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They stopped to build camp beside an outcropping of rock that provided some shelter from the fierce winds. Hikari set up his tent with the speed and efficiency borne of many years of practice. It was easier here than in the desert, where finding purchase in the shifting sands could take ages.
A few feet away, Temenos helped Agnea with the other tent. At least, Hikari assumed that was the goal. Neither of them seemed to have made much progress. Above them, perched atop the boulder, sat Ochette. She was swinging her legs and laughing down at the other three.
“You could always help, y’know,” chided Agnea, dropping the canvas to put her hands on her hips.
“Now, now,” said Temenos mildly. “I’m sure we’ll get it. Eventually.”
“I don’t see why you’re even bothering,” Ochette said. She leapt down, landing with a soft thud , and came to inspect her friends’ efforts. “Why don’t you just sleep under the stars, like me?”
“It’s too cold for that,” Agnea protested, rubbing her arms as if to demonstrate. “I’m already freezing!” Hikari’s hand found his bag, and he knelt down to rummage through it.
“Not too cold if you have a tail!”
“You know quite well that none of us have one of those,” Temenos reminded Ochette.
“Oh, yeah. Well, Agnea, how about you forget about that tent and you can just cuddle with me?”
Hikari’s ears burned. He heard Temenos laugh softly, and looked up from his search in time to see Agnea shoot one of her radiant smiles at the beastling girl even as she shook her head in fond exasperation.
“Here, Agnea,” Hikari said, stepping forward, and suddenly all eyes were on him. He shifted his weight slightly, uncomfortable with the attention. He held out a blanket. “I don’t want you catching cold.”
She reached out and took it from him, bundling it to her chest. In the growing darkness, Hikari couldn’t tell if the flush he thought he saw on her cheeks was real, or merely his imagination. He tried, as he had so many times before, to tamp down on the feeling bubbling in his chest.
Suddenly, Temenos stretched out a hand and ruffled Ochette’s hair. He jerked his head at Hikari and Agnea. “You two set up that tent and build the fire up a bit. This one and I will find something to eat.”
“Huh?” asked Ochette, confused. “I’ve got plenty of jerky, and -,”
“No, no,” Temenos said, cutting her off. “Let’s get something fresh. Don’t you want to practice with your new bow?” and he guided her away even as she lit up with freshly kindled excitement.
The cleric looked back over his shoulder at Hikari. His face was half shrouded in shadow, half lit by the flickering light of the fire. It was enough for Hikari to make out the exaggerated wink Temenos shot at him.
Hikari looked down at the ground, flushing. Damn that clever cleric and damn his own transparencies. At least Agnea hadn’t seemed to have noticed.
Indeed, she was looking at him with a somewhat puzzled expression on her face. Then she shook her head like a dog as if to clear her mind, and grinned cheerfully at Hikari.
“He’s an odd one,” she said, nodding in the direction their friends had departed to.
“I can’t disagree with that.”
Agnea shivered again, and he frowned. He stepped closer, close enough to touch, and gently tugged the still-folded blanket from her arms. Carefully, he wrapped it around her shoulders, tucking it around her until she was snug.
“Keep an eye on the fire,” he suggested. “I’ll set up your tent.”
“I can help!” she insisted.
He gave a wry smile and gestured at the heap of poles and canvas lying haphazardly on the ground. “Don’t worry about it. I think I could do it in my sleep. But I’ll leave dinner to you.”
She looked at him with those unfathomably warm eyes. “Well,” she said, “I suppose that makes sense, after what happened last time.”
Hikari winced. A few days ago, he’d been asked to cook for the group for the first time. It wasn’t entirely his fault, he said afterwards. The ingredients were foreign to him, and years of bland army rations had dulled his palate anyway. That hadn’t stopped the others from teasing him mercilessly.
Agnea seemed to pick up on his discomfort. She hopped up from the log she’d only just settled on, and Hikari felt her hand brush over his shoulder, soft as a butterfly’s touch.
“Hey, now, I’m sorry,” she said in a voice just as gentle as her hands. “I shouldn’t tease, I ought to know better.”
“I don’t mind,” Hikari reassured her. He let himself reach up to clasp at the hand she rested on his shoulder, just for a moment, before busying himself with the tent once more. “I like the camaraderie.”
Agnea grinned. “Well, look at you, mister prince with the thousand-leaf vocabulary!”
Hikari shook his head and chuckled. “Hardly a prince anymore,” he said. He tied a knot at one corner of the tent and moved on to the next one.
“I think you’re still every bit a prince!”
“How so?” he asked. “I’ve lost my kingdom, my castle, my power… what else is there to make me a prince?”
“You’ve still got your people, haven’t you?” Agnea said. “And you still walk and talk and think like a prince. So who cares if you ain’t got your crown or gilded shoes or what-have-you, those things don’t matter. That’s why people want to put you back on the throne. Because they can see it, even when you can’t.”
For several long minutes Hikari was silent. He pondered over her words as he finished erecting the tent. When he stood again, he turned to see that she was watching him from her seat by the fire, her hands plucking nervously at the folds of his blanket.
“Sorry,” she said. “I always say too much. And my sister ain’t here to shut me up when I yammer on now.”
“You needn’t apologize,” Hikari told her earnestly. He wiped the dust off his hands and walked to the fire to join her. “I did not mean to make you uncomfortable with my silence. Your words mean a great deal to me. I am touched. And beyond that, I am grateful to you.”
“Grateful? What on earth for?”
“For reminding me of my reasons to go on. For not allowing me to wallow, and for brightening up my days. You are a good woman, Agnea, and it is a blessing to me that I have had the chance to know you.”
There was no mistaking the flush on her face now, nor the corresponding one heating his own cheeks. He grabbed a stick and poked at the fire to distract himself from the burning in his own chest.
How was it possible for her to be so good ? Hikari wasn’t used to people like Agnea. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, although she was. There was also her charm, her sweetness, and her clear-eyed honesty. She did not lack ambition, but somehow there was no guile in it, only determination. In the few weeks they’d known each other, he’d found himself completely taken in by her, and he had no idea how to handle himself.
“Oh, go on now!” she laughed, relieved. “Don’t flatter me like that, Hikari.”
“It wasn’t flattery,” he protested. “You should know by now that I’m no good at such things. I was only telling you the truth.”
To his surprise, Agnea only made a high-pitched noise in her throat and buried her face in the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Hikari’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. Had he inadvertently said something wrong? He never was any good with words.
“Forgive me,” he said, “I have upset you.”
At last Agnea lifted her head, and Hikari saw that her cheeks were flushed pink. “You haven’t upset me, Hikari! I’m just embarrassed, is all!” Her eyes seemed to sparkle in the firelight, and her hair - it practically glowed. Every time he looked away and back again, it seemed she’d grown but lovelier in the interim.
“Ah,” Hikari managed at last. He longed for Temenos and Ochette to return quickly. They could fill the awkward silence with their own chattering, surely, and not leave Hikari to flounder in his own ineptitude.
“Still,” Agnea began, “thank you. I’m glad to know you too, just for the record.” She smiled at him again, warming him like the sun. “Come and sit down, anyhow. Relax a minute while we wait for the others, yeah?” She patted the log beside her, and Hikari stepped hesitantly forward to take the proffered seat.
The log was wide, and he was careful to leave a foot of space between them, for propriety’s sake. Yet no sooner had he sat down than Agnea shuffled over, closing the gap between them by several inches. She set her hand down between them, palm down, tapping her fingers to some rhythm in her own head.
It might not have been an invitation, Hikari thought. It was presumptuous of him to even think it could be. But he remembered Temenos’s sly grin and that mischievous wink, and glanced sideways at Agnea to see that she was looking at him with an expression so warm and open it nearly took his breath away.
His heart thudded in his ears as he lifted his own hand, and gently placed it on top of her own. His fingers curled over hers. They were smaller than his, her skin soft and warm. He ran his thumb over the back of her hand, smooth and supple as the finest fabrics, and chanced another look at her face. She was watching their hands, a shy smile playing on her lips.
“Oh, bravo, Hikari!” came a sudden voice from the darkness on the other side of the fire, followed by a wolf whistle
Hikari yanked his hand back as Temenos stepped into view, Ochette beside him with several marmots slung across her back. The cleric had a sort of satisfied smirk on his pale face, while Ochette grinned broadly. How had he ever yearned for their return? Now that they stood before him, Hikari uncharitably wished that they could be gone another hour or more.
“Now kiss!” she cheered, pumping her bow-holding arm into the air.
Hikari shot them his most dour look. Beside him, Agnea let out a small and improbably cute groan.
“You’re the worst,” Agnea said, “the absolute worst , I swear!” But then she laughed, too, and Hikari was startled to feel the warmth of her hand as she drew it back to her own.
She looked up at him with those warm, shimmering eyes, and squeezed her fingers around his. “Well, I guess I ought to start on supper,” she said, but made no move to drop his hand.
Later that night, stretched out on his bedroll, Hikari flexed his fingers in the darkness. He could hear Temenos’s whistle-y breaths from the roll beside him, and further away, Ochette’s surprisingly thunderous snores. But his thoughts were on neither the cleric nor the beastling, but rather Agnea, the dancer. Even now, hours since they’d separated, he could still feel the phantom pressure of her hand in his.
He buried his face in the blanket. It smelled of smoke from the fire, like all of their belongings, but also - he sniffed again to check - yes, it smelled of flowers, of the sweet oil Agnea used to tame her braided hair. Hikari groaned.
Finally, finally, he drifted off to sleep, surrounded by her scent, drowning in thoughts of her. And when he dreamed, he dreamed of dancing.