Status: Active

Chain Mail and Butterfly Wings

Mountains

By the time Aiden and I had stopped to lay down in the dirt and call it camp, my head was pounding and my legs pulsing in protest to my movement. Why was I moving in such a horrible state? Easy, we were on the run. Yeah, not just Aiden anymore, but both of us were running, he was probably running from death, while I was most likely running from exile at the most.

I fell heavily onto the dirt with a sigh of relief. We didn’t bother starting a fire, since we weren’t about to give the bandits a clue to our whereabouts. I could hardly remember the bandits though, I was more focused on sleep than anything else.

“Night Aiden,” I called softly, as if he was already asleep, or someone might be listening.

“Night,” I heard him call back, although I could only catch a glimpse of his lumpy silhouette.

My eyes fell shut, and I was instantly asleep.

_____________________________________________________

When I awoke it was amazingly still night time, how long had I been asleep? An hour? Two maybe? I sat up shivering, heaving a breath and scowling when I saw it pass through the air and disappear. I should have expected it to get colder once we actually got into the mountains, but my mind was preoccupied by other things.

“J-Jesus,” I stuttered quietly to myself, rubbing my hands up and down my arms frantically. I recalled reading somewhere that this actually made you colder, but I didn’t care, I didn’t mind deluding myself if I felt even slightly warmer at that moment. But I didn’t, if anything I got colder.

Of course we would lose our blankets to a bunch of bandit only earlier that night, you know, the one night that it’s freezing ass cold. Lady Luck strikes again.

I shivered again and moved my reluctant body closer to where Aiden was sleeping. I wasn’t quite sure what I was thinking when I did this, maybe that some of his body heat might reach me if I was just a few feet away from him. Once I got about ten feet away from him I curled up in a ball and waited.



…Yeah, that was a stupid idea. I wasn’t the slightest bit warmer. I heard my teeth chattering and clenched them together, although I couldn’t keep myself from shivering more. All I had on now was a tattered guard shirt and the shirt Aiden had given to me, which had a tear in the side and was caked stiff with my own blood, then, of course my black cotton pants and heavy leather boots.

I turned my head toward my hands and breathed on them before rubbing them harshly together. Hey…was that helping? I breathed on my hands again and rubbed them together eagerly.

“You know that actually makes you colder, right?” I jumped when I heard Aiden’s voice and sat up instantly as a reaction.

Oh, that’s right, the other tactic actually did help, the one I was using now was the one that was a delusion. Great, just when I thought it was working.

“Oh. Y-you’re awake,” I murmured, embarrassed that he must have realized I had moved.

“Yeah, you really don’t move too gracefully when you’re cold,” Aiden teased and I blushed…hey, my face was warmer! I smiled to myself, but that distracted me from my embarrassment and my face was instantly colder again…Damn.

“S-sorry. I didn’t m-mean to w-wake you up.” I scowled to myself, cursing him for talking normally while my shivering prevented me from doing so.

I realized now that Aiden was sitting up too, my eyes were adjusted well enough that I could see his arms were resting on his knees as he looked at me. His amber colored eyes almost seemed to glow. I shook the thought away while reminding myself that he was getting married and looked at the ground instead.

Aiden ignored my apology and instead started on another topic that wasn’t too far off, “You know, you sound really cold.”

“I kn-know,” I replied sarcastically, rolling my eyes. I thought that was pretty obvious.

“I could…you know…help with that,” Aiden said quietly.

I felt my face get hot again--ah, sweet warmth--and shook my head once without thinking, “No w-way. Re-remember rule t-two?” I asked, although my brain was yelling at me to take the offer that I knew was right around the corner, anything to get warmer.

“Come on Angel, you’re gonna freeze to death. Just let me help,” Aiden replied sharply, actually sounding serious rather than flat out eager for any contact with me.

“I’m f-fine,” I replied stubbornly, cursing my shivering for taking the meaning out of my words.

“I don’t care what you say, I’m coming over there,” Aiden stated firmly and rose to his feet.

“H-hey! S-stay over th-there,” I warned, nervousness now adding to my shivering stammer. I didn’t move though, since my little dirt patch had warmed up slightly since I had been laying there, I wasn’t about to give it up for a chance to be even warmer.

Aiden kneeled in front of me and opened his arms wide. “Come on, Angel, you want to be warmer don’t you?” he prodded, waiting for me to respond.

Just do it you idiot! This is your chance! The selfish voice in my head commanded. Then the logical part of my brain added, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a matter of surviving. Neither of my internal counterparts were helping me refuse his offer.

“D-damn it. F-f-fine.” I shuffled closer to Aiden, but didn’t throw myself at him as he was probably hoping.

Once I was within arms reach, Aiden reached out and put his arms around me, pulling me closer to him so that I was practically in his lap. I was still shivering, but I was also noticeably warmer the moment I was in his arms. As much as it pained me to admit it. Reluctantly, I leaned my head against his chest, warming up my face twice as much because of his body heat and the inevitable blush on my face.

“There, not so unpleasant is it?” Aiden scoffed with a soft chuckle.

“I g-guess not,” I muttered embarrassedly.

“See, you’ve already stopped shivering for the most part,” Aiden added, and I felt his warm breath on my neck, which told me he was looking down when he spoke.

“Thanks,” I murmured, my first normal word since I had woken up. “Why aren’t you c-cold?” Damn, the stutter was still there.

“I don’t know, I guess I’m wearing more layers than you. And I just do better in the cold, better than you anyway,” Aiden explained vaguely and I scowled, although he couldn’t see it.

I exhaled and frowned when I saw my breath still and cursed the cold for my awkward situation. “How long until we reach the other s-side?” I asked. Ha, less of a stutter that time, success!

“Longer than expected, maybe two more days, then another two until we reach Castle Reloir,” Aiden replied thoughtfully, it sounded like he was looking straight ahead now.

“How long has it been?” I wondered aloud, smiling to myself when I noticed my stutter had been omitted from my last sentence.

“How long?” Aiden sounded curious about my question.

“Yeah. Since I left Castle Burdock. How long have we been traveling?” I had honestly lost count of the days.

Aiden let out a thoughtful breath, which grazed the top of my head--was he looking at me again? There was a small silence and then he finally replied, “I think, six days and seven nights, so about eleven days.”

I blinked in confusion, that made no sense. “What?”

“Well, for you and me, our nights might as well be part of our days. So, we’ve known each other for about eleven days,” Aiden clarified with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Oh,” was all I said, thinking back to my question which was referring to how long we had been traveling. Which rose an internal question: What was Aiden thinking about? I shook the question away and let my eyes fall shut. Not only was Aiden warmer than the ground, but he was more comfortable too, I could already feel myself falling asleep.

So we had known each other for about a week--in reality, not by Aiden’s strange standards--and yet our position now didn’t seem as awkward as it probably should have been. Ugh, I think too much.

I found myself counting Aiden’s breaths, with each intake of air I found myself closer to sleep.

_____________________________________________________

The next time I awoke was when the sun was shining, the birds were hiding and the snow was glistening…wait…snow?

I jolted upright and first found out that I had no idea where I was. I assessed the situation quickly and discovered I was under a small oak tree, mostly sheltered from the snow, but still pretty cold. Aiden must have moved me once it had begun to snow. Everything was less familiar now that the snow covered the scenery.

I looked around me and found that Aiden was sleeping just beside me, although we made no physical contact whatsoever. I was glad that I wasn’t shivering yet, but it was only a matter of time, I knew. More importantly, I couldn’t seem to pull my eyes away from Aiden’s face, it was absolutely adorable, and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking so.

This is only day eight, I told myself firmly, although I was still watching him. I donot fall in love with guys in eight days, I pointed out sharply, and finally pulled my eyes away from him. And I certainly don’t fall in love withAiden in eight days, I retorted with a small snort of confirmation with myself.

Why not? The more selfish voice in my head demanded and then added, What’s not to love? He’s handsome, kind, caring, confident--I shook my head to get rid of this traitorous voice and groaned when I realized I had a headache, as a result of my blood loss the night before.

I had to look back to Aiden when something glinted in the hazy sunlight from around his neck. I frowned and leaned closer to him. I found the source of the shininess: A thick silver chain was poking out from beneath Aiden’s shirt. Carefully I reached over with steady fingers and lifted the chain so that the necklace was on the outside of his shirt. A pang of sadness washed through me, but it was illogical, it made no sense to be sad at seeing what hung on the thick silver chain: A simple golden ring. A wedding ring.

I bit back a curse to be aimed at myself for being nosy, and tucked the chain back into his shirt, maybe a little too harshly, because Aiden’s eyes snapped open and locked onto me in alarm.

He didn’t get to move before I leaned away and threw my hands up in surrender, “Hey, hey, just me,” I pointed out quickly, before he could pull out the dagger he had stolen from me.

Aiden smiled when he realized who I was, “Oh, Angel, I was just having the most wonderful dream, you finally--” He cut off his sentence when I glared at him. “Erm…you finally cooked me a meal that didn’t taste like ash?” he offered with a cheesy grin.

I rolled my eyes, and dismissed his terrible attempt to fix his sentence. “Hey, you try cooking a rabbit with out a spit.” I retorted, pretending to ignore what he had begun to say at first.

He wasdreaming about you! The selfish voice in my head squealed in excitement, but I could only scowl at the thought. Never did I want to be the subject of one of his dreams, whatever perverted thing they might be about.

Aiden shrugged and responded to my statement with nothing but a handsome smirk.

“Was this where we camped last night?” I asked, although I knew the answer.

“No,” Aiden replied simply. “Once it started snowing, I decided to find shelter, it’s not that easy to do in the mountains either,” he added feigning annoyance. “You know, you aren’t the easiest thing to carry around the mountains either. You’re kinda heavy.” I raised my eyebrows in surprise, did Aiden just call me fat?

He noticed the surprise on my face and realized his mistake. “No, no! That’s not what I meant! I meant, because of your chain mail, really Angel, not just you being fat.”

That didn’t sound much better, so a frown joined my surprise. So it was my fatness and the chain mail combined that made me heavy then?

Aiden scrambled quickly to his feet, getting flustered for about the first time in his entire life it seemed. “No, no, no, that’s not right either! I mean, your chain mail is heavy. Not you.” He calmed down slightly, feeling as if he’d straightened out his blunder.

I could hardly keep from smiling at his eagerness to keep me from being mad at him. But I didn’t say anything, which seemed to worry him. “Aww man, you’re not mad at me, are you Angel?” Aiden asked with the most convincing expression of sadness that I had ever seen.

That was it, I couldn’t keep from laughing, which only confused Aiden more. He cocked his head to one side now, thoroughly lost. “What’s so funny?” He demanded, although he was smiling too.

“I haven’t said a single word for the past minute and you’ve been jumping to conclusions. It was hilarious,” I explained, still smiling but no longer laughing. “Are you really that worried about me being mad at you?” I asked, now standing up as well.

Aiden smirked at my explanation, clearly happy to simply know that I wasn’t upset with him. “Of course I don’t want you mad at me Angel, you may not realize it, but you’re damn scary when you’re mad.” He only grinned when I glared at him. “Oh, crap, I just swore in front of a lady. See what you did now, Angel? You really should act more girly, then I won’t have this problem,” he teased and strode out from the cover of the ratty oak tree.

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, can we just get walking? I’d prefer to get to Castle Reloir sooner rather than later.” I followed after him and we began hiking up a nearby mound of rocks, which led up to a mildly steep hill.

“Whatever makes you happy my dear Angel,” Aiden said over his shoulder and grinned back at me as if he could feel my glare on his back.

Did that qualify as flirting?

Who cares? Part of me asked, and I dismissed it as teasing. If that was really the case then Aiden teased me a lot.

I kept these thoughts from my mind and focused on something more positive, I had plenty of energy today, which means I had slept long enough and my headache was already beginning to disappear.
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American Idol this year for me = Lee DeWyze ftw! =D