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Detraeus grunted. Little as he wanted to admit it, she spoke sense in some respects. Most of him was capable still, but hours of walking into the night would not help his case and he knew it. So, he frowned, eyeing the surrounding area, on the lookout for anything that might at least give them cover from the open sky and night winds. Then, just as his attention settled on an outcropping of rock some fifty paces to their right, something shifted amidst the nearby rocks. Seconds later, as if to test Araceli’s theory personally, another rhamidon was on them, charging at full speed and closing the distance between them in the span of moments.

On instinct, Detraeus dropped the reins and slapped the hindquarters of his hastar, sending it — and Ara — bounding forward and out of the way. And not a moment too soon.

Detraeus lifted off the ground, wings beating hard as the beast rammed into the space he’d occupied moments ago, but not quite fast enough. One of its horns caught on his boot, and with a single yank, it plucked him out of the sky like a fat bird, sending him skittering and rolling across the hard clay and gravel. Wincing, he forced himself to roll again, narrowly avoiding the crushing stomp of a foot twice the size of his head. When he tried to rise, however, the beast’s tail slammed down, jabbing into the earth a hand’s breadth from his head and then catching and raking down his leg on the back sweep. That got a cry out of him, followed shortly after by a groan and snarl as the tail dragged him with it, sliding along the rocky earth like slab of hung meat.

He lashed at the tail with his own, burying his tail spikes between its armored scales and dragging them down the length of its tail until the beast roared and reared back lifting its tail away from him. In the opening, he yanked and slung three of the throwing knives at his chest into its bared belly and scrambled backwards. After two failed tries, he forced himself up, and beat his wings again as the beast staggered and snarled. When it made a messy dive for him, he flit sidelong, up, and around, drawing his bow and burying a handful of arrows in its back until it stilled completely.

As it did, he landed, staggered, and collapsed. Shutting his eyes, he grunted, swore and spat at the earth. Then, remembering Ara, he frowned and maneuvered himself back up to a sit to look for her, a panicked moment dedicated to the thought what if there had been another to go after her?

Detraeus blinked, entirely surprised by the level of emotion in Araceli’s reaction. He’d realized that she considered him an ally and even, perhaps on some level, a friend of sorts. But he could not have anticipated this level of concern, particularly with just a leg wound. He opened and closed his mouth several times, at a loss, before his brow finally pinched and he consented, reaching up to take her hand and gritting his teeth, wings flitting open and tail moving out to help push him up as he went. It was fortunate, he decided as he stumbled in spite of himself, that the area he’d originally thought suitable for making their camp for the night was not far off.

With her supporting his weight, though, her body closer to him than it had been at any other occasion recently except perhaps a close call in sparring sessions, he felt his cheeks begin to heat alongside the searing pain through his leg. Every step felt like an eternity, and by the time they made it across, he felt sure he’d lost half his bloodflow to his body’s confusion about which portion of his body to send it to.

Detraeus’ attention followed her motions rigidly. Several times, he opened his mouth to point out that he knew how to do such things himself. He had been cleaning, dressing, and looking after his own wounds for years. But the words never moved past the tip of his tongue, his focus always distracted by a brush of pale fingers here or a graze of skin there, the way her lips budded together in concentration, or how her hair fell about her face and she had to, on occasion, brush it back out of her way. He shut his eyes.

At her statement, he grunted and shifted his position, tail shifting across the earth. “Don’t like healers. They touch too much. Should make a fire…desert nights are cold.” When he attempted to push up, however, he immediately grimaced, swearing beneath his breath. “And food…” He eyed the fallen rhamidon. More than enough meat to feed a small army for one night, and he hadn’t packed the supplies for more than a late afternoon on the sand. Besides, he needed to fetch his knives from the beast’s underbelly.

Detraeus flushed at the hand, lips pursing in frustration. He hated feeling so useless, but he didn’t argue aloud and guided Ara through the process of getting useable meat off of the massive beast, and by the time the moon was high, they had food, fire, and a place for the night. But no bedding, or even spare cloth to serve as blankets and stave off the bitter cold of a desert night. Detraeus sighed, frowning, and after his meal settled for lingering close to the fire in silence, watching the flames lick back and forth towards the endless night above. The stars, even colorless to his limited gaze, were brilliant overhead, winking like the secret keepers of a thousand thousand years worth of tales.

Detraeus blinked, drawn from his personal musings by the sound of her voice. Her questions, however, brought a fresh flush to his cheeks despite the chill and a frown to his features as he thought on them and grappled with the memories they brought about. It had been so long — half a full cycle of the year, at least — since the subject of their initial ‘incident’ had been brought up. After the fight over it, she had let the subject drop and not touched it again. He still remembered, though. Remember what it had felt like to have her fingers casually brush his during the card game leading up to it. Remembered the way she looked, moving for him, the smell of her, the feel of her lips—

He remembered how upset she had been at his failure to respond as she expected, and at the thought, he shook his head, shoving the lot of them aside.

“No,” he said. Then, after a pause, he pursed his lips, making himself respond in more depth. He figured he owed it to her, to an extent. “I told you, I mind your touch less than most. It’s…” He eyed her fingers, mind turning over the potential turns of phrase that might apply, “…nice. I don’t trust healers. Or anyone, mostly, with their…hands…that close to my skin. It feels…dirty. Filthy…”

His brow pinched, fingers rubbing over his shoulder, half to stave off the outward chill and half to scrub away thoughts he’d rather not have. “Like…” he continued quieter, “…if I let them in, I’ll never be able to scrape their fingers off of me again. Like I’ll never be…clean.” He scratched idly at his skin without thinking about it, nails moving over flesh as though trying to scrape away the touches of long dead ghosts. He shut his eyes and grunted, stilling his hand when he noticed the gesture and pulling tighter into himself, telling himself it was to conserve heat. “So I tend to my own wounds.”

Detraeus startled, his body tensing on instinct at the unexpected contact, but as he eyed her, he forced a breath out, tension seeping gradually away into a wary calm. His blush, though, grew unimpeded, crawling up from the base of his neck to his eartips, and his tail stirred behind him, flicking towards her.

‘Why did you kiss me?’

He shut his eyes again, swallowing back the question, but his pulse stuttered in the cage of his chest and the question seemed to grow louder in his head with every breath. Why, why, why — why would you want to—?

“Why did you kiss me.” The question left his lips half against his will, and almost as much a demand as an inquiry.

Detraeus’ ears burned, pulse beating to a panicked rhythm in his chest and reaction torn between instinct — fear, anger, flight, withdrawal, anything to get him out of the conversation he’d started — and a painful curiosity. Desires and questions regarding things he didn’t want to want. He wished he wanted nothing to do with her, with anyone. That had always been his original intention. That made it easy. Or would have, if it had been the case here.

But part of him — something buried under the fear and the anger, under every instinct that made his skin crawl at the thought of fingers on him, made his pulse trip over itself in terror at the thought of making himself vulnerable, and made his stomach roil and knot, muscles bunching to help him flee should anyone lean too close — something beneath all of that wondered desperately the same things Ara wondered. It liked her skin under his fingers in ways that he scarcely dared to consider. Liked the brush of her breath close to him, and wanted to know, as she did, what it would be like to hold her kiss for more than a moment.

He swallowed hard, and grit his teeth when he realized he was shaking.

‘Why?’

“Why. Why do you…want to touch me—why want anything to do with me? I’m—” He pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth, and then breathed out, pressing on. “I’m not…a kind person. I’m not intelligent. I’m not interesting. I’m angry. I hurt people…things. I—” He bit off his sentence and waited, thinking. His tongue flicked over the tips of his canines, his breath making steam in the chilling air, and his voice quieted before he spoke again, attention honing back in on her, studying her features in the flickering light of the fire. “You don’t know me very well…” His gaze lowered, settling on her lips as a strange, terrified elation bubbled in his chest, “…yet…”