Summer Break

Chapter 23

"It's so warm. I haven't felt this warm in days," Tess thought to herself as she started to wake up. "It feels so nice, I bet Art's already up and built up the fire too. Art... did that really happen? Did he really tell me that he loves me, or was that just a dream? I guess I'll have to see how Art acts around me when I get up."

Tess snuggled her pillow as she smiled. "Since when was my pillow so comfortable. It's firm, soft, and warm all at once. Maybe I should get Arthur a pillow like this, he does like practical...." Tess stopped her thoughts as she realized two things.

One, she didn't remember pulling out her pillow last night. Two, her "pillow" was rising and falling in a steady manner. Tess shot open her eyes to realize she was sleeping on Arthur's chest.

"HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!?" Tess internally screamed in a shocked panic. "I clearly remember faceing Art, looking into those handsome ocean blue eyes as we held hands and drifted off into sleep, ok maybe the hand holding was a dream." Looking up, Tess could see Arthur had his head still turned in the direction she remembered laying in. "Ok, I must have somehow rolled on top of Art in my sleep last night. I can't let Art see me like this, he might think I was trying to do something inappropriate and become nervous around me." Tess then began to calm down. "All I need to do is get off Art before he wakes up, and if I wake him up, I'll just play it off that I was sleeping beside him."

Tess tried to carefully push herself off of Arthur, but couldn't as one of Arthur's hands was on her back holding her down. One of Arthur's fingers then touched her lips.

"Shhhhhh," Arthur whispered quietly.

Tess now knew Arthur was awake and was already aware of the position they were in. But the more concerning thing was that something seemed to be wrong, as Arthur seemed to be focused elsewhere. Focusing on her senses Tess could hear something breathing deeply, and claws scratching the ground as it walked.

"A mana beast," Tess thought to herself as she pieced everything together. "It must be close by for Arthur to be paying it so close of attention, but also far enough that he doesn't feel he needed to act just yet."

Tess felt Arthur's finger slowly leave her lips. Even though she couldn't see his hand, she could see his arm slowly moving, and immediately knew where it was going, to his sword. Tess was pretty sure she knew where her bladed staff was, but in her current position there was no way to retrieve it without moving off of Arthur and possibly startling the beast. Instead she began to prepare a wind spell that should at least do some damage.

Not being able to see or communicate with Arthur, Tess waited for him to make the first move. She could hear the beast's footsteps getting closer and closer. The footsteps stopped as Arthur's body tensed. Tess began to fall off of Arthur as he began to roll towards the beast, forcing Tess also to roll towards the beast. As she saw the beast standing on its hind legs, she unleashed her spell, a violent blast of wind that threw the beast back several feet.

Quickly they both scrambled to their feet in case the battle would continue. The beast itself resembled a polar bear, was about the same size as Grawder with ice in its fur, and had something sticking out of the front of its head between its eyes. At first Tess thought this was a horn, but upon closer examination she realized it was actually Arthur's sword, and attached to that sword was a thread of mana. The thread then tightened and the translucent blue blade flew out of the beast's skull, and landed in Arthur's hand.

"We need to hurry up and get out of here now," Arthur stated urgently as he checked their clothes by the smoldering fire. "Our other clothes are dry and warmer so let's change quickly too."

"R-right," Tess replied uncertainly and a little sad sounding, as she walked over to her clothes.

Arthur noticed this and looked at her puzzled as she avoided his gaze. It didn't take but a few seconds for Arthur to realize what was going on.