He was surprised, even now.

And Aria, who had hugged him because she thought he looked too sad, realized that she did too.

The two of them decided to turn to lighted topics and put aside all their burdens for now. They reminisced about their village for a few minutes, and Aria was horrified to know that Professor Thomas had written to Victor and Sonia about her being injured.

"It's weird how surprised you are. They are your parents when all's said and done. Though I heard that the Professor has not told them about how you got injured, and nor has he described the whole extent of your injuries." Jacob said, "I guess he's counting on the fact that your condition will be considerably better by the time the letter reaches them and they arrive."

Aria very badly wanted to massage her forehead upon hearing this. Her head was hurting from all the overload of information, and the lack of sleep was catching up to her. Victor and Sonia were coming here, her group of friends was in shatters, and she couldn't even lift her hand to scratch her face!!

The expression on Aria's face must have been very tired, because Jacob got up a few seconds later. "You seem tired. And I remember you were about to sleep when I forced myself in. So, I'll let you rest." he said.

Aria let out a grateful smile and nodded. "Come visit me again." she said and Jacob nodded. "If I'm ever allowed in." he joked before walking out.

Aria opened her mouth to say something once Jacob was out of the recovery ward, but decided she was too tired right now. So she just closed her eyes and finally allowed herself to not think.

Outside the recovery ward . . .

Joseph sighed as he leaned on the branch of the tree on which he sat, lightly twirling his fingers and watching the glass globe float before his eyes.

He waited some minutes after Jacob left before slowly climbing down the tree and carefully looking through the window. As expected, Aria was deep asleep.

Joseph sighed and shook his head. He looked at the globe in his hand and pursued his lips. He was sometimes surprised by Aria, even now. He had of course heard Miss Anhao tell Aria not to use bending while she was injured, but no one had any idea that Aria had not stopped bending ever since that night at his party.

The globe in his hand was still in perfect shape. The wind was at perfect capacity and the meadow and the lake looked exactly like the real one. Joseph had really suspected that the globe would break at one point that night, the wind had begun to blow very wildly and the globe shook so violently that Joseph could barely hold on to it. It looked like a storm in the mini-meadow in the globe. He had expected the glass to shatter at that point, but it never did.

Joseph assumed it was when Aria had lost control of her rage that night during the fight with the night-warriors.

There also had come a point when the wind stopped completely and the mud and water were at the point of merging together.