My Warmth Is Yours

Chapter 4: Snow, Light, Sound

Aether cleared his throat, advancing towards the young man. "Who are you?" It sounded so awkward. The stranger broke eye contact and looked down. His voice was dry, most likely due to the absence of water for a couple hundred years.

"I am… the Kreideprinz." His gaze drifted to Paimon, floating uncertainly by Aether's shoulder, and then back to the Outlander. "Who might you two be?" A formal way of speaking, and introducing himself with a title… whoever he was, he had to be some kind of nobility. Judging from the sound of the title, a prince, probably. Aether's heart lifted just a little. A prince from a destroyed kingdom… he knew how that would feel.

"I am Aether. And this is Paimon, my travelling companion." He spoke with formality, which earned him a "good call" wink from Paimon, before dropping it entirely. "Uh, do you need help?" The little girl smacked her forehead.

He couldn't help it, really. Aether's default reaction to seeing someone in a coffin was usually something along those lines. After all, coffins weren't exactly easy to get out of. He'd helped Qiqi a hundred times after Hu Tao kept shutting her in the things.

Without waiting for an answer, the Traveler swiftly swung one hand around the young man's shoulders and one beneath his legs, gracefully lifting the young man out of the box. He was surprisingly light, and the Traveler managed to help him out with ease.

The boy was obviously struggling, but he tried to stand on his own anyway. When the Traveler put his legs back down on the floor and moved his arms away from his shoulders the boy grabbed his arm to stop himself from falling, despite pushing the Traveler's hand away when he offered to help him stay standing.

"Be careful, ok? I don't know how long it's been since you were shut in there, but it can't be good to be stuck in ice for any amount of time. Just stick with me for now." Aether was instantly in caretaker mode, steadying the new companion and making sure he was ok. Which he wasn't, exactly, but he was attempting to make it look like he was. Paimon, ever helpful in these kinds of situations, flew over and wriggled herself under his arm, providing a surprisingly steady help so the young man could stabilise himself.

"C'mon, let's get you outta here! There's no point staying here in the cold. Let's get outta this creepy cave and warm you up!" It seemed that as soon as it had been confirmed that he was alive, she'd lost all fear or aversion to helping the Kreideprinz, which was good- an unwilling traveling companion could sometimes be the difference between success and disaster.

The young man attempted to refuse their help, but Paimon insistently refused to give in, and Aether did the same. Seeing he wasn't going to win this one, the Kreideprinz relaxed a little and let himself be supported by the two. Albeit a little slowly, the trio walked up the steep slope of Starglow Cavern. About halfway up, Paimon started making conversation, which was really just rambling about random things that mostly involved food. Aether chuckled at the way she verbally fantasized about warm food, complaining about the cold of Starglow Cavern.

"Sorry, Paimon's a bit of a child when she's cold. Or hungry. Or dragged off on adventures. Actually, you know what, that's all the time, so scratch that, Paimon's just a child all the time. Sorry about that." Their new friend (is it a friend if you only know their name and that's it?) gave him a surprised look as Aether apologised about Paimon's behaviour, completely missing her offended spluttering.

"Not at all. Sometimes background noise can be useful. Although… is anyone waiting for you outside, or…?"

The Traveler gave a short, sharp laugh at the look on the little girl's face at "background noise." He shot a concerned look at the Kreideprinz as he answered the question- it didn't sound like pure curiosity.

"No, no one's waiting. It's just us. Why do you ask?"

"...oh. I thought I could hear someone else, but perhaps not…" he looked towards the bright cavern entrance where the sunlight shone through. Paimon raised her eyebrows.

"Hear someone? Who? No one ever goes on this mountain unless they really need to or they're monumentally crazy like the Traveler."

"...What?"

Before anyone could answer, they stepped outside into the light, the sun and snow reflecting off each other and making everything far brighter than it needed to be. Aether hadn't realised just how long they'd been in Starglow Cavern, it had been morning when they'd gotten to Dragonspine and now it was the height of day.

Then the Kreideprinz collapsed. He simply fell forward into the snow, somehow managing to fall out of Paimon and the Traveler's hold. The Traveler quickly caught him.

"Hey- hey, are you ok?" He quickly sat him up against a ruin wall, making sure the sunlight didn't reflect off anything straight into his eyes. "Paimon, do we have any medicine? He might be hurt somehow. Ice burns, maybe." The floating fae spread her arms. "Nope. We literally took the commission and left, we don't have shit. And besides, it looks to Paimon that he's just got a migrane out of nowhere, not ice burns."

"Language, Paimon. And anyway, he's covered up to the neck in his clothes. If he does have ice burns we probably can't see them."

"Oh well excuse Paimon for copying your words. Maybe be careful about what you say next time."

"Three things: 1, shut up, 2, we're on Dragonspine, 3, this guy's having some kinda crisis over here and you're starting an argument."

"Oh- you- Paimon's so done with you!"

"Great, not the point." Aether turned back to their new travel companion.

The young man had his eyes tightly shut. Paimon was right, it did look like he had a migraine. Shit. Not easy with such limited resources. I'm such a dummy, not preparing before leaving. "Hot water is best for this, but since we can't do that, just light that torch over there, Paimon. Find a Seelie if you can and drag it over here, those work better. Basically, we need to get him to relax." A nod from Paimon, and soon enough she was back guiding a Seelie. "Somehow it worked, they usually don't follow. Over hereeeee, come on…" the Seelie settled in next to the Kreideprinz, and Aether rubbed his shoulder before patting the Warming Seelie. "Thank you."

The Outlander took a breath, trying to calm his racing thoughts. Get ahold of yourself. You've got someone here who needs help, and you can't hand it off to Paimon this time. He narrowed his eyes. Come to think of it, what had caused the collapse in the first place? Headaches out of nowhere weren't the most common thing to start with, but something like that didn't happen randomly at all. There had to be an inducing factor, but what? The Kreideprinz had mentioned hearing something outside… Did that have something to do with it? Was it possible… could he hear something they couldn't? No, that's not the point. The point here is fixing it, not figuring out what happened. That comes later. He checked the Kreideprinz' temperature. No fever or anything- just a bit cold. That was probably to be expected. All right, that's ok. He cupped his hands around the patient's face, brushing his hair out of the way and leaning in to quietly whisper in his ear. "We're going to help you. Don't pass out on me just yet."

Eventually, the Kreideprinz relaxed. Aether ruffled his hair and decided not to ask until later, despite the stack ton of questions throwing his mind into uncontrollable whirls. He especially didn't need to think about how he'd wanted to kiss him when he'd told him not to pass out. He just focused on keeping the guy steady and making sure they could get to a safer spot. Still, so many questions… where did he come from- when did he come from? Why the title? What was that he said he heard earlier? And what the heck was that earlier? Why did he put the stone collar in his pocket? Why is his gaze so intense, like he's looking right into my soul…?

Why is it that I want to kiss him so badly?