𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑎 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑒𝑓 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 | 𝐆𝐈𝐋𝐀𝐍 𝐃𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐒𝐎𝐍

14⋆✶⋆The Lovers

That night my prediction came true: rain was poured from the sky and there was the occasional lightning followed by a thunderclap. Will had offered to take the next shift even though he was clearly terrified to be in the house. I wondered what Gilan had told these poor boys before they encountered me. I didn't have time to ask him though, because he had rolled up in his cloak, still allowing me to use him as my personal pillow, and fallen asleep soundly. It was something he'd trained with me as much as knives, archery or tracking, how to fall asleep. Sleep is our strongest ally he'd told me. Even how to sleep after awaking we'd practiced much to my dismay.

Around midnight I awoke to the sound of the storm. I rolled over and started at the ceiling. The rolling thunders so heavy I thought they'd crush us all. In the caves with the Wargals I hadn't quite suffered from the endless rain, but here it was different. I had been able to close my eyes and doze off easily with Gilan in my every thought and his constant touch there to remind me of him. But without it I fell into cold vacuum of my own thoughts, of my memories. The way those Wargals had snarled at the guards, not the cubs. It had tugged at old wounds not yet healed.

"Gil?"

No response.

"Are you up?"

I was just about to poke him in his face, when I heard a voice behind ask: "What are you doing?"

With a lot of self control I could withhold a scream. I had completely forgotten that Will was on watch. The curly brunets brows were up, as I was. He wasn't tall like Gilan, but rather the same height as me. It seemed that was the norm with the Rangers. I'd teased my mentor endlessly about his height once I found out he was the odd sheep of the family.

"I can't sleep because of this stupid storm." I answered him, sitting upright, running a hand through my hair that was hung loose over my shoulders. It had surprised me, because when I'd fallen asleep they had still been braided.

Will sat down in front of me with his legs folded. His brown eyes wandered from me to Gilan. It seemed like he was trying to figure something out.

"Gilan just lets you wake him in the middle of the night?" He then asked, surprise lacing his voice. The poor boy had to suffer Halt as his mentor and I couldn't help but wonder how he was surviving under that cold, cold man. Did he make threats to his own apprentice as well to skin him alive? He hadn't exactly said that but that's the most nasty thing I could think of, though the Ranger had said I wouldn't be able to even dream of it in my nightmares.

"Well, sometimes..." I chuckled to myself, thinking about some nights where I had woken him up out of spite, because he always woke me up super early or at ridiculous times, "but he's not very happy when I do."

The innocent boy in front of me was listening with his mouth slightly open. It was very funny to see him so amazed by my relationship with Gilan. That was the monumental difference, I realized, between having a young or an old teacher. The elder men demanded respect and there were certain borders you couldn't cross. I doubted for example that Halt would allow Will to sleep in his bed with him after that first kill.

The first blood I'd drawn had sucked me empty, burned all of the energy I'd had left that day to ash. In my bed I'd cried and cried, until he came into my room and carried me to his bed. He'd told me about his first time and how utterly alone he felt in the guilt that suffocated him at night, because he didn't know it was normal that way, to mourn someone even though they brought pain.

"Halt would kill me if I did that!" He exclaimed. Ironic, I thought.

A cold chill went down my spine when I heard that name. The man still frightened me a lot, but it seemed that his apprentice felt the same way as I did.

"Yeah..." I said absentmindedly, "he's quite an intimidating man, isn't he?" I wrapped my cloak a bit tighter around myself.

"He made me clean the first week!" The young boy whined quietly and dropped his hands.

My eyes went wide, "Oh my god, Gilan does that too!" So that's where he'd learned that sadism, from his own mentor. That explained how much he'd enjoyed it, it was the pain of his own childhood he'd put me through.

"What? Really?!"

"Yeah I mean, the whole first week my hands were so flaky from all the scrubbing, they looked horrible." I rolled my eyes in annoyance, the thought was enough to get me agitated.

"I thought Gilan would go easy on you, because..." Will paused, looking as if he had just said something he wasn't supposed to. Those big browns filled with doubt as his gaze hurriedly flickered to the sleeping Ranger beside me.

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Because...?"

He glanced over to Gilan to check if he was really sleeping and then said: "because he's in love with you."

Now it was my turn to look at him with my mouth half open. How did he find out? Our secrecy had been foolproof.

"That's not true, I don't know who told you that, but they were lying." I said sternly, with my arms folded.

Will looked confused and tilted his head a bit. "But Gilan's the one who told me."

I felt my cheeks heating up and I couldn't help to smile a little. He talked about me to his friends.

"It's late and I should really try to get some more sleep, goodnight Will." I said to him as I laid down my head on Gilan again. The brown haired boy seemed very disappointed, but still walked over to his post and continued his watch, accepting his fate.

When I was sure that Will was out of eye sight I leaned over to Gilan and kissed him on his cheek. I was starting to think that maybe all of the kissing was giving us away.

The next morning we were on the move again before dawn. The rain had stopped just before sunrise, and Gilan wanted to get to Gwyntaleth as fast as possible, the first bigger city in the area. He thought we would find more answers there as to what had happened in the surroundings of the border.

"So..." I smirked as I spurred Vacker on to trot next to my mentor, " I had an interesting conversation yesterday."

We were riding toward a new village after a rather stormy night. Gilan had found the Celts sudden disappearance strange as well, though he didn't show his worry about it.

Will and Horace were ahead and deep in conversation with each other about whose training was harder, so we had a little privacy.

Gilan's eyebrows lifted slowly, as if the words had taken a while to arrive in his conscious. "Yeah?"

"You told the boys that you were in love with me?"

"Oh that," the Ranger sounded relieved. " I thought you had already figured that out. I mean you're a Ranger after all."

My cheeks flushed a little when I heard him say that. "Well, you've never actually said it in words."

"Well... you haven't either." He noted, suddenly sounding less sure of himself.

Words haunted my mind at the thought of telling him, my throat closed up. I didn't know what was going on, I hadn't even considered it scary until then. But not jitters of new love; pain from the past like old glass shards that had never been removed. The picture wasn't clear and I didn't know what it was that cut off the air to my lungs momentarily.