Mirror, Mirror

3.02 Friends Again

"I never liked that story," Rayvin commented as they waded through snow. Now that the snow had gotten thick enough, they'd had to leave their horses at a nearby town and continue on foot. "It's so depressing."

"Why'd you make me tell it then?" Starla huffed, plowing forward. It was a strange sensation, sweating through her clothes while also feeling so cold.

"This—" Rayvin gestured to the wintry world around them, "—is even more depressing. It's a good distraction from all this." Rayvin grinned, then added, "And, you're a good storyteller."

Starla racked her brain for a witty quip to respond with but couldn't think of anything, caught off guard by the compliment. "Thanks," she finally said, feeling weirdly warm, despite the snow.

As Starla and Rayvin went on their journey to the Top of the World, they fell into a new rhythm. They relied on Rayvin's ice magic during their journey, whether for sensing danger—he could determine safe ice from ice that hid a treacherous ravine—, or for shielding them from the cold weather with an ice barrier. He also constructed a snow fort each night before they went to bed, a makeshift shelter that protected them as they slept.

Starla brought different skills to the team. Rayvin was the magic, but Starla was both the brains and the brawn all in one. She had a lifetime of training in wilderness survival that gave her an uncanny sense of direction and a good instinct that kept them on track. And, she was tough. She didn't tire easily, didn't get sick or cold as fast. She was also an impressive hunter and did the killing, skinning, and deboning that made Rayvin squeamish.

Together, they made a pretty good team.

All that aside, things got a little... weird between the two of them. There was a tension that Starla couldn't really name. Clearly, Rayvin had forgiven her. After all, she was here with him. He wouldn't have asked for her to accompany him otherwise. Anyway, they had said sorry to each other and made up. Right?

So why were things still so... weird? Things were awkward, like a thin layer of ice had grown between them since their last fight, and even after the words they had exchanged should have fixed things between them, there was still that barrier between them. They had forgiven, but not forgotten.

Part of what was weird was that they stopped teasing each other, as if they were worried the other person would take it the wrong way. They still made jokes, but they'd taken on a cautious edge. Sometimes, they even apologized, worried they'd gone too far. They kept their talk on a surface-level, careful not to get too deep or too personal.

That started changing though.

At night, when it was just the two of them sharing a small space, things felt different. They felt like kids in a blanket fort, and if they just poked their head out, they would be underneath the dining table with their parents chatting in the other room.

There was something cozy and magical about those nights. It made it easier to start opening up again, to melt the ice that had formed between them since their fight.

Somehow, they got to talking about exes. Starla started opening up about Ri-Yu, but stopped because it got to painful. She'd gotten to the part where Ri-Yu had proposed to her ("She did WHAT?" Rayvin choked), and it didn't feel as funny as she thought it would be. So, she pivoted the question to Rayvin.

"What about you, Rayvin? Do you have any big, bad exes?" Starla asked. They had their bedrolls positioned head-to-head so that they could face each other, chins propped on hands, arms propped by elbows. It was like a slumber party, but with the fate of the world at stake. "What about the guy you dumped back at the palace?"

"Oh, Polard?" Rayvin said. "That was more of a fling than a relationship. I don't think either of us thought that was going anywhere. He was pretty, though. I think I was just excited to be with a man who saw me as a man."