Boy of Light and Dust

Dayin

He woke to the sound of William muttering over a pile of sticks. He inwardly hoped that William was just trying to start a fire and wasn't... just talking to the sticks. He didn't seem to notice that Dayin was awake either. At a second glance, Dayin realized William had tied both of the horses down to a heavy piece of wood. He wasn't sure where William got the wood, but he wasn't about to argue. Anything that helped them at this point was welcome.

"Going to help, boy?" he inquired with a glance in Dayin's direction before shaking his head, looking back at his pile of sticks. "Ah, you probably don't know how to start a fire anyway," he muttered just loud enough for Dayin could hear him before he continued to grumble on about firewood and princes.

William wasn't wrong that he didn't know how to start a fire, but it annoyed him more than it probably should have. "Well, if you show me how, I can try," he told him as he sat upright on Poyin's back before hopping down to the dry, cracked ground. He pushed his cape off his shoulders into a pile on the ground and stalked toward William with a scowl and his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Are you sure?" he asked, a bushy grey eyebrow raised in his direction as he knelt beside him.

Dayin's scowl deepened. Not at William, but at the ground. "Yes," he said, his tone on the edge of bitter. "I'll have to learn at some point, right?"

William looked impressed with him for a moment, but it disappeared quickly. Dayin tried his best to hide his surprise when the old man handed him two pieces of stone. He knew William didn't want to show him how to start the fire. Not with the look he gave the rocks. Complete confusion.

"You hit and scrape them together hard and fast close to the wood," he instructed, doing the motion with closed hands. He kept most of his annoyance out of his words. "It will spark, and it should start a fire. But it might take a couple of tries to get it."

William sounded dubious about Dayin's fire-starting ability. Dayin didn't even think he could start it, but it annoyed him that William had said he didn't know how to start a fire. He sighed as he knelt over the wood with the two pieces of rock in his hands and then smashed them together. Nothing happened. Except for the semi-amused look that spread across William's face, though he tried his best to hide it.

Dayin kept crashing the rocks together for what seemed like hours on end; his heart was racing in frustration and his face heated in embarrassment from William watching his attempts with no success. When he looked up, he realized that it, at the most, had only been a couple of minutes. The sun had risen maybe a couple of inches. Finally, with his jaw clenched, and an annoyed glint to his golden eyes, he gave up and handed the rocks back to William before stalking away from the old man and the pile of sticks. He could learn to start a fire another day.

Within a few minutes, William started a small fire, though his luck had started off a little better than Dayin's. He noticed how frustrated the man got, even when he tried to hide it from him. Dayin continued to linger near the horses while William tried to cook something. He wasn't sure what it was, but he felt safer not asking or knowing. He knew it wouldn't sound good if he knew what it was.

In the distance, he could see the outline of what used to be his city. Smoke still rose from it, making his heart ache dully. He'd never left his home before. This would be his first time out of Riverton. He didn't want to leave. And he wouldn't have left if it hadn't been for William deciding to drag him out.

With a sigh, he returned to the fire, standing a few feet away from the flames—close enough to imagine the warmth, but not enough to actually feel it.

"Want some of this?" William asked him as he held out a hand with the meat that he'd cooked in it from where he was sitting crisscross on the hard, dusty ground. It didn't look very appetizing to Dayin, and William seemed to notice the look he gave it. "I know it doesn't look good, but it'll keep you from starving."