The Two Sides of a Sword

Chapter Fourteen

It took a little while for the atmosphere to relax, even after the different groups started talking again. Aley managed to strike up a conversation with Rokh about different parties she had been too, pretending not to notice the way the sariun around her listened in. Xinn loomed over her, looking more at their surroundings than anything.

Finally, she looked up at him. "Could you sit down? You're making me feel short and I don't appreciate it." She made an exaggerated sassy face at him.

The other sariun stiffened, letting their conversation fall away.

She glanced around. "Crap, what did I say?"

Xinn's mouth quirked up. "Not many dare to use that tone to order a general around." He slowly lowered himself to sit beside her on the ground.

She shrugged a little. "I just wanted to know if you would sit. It's pretty rude to tower over me like that."

"I'm not that much taller than you."

"I know. But I can't tell that when I'm sitting now can I?" She cracked her knuckles. "You know, I think you need to learn to relax. You can't be the general all the time, can you? Are you ever just Xinn?"

He laughed, ignoring the confusion from the other sariun. "I need to learn to relax? Trust me, that's not a problem. You have yet to see me when I'm outside of work."

She glanced around and shrugged. "You can stop working now. This is a great environment to chill out in. You couldn't possibly need to be a general here." The other sariun seemed to be intrigued by their conversation, quietly waiting to see what would happen.

"I'm here to protect you," he said.

"I don't really need protecting. I mean, I do, but not right now. You can relax." He didn't look convinced, so she rolled her eyes. "Do I need to order you to be at ease?"

He chuckled a little. "All right, all right, I'll relax for a bit. Don't stab me." He rolled his shoulders back, raising an eyebrow playfully at the other sariun. "I seem to recall the last campfire I went to there was a lot more dancing involved, have times really changed that much in the last month?"

A few people chortled.

"Just haven't gotten around to it yet," someone said. "I suppose we could start that up now though. Jale?"

Aley watched in fascination as two sariun got out their strange instruments and started up a melody. It was light and bouncing, immediately prompting a few others to circle around the campfire and start a line dance that one of them seemed to be making up on the spot and teaching to the others.

She glanced at Xinn. "I'll bet you can't do that."

He raised his eyebrows. "What, dance?"

"Yeah, a big, brooding general like you doesn't have time to engage in fun activities."

"And I'll bet that a small, unorthodox savioress like yourself is unable to keep up." He smirked, getting to his feet.

She scrambled to stand up as well, laughing. "Say that to my face."

He leaned closer, eyes sparking mischievously. Her breath caught. Something about the way he was looking at her made her heart pound. "Try and keep up." He grabbed her hand and pulled her over to the other dancers as she tried to regain her senses.

There wasn't time to contemplate the weird sensation as she threw herself into learning the dance. It was obvious that Xinn was not a natural dancer, but he had been to this kind of thing before, so he already knew the different moves they used, while she had to try and learn everything on the fly. Theater had prepared her well, though. Eventually, she fell into the rhythm and was able to put some flair into the dance like she saw the others doing.