The campfire, a good few feet away from where Nabiki was sat, was flickering with an almost merry light, the stars above shining very brightly indeed, especially to the thirty or so recently released slaves. This world being as it was there were also the faerie lights shining brightly too, distinctly coloured motes that seemed to float somewhere between the night sky and the darkened world beneath.

Every so often people would try to explain what they were but as yet nobody had come up with much better than the official answer ‘sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t.’

Nabiki had given that same line to Ranma when he had gotten around to asking her, and even now she could still summon up a smile at the confused and frustrated look that she had received in return. It madde her remember a certain character from tv called Xellos and had made very sure that she wasn’t about to tell him the real answer even if she did find it.

Tonight however her smiles were not alone, all around her the once beaten and broken were doing little to restrain the joy that they felt.

For many of them the reality of the release was still sinking in, during the slavers’ flight from their homeland they had all dared hope more than once for such a thing but that had been dashed some time ago and most had resigned themselves to a life in an iron collar.

Which made this first night of renewed freedom all the sweeter, and their smiles all the readier.

Of course the drink was perhaps helping a touch as well. The slavers had not exactly been in very short supply of alcohol, it being a staple of their payment almost as much as the coin they had been expecting, and the Nerimites had almost offhandedly turned it over to them, none of them exactly big drinkers themselves.

Of course none of those same Nerimites were exactly planning for the very long term, in their minds they were still only a matter of hours from the gate that would finally take them home.

Home where they could get the treatment they needed, where the pain that still daylily bugged Ranma might be surgically fixed, where Akane’s condition might be treated, where there were police forces and laws that didn’t extend from the strength of a swordarm, where there were fast food joints and central heating, where they could go for a trip without having to stink of horse sweat and where slavers were a remote evil rather than a ever present cloud.

Of course it wasn’t going to fix all their problems, for all the wonders of medical and psychiatric science the lot of them had a long way to go before they were better, but at least it would be a start, and at least things wouldn’t be getting any worse.

“They seem happy” Ukyo observed as she sat down next to the darker haired, smiling girl. There was of course a smile on her face too, something that had been rare enough since the incident, but even Ukyo’s personal storm-cloud had struggled to overcome the joy of thirty people literally given their lives back, even that certain blond girl appeared to be laughing along, albeit a little on the edge of things.

“They do” Nabiki agreed, sipping at the mug of tea she held in her hand. It was not a good blend but after the cold of the wet day just about anything warm and wet was welcome.

“So do you” Ukyo added, clearly prying after the source of Nabiki’s smiles.

“I was thinking about fast food” she supplied, “and a day without saddles” she added, shifting a little and letting her smile get broader still.

After the fight there had been a very quiet argument as to where exactly they were going to camp, in the end it had been Ryoga who had swung it and they had moved the whole lot, prisoners and former prisoners to a new site, anything to stop the pig-boy staring at the spot he had killed the slaver leader.

That hadn’t been the only argument though, far from it, instead they had had to fight off a group of the former slaves who had been intent on taking immediate and bloody revenge on the bound forms of their erstwhile captors. There had also been considerable discussion over the disposal of the sole bottle of healing draughts that they had found left in the slaver’s possession. There were a lot of needy people and was not a lot of the good stuff to go around. That some of those people were former slaver’s whose wounds really did require some serious attention had only made things worse.

In the end Ryoga had sorted the problem by siply taking the bottle and pressing it into the hands of the blond girl who he had rescued. After seeing the way he had dealt with the lead slaver and being subjected to his stony silence since nobody had seriously considered arguing with him.

In the end they had managed to move, had gotten this new fire started and had managed to settle the newly enlarged group down to a meal. It was mostly horseflesh but that was a good deal more than the thirty had had in quite some time.

The meal had given way to the drinks and that in turn brought them to where they were now.

“Oh don’t” Ukyo objected, her eyes losing focus for a moment “a hot bath” she said as someone else might have described all the riches in the world, “and some real sake” she added.

Alone among the Japanese contingent Ukyo had dipped significantly into the beverage stocks, but even she, rather to the surprise of some, had stopped fairly quickly. To be honest Nabiki had expected her to get blind drunk now the opportunity had presented itself but perhaps Ukyo had been doing some growing too.

Either that or she was telling the truth when she had said how foul the wine had been.

“and a pregnancy testing kit?” Nabiki supplied, her voice suddenly quieter as she let her chin fall down and her hair hide her eyes.

For a long moment neither of them talked, only the sound of the half-party around the fire disturbing the night air.

“Hell” Ukyo asserted, her voice as quiet as Nabiki’s had been. She herself had already had some pretty conculsive evidence that she wasn’t pregnant but she had been too wrapped up in her own worries to think about the same issues and how they might be affecting the Tendo girls. “You’re late?” she asked, closing her eyes and really hoping very hard indeed that this didn’t mean what she thought it did.

“It’s okay” Nabiki said, “I’m not very regular at the best of times” she said, trying to sound convinced, “remember, it’s why I was on the pill at such a young age” she offered, remembering the day long past when Ukyo had first found out.

In Japan there was still a certain stigma attached to young girls going on the pill, as if they would suddenly decide that a reduced chance of pregnancy meant they had to become village bikes, but after all the kidnapping muck back in Nerima a good few of the girls had quietly gotten a prescription. Which is about when they had found out that Nabiki had been taking the pill in question since she was about fourteen.

She blamed the rather marked expanse in her chest directly on it.

“Sure sugar” Ukyo agreed, trying to sound like she believed her friend.

“It’s Akane I am most worried about” Nabiki continued, looking over to where the girl in question lay with her head on Ryoga’s lap.

That had been quite a turn up for the books and was not something that Nabiki was sure how to react to. After the fight Ryoga had almost automatically sought out Akane, just to check she was okay. Nabiki wasn’t sure if something of the lost boy’s own pain had shown through even Akane’s haze but for once the youngest Tendo hadn’t screamed the human contact away.

Since that point Ryoga and Akane had been more or less one form, silent statues to private pain. Which would be a huge step forwards if Nabiki wasn’t worried that Akane’s lack of reaction wasn’t just a further retreat from the universe.

“She hasn’t….?” Ukyo asked, it had been a good time now since the incident and averages said that Akane should have had her ‘female time’ by now too. Again Ukyo knew that there were a whole load of other reasons why it might not have happened, knew that Akane too wasn’t very regular, very few serious athletes were without help, but it really didn’t bode well.

“Should have happened last week” Nabiki supplied, sipping at her tea again and looking back towards the fire.

“Oh hell” Ukyo offered, lapsing into silence once more. Back home there would of course be options, a good few more than they had here, especially in the medical institution that Ukyo suspected Akane was headed for, but it was another burden that the youngest of them really didn’t need.

“So” the chef offered a seeming very long time later, “what about you and Ranma?” she asked, and had to smile as the Ice queen visibly twitched in surprise at being asked.

“Ranma?” Nabiki asked, thrown for a loop.

“You remember” Ukyo supplied, “Bout this tall” she said, holding up her hand to about the right height, “dark hair and muscles all over the place?” she said, her eyes twinkling as she added, “butt you could die for?”

“Ukyo!” Nabiki growled, genuinely a little pissed that she would bring this up now of all times.

“What?” the chef replied, “you aren’t feeling it?” she said, waving her hand out towards the camp and the stars beyond, “that after fight thing?” she said, getting only a glared demand for more explanation in response.

“Where everything seems brighter colours, more vital, where after risking your life you feel-

“More alive” Nabiki supplied, finally getting this par of what Ukyo was talking about.

“Horny as hell” Ukyo replied, with that twinkle in her eye shining bright. To the skilled observer there were still drawn lines around the edges of her expression that indicated at least some of this had to be forced but Nabiki could quickly see why.

Ukyo had always been one of the ‘earthiest’ of them, one of those who most readily admitted her appetites and desires, the incident had threatened that and now Ukyo was trying very hard to fight back.

Right now the both of them had a choice, and it was the same choice the blond from the camp had, they could shut that part of them away and deny it, could lump that all together with the things that went wrong and abandon it or they could try to get back closer to where they were.

Ukyo was here trying what the blond was trying with her people down by the fire, trying the thoughts on for size. Everybody dealt with things in different ways, in their own times, and Ukyo was here testing her waters.

And perhaps also trying to help her friend to do the same.

“You” Nabiki replied, smiling a little forcedly herself and barely catching herself before she said something in jest that might have hurt a great deal, “have no idea” she finished instead, not really meaning a word of it, but smiling anyway.

And perhaps a little bit of her heart was a little freer for the lie.

Meanwhile across the camp another conversation was happening, one with perhaps less soul searching but nevertheless very important to the way the future looked for a good many people.

”You know that they will be hanged when we find the troops” Falco, the self appointed leader of the former slaves said, nodding towards the cage ahead of them.

He was sat next to Ranma, still unaware that the redhead form was not the form the warrior had been born to and still quietly trying to work out exactly what was going on in the heads of these ever so strange people.

In the end Falco had been forced to accept that the people who had come to his rescue really didn’t want anything from him, a fact that had been all the more re-enforced when the same group had told the rescuees that come tomorrow they would be parting ways. But he still couldn’t quite accept that people as obviously capable and as obviously foreign as this group were would care enough to take on quite so many slavers without expectation of reward.

At first he had assumed that there were more of them than there were, that the four he had seen down at the camp had just been the most obvious agents of a more significant force. But he had dropped that idea too, not unhelped when the only re-enforcements that had turned up had been a very young looking mageling and an obviously damaged girl younger still than the rest of the rescuers.

Perhaps a little had been explained when the group had insisted on not letting the slaver bastards be butchered for their crimes, had insisted that the proper process was done, but it still was far from all the explanation that Falco needed.

“Yup” Ranma replied. He-she was here on this little mound watching the former slavers as they sat in one of their own prisoner boxes, not just to see that they didn’t escape but also to ensure that nobody had another attempt at ‘settling the score’ as had nearly happened back at the camp.

“Yet you won’t let us…” Falco asked

“Nope” Ranma replied, idly flexing his-her damaged hand to fight off the ever present threat of cramps.

“Because it wouldn’t be right” Falco offered, quoting the excuse that Ranma had given earlier. Of course the reason had been a good deal less persuasive then than the glow surrounding the warrior-woman’s hands but Falco wasn’t the sort to let things lie that easily.

“It’s important” Ranma asserted, frowning a little as he-she fougt to understand why Falco wouldn’t see that.

“I don’t think they much care who stretches their necks” Falco replied

“But we should do” Ranma argued, with enough of an edge in his voice to prompt the guy to leave that subject for a while.

“So where are you headed?” Falco asked, deliberately changing tack. Of course he already had his suspicions but how much he was told would be indicative in itself.

“South” Ranma lied, automatically and far from convincingly even in the darkness. Misleading people about your next destination had been one of the things that Genma had hammered in from a very early age.

Falco however completely missed the signs, after all that just happened to be the direction he thought the group might be headed. “Towards the Tabernacle then?” he suggested, as if it was the obvious answer.

“Yup” Ranma agreed, having not a lot of idea what a Tabernacle was, but content to let this guy think whatever he wanted about where they were going.

“That explains a lot” the man replied, nodding as if a piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. The Tabernacle was the home to the indisputably most powerful healers on the face of the planet, if these powerful types were on a pilgrimage there to get their friend fixed it might explain their reluctance to have blood on their hands.

“It does?” Ranma asked, too surprised to keep up even the pretence he had managed.

“Sure it does” Falco replied, with a semi-triumphant smile, “you’re from some far away land” he said, waving a hand to still Ranma’s objections, “from a far away land” he reiterated, “and you heard that the Matriarch can even raise the dead” he supplied, “so you’re taking your master’s wife there to be healed” he said somewhat smug now he had figured it all out.

Ranma however took a little while to put things together, he was still working on it when the man dug deeper.

“You and the brunette are presumably his ‘bodyguards’” Falco said, putting just enough emphasis on the word to imply that there were some ‘other’ duties involved in that post, “The mageling is presumably hired and has brought his ‘apprentice’ along too” at which point the man actually nudged Ranma and gave him-her a wink.

In his defence Falco was a bit high on suddenly being free, and more than a bit tipsy form the cheap wine he had been sharing, but he really coldn’t have called it much more wrong.

Ranma decked him