Kyris followed the boy dutifully. He certainly had stamina. She kept up with him well enough, but fired no more arrows. Her sights were trained on him, and she had an arrow knocked and ready, but...<br/><br/>For some reason, her hand just wouldn't let go.<br/><br/>Suddenly, she became very dizzy, a sharp pain in her head blinding her temporarily. As such, she miscued her jump to the next building and plummeted roughly twenty feet to the ground. She landed hard, but rolled easily and was up on her feet in mere moments. She took off again, sharp eyes finding Toshi's silhouette up on the rooftops. Once more, blazing pain shot through her head, accompanied this time by a wave of vertigo that hand her dropping to her knees. Her hands were shaking again, and she was becoming clammy, though her head and neck felt quite hot. Kyris put a hand against a nearby wall to try to steady herself as she rose, slowly, to her feet.<br/><br/>The girl managed to wobble on a bit further, vision blurred and breath ragged, before all went black and she collapsed.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;">________________________________________________</div><br/><br/>She woke to the sound of an erhu and the smell of jasmine tea. Warily, she cracked her eyes open just a bit.<br/><br/>Red. That was the first thought that came to her mind as her eyes ran over the decor of wherever she was. Kyris tried to sit up, but her head felt like it weighed two tons, and she was still extremely dizzy. She struggled against herself for a few moments before a gentle hand was placed on her shoulder, pressing her back against the curtains she was nestled against.<br/><br/>"Good, you're awake. I was truly beginning to worry."<br/><br/>Kyris opened her eyes a little bit further and found that the voice and hand belonged to an elderly man of apparent Chinese descent. He frowned worriedly at her, "You collapsed outside my shop; how are you feeling?"<br/><br/>"Awful," Kyris croaked immediately. Regardless, she tried again to sit up.<br/>"If you feel so terrible, you should rest more."<br/>"I can't afford to rest," Kyris protested weakly, "I have to find him."<br/>"Him? Who is him? And why is it so important that you cannot wait until you are well again?"<br/>"I'm perfectly healthy," Kyris retorted, pointedly ignoring the other question.<br/>"Your fever would indicate otherwise."<br/>"My fever?"<br/>"Yes. You've been in a feverish sleep for the last three hours."<br/><br/>Kyris blanched and digested this information in silence.<br/>"You have a conflicted look about you."<br/>She stared at the man; was her internal struggle really so obvious? "What makes you say that?" She inquired.<br/>"When head and heart are not as one, the body suffers," the man replied, "And your body is certainly suffering."<br/>"I am in conflict," Kyris admitted, "I know what I have to do, but I don't want to. And what's worse: Someone will either be hurt or disappointed no matter what I do."<br/>The man smiled gently at her, "Well, perhaps there are more options than just those two... If you like, you can talk to me about it. Sometimes it helps to get these things out in the open. Would you like some Jasmine tea?"<br/>"Yes, thank you." Kyris watched as the man disappeared behind a curtain, only to emerge a few moments later with a pot of tea and two cups.<br/>"There you are."<br/>Kyris nodded her thanks, but was reluctant to speak.<br/>"If it's hard to say, you don't have to tell me everything. Just speak whatever comes to your mind."<br/>"I don't know what's wrong with me. I've never had a problem with doing my job before, but now... I just can't. My body won't do what I want it to, and I feel all shaky and miserable."<br/>"You're in conflict with yourself. Your mind knows what your job is-- that is, what others want you to do, but your heart wants something else. What is it your heart is telling you to do?"<br/>"I don't know," Kyris answered honestly, "Listening to my feelings isn't something I'm very good at doing."<br/>"Indeed. Sometimes it is much harder to trust feelings over logic. Logic is certainly easier... But what is easy is not always what is right."<br/>"That's the problem," Kyris conceded, "I don't think there is a "right" at all."<br/>"Sometimes it can seem that way. Just do the best you can. Trust yourself to make the best decision you can. If you do this, then no one can fault you."<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Oh, yes she could...</span><br/><br/>"Would you like a fortune cookie?"<br/>"Sure."<br/>Kyris felt her eyes widen as she glanced at the slip of paper:<span style="font-style: italic">If you can't beat them, join them.</span><br/>A small sob escaped her, "I can't."<br/>"Can't what?"<br/>"I can't tell what the right choice is!"<br/>"No one said you had to choose right now, take your time and rest."<br/>"But I DO need to choose now! Every moment that slips by is a moment is a moment that I surely won't be forgiven for!" She frantically redid her pony tail, and froze when she found her hair clip was missing, "Um... My clip?"<br/><br/>"Ah, yes. Let me retrieve it for you. I took it out of your hair so it wouldn't dig into your scalp and put it in a drawer so it wouldn't get lost. ... Here you are."<br/><br/>"Thank-" She cut off suddenly, noticing for the first time a small read light on the clip. She examined it closer, and discovered it was a bug.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">M'lady... Why? Didn't you trust me? Am I going to be... disposed of soon? Is Toshi just the first step in eliminating the both of us? What does this mean?</span><br/><br/>She shook her head, the dropped the clip on the floor and smashed it with her boot, making sure to grind the bug to pieces. Whether she knew it or not, M'lady had just made this decision a lot easier.<br/><br/>"Miss?"<br/>"Sorry, I... I need to go. Now. Thank you for looking after me!" She curled her hand around the fortune and bolted out the door, grabbing her bow on the way. She still had Toshi's picture in her pocket. All she needed was a brief visual to point her in the right direction. She'd catch up to him again, but this time, it would be different.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne</span>