Quickburned

Courage

Now...

The tale of Shattered Earth took a few more nights in the telling, a little while at a time, leaving the days free for other talk. And yet, he still never seemed to be able to turn the conversation, to confess to Lysistrata his feelings as he meant, as she led them across the desert. The mountains he knew, the Firepeaks bounding the South on its western reaches, rose up ahead of them, and they began to run across trails and roads and signs of civilization again. Lysistrata found them a bed in the first little town they came across; a place too small for a proper inn but welcoming a pair of travelers all the same.

And he was more grateful for the respite than he'd ever admit; he was used to far longer hours in the saddle, and it was galling for his reckoning of his abilities to no longer match up to the truth of them. He'd only ever been laid up so once before, in the first days after his Exaltation, and he hadn't much liked it then either.

"Short days for a while yet, boyo," he told Dirt, settling the stallion and Lysistrata's camel for the night.

Caleb shook off his dusty manners in time to enjoy the dinner shared with their hosts, to ease everyone into friendliness with humorous anecdotes and genial chatter. Lysistrata watched him do it with the slitted eyes of a pleased cat and stayed reserved from the conversation; a distance which persisted until after moonrise, when they all found their beds.

"Somethin' eatin' at ya, petal?" The room was dark and cool behind thick walls, the narrow window open to the night air and the half-moon's otherworldly light painting patterns across the simple furnishings. Weariness dragged at his bones, and it was a pleasure to be able to rest, and not force himself onward. He dropped onto the bed and sank into the wool-stuffed mattress with a groan.

"Nothing for you to worry about, sunshine," she said. She finished braiding her hair for bed and joined him, settling into the arms he held out for her. Sharing a bed had always been a welcome pleasure for him, especially in towns, but with Lysistrata it'd become a downright privilege.

"So that'd be a yes, then." He laughed, a single quiet sound in the dark. She relaxed into his shoulder, and he traced down her arm and the long fall of her braided hair with idle motions. "Tell me about it if ya like. If it'll help ya rest. Stars know you've been doing more'n your fair share, takin' care o' me last few weeks."

"No mother-henning me, Raith; you're barely out of bed as it is."

"Thought I was in bed?" He couldn't quite see her roll her eyes at him but he sure felt it and laughed again, muffling the sound with a fist. "I'll be alrigh' now, thanks to you. I been worse off before."

"I know. You were telling me."

"I was?" He didn't remember.

Lys sat up and took his left hand in hers, turning it over so the moonlight made the long white scars shine. Her fingers traced them, from wrist near all the way to the crook of his elbow, and he twitched in ticklish reaction. "You were telling me about how you got these. Though I think you mistook me for your sister Sati at the time."

Oh. Oh, Sati. "Sorry t'put that on ya, dove."

"You're a terrible tale-teller when you're delirious." She kissed his palm and let his hand fall again.

"At least there's that." Caleb scrubbed at his wrist, the scars burning with new awareness. "C'mere."

Lysistrata let him pull her back down into a comfortable tangle of limbs, her head pillowed again on the hollow of his shoulder and her hand warm across his chest, and he flicked the light blanket over top of them. The best way to sleep, so far as he was concerned; where it was hard to tell where he ended and his companion began. "You were dying, Caleb. Dying by inches in my tent, and after that story—I was afraid you wanted to."