Snowblind {complete}

Wet - Chance

'No, what you said was "fish", not "mother". Carry the "aa" sound more.' Lanna bent back to her task of separating out the seedlings, pushing in vain at the grey mud on her elbows and knees.

'I don't want to confuse mother and fish,' he muttered. 'But I'm not sure my tongue can move like yours.'

There was a pleasant breeze from the south that carried a slight chill against the suffocating warmth. Lanna paused to enjoy the cool caress over her cheeks.

Last night the village council had come to a consensus. There could be no more delay. To get a third harvest before the brief freeze, they needed to act. The cold air indicated the seedlings on the upper terraces might not have time to ripen. They must be moved and that meant double planting the lower fields, which impacted fertility, but yields over the last few years had fallen, so the village had little choice.

Lanna didn't know what the fuss was about. A third harvest? She had never harvested at all in the south. If these people ate meat, they would understand that there was food all around them.

Hemil shivered at her side and rubbed his bare arms, smearing mud over honey skin.

'Don't laugh at me.' He gave her a semi-serious glare. 'My clothes for the freeze are in a chest somewhere.'

Lanna lifted a brow. 'It's hardly the freeze yet.' She gestured to the blue sky above, filled with tiny wisps of cloud so light and high they looked near transparent. 'Unless I've somehow forgotten what snow looks like and we're actually...'

'Alright, enough. I know you're as tough as boot leather – no need to insult my masculinity.'

She laughed and bent to grab another armful of seedlings, pulling the spears of green from the sucking sludge. 'You couldn't have been too confident in your maleness if all it took is being around me to feel insecure.'

The banter helped pass the time. The hours burnt away in Hemil's company.

A grin split his face.

'Oh, being around you makes me glad to be a male, Lanna.' His words were in jest, but that didn't stop her dropping her gaze as her stomach tightened.

They had agreed to be friends. Yet something in his behaviour caused her to doubt his pledge. Comments and 'accidental' touches, awkward silences and glances at her that lingered too long. Could he still be pursuing her?

A hand fell on hers, startling her. Slick mud oozed between his palm and the back of her hand.

'Teach me something else,' he demanded. A low chuckle rumbled through his chest. 'Like that word you shouted when the rooster spurred you.'

She would have glared at him, but her heart hammered. Had he always smelt so good? He should stink of mud and slurry, yet he did not. A warm scent tickled the back of her nose, woody. A scented oil?

'I'm not teaching you that.' She couldn't look at him but knew he would be grinning, as if he wasn't kneeling in mud.

'Why?' He squeezed her hand. 'Is it too scandalous for my naïve Imperial ears?'

'What? No! I mean, well it is... I...' She snatched her hand away and grasped more seedlings. 'Just forget about it,' she muttered to the green bundle.

Without warning, Lanna found herself knocked into an irrigation channel. She gasped as her back splashed into shallow muddy water. Hemil straddled her legs, pinning her down. Before she could react, he tickled her without mercy, her body quaking beneath his muddy fingers, and she twisted under him, helpless with giggles.

Clanswomen learnt how to defend themselves, but no one had covered 'getting tickled by an agile Imperial boy' in Lanna's training.

'Tell me!' he said, chuckling, fingers sliding under her tunic and raking over her ribs. He seemed to know every weak spot.