Dante, after kicking his boots off, slumped into a corner. Arguing with your inner demon. Literally. Although Lev didn't sound like he was losing his head. Or maybe long days stuck inside the APC had made Dante accustomed to the sheer madness of it all.

"Hope you don't mind," Dante muttered to Feenai, pulling out a smoke and fumbling for his lighter, "The monster's driving m--"

With a startled yelp, Dante dropped the lighter, which he'd been holding the wrong way and had consequently succeeded in cooking some of the skin on his thumb. He bit it, looking for all the world like some huge baby not yet out of the thumb-sucking habit, then tried again.

"It doesn't really matter," Feenai answered numbly, "if you kill yourself slowly with that, or if something comes along and kills us quickly. It just feels like all of us will die before our time." She laid her arms across the steering wheel and put her head on them, and continued waiting.

This time, Dara does shiver with Kasdeja's mental intrusion. Not at all familiar with psychic ability of any kind, she finds this first occasion more than a little unsettling, and it reminds her of some of the more disturbing creatures she had encountered along the way.

"No one's ever asked me that before. Why? What do you think I am?" She can't help the question, now findering herself as equally jittery as confused by Kasdeja's proddings and the situation in general.

Lethe stands as though fighting sleep.

Michael followed behind the pair almost silently as they got to the APC. Looking at the bodies only made him want to throw up a second time, but luckily he resisted it.
He passed Lev without even noticing that he was talking to himself and sat down inside the vehicle.
Looking at Dante smoke made him urge for a light as well. "Can I have one?" he asked him, those his mind felt elsewhere. Dropping his bag on the ground of the car, he went through his pack to see what was left: food capsules, courage capsules, the journal although it's mostly ruined, the water filter and a his gun. The regular rations had been ruined and the canteen was contaminated by wormwo-...a thought came back to him that he hadn't realized before. "Psychic aura hasn't effected me before, so what's happening to me is..." After zipping up his bag, he walked outside the car and hurled again, ignoring whether Dante pulled out a second smoke or not.

Dante had in fact fumbled out a second smoke, and was trying to light both at the same time when the stench wafted in and nearly made him choke. Dropping Michael's, he ran out, hitting his head hard on the ceiling.

Oh shit. Oh fucking shit. The same had happened to Gabe that time. He whacked Michael's back, and yelled in desperation for someone to filter water for him.

"That will have to wait," Kasdeja snaps as he walks away from Dara. "Come along, and we can talk about it all you want." He tromps off back toward the APC, his long legs bending at odd angles, seeming almost to flow and flex as he walks.

After he has gone, Shealtiel stares at Dara for a moment, then, after she makes no move to follow, says, "I do not advise refusing him. He forced forty men and women to kill themselves on a whim not long ago, all to prove some insignificant point to us. He does not take well to being denied. I do not know what he wants from you, but, I will admit freely: the more humans around us with that thing, the better."

Holding his gaze upon her for a moment longer, he eventually turns away, leaving her to follow or remain as she will.

Dara watches Shealtiel for a moment. Just as he starts to round the corner up the path, she says behing him,

"what should I do with Lethe?"

As Michael cleaned himself up for the second time that day, he felt himself sweat a cold sweat. Was it fear that drove him into his current symptoms of distress, or perhaps the unexpectedness of the chain of events. Though these thoughts ran through his head they were no longer conscious thoughts as even the apparent yelling that was next to him dulled into a silence that could almost be considered a fantasy.
Sooner than he had expected, Michael doubled over away from the sun and suffered symptoms of the last method that he had used from using onto his prisoners, wormwood-water boarding.

Lev watched Michael with amusement, cocking an eyebrow and a wry grin. He'd watched the people he grew up and fight beside die from trying to drink the unfiltered water. Wars had been fought over clean water, wars he had participated in. Had done terrible things during those wars. Awful.

He shook his head, trying to forget. With a heave he stood up, having to stop himself from banging against the top of the APC. He walked casually towards Michael, giving him a curious eye.

"You need help?"

Michael looked up at the seemingly omnipotent figure. His head was throbbing in pain and he could barely thnk. His gut feeling told him to say no to him without a second thought because he would think that Lev would be more likely to let him suffer than help him...however... Michael shook his head, as though trying to shake off the heat. "Livelihood before pride, Michael."
"Yeah, get me the water filter from my bag. I need it to clean the water in my canteen."

Lev left Michael momentarily to retrieve the bag in question. He rummaged through it, pulling out what he could only assume was the water purifier. It looked strange to him. He had seen the large ones, but portables were rare and he had seen little. Or at least, seen them operated. Sitting down in front of Michael's twisting form, he prodded it with a cautious finger.

"So um...how does it work?"

Casting a weary gaze back over his shoulder, raising his voice against the rising wind, Shealtiel calls back to the girl, "Ride him, if he's fast enough. Otherwise, leave him to this..." he spreads his arms at the wasteland around them, "lovely pasture." Leaning on his cane, he takes up once more the path in Kasdeja's wake.

Michael was quickly running out of time and patience as he grew hotter and hotter, watching Lev rummage through his bag. But by the time he found it, he had already unscrewed the canteen of wormwood. His hands shook as water spilled over the edge of the canteen, but he didn't care as he let it lean against the APC. His head pounded more and more, as he felt as though his eyes were going yellow with dehydration. In reality, they weren't, but he felt that way nonetheless. Now, with his hands free, he pressed the button on the filter, opening the top of the machine. As he reached again for the canteen, his vision skewed again, and he nearly knocked over the canteen as he picked it up. He poured the water into the machine, filling up only the top half of the machine. Closing it, the water drained down, leaving a dark, mysterious residue. Snatching the filter from Lev, he drank straight from the bottom of the machine, feeling only slightly more nourished than before.

Dante waited with some relief as Michael seemed to get better, albeit only slightly. But he's pretty sensitive to wormwood, Dante mused. Gabe's symptoms hadn't been nearly as bad; it was just other things coupled with the poison that had killed him.

Lev chuckled a bit, watching Michael wrestle with the water.

"Humans are kind of frail, aren't you?"

He stopped, face aghast at what he had said. Humans? He was human. Why would that slip out?

Because we're each other, Lev. I am you.

Lev spoke out, not even looking at Michael as he picked him up from the ground and stood him up.

"I will not be you. And you will never be me. I am human!"

You are human no longer. Your flesh holds itself together because I will it. I can weave you any way I please!"

Lev bit his bottom lip. He couldn't hold anything back from Na'lsa, he could easily read his every thought. But somehow holding his tongue still felt like restraint.

"If I would not die, I would say find another body, Demon."

Not so easy, when this body is who I am!

Lev sighed, letting it rest for now. He looked at the weakened Michael, giving him a sheepish grin.

"I promise you that my mind is not addled. I think we should be going when the others arrive."

Dara watched the two beings leave, that being the best work she could think of at the moment. She honestly wondered whether or not to just leave the entire matter behind her and continue on.

She knew often when she was being watched. Any mundane animal could pick that up with enough practice or need. He was over one hundred meters away, but she could still make out the image of his disfigured upper body rising above the rock path from which Sheal'tiel had since disappeared.

Decision unmade, she walked down the path far enough to step away from the rocks and towards the river. Lethe followed her course. She lay his reins over a jutting portion of rock. It wouldn't hold, but the horse knew the gesture. She could still see Kasdeja from her new position as he insisted still on staring. She was, perhaps, some fifty feet away from the river when she heard the soft and heavy thump.

The saddle bags were nothing she couldn't carry, and she shouldered her small rifle, needing neither Kasdeja's watching or Sheal'tiel's footsteps to make her way along what she instinctively knew would be the safest path up from the river. She arrived at a stationary vehicle and collection of people, including the two men she met a short time ago, the one having moved on to a new pain it seemed.

She looked about. "Hello."