Badlands Faery

Reacclimate

Gu Hai woke up, and groaned as he felt a throbbing in his head. Had he been dreaming again? Or was it a memory? He closed his eyes and opened them again, trying to adjust his eyes in the darkness. Wherever he is doesn't feel closed, as he could both feel and hear a slight breeze. But it stayed dark overhead.

He cautiously stretched out, feeling with his limbs the extent of the space he in. The hard and cold feeling on his back told him he lay somewhere at least sturdy and a quick feel by his side told him it was something like stone. Feeling no barrier or resistance around him, he carefully sat up, straining to see in the dark.

As if his eyes recalled how it functioned, his vision suddenly adjusted, sort of telescoping, from seeing 'dark' to seeing in the dark - things glowing in shades of red and purple wherever Gu Hai's sight landed. His brain told him it was impossible, he couldn't be back in the seventh warzone, not when he had memories of the last stand.

Gu Hai tried blinking, but his eyes consistently showed him night vision whenever he had his eyes opened. Judging from what he was seeing, he was on some kind of a stone shelf, the wall by his side tapering up to a low ceiling. The contours reminded him of the natural ceilings and walls of the bunkers so he deduced he was inside some cave, if not a tunnel. The floor's glow was the same with the wall and ceiling, to a degree, the difference in tint seemingly a function of distance and not material. Otherwise, his own limbs and clothes would be indistinct from the stones.

He espied a purple glow somewhere beyond this room, the flickering and motion reminiscent of a flame. That and the smell of something cooking wafting into his nose. He couldn't quite identify the smell, but it was enough to trigger painful spasms in his stomach, telling him he's hungry, extremely hungry. So even without thought to his safety nor current situation, he finally left the stonebed and staggered towards the light. And food.

He didn't know what to expect, but he certainly didn't expect a vision to greet his view.

His sight had gradually restored the nearer he went to the fire. By the time his vision became normal, he also saw the beautiful features of the boy seated at the other side of the fire - who was looking up at him with hostile eyes.

Gu Hai was confident in his abilities so he was sure he can easily subdue the boy's scrawny frame, judging by the way the boy's haori hung on his frame. The wraparound shirt underneath it was loosely tied, revealing bony collarbones that could use a little more meat. The hood hid blonde hair, and framed a face too perfect. But the boy held an intricately styled knife, having paused from whatever food he was preparing, and Gu Hai could tell the boy knew how to use it. Which put him at a disadvantage because he distinctly remembered he also had a dagger, but it was definitely nowhere on him or near him when he awoke this time.

"I saw the fire and smelled the food when I woke..." he ventured to say first, stopping only because his mouth formed the words differently with what he said in his brain. He briefly wondered if this was actually the dream, that he's actually asleep somewhere else.

"The meat will be done shortly - there's vegetable soup you can have first," the boy finally replied after just watching him.

Gu Hai was disoriented again, hearing the boy say words he could understand but also hearing them in an alien language - an almost hymn-like language that wove together more th's, n's, p's, s's and l's than any word or sentence he knew. Gu Hai mentally shook his head - maybe it was the hunger talking.

Meat was grilling on a spit over the fire, and Gu Hai only belatedly noticed a small pot simmering over embers to the side. The boy went back to what he was working on the moment Gu Hai looked away.

Gu Hai gravitated towards the soup, but got stumped unable to find a cup or plate onto which he could pour it. He didn't think it would be polite nor prudent to drink direct from the pot, never mind how hungry he already was. All that was there is a couple of large leaves lying near the pot.