Harlen smiled to her. "I can honestly say I can't believe it either." He said. "But now, I'll have fodder for dreams for years."
Her blush deepened to near crimson. "It cannot have been that special, Harlen." She said, avoiding his eyes.
He looked at her, enjoying her minor discomfiture. "While the view may not have been that special in and of itself, the setting it was in made it all the more." He said, wondering if he had said that the way he wanted to.
She grinned. "You flatter me." She said. "But now, I wish to cook." She went to the small pile of wood and got it lit. Checking behind her every so often and only catching Harlen staring at her backside about half the time. She had to admit she enjoyed the attention.
Harlen could not believe what he had just seen, and was still trying to calm down his pounding heart. Hyandai was exquisite beyond any other woman he had ever seen, and to have seen her thus had made him hard enough to have driven nails with his organ. He spent several minutes trying to get his body under control, but kept looking back at her half-exposed rump. She even saw him a couple of times, which made him even more skittish, as she seemed to not mind him looking.
The smell of cooking rabbit meat soon started filling the little cave, and Harlen's mouth started to water a second time.
She rose from her rather exposing position with a half a rabbit impaled on his small skinning knife. "This portion is done." She announced, then took a healthy bite from its leg.
Harlen took the rabbit half from her and said. "It's missing a bit, just here." He said, pointing at the small missing half-circle.
Hyandai looked at it carefully, and then asked. "You want it back?" She opened her mouth, revealing the masticated meat.
He looked at her with mock horror. "No, you can keep that bit, then." Which caused her to giggle profusely and almost loose the morsel anyway. She returned to the small fire and turned the other half.
"I shall let you take a bit of my thigh." She said, pulling the rabbit from the spit, standing, then turning to see Harlen's face trying, and miserably failing, to be completely blank. She smiled and held up the half rabbit. "My RABBIT'S thigh, you scoundrel."
Harlen burst out with laughter. She let it wash over her. He did not seem the sort to laugh often, so she felt she had achieved something of worth when she caused him to. Finally, he stopped and asked. "Are elven men so crude?" The little crinkles at the corners of his eyes were still there, and his smile was wide.
She shook her head. "No, they tend to be cruder, and many of the boys I knew at home would have said something, rather than just look stunned." She held up her rabbit to let him take a bite, and he took one, a huge one. "Hey!" She exclaimed. "That was a larger portion than I took." She smiled at him watching him try to chew the huge mouthful. She looked at her maimed half-rabbit. "Anyway, I am glad it was not MY thigh."
Harlen's eyes started to water and she feared he might choke. Then he swallowed with great difficulty. He nodded his head and made a ring of his index finger and thumb. "Excellent timing, m'lady." He said. "Almost got me to blow rabbit meat out of my nose."
She forced her face into complete blandness. "Something to strive for, I am sure." She said, and then could not help but smile a little.
They finished their rabbit in quiet, only occasionally saying something to one another, mainly him complimenting her cooking. The rabbit was done without being burnt, but with just the right singing on the surface, he told her.
They extinguished the fire, and sat facing one another. "Well, what now?" Harlen asked.
She looked at him. "You do not have something you need to do?" She asked him. "You seem to always have a project or two."
"I do." He said. "But most of my 'projects' are at home, in Morrovale."
She nodded. "I see. You are wanting to go home." She said, her face growing slightly unhappy.
He looked on with alarm. "I wish it were otherwise, m'lady." He said. "But I only have a little more provision and people in town will be wondering at my absence before long." He looked almost panic-stricken. "I hadn't thought of this. But what are your plans m'lady?"
Hyandai had not thought of it, either. "I do not know." She said, suddenly worried. If she went back to Windir, she would likely never see Harlen again. If she stayed with Harlen, she may never see Windir again. She was suddenly torn between her people and the possibility that she was falling in love. "Harlen, please, sit with me." She said, sitting on the little cot.
Harlen looked worried, but sat. "What is it?" He asked.
"I was sent out from Windir for a reason." She said. "My family sent myself and Eleean to regain a lost heirloom of my clan." Her voice grew quiet. "According to the seer, Salanae. I am the one who must go recover it."
Harlen looked blankly. "Was that why you were with Eleean?" He asked.
She nodded. "My betrothal to Eleean was an arranged thing. He was training to become a blade dancer, and he was to earn the rights to the blade we sought. "But the seer said that only my betrothed would wield it." She shrugged. "I suppose we paid now the price of our folly in trying to force ourselves into a foretelling, rather than letting it happen naturally." She sighed. "Now, I should probably return to Windir, and let my clan know what has happened.
His voice had a slight quaver in it when he said. "Can I come with you?" When she looked, there were tears in his eyes, ready to fall.
Hers fell first. "No." She said. "They would never allow you to enter the wood." Her tears rolled freely now. "The few they allow are people they already know and trust."
Harlen sniffed a little. "Then we will go to my village until you are fully healed, then we will go to the border of your land and, there, say goodbye."
"It will probably happen so, then." She said, standing. "We can travel to your village on the morrow, then." She looked at him. "Unless it is very far."
"Only about ten miles." Harlen said. "It will only take us about four hours to walk there."
She nodded. "Very well."
They spoke little the remainder of that day, Hyandai was saddened at the thought of leaving this man she was just now beginning to know. Harlen was saddened because he felt he was losing the only woman he wanted to know. The evening was spent making ready to leave the cave. She looked around and it felt like home, as homely as it was. She really wished they could stay in the little cave, just the two of them, forever. She knew that would not happen, and eventually, she would have to give in to the needs of her clan.
She crawled into the cot that night and waited for Harlen to join her. He did not. Finally, she sat up. "Harlen? Are you going to sleep?"
He was sitting on one of the chests. "I will sleep alone tonight, on the floor, m'lady." He said.
Her eyes fell, along with her heart. "If you wish it so." And she laid back down.
She heard, very faintly, and would not have, had she been human, his whisper. "If my wishes were granted, you wouldn't be leaving me." She turned toward the wall, and wept silently. A few moments later, He pouched the light stone and the room was cast into darkness. She turned over and watched him. He sat on a blanket on the floor, and took off his boots. Tears were rolling down his face. She saw his sadness, and felt the clutching in her chest told her what he might be feeling. He did not lay down, he simply sat there and cried, for over an hour. Every tear she saw fall past his chin was matched by her own.
Finally, she said. "Harlen, please come to me." Her voice quavered and she hated the sound of it.
"Why?" He asked, and there was some venom in his tone. "So I can love you more before you leave?" His voice was a mix of anger and sadness. "So I can feel your body, and your touch, and your soul, then loose all contact with them?" The hostility in his voice frightened her. "No, thank you, m'lady, but I think I shall spare myself those kind gifts."
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