The hours passed as they moved up the mountain, slower than first. They finally arrived at the plateau Alec had been talking about, it was rather a nice sight. You could see the woods on your left and the plains were just to the right. She stayed watching for a while until camp was done. She sat down beside Lestat, gratefully accepting the food they were making while listening to their conversations. She had felt more at ease here with Alec and Lestat around her. Sure the warriors were kind too but that was it. The researchers weren’t even worth mentioning.

After the improvised dinner Akascha went for a small walk, it was still light enough so Akascha decided to see where the path would be heading. She turned into her wolf form and started to walk on the only real path there was. It was a lot steeper and her footing was a bit unstable but nothing to worry about so far, she thought to herself. Not really surprising the horses can’t make this trip. She walked for a while before the road became even steeper. Akascha frowned, she doubted this was the plan. Maybe the road changed since the last time they had come here. But she decided she would climb it anyway, seeing she had to climb it tomorrow too. She carefully started to climb it, her nails digging in the slippery wall. The first steps went okay though after that she started to slip a bit. When the wolf was halfway, about 3 meters above the ground, the rock underneath her began to crumble slowly. When she completely lost her grip she yelped which echoed between the walls. She fell three meter down and ended up on her butt with some small rocks and a lot of dust on top of her. But that wasn’t all of it. Her noise had triggered a small avalanche and it was now rolling towards her. She quickly scrambled to her feet and got out from underneath it, just in time to avoid the big rocks though one had painfully bumped against her paw. The moment she stumbled out the dust, Lestat and two others of the warriors appeared in front of her. ‘What have you been doing this time?’ Lestat asked half worried and a little bit annoyed too. He was growing tired of worrying and following her all the time. Akascha changed herself into her human form, looking quite insulted. ‘I didn’t do anything, I just tried to climb your oh so easy road.’ She snapped back. Her wrist was now throbbing painfully and it slowly started to become thicker. ‘If you would have taken my road, you wouldn’t have caused this.’ Lestat interjected. ‘Do you ever do something the normal way?’ Akascha clenched her teeth for a moment. ‘See for yourself.’ She said between her teeth before walking away while bumping with her shoulder against him, not really wanting to be with him when he was like that. Even if it meant walking around with this wrist she thought to herself, softly pinching her wrist when she was out of view. Lestat went to check the road, coming to the conclusion that Akascha was indeed right. Akascha in the meantime walked for a while, eventually crossing a small pool. She cleaned her face a bit before holding her wrist in the water, the cold water giving some relief. Akascha looked at her arm. I’ve seen Lestat heal such wounds, I should be able to do it too, she thought to herself. She closed her eyes, starting to focus herself. She had done more things she didn’t understand with magic so maybe she could do this too. Lestat doesn’t want to heal it anyway, she added in her mind which made her feel quite sad. Unconsciously she started to rub softly over her wrist while she slipped further away in her mind. At first she could feel the beating of her heart, the soft whoosh of air coming in and out of her lunges, she could even feel her blood rushing through her veins. It felt strange, being so aware of yourself, but she wasn’t going to open her eyes. She imagined she saw a glow in her mind, moving like a stream of water. She tried to touch it but when she came closer the glow seemed to slip away from her. She frowned before smiling, trying it again and again like it was some sort of game. And after what felt like hours she finally moved her hand through the stream. It felt warm and safe somehow. She smiled before she remembered the reason why she was focusing so much. I shouldn’t have been playing like this, she thought to herself. But when she moved her wrist, she couldn’t feel any pain anymore. Her smile turned into a smirk. Did I just heal myself? She refocused herself a bit, away from the shining glow and more to the present, next to the pool she was sitting by. Slowly she became more aware of her environment again. But what she heard didn’t fit with where she was. She heard people talking softly to each other and she smelled a fire. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before slowly opening them, they felt a bit heavy. First she saw red light from a campfire and vague figures around it. After that she noticed she had something soft covering her and her head was laying on something soft. She looked up and saw Lestat’s gaze focused on the fire though it seemed that he wasn’t really looking. She suppressed a yawn. ‘What are you so worried about?’ Akascha asked him since he was looking like that, her other questions could wait. When she spoke, Lestat’s eyes snapped to her and the voices around her fell quiet. ‘What?’ Akascha asked with a smile, not able to suppress the yawn anymore. Lestat suddenly picked Akascha up, pulling her on his lap before he hugged her. ‘I’m sorry.’ He said with his mouth somewhere in her hair. ‘You made me worry sick too.’ He added before Akascha could ask why he was apologizing and of course Alec had to have his saying before she could. ‘Akascha you know that you have been asleep for a while?’ He asked her. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Okay okay, maybe I fell asleep for a short while... Nothing wrong with that.’ Akascha said, not really understanding what the fuss was about. Alec shook her head. ‘You don’t understand. You have been asleep for almost two days, we couldn’t wake you up either.’ Alec told her. Akascha rolled her eyes. ‘Very funny Alec but..’She stopped talking when realization came. The reason why Lestat looked so worried, Alec so serious. ‘Well that sucks…I still feel tired.’ Akascha said with a smile, yawning again. A soft humorless chuckle came somewhere around her hair. ‘You silly stupid thing.’ Lestat mutter in her hair, still holding her very close to himself. ‘Do you know why you were unconscious that long?’ Alec asked her. ‘We couldn’t find any injury but that..’Alec started before Akascha interrupted him with a smile, looking at her wrist and moving it. ‘I know, I healed them myself. My strained wrist I mean.’ Akascha explained. Lestat finally let a little bit go of her so he could look at her face. ‘You healed yourself?’ He asked a bit unbelievable. ‘Yeah, you wouldn’t do it, so I did it myself.’ Akascha said half accusing. Alec waved his hand in front of Akascha to claim her attention. ‘How did you heal yourself?’ He asked, he sounded half curious and half worried. ‘Well, I didn’t know how to so I thought, let’s trust my intuition for a change. So I just relaxed, focused on my own body and my mind and after that, well I spend most of the time trying to grasp that stupid river…And then I realized my wrist was healed. So no idea how.’ Akascha concluded. There was a silence for a while, Alec looking half amazed to her. ‘You listen to me very carefully now.’ Alec started. ‘First of all, never ever do that again!’ Akascha blinked by the serious tone in his voice. ‘You have no idea what you could have done, how you could have damaged yourself if something had gone wrong.’ She opened her mouth to ask what possible could go wrong but she was interrupted by Alec who wasn’t finished with his story yet. ‘If what you say is true, the ‘river’ you just described is your life force itself. It’s the essence of your existence, the reason you can change from a human to a wolf. Some people call it one’s soul others just think it’s someone’s magical source. But it doesn’t matter how you call it, everyone agrees that it’s a force you shouldn’t touch. You can damage that stream by just touching it the wrong way and it would kill you. It’s very dangerous Akascha, do you understand that?’ Alec asked, all the time looking straight into her eyes. It sounded a bit weird to Akascha, she never had heard of it too. But then again she didn’t know much about magic. She frowned a bit, trying to understand it all. ‘But why can’t you use it, I mean I healed myself with it.’ Akascha interjected. ‘I have no idea how you did that without hurting yourself, but you have been unconscious for almost two days Akascha. How long did you think you were there? Maybe a few hours I bet.’ Alec asked her and Akascha nodded. He was right about that. ‘For all we know, you would have been stuck there for the rest of your life, dying eventually. It’s too dangerous to use Akascha, even though it went right the first time.’ Akascha sighed and pouted a bit. ‘But how do you heal yourself then?’ She asked, she thought she had found the way but apparently not the right one. Lestat smiled a little bit. ‘I’ll teach you, after this is all over okay?’ Lestat asked. ‘But only if you promise you never use or even go that deep again okay?’ Lestat asked, knowing that forbidding Akascha something would only make things worse. But a compromise could work. Akascha thought about it for a little while before giving up. ‘Fine fine, I won’t use it again. But you have to teach me to heal and other stuff as well.’ Akascha told him. Lestat smiled and kissed her on the forehead, relaxing. ‘I will, don’t worry. Though it will be on my terms.’ Lestat said, winking at her. It seemed like a load had fallen off of his shoulders. ‘So…’Akascha then asked, one of her questions popping back up again in her mind. ‘Where are we?’ Akascha asked. ‘We’re already further up the mountain. You were right about the path, it wasn’t like that a few months ago. But thanks to the avalanche you created, we could climb up there again.’ Alec said. ‘You know you’re heavy to carry, maybe you should cut back on the snacks Akascha..’Lestat said suggestively with a wide smirk. Akascha made an insulted sound before starting to tickle him as revenge for his comment.

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After all that craziness was over, the mood had cheered up again. Soon they were off to bed, Akascha falling asleep in Lestat arms, he seemingly wasn’t that willing to let her go.