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“Nnh.” Detraeus’ flush lingered hot in his face even as he curbed a shiver, the night now frigid around them. It made him regret not bringing an extra set of clothes on the off chance such a thing occurred. That thought, though, he filed away for a later date. His courage, it seemed, was fading fast, despite the particular glint of the firelight over the shape of Araceli’s lips, and he lowered his lashes. “We should sleep,” he said. “Unless you intend on kissing me again before the night’s up, you can get to know me later.”

Detraeus went rigid. Like painful déjà vu, he felt his muscles bunch up, breath hitch, and center of awareness narrow; felt his pulse race, battering against his ribcage as though it were trying to break free and limbs beginning to quiver. This time, Araceli noticed, and he watched her posture deflate, regret bubbling up in his gut so palpable he could taste it on his tongue before she even withdrew.

“I’m sorry—” she started to say, but his body jerked forward, hand snatching up her wrist near his cheek and freezing her in place.

“No—don’t—” His breathing stuttered in his throat, and she held herself perfectly still, watching him. “Don’t…I…just…it’s…I can’t…I’ve never…”

She frowned, expression convoluted and unreadable, like a book written in a hundred languages that he’d yet to decipher. “Detraeus…”

“Please,” he whispered inspite of himself. “I’ve just…never…”

“…never…?” she asked, and who was he to blame her for her confusion.

Clearly he had kissed before. He’d kissed her — or, at the very least, she had kissed him — and before that, well, he shoved the thoughts down, but his lips had met those of others, there was no doubt there. It wasn’t that he’d never touched like this or been touched. He had. Too much. Beyond count. Enough to have left him what he was today, but…

“I’ve never…wanted…to kiss anyone before…”

She watched him. Curious. Contemplative. And she let the silence hang for what felt like half an eternity before asking, “And now?”

Detraeus eyed her lips, his grip still locked on her wrist and pulse thrumming to the beat of a wardrum in his chest. The fire sent glimmering flickers of light across the dips and curves of her mouth like dancers, taunting him, and every piece of him that touched her felt like trying to hold raw sunlight in his hands, but he held on anyway.

“I…”

“I’m not going to kiss you, Detraeus, unless you want me to. Not again,” she said. “Tell me you want it…or I will leave you be, and never ask again. I promise.”

Detraeus felt his breath shake, like a live bird fluttering into and out of his lungs. This was his opportunity. His chance to end all the uncertainty. To shove her away and keep himself as he always had been: alone, safe, solitary, self-sufficient. His lashes dipped to half mast, focussing again on the dance of dying firelight over the swell of her lips, and he said:

“I want you to kiss me…”

Detraeus felt himself shake. Equal parts rigid and quivering, like a needle in an earthquake, and his lungs needed lessons on how to draw in air. He felt her heartbeat like a small bird fluttering against his palm to a rapid, stuttered beat, but his own was thunder between his ears, a battlefield in his chest, and a ripple through his bloodstream. He heard nothing but his pulse and felt everything trifold — crippling fear, curiosity, confusion. But in the moment that her lips brushed his, for a single, teetering moment, the chaos condensed to a single certainty: that he wanted, in that instant, all the things which had ever haunted his nights. But most of all — he wanted her.

And it terrified him.

“Ara…” His voice came out shaken, laced onto a breath as quiet as the stars, and his fingers trembled at her chest when she pressed close. Her body was heat and give, like sunlight against his skin in the full tilt of a desert day: overwhelming, but impossible to pull away from. Until he did. It was a sharp withdrawal, not as an insult to her but because his muscles seemed worn thin, taut and unreliable as a frazzled bowstring worn near to the snapping point. “I—we should…sleep—? Sleep. We should…sleep.”

Araceli blinked, clearly a bit startled by the abruptness, but perhaps more used to it now. Regardless, she pouted. “That’s it?”

Detraeus tensed. “What do you mean ‘it’?”

“I don’t know…it was quite brief.”

He narrowed his eyes. ‘Brief’ or not, to him it had certainly seemed engaging enough.

“I could give you kissing lessons…help you practice your technique.” She tilted her head, and Detaeus tried to weigh whether she was insulting him or looking for an excuse to draw the process out. “I’m told I’m quite a good kisser…and it wouldn’t hurt you to relax into it a bit.”

“I’m relaxed.”

“As an uruu facing off against a grown baowi, you are.”

His eyes narrowed further, lips pursed tight.

“Come on. At least once more. Perhaps you could kiss me this time…” She eyed him. “Unless, of course, I still scare you.”

Detraeus’ shoulders bunched, eartips burning, and he breathed out in a snort, forcing his attention back to her lips. Once more. Just once more. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t. He wasn’t…

His heart staged a rebellion against his ribcage as he reached up, but he managed to catch at the nape of her neck with barely-shaking fingers and used the support to lean in in a rush. He kissed her, tugging her in and holding her to him, ignoring the whirl of his insecurities like placing himself in the eye of a storm, and in a last ditch show of boldness, he nipped at her bottom lip. A quick, light, only half-irritated and wholly stubborn signal that he was not afraid. He moved immediately back, afterwards, his face a furnace as he jerked his cloak free from his belongings and dropped to the hard earth with a grunt.

“Sleep.”

Detraeus frowned. After watching Araceli shiver and add all but the last few scraps of dead wood to the fire before settling down, he huffed and dragged his cloak off, tossing it at her before curling up on his side and stubbornly shutting his eyes. His mind, however, refused to quiet. About her. The kiss. Their day. The entirety of their relationship from the moment he’d first sank three arrows into the earth at her feet and hated her for no other reason than that she’d scared off his prey.

He realized there were other things many would consider more important. That he, a pureblood oblivionite in his own right and son of the dark goddess, had kissed one of Abronaxus’ precious dragon children. But that, to him, paled in comparison to the fact that he, and all that he was, had kissed someone — anyone — willingly. What it meant for him, though — or her, for that matter — he couldn't begin to guess and didn’t dare speculate on. But he knew, even now, that he likely never should have done it. Should not have let her think him capable of that range of interests.

Because in the end, he wasn’t. He had lines he knew he would never, could never, cross. And the two of them — whatever she wanted out of him — was doomed to fail before she’d ever laid eyes on him.

Detraeus froze, body going rigid and muscles bunching under her touch. She moved without asking, though, slipping in against him and dropping his cloak back over him. He shivered. Half because he had been cold and half for other reasons entirely. He opened his mouth, intent on insisting that he was not cold and that she could mind her own space. But nothing came out. Instead, he lay rigid for many minutes, feeling the warmth of her body radiating against him, so close, certain all the while that he would never manage to sleep with her like this.

He woke facing the opposite direction, one wing curled over an unfamiliar presence and tail laid protectively over a set of long, pale legs. He tensed. Breath stolen from him in the instant that he made sense of his surroundings, he pulled away, scrambling back, rolling over hard earth and then crying out when he tried to stand — having forgotten about the state of his leg. Gritting his teeth, Detraeus held himself up in a half sit, eyes shut, pulse fast, and face hot.

Stupid.

How had he managed to be so stupid? Of all the fool decisions he might possibly have made, he’d decided to kiss a—

He froze as Araceli stirred, her long hair loose and toppled about the earth like spilt thread. He flushed in spite of himself, and held still as cornered prey watching a dragon wake up.

Detraeus held his ground, blinking, and then flushing darker still, eternally grateful that his skin was dark enough to not show it. He opened his mouth, shut it, and nodded, hobbling upwards awkwardly with the help of his wings, tail and arms, ninety percent of his weight on his left leg when he managed to stand.

“Fine,” he said. “We should…” He eyed their only hastar with a frown, contemplating their options, “…head out…”

Detraeus eyed the hastar, tense, but well aware that Ara’s point held true. They had some ways to go yet — an hour at least by hastar and far longer on foot — and he couldn’t make her walk the distance either. Thus, gritting his teeth, he shook his head.

After gathering his things, prepping and saddling the hastar as she cleaned up what remained of their campsite, he approached the beast and used several quick beats of his wings to lift himself over the hastar and mount from above. Gripping the reins, he edged forward as much as the saddle would allow and notched his head, motioning for her to climb on as well. Together, with her behind him and her hands settled loosely on his hips, they set out.

Detraeus felt every point of contact. Every brush. Every bump. Every time she simply shifted her weight, her legs moved against his as well as her chest and hands. Her breasts pressed against his back to the rock of the hastar’s hoofbeats and Detraeus rode stiff as a tombstone, though his tail — rebel that it seemed to be — insisted on continuing to try to curl back, coiling around her leg at every opportunity that the rest of his attention was distracted. Every time he noticed, he mentally cursed it, plucking it back away and blushing all the hotter. At least the ride was only an hour.

Or, so it would have been, uninterrupted. Unfortunately, the fates did not seem to be smiling on that option. Some twenty minutes out, with the sun gradually edging higher above the horizon, a larger-than-last-time dispute between the wildlife blocked their path. Three cah facing off against a single rhamidon, fighting over what looked to be the corpse of an ill-fated kargoth. Detraeus pulled the reins, stalling their mount as he debated their options. Their list shrank significantly when one of the cah twitched and turned their way, backing away from its prized kill temporarily in light of the new scents.

Detraeus swore beneath his breath, uncoiling his tail — again — from Ara and pulling his bow from his back. “Ara…”

As Ara went for the first cah, Detraeus immediately drove his hastar in, running it between the remaining cah and rhamidon to taunt them away from her and firing an arrow at each to assure he had their attention. The rhamidon roared, diving for him, and his hastar whinnied and bucked, but Detraeus held his position, leaning into its body and aiming for the rhamidon’s feet as soon as he had a clean shot. Between his hastar’s quick footing and the fact that the beast was already injured from whatever fight they’d walked in on, he managed to down it quickly, dropping its massive weight to the ground and leaving it nothing but a sack of waiting meat.

Then, Araceli disappeared.

Detraeus felt his pulse spike, panic rippling through his blood as the winds picked up and Ara became nothing but a blur of whirling dust and sand. A tornado soon also filled with a second cah. He snarled, driving his hastar forward hard, but it pranced around the tornadoes edges, refusing to move in too close, and he didn’t dare shoot an arrow blindly into her wind. Helpless to aid her, he took out his anger on the remaining visible cah, sticking it with twice as many arrows as need be and then lopping off the ‘heads’ of it with his blade on a sidelong pass. On the backswing, as the cah fell into a lifeless lump of meat and exoskeleton, his hastar cried out, blance temporarily disrupted as the previously steady earth beneath it folded in, cracking, and falling.

“Woah, woah, woah,” he cautioned, pulling back on the reins and guiding the half-panicked beast into a careful backwards trot as more of the earth crumpled inwards ahead of them, but not — thankfully — beneath their feet. It seemed to be a narrow section of an old urshund tunnel, the sides ridged and hardened by excretions from the beast, but surely long abandoned. It looked to span an extended distance in both directions beneath them, but other than the original cave in area, seemed largely intact.

Detraeus was distracted from further investigation by the sound of Araceli crying out, and he whipped his beast around, moving immediately for the tornado. By the time he arrived, the winds were dying, and Ara was collapsed to her knees. Detraeus’ gut clenched at the sight of blood and he dismounted without a second thought gritting his teeth at the stab of pain that shot up his leg — wound almost certainly reopening — but he paid it no mind, staggering forward regardless and dropping to her side.

“Are you poisoned? Ara, are you—”