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Lawine’s halfway to unconsciousness when she hears it.
“Lawine. Psst. Lawine.”
Lawine shuts her eyes tighter and rolls further onto her side.
“Laaaaawwwwwinnnnne.”
She is air. She is a cloud floating away into dreamland. She is so fucking close to finally falling asleep on this godforsaken hill.
“I know you’re not asleep ‘cause you’re not snoring yet.”
“I don’t snore!” Lawine sits up, yelling, and Kanne blinks at her, stunned into momentary silence before her expression gives way to smugness. Lawine’s hands twitch at the sight, a pigtail-shaped space in each of her palms.
“You do too,” Kanne says, grin askew. Lawine spares her another glance and then flops back onto the ground, defeated. She pulls the blanket up to her chin and nearly exposes her toes to the night air in the process. Fuck this exam.
“Is there a reason you woke me up in the dead of night or did you just do it for fun?”
“I’m cold.” Lawine tips her head sideways to consider her–cheeks rosy red like an apple, hands rubbing against each other fruitlessly in front of her. The nights here are much colder than school and they at least let them sleep inside a building at the Academy.
“Not my problem,” Lawine huffs.
“But Laaaaawwwwiiiine I’m so coooooold. You’re just going to let me freeze out here?”
“Yep.” She clamps both hands over her ears in a pitiful attempt to muffle her cries but it’s pointless. Kanne’s loud like a foghorn.
“I’m soooooo cooooold!” Kanne jams her admittedly freezing cold toes into Lawine’s side and Lawine yelps. That’s it. She tosses aside the blanket–cold be damned–and tackles Kanne on top of her sleeping mat, wrenching her hair upwards. How convenient of her to leave her hair up in pigtails even when she’s going to bed.
“I swear to god, I’ll throw you in the lake and freeze you there until morning if you don’t shut up! That’ll give you something to complain about.”
“So mean!” Kanne whines but her skin’s already warmer beneath Lawine’s palms.
Across the way, Frieren stirs to life and the rest of Kanne’s protest dies in her throat. Frieren reaches for her staff, pointing it at the two of them and then–
And then she mutters some ancient incantation and a see-through bubble appears around her. Satisfied, she releases her staff and goes back to sleep. Lawine blinks once, twice.
“What type of spell even is that?” she asks. It’s a far cry from the battle ones they equip them with at school. “How does she know it?”
“‘Cause she’s a million years old.” Lawine glances down at her, still below her, and finally climbs off, making sure to hit her head once on the way out.
“Ba-kanne, elves don’t live to a million.”
“Eek! You get the point.” Kanne rolls onto her back, her arms stretched wide and balled into fists. Lawine studies her in the moonlight, from her half-rumpled pigtails to her flimsy sleepwear to her freezing cold toes.
“If I fix your problem, will you finally shut up and let me sleep?” Lawine snaps. Kanne bobs her head up and down once, eyes wide. Lawine’s seen that expression before–when she said she wouldn’t take any more cookies from the kitchen jar, when she said she wasn’t afraid of heights on their flight exam, when she said that this would be the last time she’d ever bother Lawine for homework help cross-her-heart-and-hope-to-die. All of them had been absolute and utter lies.
Kanne cocks her head at her, like a puppy waiting for a treat.
“You’re going to cast a spell to warm me up?”
Lawine frowns at her, already reaching one hand out towards her.
“Don’t need magic to do that.”
Quickly before she can protest, Lawine grabs her back and rolls them both onto Kanne’s mat, bundling the blanket around the two of them before Kanne inevitably tries to wriggle her way out. It’s a tight fit but there’s just enough fabric to cover the two of them when they’re pressed chest-to-chest, their noses nearly bumping.
Kanne’s flushed bright red and Lawine’s got a front-row view of it.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lawine snaps. She lays her head down on the pillow and gets a faceful of hair in response. “You’re warmer now aren’t you?”
Kanne’s voice when it stutters out of her is a pitch higher than normal.
“I guess.”
“Good. Then shut up and go to sleep.”
“So mean,” Kanne whines but her voice is soft around the edges. Lawine feels halfway to dreamland already, Kanne’s body curled tight around her. The shared warmth spreads over them like a blanket, turns the edges of her mind light and hazy.
“Only for you.”