Chain Mail and Butterfly Wings

Three days had passed since I had decided to follow Aiden, of course I still had no idea where he was even going, which posed a problem for me. But he was as good of company as I could have hoped for. There never seemed to be awkward silences between us, since Aiden was quick to fill them with his confessions of his undying love for me. That always gave me a laugh, although Aiden was never quite sure what I was laughing about.

“A-ngel…” Aiden whined as he trailed behind me, as he often did when I refused to stop and rest as he suggested. Once we were far enough away from Castle Burdock he felt less obligated to walk through the night.

“What?” I asked, although I didn’t turn as he walked beside me.

“Can’t we stop for one, teeny-weeny rest? My legs are tired,” he complained.

I sighed, that was the fourth time he’d proposed that we stop within the past ten minutes. “Why are you so eager to rest, anyway? Don’t you have to be somewhere important? Otherwise I doubt you would’ve walked straight through the night when you stole that horse.”

“That was different," Aiden stated firmly. “We were way too close to the castle, no doubt your precious general is out looking for me even now.” He spun in a tight circle, right in the middle of my path and thus, forcing me to stop. “Look,” he pointed to the horizon where the sun was just going down, “it’s already sunset, a perfect time to set up camp.”

“By set up camp you mean start a fire and lay in the dirt? No thanks, I’d rather keep walking and delay the inevitable.” I shouldered past him, but he spun again so that he was blocking my path.

“Not tonight,” Aiden said in a sing-song voice, poking my shoulder with a smirk of satisfaction when I looked at him skeptically.

I frowned in confusion. “Why not?” I asked, although I wasn’t exactly disappointed at the change.

“Remember that village we passed through?” I nodded and he continued, “Well I took the liberty of buying some camping supplies.” Aiden’s smirk widened into a full on smile when he saw my face light up.

“No sleeping in the dirt tonight?” I asked, unable to keep my face straight.

Aiden shook his head and said, “And I think setting up a tent would be easier to do with at least a little bit of light.”

With that said, we left the main road and trekked off into the woods, making sure we were out of sight sufficiently before actually setting up. I was a little embarrassed that I hadn’t noticed the mound of blankets and the tent that Aiden had been packing with him, but he didn’t mention it, so I soon forgot about it.

Once the tent was set up and the fire made, we stood back to admire our work. The tent was unstable at best, but I was willing to sleep in it, even though it didn’t keep me from lying in the dirt, I figured the blankets would keep any dirt off of me. I paused, ignoring what ever Aiden had been saying and then said myself, “Wait a minute. You only got one tent?”

Aiden smiled crookedly. “Well, I thought one tent would be enough, and safer too.” He was lying through his teeth, I knew exactly why he only got one tent and glared at him for it.

“Safer? How could having two tents be dangerous?” I scoffed.

“Well, if a bear wandered into your tent, how would I be able to save you? I’d be tangled up in my own tent,” Aiden reasoned simply.

“And if a bear wandered into our one tent? How do you plan on saving me then?” I asked skeptically, now sitting by the fire.

Aiden sat next to me and replied, “Why, isn’t it obvious? I’d scream like a girl until it ran away. Bears don’t like loud noises, you know,” he said knowledgably.

I laughed at the mental picture I had created of Aiden screaming like a girl while a bear scampered off into the forest. It was a pretty damn funny picture. “Alright, we’ll see how that works out then,” I said with a lasting snicker.

“So you don’t mind sharing a tent?” Aiden questioned with hopefully raised brows.

I snorted. “Yeah right, you can sleep in the tent, I’ll sleep by the fire.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a great idea, it’s going to be really windy tonight,” Aiden stated.

“I’ll take my chances with the wind.”

Aiden shrugged, “Suit yourself, but I’m not giving you any of my blankets.” With that last heartfelt word of chivalry, Aiden disappeared into the tent with an armful of blankets, that he was apparently intent on keeping to himself.

I gathered my own blankets and laid them out beside the fire and yawned once before crawling into them. Granted, the ground wasn’t that comfortable, but it was still more comfortable now that I had blankets and a pillow. When I looked up at the stars from my back the treetops were motionless. “Windy”, my ass, I thought with a sigh of contentment. I was asleep before I knew it.

___________________________________________________________

I woke up shivering in the middle of the night and sat bolted upright. A gust of wind flung my hair in every direction and I scrambled with my hands to make it possible for me to see. When I looked around I found that the fire was out and smoldering while my blankets were a few feet away from me in the dirt. No wonder I was cold.

I hurried over to my blankets, scooped them in my arms, bent to get my pillow and almost fell over when another gust of wind assaulted me. I jogged over to the tent in a groggy state, I hesitated then called over the rustle of tree branches, “Aiden!”

No Answer.

“Aiden damn it, you better not sleep in the nude!” I called before pushing my way through the flaps that served as a door for the tent, prepared to shield my eyes from any unsightly visions of Aiden.

Once I was inside the wind seemed to stop altogether, and I glanced around in awe when I saw that the tent wasn’t even phased by the howling winds. Did he get some sort of tent spelled for wind protection? I finally looked down see that Aiden was sprawled out in the dead center of the tent, leaving no room for me to set down my own blankets.

I nudged him with my toe and he grunted, but didn’t emerge from his cocoon of blankets. Which posed an interesting question: Did he have more blankets than me?

I nudged him again, a little harder this time, “Aiden. Aiden, get up, you’re hogging the tent,” I complained quietly, for some reason talking like I might accidentally wake him up. That was my intention, after all.

“Muh,” was his only reply.

Thwack! I hit him into coherency.

“Ow!” Aiden sat completely upright now, glaring at my legs before finally figuring out where my face was to glare at that instead. “What?” he asked sleepily, obviously disgruntled at his awakening.

“Move over. You’re hogging the tent,” I repeated more loudly now that he was awake.

“What? Oh, sorry…” he grumbled and stood up quickly, dragging his blankets to the side before falling back into them with a grunt.

I felt the blood rush to my face when I realized he was shirtless. I looked quickly down at the area that he cleared and dropped my blankets there, then my pillow. “Thanks,” I murmured, laying on my opposite side so that my red face was even harder to see, even with the dark as a cover it felt like he could see me.

“N‘oblem…” Aiden’s reply was muffled by the pillow he had buried his face in.
I tried to immediately go to sleep but Aiden’s lack of a shirt kept my mind buzzing with embarrassing thoughts of whether or not he had “washboard abs”.

When my thoughts finally quieted, I felt my eyelids getting heavier and sleep was definitely approaching. But that tiredness didn’t last long before Aiden’s arm draped over my side and I felt his warm breath on the back of my neck. I forgot to breathe for a moment, but remembered at the same exact moment that I bolted upright and whirled to stare at him.

Instantly he pulled his arm back and stared back at me with wide eyes for a moment, then he smirked, wiping the expression from his face. “Oh, sorry Angel, I didn’t think you were awake,” he spoke quietly.

“What? So if I’m asleep it’s alright to grope me?” I demanded in a fierce whisper.

“Sorry, sorry.” Aiden put his hands up in surrender. “I won’t do it again. Promise.” His hands fell behind his back and I eyed him suspiciously.

“God help you if you do,” I threatened, before falling back on my pillow, this time I made it a goal of mine to face him, although my face was still a little red from the recent encounter.

Only when he flipped around and didn’t move for several minutes did I allow my eyes to fall shut again. For some reason the side I was laying on wasn’t comfortable enough, so, with a reproachful glance at Aiden, I flipped over onto my other side again, glanced at Aiden once more and let my eyes fall shut.

Not a minute later I heard Aiden scooting around in his blankets and opened my eyes immediately, I didn’t turn to look at him, lest I find that he was just getting more comfortable and I would just look paranoid. His fingertips trailed my jaw line and then the part of my neck that wasn’t covered by my hair. I shuddered and then that was when I jolted upright again, glaring at him instantly. “Not much of a promise keeper are you?” I reprimanded, still glaring at him.

Aiden grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, I crossed my fingers…and your skin just looked too soft to resist.”

“That’s it.” I stood up and left the tent.

“Oh come on Angel, I was just kidding. You can’t sleep out in that wind.” When I didn’t answer him, Aiden appeared in the doorway of the tent, watching me curiously as he realized I was searching for something. “What are you doing?”

I groped along the ground until my fingers passed over a stick, I grabbed it and pushed past him in the tent, ignoring the fact that one of my hands had touched his perfect abs as I passed. I kicked his blankets to the side so that they were in a heap in the farthest corner of the tent.

“Hey! I had those just how I liked them,” Aiden whined, stalking over to his blankets to set them straight again.

While he fussed with his blankets I used my trusty stick to draw a distinguishable line in the dirt. I pointed at my line and waited until Aiden squinted to see it better. “A line?” he inquired finally, a sound of amusement in his tone.

“Yes. More specifically, my line. If you cross my line one more time tonight, I will be forced to take drastic measures. And I’m being nice right now, I could restrict you much more,” I pointed out, considering I had split the tent evenly down the middle.

“You mean if I do this,” he put his foot on my side of the line and then pulled it back again when I swatted at it with my stick, “you’re going to do something about it?” He sounded completely amused by my new system.

I erased my line and redrew it, this time a little bit less even, so that I had more space than Aiden. “Do it again and you’ll lose even more space,” I warned.

Aiden frowned. “What? I probably need more space than you! I’m taller and…and…just all around bigger!” he complained, hardly keeping his voice from a whine.

“Should have thought of that before you crossed my line then,” I pointed out cheerily while crawling back into my own blankets.

“Aw, Angel, come on!” He full on whined that time.

“Can’t hear you, there’s too much space between us,” I said in a nonchalant tone, although I could hardly keep from snickering.

“What if you get cold in the middle of the night? I could warm you up!” Aiden reasoned, from where his voice came from I could tell he was still standing up, and still on his side of the line.

“I’ll be fine, thanks, I have my own body heat,” I replied, still in a cheery mood. I might have been on a little bit of a power trip. “G’night Aiden,” I added, glancing over my shoulder only slightly to see that he fell grumpily onto his own blankets.

“Night,” he said, feigning grouchiness.

I slept perfectly throughout the remainder of the night.