ADARA

"Yuven, can we please stop? It's sundown." Her leg muscles burned with the constant exertion and the push of their intrepid leader in the front, back into the aspen forests and out of sight of any civilization. Behind her, Fenrer waddled along with a strange expression, crossed between pain and irritation while he rubbed his back but never spoke out against Yuven Traye. Dirt splashed against her clothes from her scramble away from the Derelict, then getting unceremoniously tossed into Fenrer's unprepared arms.

Both Yuven and Fenrer were covered in grime and Derelict ooze, their cheeks smudged with dirt, though neither of them used the moisture in the air to give themselves a quick refresher. Yuven stopped for nothing and no one. Her fingers trailed with the cold left in the air, but it never answered her call — and doing laundry the 'non-magick' way would be too time consuming for the stubborn Avaerilian, she suspected.

"Sundown?" he questioned and pointed to the flaming sky. "We have daylight left, we need to keep moving. Less time we spend on the road the better." He folded his arms with a sniff and feather flick. "Unless there is some excruciating circumstance I am not aware of."

Adara grimaced and groaned at his push. "I think Fenrer is having difficulties keeping pace with you, Yuven."

Fenrer stopped when he caught up to them and dropped his hand from his side, causing Yuven to frown at him. After a few silent moments, he grunted. "Fine," he hissed through his teeth. "Let us find a suitable area to make camp." He twisted on his heel with a flourish and stomped into the undergrowth, whipping branches out of his way with bursts of wind.

Relief spread through her calves when they trailed into a small grove underneath the twisted branches acting as a natural wall around the area. Yuven breathed deep, and glyphs rose from his fingertips to weave webs along the canopy of leaves. Adara observed, then tried to copy it, but she winced when it fell from her hands and went limp among the grass.

"Good, we shall avoid being beset by worms," Yuven remarked as Fenrer sat cross-legged and continued to rub his back. "I was particularly worried about that."

"Excuse me for trying to learn," Adara grumbled and dropped the woven ward from her fingertips. It burned to embers, and she stomped on a stray one when it lit a stalk of grass with silver flames. Smoke hissed from underneath the bottom of her heel, but when she lifted it, it died with the wind. "I bet you want to sleep in the cold as well, then?"

"Stop whining and get the campfire ready."

Adara pushed her magick against the ground, and the glyph flickered to hesitant life when it formed a border and gathered rocks around the circle. "Are you okay?" she asked Fenrer when he stopped rubbing his back and set his hands back in his lap. "You did take a hard tumble."

"It's nothing," he replied when he twisted around to her, then sent his own magick into the scraggly looking fire pit. It smoothed out and created a perfect well for fire magick to bloom. "I'll live. Just need some rest."

Adara snapped her finger and allowed the embers to drop into the pit. It circled along the circumference and burst into a spark of warmth. It curled against her fingers, and when she let it go, she readied herself for the explosion, but it sputtered and threatened to die with its first breath. Despair filled her lungs, but she gasped when a burst of white dug into the dirt and sent the embers careening into the shattered sky.

"Next time, Sazaka, put your back into it," Yuven instructed before throwing his bag into a small root crevice with force as if to demonstrate. Adara leaped out of his way and hugged her bag of books close to her chest when he moved with purpose to Fenrer when he held out a phial of the night sky. It drained with his heavy swig, and he returned the empty phial to Fenrer's palm. "Let's take a look."

"Hm?" Fenrer questioned behind his closed lips and tipped back.

"I want to make sure you're not injured enough to require healing magick. I can't heal, and I don't want Adara to attempt it. If we need to find a roadside sanctuary, I'd rather know ahead of time."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence." Adara grimaced.

"You could flay or completely immolate his skin if you try and are untrained," Yuven said with no remorse as the runic circuits on Fenrer's bracers loosened when he held out his forearms and clenched his fists. It hissed out green mist. "Sit down and stay out of the way."

Great. I needed that mental image. Adara sat down and shuffled through her selection of books as Yuven motioned at Fenrer, who twisted around with a heavy huff before drawing up his shirt to reveal a part of his bareback. Yuven examined it with a scoff, then glanced at her. Small patches of blood smeared around torn skin and scraped at odd, rocky angles from their slide against the road when he took the brunt of the damage for her and Suka.

"Don't give me that look, you're the one that threw me at him!" Adara snapped.

"How bad does it feel, Molvi?" Yuven ignored her.

"It'll be fine," Fenrer mumbled and smoothed out his shirt and returned to his exhausted seating position. "I need some sleep."

"You wrestled with a corrupted deer, I'd call you a liar if you tried to say you didn't need sleep," Yuven grumbled and left Fenrer on the ground. "Next time, speak up."

Bag on the ground, she rested herself against the grass and flipped open her book. Sparks of embers popped out of the gathered power of Yuven's layer of flames, with her swallowed and consumed into fuel. Her traveling companions curled in their prospective chosen places, though she doubted Fenrer no more chose his than not being able to move further. Book open, she lost herself in the pages when the night sang out its usual song. Owls hooted through the darkness of the penned words.

Blink.

Orange went to painted stars and cloudy purples. Two moons danced behind the horizon, following each other in their journey. Prickles swept through her skin with the last bit of surprise sleep, lifting the book off her chest to set it to the side. Aspen leaves shuddered with the passage of wind and time. Bulbous flowers bloomed along Yuven's ward and reflected the light of the stars. Off the grass, the crickets fell quieter into their song when she went to investigate her sense of a missing piece.

Hands against the back of his head, Yuven slept in the small crook of the root. His white hair tangled and curled against his brow and his feathers relaxed into a resting position. Adara crawled to her feet, but froze when his feathers twitched with the slight movement. Yuven sighed, then rolled over with a little shake of his feathers, his back to her. One more moment, they went limp with the small breath of wind. With her newfound sense of freedom, she crept closer to make sure he was fast asleep.

Heh, you're not so terrifying while you're asleep, are you? Adara grinned then tip-toed out of his hearing range, but stopped at Fenrer's empty sleeping spot. Let's see if I can't find a nearby water source to clean myself up... Into the forest, she relished in the music of the night and wrapped shadows around her to disappear among the twilight. One piece of control she had — to hide herself away, something instinctual, something Garren didn't need to teach her. Guided by the last remnants of bio-luminescence, she found a small water source and followed it further with their fire still in view between the trunks of the trees. She hummed with the nearby cascade of water when the large creek flowed through the rocky outcrop. Mist wrapped around her neck when she slipped through the undergrowth, and she brushed her fingers through her tangled hair.

She stopped beside the small waterfall as it sent the layer of mist into the air. As she reached her hand out to feel the trail of water against skin, she noticed a folded pile of clothes kept out of reach of the water. On the top, a single wolven hairpin rested in the bundle.

Huh?

Adara withdrew her hand to take in the rest of her environment before approaching further.

Green glyphs bubbled underneath the surface of water and attached to the bottom to send a purifying bubble around a single spot in the pond. Adara traced the solid glyph when it disappeared and intermingled with the warm steam clashing with cold mist. Her heart slammed straight into her brain and muddled all thought at the shape in the pond.

Fenrer rubbed his face with a cloth. Water soaked his dark hair and stuck it to the back of his neck. Trails of the cascade lined down his shoulders when he nuzzled his nose into the cloth with a deep exhale in his back. The steam followed his bubbling glyph which shielded him from the rest of the pond. His lean frame stretched with it when he released his face from the cloth, a lighter, peaceful smile on his lips when water followed along the bend. Adara went to take a step back from the sight, but her heel stuck on the rock, and she near slipped into the pond and released a gasp. In slow motion, Fenrer turned his head to her with a bleary blink as if she hadn't almost clumsily joined him. Droplets fell off the tips of his hair when he opened his eyes further. "Hello, Adara."

Adara kept her arms stiff against her sides and squished her neck into her spine. Fenrer rubbed his cheek without another word.

"I'm sorry!" she bleated, giving him a start. "I didn't realise you were here." Adara checked his clothes again, the future dawn slamming her heart back where it belonged, then snapped back to him when he raised his other hand out of the water. "Gods! Don't stand up!"

Confusion dripped into his water stained cheeks. "Is something the matter?" Adara raised her own hands to cover her blazing cheeks, and his confusion wasted away into calm understanding. "Ah, I see. Give me a few minutes and I'll be finished." He returned to the cloth, though Adara found herself trailing the scrapes on his back, where the water followed and smoothed out the edges. It soothed the tension in her shoulders, and when Fenrer gave no sign of getting out, she dropped her hands from her cheeks.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?" Fenrer squeezed the cloth, having a conversation as if it was the most casual thing in the world.

Adara motioned at the pond, but then threw her arms out in the air and turned around. "Just tell me when you're done." One more peek, Fenrer rubbed the bridge of his nose and folded the cloth against his brow. Back into the darkness, she shuffled closer to a tree and tried not to think anything more before her head exploded. Unable to flee back to camp, rooted in place, she listened close to Fenrer leaving the pond when the magick tickled her ears and popped into bubbles.

And his only response was hello? If that happened in Prunal I'd never be able to live it down... Fabric shuffled, and she dared to tear herself off her victim of a tree, but refused to release herself from the dark. "Are you out?"

"Yes," Fenrer said, closer but on the bank, while a belt latch clicked.

Free from her fingers digging into her brow, Fenrer slipped into his shirt before smoothing it out.

"How's your back?" she rasped.

"Much better," he said, calm and happy as can be.

"Oh." Adara sucked in her embarrassment. "Good." Stupid. Knuckles against her temples, she blinked out the fog in her mind. "I thought you were just having a late-night wander, I didn't realise..." Adara pointed at the pond again, and Fenrer followed it.

"It's alright," he said, and Adara pressed her fingers into her chest when he used a deft hand to form the small braid of his hair, inserting the wolven pin into it to keep it in place. "I probably should've let someone know where I was going, but you both were asleep when I awakened, so... I thought as long as I didn't go too far, I'd just let you both sleep." He drew his shoulders up further with a light smile.

"Yeah." Adara forced the tension out of her stomach. "Yeah, Yuven was still sleeping when I left, at least."

"Good to hear." Fenrer adjusted the collar of his shirt. "I'm going back to camp then."

"Why are you even awake?" Adara blurted out, and Fenrer stopped. "You were exhausted before we made camp. I thought you were going to drop... that's why I said something to Yuven. I thought he was just ignoring the obvious, but I'm starting to realise he didn't actually notice — one track mind."

"Yuven has a lot on his mind, and I was awake because..." Fenrer faltered, then said, "I suppose because I just needed to be."

"Are you saying that because you can see it or..."

"Both," Fenrer answered with a bow. "Are you going to come back to camp as well?"

Adara whipped around to the pond, but nodded at him before following him up the small outcrop and back to camp, where Yuven continued to sleep, undisturbed by her clumsiness. Fenrer settled back down on the ground, but remained awake. Her last trembles of embarrassment left her fingers when she flopped into her sleeping spot and tried not to scream.

"I'm sorry," she repeated through her sleeves, and when Fenrer didn't respond, she investigated the silence.

He slept in his own arms with a deep rise and fall of his shoulders. He had dried himself off when she escaped into the darkness, but small droplets of water stuck to strands of dark brown hair when he slipped deeper into his own arms, and some followed the motion before resting against his bag.

Huh... I guess it did help him.

Adara rolled over.

And Yuven does not need to know about that.