanned the ground. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he felt a little confused when he found what he'd been looking for.

Because it was clear that it wasn't anything that he had a real explanation for.

Elin's tracks led to in front of a branch of a tree that had a crystal pendant hanging on it and her track essentially disappeared after that. He wasn't sure what to make of it, but he also wasn't sure going to dismiss the evidence out of hand, either.

"Wow, you sure slept soundly," a cheerful voice that only intensified his headache said.

"Where'd-" Jonas started to say but stopped as it came out as an almost inaudible croak as he turned to the talking falcon who clearly had just arrived. Like he was merely trying to breath the word out rather than speaking.

"Uh, I guess you're not in much of a talking mood, huh?" the bird asked, sounding a little uneasy about Jonas' reaction.

Coughing to clear his throat, Jonas cleared his through, doing his best to ignore the increase of the intensity of his headache while doing so, he looked at the bird, though the image did waver a little. "It's not that," he managed to say through a croaking, hoarse voice. "I'm not at a hundred percent today, is all."

"So, where'd Elin go?" the bird asked. "I told her to bring you here, and she was supposed to keep an eye on you while she waited for you to wake up."

Jonas merely shook his head. "I have no idea. She clearly didn't collect firewood," Jonas said, adding in the other tasks that he knew she hadn't accomplished either. "In the end, I guess I can only say that she's just not here at the moment, though I can't really say why. Even though she didn't walk out of the area, either."

"Wait, what?!" the bird squawked, sounding rather confused.

"Ugh," Jonas groaned as the bird's noise merely intensified his headache. "Let's just say that I can see her tracks lead over there, but after that, they don't lead away, even though she's clearly not there."

The bird flies over to the place Jonas indicated and he follows, taking his time as he tried to reduce the sensation of vertigo that doesn't seem to want to go away. Though, he doubted that Ember would be patient enough to let him wait for that sensation to go away on it's own. Not with how she typically was on basic issues.

"What is this?" Ember demanded as if Jonas should already know and have thoroughly investigated it when he'd barely had a chance to even notice it when the falcon had shown up.

"Not really sure," Jonas answered, having to stop with a coughing fit as talking tickled the back of his throat. When it stopped, he quickly added before it started up again, "It was like that when I first saw that Elin hadn't stepped away from there. Then after I realized that, you showed up."

When he didn't end up with another coughing fit, Jonas felt rather annoyed. He's said more that time and didn't need to cough. Yet, after three words, he'd had to deal with one. Why wasn't there anything about it that made any sense!? Jonas raged in his mind

"Uh, you know how we talked about the 12-colored crystal, right?" Ember asked, sounding a little nervous.

"Yeah, what about it?" Jonas said, this time after dealing with the coughing fit that started as soon as he started to speak.

"Uh, I think this might be that crystal."

Jonas blinked. Out of all the possible responses, he hadn't expected that one. Not with how dangerous and difficult Ember had mentioned that it would likely be to get the crystal.

"A-are you sure?" he asked hesitantly. If it was the crystal, then they'd solved a myriad of issues to get it. Though, at the same time, he couldn't help but wonder how Elin had been able to get it herself, or why she hadn't said anything about it in the first place.

The falcon looked at Jonas like he might be joking. "Of course, I am. It's stupid to look for something when you don't know what it's supposed to look like, you realize this?"

Jonas sighed. Ember had a point there, though he wasn't sure what to do about it. Or what Ember had in mind to do about it.

"Though, this would explain why Douglas did get more upset at the end," Ember added quietly, clearly speaking only to herself. Though, while Jonas would like to just leave it at that, the fact that the name 'Douglas' came up, it was clear that it had to do with something that happened while he was out. Though, Jonas wasn't sure what that was precisely.

"What about Douglas?" Jonas asked as casually as he could. He didn't care if Ember didn't really want to share whatever thoughts it had about Douglas, but the face that Ember had brought up that subject was enough for him to press the issue.

The bird looked at Jonas like Ember had forgotten Jonas was even there, which he wished he could have said that he wasn't sure if it was worth pressing on, even though he really couldn't see a reason to not press on with a question anyway. At least when it came to Douglas.

Finally, Ember sighed. "Fine. When Elin and I woke up this morning Douglas was near where Elin and you were by that river. He was talking out loud to himself and giving a slight complaint about his observations. Then after a few minutes, he started screaming about something. I wasn't sure what it was about, but seeing this here, I would say that it was safe to say that this was what had gotten him so upset."

"Uh, okay," Jonas replied, not really fully understanding, doing his best to work through his coughing fits. Though, he supposed that this was a good turn of events. "Though, I'm not sure exactly what we're supposed to do with it."

"Well, isn't it obvious? Elin figure out how to get into the crystal," Ember replied. "Now we have to figure out how to get her back. Or if we should just leave it alone until she's able to get back."

Jonas felt like groaning as he endured another coughing fit. He could hear the contradiction in the bird's words. On one hand they could try to learn what they could about the crystal. On the other, they could leave it alone and see if Elin would be able to leave at some point.

Which meant that it was more a matter of how much time that they should give Elin to figure out how to get out of that crystal before they started tinkering with it. As Jonas had a feeling that the way it had been left might have been necessary for it to have allowed her to return.

Although, he at least hoped that was the reason. As, while he wasn't really sure how to deal with this crystal, he hoped that by doing nothing, they'd be doing exactly what they needed to do to get Elin back the most efficiently. Though, he hoped that he'd be able to convince Ember about that.

Though, he wasn't sure why Elin had entered the crystal in the first place. He could only hope that it wasn't because of some other problem that he wasn't going to like hearing about later on. Especially if none of their other problems had gotten resolved up to this point.