Heirot

Laya slid to a stop and looked behind her and saw him lying on the ground. She quickly walked back to him and knelt down. "Are you okay?" she asked him, feeling rather awkuard and not knowing what to do. She placed a hand under his arm to try and help him up.

"I'm fine," Telanis assured dizzily, climbing back up to his feet with Laya's assistance. His face had flushed a light red. "Just a miscalculation...I'm sure it will work this time," he assured, starting to walk again, though his legs felt less obedient than ever.

"Are you sure?" Laya asked, walking after him and catching up. She immedatly went into a jog again, glancing behind her several times to make sure he didn't fall. She didn't want to go to far away from the cabin.

Telanis tried jogging like Laya, but though he was imitating her movements correctly, they were muh slower...what he wound up with looked more like alternate hopping than jogging.

Laya's smile seemed to grow and she stopped. "This does't seem to be working out..." she said, her smile staying, though she didn't notice. The hollow look in her eyes seem to lift slightly.

"We shouldn't go to far..." she said looking around as the sun set, causing the forest to grow dark around them. "Let's try heading back to the cabin?" she asked.

Telanis stopped and turned back toward the cabin. "I'll race you back," he grinned proudly, clearly believing himself an excellent runner by now.

Laya nodded and stood by his side. "Alright, I'll go with that. I'll even give you a head start!" Laya said, the sound of amusement coming to her voice.

She folded her arms.

"Try and catch me," Telanis smirked and raced off, his gait looking more like a hopscotch technique than running. He looked back over his shoulder at Laya, pleased with himself.

Laya watched, her lips curling again. When she noticed he had gotten a good ways a head of her she took off in a slow run before picking up her pace. Soon she was right behind him, almost there... She decided to hang back, and so she pretended like she couldn't catch up.

So when they made it back to the cabin, Telanis was the first to reach it.

Tetsumaru just sat in the corner as everything happened around him. He stared at everything quite obliviously, his brain having shut down for the while. In fact, it was just like he had fallen asleep with his eyes open.

Telanis was so confident that he was in the lead that when he was within sight of the cabin, he relaxed his gait, and for a few seconds was actually jogging normally before he reached the front stoop and spun back to look at her radiantly. It suddenly occurred to him that maybe he should have let her win, but the expression on her face quieted that doubt. "So you can smile like that," he said gladly.

Laya looked at him and blinked, having not noticed she was smiling at all until he said something. She put her fingers to her mouth as if she had to feel it to believe it, though she felt it quite well with out doing so.

"It's been a while..." she said absentmindedly and then her gray eyes look to Telanis.

"It suits you," Telanis said gently, meeting her eyes. "Um...are there more carrots inside?" he asked innocently.

Laya looked at him and blinked. Her face turned surprised. "The stew!" she said and rushed past him, almost nocking Telanis over. She rushed into the house and reached out for the pot, forgetting it was hot. She yelped and pulled her hand away, the steep from the pot had made the handle hot and it blistered the tips of her fingers.

She reached for a rag and grabbed it again, pulling it off the fire and putting it on a cold plate, so the bottome would not harm the counter.

She looked at her fingers and shook her head before turning towards Tetsumaru... who looked rather dead.

Tetsumaru blinked a few times as he turned his attention to Laya. "Oh, werucomu backu," he said. "Dido you two havu fun outo zere?" he asked.