When Keera had prepared food and shook Scarlet awake, she started smiling, as she looked at the other woman. Scarlet was completely wiped out, even as she was gently shaken awake, her mind was clearly not active, the normally ever-present mask of vigilance that even remained on her face when sleeping, was gone. For the first time, Keera saw Scarlet as the slender, young woman that she was, without her strong personality clouding the issue.

Once her eyes fluttered open and, with great effort on her part, stayed open, Scarlet managed to shovel some food into herself, even as both her body and mind were screaming at her to shut down. The sleepless, stressful night, the days march and finally, the adrenaline rush caused by the gigantic water-serpent-dragon-monster, they all contributed to her weariness. Part of her, the cautious, paranoid part, tried to keep up her vigilance but no matter what, she just had nothing more in her tank.

Keera was eating in silence, trying to make sense of what she had seen when a soft, clanking noise roused her attention. She had given Scarlet her portion in one of the metal bowls of their cookware, together with a spoon but apparently, Scarlet was just too tired to eat and had fallen back asleep while eating. Shaking her head, Keera walked over, putting the bowl away, planning to eat it later. But first, she wanted to make Scarlet more comfortable, at the end of the day, she had done the same for her, just last night.

Placing her own bowl aside, she carefully slipped off Scarlet’s boots, unrolled her sleeping bag and gently placed the smaller woman inside it, making sure not to wake her up, if that was even possible at this point. Once she had situated Scarlet in such a way that she thought the other would be comfortable, she took both bowls and settled in for her night-watch, trying not to think about the monster that had caused them to flee from the lake.

When Scarlet opened her eyes in the morning, she was disoriented for a moment, her mind slow to boot into a wakeful state with half-remembered fragments of dreams she had during the night swirling around, confusing her. It didn’t help that her recollection of the previous evening was shrouded in mist hardly more definite than the dreams she had during the night. And what little she remembered of them was strange enough, vague images of the forest, even vaguer impressions of hunger. Without any idea what they might signify, if they signified anything at all, she shook her head to clear it and started to take in her surroundings.

She was still mostly dressed, lying on the ground in her sleeping bag but there was a lump snuggled to her chest. Looking down revealed the identity of that lump, it was a cat-shaped crystal monster that had manifested at some point and, for some reason, sought out warmth, closeness or something along those lines. Not sure how she was supposed to react, she decided to, for once, go with the flow and simply started stroking Cyca’s fur while trying to puzzle together what had happened.

“Are you awake?” a friendly, if tired, voice asked from nearby and, even with Scarlet’s hazy mind, she recognised Keera.

“Yes, I am.” Scarlet agreed, a fuzzy memory of Keera handing her some food popping into her mind.

“Did you keep watch throughout the night?” she added, while slowly crawling from the sleeping bag.

“Yes, I did. You were tired enough to fall asleep while eating.” Keera answered, suppressing a yawn.

“Thank you. Why don’t you take a nap for a couple of hours? Then we can move out.” Scarlet suggested, trying to get a glimpse towards the sky, for an idea what time it was.

“Sure, if you say so.” Keera agreed, turning to get her own sleeping bag out of her pack.

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Meanwhile, Scarlet continued to take stock of herself, stretching to get the kinks out of her body and trying to figure out just why Cyca had been able to manifest her projection. Had her control lapsed due to exhaustion? It was possible, but if that had happened, why was Cyca still with her, why hadn’t the instinct inside taken hold and she had devoured Crysna and Badgy, possibly after killing Scarlet and Keera.

Part of her was curious, wanted to withdraw her control, allowing Cyca to act fully on her own volition but at the same time, she was afraid, afraid that she’d have to fight, possibly to the death, the crystal monster she had come to like. While she idly watched Keera crawl into her sleeping bag, she sat on a nearby rock, carrying the still sleeping Cyca with her while her mind went in circles. She felt a soft, mental nudge from Crisna, the snake trying to manifest his projection while Scarlet still controlled his existence.

Almost automatically, she allowed him to manifest and coil around her arm, his head resting on her shoulder. Somehow, simply having the two crystal monsters around her calmed her mind, allowed her to relax. That realisation made her check the mental connection she had to both of them, normally, that connection would require some power and mental strength, constantly draining her, especially while the monsters were projecting their manifestation.

She first checked the connection to Crisna and it was almost unchanged in strength and scope, it had strengthened a little and become slightly easier to maintain, maybe because of her mind getting used to it, maybe because of Crisna getting used to being controlled, the exact mechanism was unknown to her. It was just there, of that she was certain. Closing her eyes, she focused on what she perceived as colourful streams of light flowing between the two of them and, with a bit of evaluation, she felt confident in her assessment. Controlling Crisna outside of combat remained easy but in combat, she was still limited, especially when it came to his feeding, the deep-rooted instinct to monopolise food would be hard to overcome.

After Crisna, and while one hand slowly stroked the scales of his head, she turned her focus to the connection with Cyca, curious what she’d find.

“Wow…” she softly muttered under her breath. The connection between her and Cyca was still there, still strong, but it seemed to have fundamentally changed. When looking at the connection to Crisna, there was a part of his instincts that needed to be forcibly dominated, that would try to rebel against her control, if necessary. The biggest of them seemed to be the desire to feed on defeated crystal monsters.

On the other hand, in Cyca, the connection was flowing through her entire being, penetrating into the deepest parts of her being and, apparently, doing so without resistance from Cyca’s part.

“How… Or maybe why?” Scarlet continued to mutter, trying to make sense of the strengthened connection, trying to figure out how it had happened. Part of her thought of the flight from the water-dragon monster and the moment she had forcibly controlled Cyca, forcing the monster to strike back, despite Cyca’s absolute instinct to flee. It might have happened in that moment, that she had forced her control into the deep instincts and changed something. Or it might have been something else, something she wasn’t aware of.

Even if she wanted to experiment, to try to force Crisna into the same type of connection, she wasn't sure where to even start. If it was as she hypothesized, that the connection had deepend in that moment of terror, why hadn’t something similar happened when she had fled from the earth, plant monster she had been forced to flee from while she was alone? Shaking her head, she started scratching Cyca behind her ears, causing purring noises to vibrate from the cat’s chest.

“What do you think, should I try to dominate a third crystal? Or should we first help Keera to dominate a second one? I think she should be able to manage now, the last few days she has trained hard and her subconscious mind seems to have accepted that she needs strength, that she needs power.” Scarlet muttered, softly as to not disturb Keera but it felt better to speak out loud, even if only to her crystal monsters. They were great listeners, especially Cyca, she made the appropriate purring noises but never talked back.

“At the same time, maybe I should focus on that strage macro-change that the Doctor told me about, that, once you devoured enough crystals, you’d undergo some sort of large-scale change. Just looking at the state of our connection, I’m quite sure I could control you even after that, right Cyca? You wouldn’t try to fight back, wouldn’t try to struggle against me, would you?” on her lap, she had rolled Cyca onto her back and was tickling the cat’s tummy, causing curious wiggling motions, not to escape but hilarious looking nonetheless.

“We’ll have to see, you little fluff-ball.” Scarlet muttered, delighted at the crystal monsters reaction.