I️ don't, but maybe then again I️ DO (ARRANGE ME UP, LAND)

"Really?"

His tone is just as surprised as hers is, and he tries to brush off her kind words as quickly as possible. He doesn't like to think much about that part of his life, that chunk of time, but if anything he's always known he owed a lot to Dakara for finally being the one to slow down and care if he learned or not. Really, it makes him miss her, the only other one who's ever really intentionally taken time to compliment him or to give him the time of day concerning, well, anything.

So her words, coming from a stranger he's just met, are even more rare. He doesn't want to dwell on them or analyze them and let that throw him off him game, make him make some fatal error or slip up. He's content to move on and focus back on her.

"Well, I️ guess after spending so much time in the desert, it's not like there would have been much need, huh?"

He dusts his hands off from any leftover crumbs and looks out over the river, rushing and wild, but also beckoning. Water has always felt so secure to him, he can't imagine not being able to swim.

"Swimming has always been kind of a comfort for me. I️ hope you learn some day so you can know how great it is."

He doesn't know why he'd just said that. Why is he hoping for good things for her? Wanting her to experience that same comfort? Maybe this idea of exchanging information had been a bad idea and the more she's sharing of herself, the more attached he's getting to a person and not just a source of income. Maybe it's time to cut all this short.

"Well, it's getting late. Probably a good time to turn in. I️'ve got a bedroll here and some extra blankets that we can split between the two of us and sleep pretty comfortably. Unless of course, you're a weirdo who prefers beds to the ground."

In an instant, Luna is back to rolling her eyes at him and his unnecessarily annoyed comments.

"Other than the completely bizarre stranger in front of me, I'm not sure who wouldn't."

But she's not really fighting him on the matter, grateful for the offer of something else to sleep on other than the ground. Truthfully, she could have lived without the small comfort, soldiers typically have to sleep whenever on whatever surface and terrain but it doesn't mean they want to.

So, with that, they tuck in for the night to rest and it feels like she's really sleeping for the first time in months. With all this take of arranged marriage, she's not sure the last time she actually had a decent rest, but she's thankful for the ability to breathe easy now. The noise of the night around them is soft and comforting, more of a lullaby than one she's ever heard but, then again, it always has been.

Bright and early, she's up and at it, down by the bank of the river splashing water on her face, hesitantly filling up her flasks with it, still not completely sure her family isn't steadily poisoning the source upstream. Sure, she'll survive but a week in a poison-induced coma isn't exactly high on her list of things she wants to do right now. The mysterious tracker seemed and seems fine so she'll trust it... For now.

He's gotten up before the sun and climbed the nearest tree, getting as close to the top as he could without reaching branches too thin and young to hold his weight.

He's always preferred the sunrise from up here, way up on the treetops, where he can see it from the same vantage point as the birds do, taste just a small bit of their freedom that he can never fully have.

This morning feels different, like he's one step closer to just sprouting wings and flying off wherever he feels like he wants to go. At least, from this treetop on this morning, he feels the slightest bit of hope.

But it's not too long before he hears more rustling on the ground than he's used to hearing, and assumes it must be this Luna instead of just a strange accumulation of large squirrels.

He descends the tree slowly, much more graceful at these heights than on the ground. When he gets to a low hanging branch, he lets his knees bend over it so he can hang upside down from it, nearly smacking into Luna as she stands upright from the river bank.

"Not a half bad morning, huh?"

When she turns, his face is right there, upside down, close to hers. So close, in fact, that she can feel his breath on her forehead. His action hadn't scared her, nearly running into him hadn't frightened her... It takes a lot to unsettle her and make her react so if he was trying to go for that, he'll definitely have to try harder. She's been to war. A jump scare is nothing.

Well, a jump scare may be nothing but what isn't nothing is how unnervingly close they are, how their faces nearly touch, how their eyes are at the same level to take in the color of the other's. A furious heat rises to her face.

She can handle battlefields and boyish men dropping down from trees but this sudden unintentional intimacy is apparently too much.

"What the hell-"

Her feet instantly step back, jolting in surprise and embarrassment once she realizes how close they are, scowling a little at him for putting her in this position, but there's really nowhere for her to go. The heel of her shoe catches on the bank of the river which gives out at the sudden forceful impact and she falls back.

Everything is enveloped in a cool surrounding after that. Her eyes are wide below the surface as her mind races to catch up to where her body is currently at, a situation that is only ever-changing as the current quickly sweeps her away. Once she realizes what's happened, she covers her mouth with one of her hands and her heart kicks up, the panic rising instantaneously like it's trying to weigh her down in the water further.

Fly. You can float. Create wind and rise to the surface. Part the water and hover, dammit.

But despite how she tries to coach herself through this, she can't manage to get the plan into action, the oppressive fear weighing heavily in her lungs. Eventually she gets a hold of herself and attempts to create a strong gust which does blow through the trees above with enough force to snap branches, racing to reach her and fight the water back from her, but everything stops abruptly and unnaturally when her back rams into one of the rocks on the riverbed, knocking the air right out of her.

As if that wasn't bad enough, she feels one of her ankles catch between two rocks as the current tries to keep dragging her onward. The world starts to spin when water gets in her lungs and burns as she tries to fight back from coughing, knowing she'll only take more in if she does that.

"Ooh, hey hey hey."

Shand hadn't meant to get that close to her face. He hadn't meant to startle her at all, but apparently his clumsiness doesn't all take place with his feet firmly on the ground.

As soon as she falls back, he drops to his feet, jamming his shoulder into the hard earth, cursing silently at the awkward angle of his landing before pushing himself back up and seeing her hit hard against a boulder in the river. She's clearly stuck, and the way the current flows, the water rushes over her head in intervals, making her cough and sputter and he can see the terror in her eyes even from this distance.

It doesn't take much thought to push him out into the river too, swimming with strong, confident strokes to her, grabbing both her arms and planting both his feet on the offending bolder, using it as leverage to push against as he pulls her out.

When she's free, she starts to struggle, to flail to keep herself from sinking and he has to hold her arms down, quiet her, tell her to stop moving and just trust him. She doesn't seem to like her options, but she doesn't have much of a choice.

He loops her arms around his neck, swimming back to shore and towing her with him like some fishing line or raft. As soon as they're back in shallow enough water, she pushes away from him and stumbles up the rocky shore on her own, intentionally making a beeline away from him to fall down on the riverbank yards away from him, coughing and heaving.

"I️ didn't think my morning breath was quite that bad."

The prospect of her dying under his care makes his own voice shake a little, and he's not sure why, but he forces a small, tight lipped smile to try and lighten the mood and the gravity of the situation and maybe bring her around.

"S-Shut up-"

Her body wracks with a cough and her eyes sting with how much force her lungs are using to expel the water from them. It's just water but it sure feels like bile or some other type of acid with how it tears her throat up on the way out of her.

In the midst of the heaving, her muscles shake with the last bits of fear-driven adrenaline and she can't even find the strength to hold herself up, having to let her body just lay on the ground, holding the sides of her head, pulling the veil - still miraculously on her head- tight in her clenched fists.

She needs to get a hold of herself but she's finding it near impossible to do at the moment, gasping and shivering like she is. Why did she react so strongly just because he was a little too close for comfort? She's such an idiot. The great Atorn special squadron general and princess nearly drowning from an accident with the stranger she hired to take her to her destination. Smooth.

Her mind races with a million things to say to him, to defend herself, blame him, to acknowledge she could have easily died and thank him for keeping her from that, and then everything in between and beyond, but she has to take a long several minutes to cough and catch her breath.

By that time, some of her initial shock and rage has faded and she's left with just the aftermath of fear and growing embarrassment.

"D-Do I o-owe you some k-"

A deep cough rattles through her lungs, coming out almost like a painful barking noise.

"-Kind of tip or b-bonus?"

He lets out a loud, raucous laugh, and he doesn't mean for it to be so obnoxious, but hearing her voice and seeing that she's alright and recovering gives him a little relief, which he feels the strange need to mask.

"A tip? How about next time you want me to give you swimming lessons, you just ask instead of being a drama queen about it, okay?"

He's back at where he'd deposited his knapsack at the base of the tree trunk the night before, rooting through it. He approaches her slowly with a fresh, dry blanket in his hand, holds it out to her with a slight smile like some sort of peace offering.

He starts to say that this is actually probably for the best, washing their scents away this early in the day, so that any dogs sent after them will struggle to pick up the direction of their movements as they continue, but he snaps his mouth shut when he realizes that there's no good reason for dogs to be trailing a common tracker.

Luna finally manages to at least push herself to her knees, snatching the blanket up, eagerly wrapping it around her shoulders and ducking into it, trying to hide her face from view and act like it's just because she's cold or attempting to get out the last bit of her coughing fit.

"It's odd. I thought the sky was clear but, apparently, there's a one-hundred percent chance of idiots falling from it today."

She laughs a little, trying to move the mood along from her almost death right along with him, hoping this can all be forgotten.

But she pauses, thinking over it all again. Why had he so quickly jumped in after her? He didn't even hesitate. And, even when she had initially fought him under the water, he ever-so-patiently held her arms and firmly looked at her, silently telling her to trust him... And why did she? He could have just as easily held her down there and made her drown himself then come back up and stolen all her belongings, been on his merry way, and definitely lived a life of luxury with all that's in her bag.

His actions don't make sense, to put it lightly. She's grateful for it, but still.

"...Thanks."

She mumbles quietly, stealing a quick glance up at him, suddenly remembered how she had wrapped her arms around him, how they had pressed together to get back to the bank, and trying her ever-loving damnedest to not think about it too much, forcing her eyes back down to the ground.

"Well, they say starting the day off with a swim is good for the metabolism. Just in case all the walking we're going to be doing somehow doesn't kick it into gear."

He pulls the rest of the bread from his bag, musing to himself at how quickly they'd gone through it, when he remembers that he'd eaten at least half of it before he'd started traveling with her anyways.

"Sometime today we'll need to make a supply stop in the next town or two over from here. I️ mean, if we want the modern comfort of bread and to satisfy your sweet tooth for baked goods, that is."

He brings the rest of the bread over to her, taking care to hand it to her instead of throwing it, noticing how her armor grates against itself when wet like this.

"Uh, do you wanna, I️ don't know, like, take that off and dry it a bit? I'm not going to kill you in your sleep, clearly, so I️ think you'd be safe to be without it for like three seconds."

Luna visibly cringes at the idea of taking it off like it's a security blanket for her. It's bad enough she doesn't have her full suit but then to take off the pieces she does have... But he isn't exactly wrong. She should take it off.

"I don't want it to rust, so yes."

The admittance seems like it's difficult for her to say but the metal needs to dry. For the time being, she refuses the bread, dropping the blanket off of her so she can access her arms and the leather straps tightly around them.

Something that should take seconds takes a considerable amount of more time, her hands still shaking as she tries to undo one of the belts and latches, brow furrowed in frustration when the strap keeps slipping from her gloved hand.

She sighs loudly, bringing her hand up to her mouth, taking a finger of the glove between her teeth and pulling it off, letting the piece dangle from her mouth as she tries to get her bare hand to work more in her favor.

It mostly doesn't, the shaking still continuing.

Shand notices the shaking and starts to comment, but bites his tongue. She's obviously still shaken up, startled, and something about having to take the armor off doesn't seem to be sitting well with her, either.

"Do you... I️ mean... I️ could help, if you needed it."

He makes the offer liltingly, in bits and pieces, like he's not sure how to interject on something that should be so mundane, yet seems like such an ordeal for her. Come to think of it, it seems highly likely that she'd even slept in the stuff last night, and that appalls him to the point that he can't make himself keep that one to himself.

"Did you actually...sleep in that stuff?"

His eyes are narrowed and his lips pressed into a tight smile, like he's unbelieving and wants to make fun of her for it, but not until he reads how she responds to him and can gage how far he can push this for a laugh, to lighten the mood, until it has the opposite effect and bothers her more.

"That can't be super good for your circulation. And God, I️ bet you're burning up under there, desert girl."

"Soldiers on the field always sleep in their armor. They're always ready to up and move out, to fight. It's not so bad once you get used to it. I actually slept pretty well last night, it's a lot easier without the breastplate, no surprise. Anyways, there's no rest for a weapon."

She mumbles against the glove still between her teeth, not bothered by any question or comment involving her armor. At this point in her life, it's like her second skin, as natural as any other part of her.

His last comment, though, does make her hesitate. It gets unbearably hot in her armor, even when she's not sleeping, but, other than protecting her in a fight, it protects her from touching people and people from feeling the abnormal heat that always radiates from her. As much as it protects from swords and arrows, it actually protects from having to acknowledge she's different, odd, a walking bomb and disgrace.

A little sweat seems worth it at that point.

"I have passed out from overheating in my full suit before."

Luna figures she can add a short story, realizing only a few seconds after her first answer that it was short and robotic, not like she doesn't believe what she said but like she's repeated it to herself so many times to make herself believe it that the words spill out now without much thought.

"Multiple times, actually. Can't say my general was pleased about that either. It's... Bearable now."

“Well this isn’t exactly a battlefield, and I️ don’t see a General around anywhere to berate you.”

His brow is furrowed in confusion, thinking it strange how she seems to cling to the armor like a security blanket, like Iran part of her identity. The way she mentions the army, the military, the idea of being a weapon. That makes something crack, break inside him.

His whole life he’s fought tooth and nail against being nothing more than that, against only existing to serve someone else’s purposes, to be useful as someone else’s tool. It hasn’t always gotten him the best of outcomes, but it’s kept him from ever fully giving in to it.

So the way she seems unwilling to let it go makes him frown.

“Soooo you’re just gonna live and die and go six feet under in that stuff? What, do you actually have some horrible skin condition you’re trying to hide from the world?”

He snickers a little bit, sure that will make her feel a little better, take the seriousness out of a situation that still obviously holds weight to her.

"I haven't really given much thought to it but..."

She's not sure where the question comes from. Live and die with her armor on... It's what she was raised to do so...

"Probably."

It seems so matter-of-fact, so close to fact that she should probably be lying about it, just like she's done with most everything else she's told him, but she's so focused on getting it off that she can't exactly think through keeping up false appearances right now.

It takes her this entire time just to get one piece around her wrist off, leaving the rest of her arm to go. She tries shaking out her hand and continuing but it's of little help, unable to just simply shake off the fear with a quick motion the way she wants.

"I'm not dead yet, though, so I'd really like to not ruin my armor before it can make it with me into my casket."

She holds up her arm, asking for his assistance without putting it into words, too embarrassed to even do that, trying to keep her eyes away from him as she does, still fiddling with one of the straps herself.

He’s surprised when she holds her arm out, as if he hadn’t really been expecting her to cave and accept his help. But he figures he might as well get to it before she changes her mind.

He flips her arm over in his grasp and starts undoing the buckles that keep the metal encased around her arm, and it takes him a few beats before he realizes that he’s probably going about this a little too efficiently for someone whose only military experience was being ejected from the said military.

He’s afraid the damage is already done, but he starts feigning some confusion, fumbling with some of the hinges and rattling the metal a little in his attempts to get it off her.

Finally, after slowing down the process a great deal, he pulls the armor off her arm, half surprised that she doesn’t actually sport some skin condition underneath.

“Other one too?”

Luna tries to lower her free arm casually while making sure he doesn't come in contact with her skin, the whole nearly drowning ordeal early already getting too close to comfort for that. She drops the glove from her mouth onto her lap, nodding.

"Yeah, if you don't mind."

He's at her other side quickly, working with the other straps, careful, calculated, and odd, but she doesn't comment, just watching his hands.

"Sorry, not used to this damsel in distress business, it's apparently terrifying. Wouldn't recommend it."

It's a quiet attempt at settling any remaining tension she feels she may have caused by talking about the life of a soldier, though the joke is very clearly serious. She's used to being independent, or maybe even the one doing the saving, not the one being saved and, though she's grateful, the thought doesn't settle well with her.

At the same time, the thought of someone so willingly saving her is extremely appealing. It's a bit of a double-edged sword.

He starts in on the other arm, really finding his stride between clueless and suspiciously efficient on this one. While he works the straps, Shand makes a mocking snorting sound in his throat.

"What, do I️ look like I️ don't know what it's like to be a damsel in distress?"

He shoots her a knowing and humorous look before diverting his gaze back to her armor.

"I've clearly been there before. We all pay our dues, huh?"

He finishes with the last of the clasps and pulls the metal from her arm, taking care to hand it to her. With as funny as she is about it, he'd probably get an earful if he tried to lay it on the ground. What's more, he could probably actually damage it and upset her. Neither would be good.

"So, real talk, I️ kind of didn't expect you to actually be wearing normal clothes under there. So that's kind of a pleasant surprise."

"Excuse me?"

Luna shoots back quickly, looking up at him a little defensively, but not really because she's offended- Well, alright, maybe a little offended, but mostly concerned. What exactly does it look like she should be wearing? She's almost worried he was thinking something high-class and royal.

"Expecting a witch's cloak under all of this or something? Something showy and flashy? I like normal comfortable clothing as much as the next person."

The armor is back in her hands quickly so she can meticulously lay it out in a row to dry, organizing it by arm and then by which piece connects to what to keep it all together. Her tone is still light, teasing, or attempting to be teasing, a little nervous for his answer still.

"I️ don't know, like I️ half expected you to be a leper or something."

He shrugs, moving back to where the campfire had gone out late last night, kicking dirt all around it and dragging a tree branch through the ashes to cover up signs of what had been there before.

He comes to the very end of that task before realizing what a mistake he's made. Nobody covers their tracks unless someone is following them, and he's given her a front row seat to him acting overly suspicious.

The best thing he can do now, he decides, is ignore it altogether.

"So how long do you wanna hang out here before we get a move on? We're burning daylight, you know."

He gives her a look of feigned harshness, smiling at the end of it to betray the fact that he couldn't care less.

"If you're gonna sit there, I️ may decide to go for an actual planned swim while you dry off. Pass the time."

She juts her chin over her shoulder back at the river, picking the blanket back up over her shoulders, sinking back into it like it's the only safe space there is left in the world.

"Knock yourself out... At your own risk because there's no way I'm coming in after you if you do."

Luna smirks but then turns to look back over her armor obsessively, a little more concerned with how all of this is going to dry then Shand's swimming capabilities. He's clearly fine.

Shand scoffs smugly over his shoulder at her as he turns to the river.

"You don't have to worry about me, kiddo. I️ might as well be a fish."

He grabs one of the extra blankets and tosses it on a boulder right at the river bank. Suddenly, there's a flash of white, of red over his shoulder in one of the trees directly above Luna. He whirls around to see what it is, and she gives him a questioning look.

"It's...that was... did you see that?"

He points up the tree she's in front of. It had to have been some kind of woodland creature, but not like any he's ever seen in real life or in a book. Normally, creatures in the forest blend into their surroundings, but this one didn't in the slightest.

But now, after having stood out like a sore thumb for all of two seconds, it's completely gone, disappeared, just like it had never been there at all.

It leaves Shand with an uneasy feeling, like it's some foreboding sign, for some reason he can't figure out. And it makes him wonder if his father has got some kind of new trick up his sleeve and is closer to dragging Shand back into hell than he's realized.

"Uh, on second thought, I️ think we should pack up and just get going now. We can stow some of that armor in the knapsack and let it dry over the day. But I️ think we should really get a move on."

"Uh, what-"

Luna looks up from him to the tree, seeing absolutely nothing, suddenly thinking that maybe she's hired a slightly less than a reliable guide.

And, honestly, his eagerness to leave, to basically run out on their campsite before the day has even begun, should set her nerves off, should throw up so many red flags that she can't even see him through them, but it doesn't.

Why?

Because his rush has reminded her that she should be in just as much of a hurry to get as far away from any spot she's been in for a day as soon as possible. There are no doubt people chasing after her at this point, Trita's lies, whatever story she told, could only buy so much time and she's convinced that time must have hit its limit by now.

"Okay, that's fine."

She nods, grabbing up her armor and stuffing it into her own bag with barely any room for anything else. The leg armor probably should have come off, too, but, looking at how packed her bag is, she's happy they just focused on her arms for now.

In no time the two are back on the move, cutting down their own path in the forest but she keeps replaying what had just happened over and over in her mind, to the point something needs to be said.

"Sooooo... What exactly did you see up in that tree? You know- The thing you saw but I didn't? What sort of imaginary friend do you have that I'm not aware of?"

She had agreed to moving on so fast that he had hardly been expecting it. At first, it was a relief that she wouldn't be asking questions or fighting him.

But as the time goes on and they keep ambling at a pretty quick pace down the wooded path, Shand starts to question. Maybe she had agreed a little too quickly. Why hadn't she fought him at all on it? They've already established a pattern of ragging on each other, and she hadn't even done that in that moment.

He can't put his finger on it yet, but something definitely is not right.

And only now does she start asking about what he had seen to move them on.

"Ah, that? No, it was nothing. Just a mini dragon and I️ didn't want him catching you without your tin can on and all. I️ want to see you fight a dragon, of course, I️ just would prefer to see a fair fight."

The path is filled increasingly with stones as they move further, and before long, the path is made entirely of boulders and pebbles and rocks and everything in between.

In some places, heavy rain has washed a smaller cut away path into it, leaving large boulders exposed. He starts hopping from one big boulder to the next, really the easiest way down the path.

Luna begins to scale down with him, easily leaping boulder to boulder, landing on one then pushing off to another, her feet only staying put on one for the split second it takes for momentum to catch back up then she lets it propel her to the next surface.

It’s graceful, to say the least, if not a little unnaturally so. Even when she tries to control the little bursts of wind that push out from each impact, it’s not quite human. It’s not odd enough to make anyone really openly question her but enough to make them start forming conspiracies in their minds.

It’s easy enough to brush off as part of her training in the military, though it very much was it. As soon as you mention the Atorn army, nobody really questions what they do, what you learn, how you trained. It all just makes sense. Sometimes that bothers her because it feeds into the walking weapon, puppet soldier image and insecurity but, for now, she’ll take it.

Her eyes catch his glance at her as she passes and she has to hide a pleased smirk from her lips. It’s not a race, it was never a race, but damn if she doesn’t feel something beating him down the rough path, especially after her less than elegant moment this morning.

“So, are you going to tell me where we’re heading?”

Sent from Topic'it App

He scowls at her as she surpasses him, thinking he's going to have to explain away why the tracker is getting lapped by the mercenary, but she avoids that altogether.

"Uh, we're heading to Kesari now. Small town another hour or so from here. Figure we can just stop in and stock up on supplies. It's the last town for a while, so we can't afford to pass it by."

She keeps hopping rocks like beating him to the end of the path is the new sole objective of this trip, and it makes him slightly irritable but also interested, watching her jump gracefully, focusing on her footing but also looking ridiculously care free.

For probably the first time, at least that he consciously knows of, he allows himself to think about how beautiful she is.

That train of thought isn't allowed to last long, because he hears a rustling in the underbrush close behind them, crunching and then swishing, sounds too loud to be coming from an ordinary, small, nonthreatening woodland creature.

He doesn't think they should wait to see what comes out of the bushes at them.

"Luna, run."

He says it somewhat nonchalantly, but by the time he takes off and caches up to her easily, she starts to realize something might be wrong.

Running along this rock bed is not the easiest thing to do, and with Shand's luck, he's pretty sure he's going to end up with at least a broken ankle out of this mess, but he goes striding from one large rock to the other so fast that he's barely even thinking about where his feet go. But he is continually looking over his shoulder to be sure she's right behind him, not left in the dust, as he keeps hearing the rustling sound following them nearly as fast as they're moving forward.