Rhapsody was gathering sticks and peat for the campfire she had started. “Is that something you’d like to do tonight?”
“Are you offering?” His tone was suggestive.
“Well,” she said, bending over and picking up more fallen branches, “I think it can be arranged. After I get the fire going I’ll hunt around and see if I can find you some small rodents for supper.” She went about her gathering chore, and unconsciously began to whistle. A moment later Ashe recognized the tune. It was a hymn to the ancient harvest goddess, a song from the old land.
She was Cymrian; he was virtually certain of it. Ashe decided to try something else. He thought about the languages she would have used in the old world if she really was Cymrian, but his knowledge of Ancient Lirin was limited. He decided to try one comment in the archaic Lirin tongue first, then one in Old Cymrian. He waited until he could see her face on the other side of the fire.
“You know, Rhapsody, I find you extremely attractive,” he said in the dead language Lirin language, then shifted into the tongue of the Cymrians. “I really love to watch you bend over.” She gave him a strange look, but she said nothing, and the dragon did not sense any blood rise to her face in a blush. The furrow in her brow seemed more extreme at his first comment than his second; perhaps she had lived in a Lirin village, or a meadow longhouse, where the only language spoken was the Lirin tongue. He tried again.
“And you have the most incredible backside,” he said, waiting to see the reaction. She turned to gather more peat, and fed it to the fire, seeming to grow annoyed.
“I don’t understand you,” she said, glaring at him through the smoke. “Please stop babbling at me.” She heard him sigh as he returned to unpacking the utensils, waiting until his back was turned to allow the smile to take over her face. Tahn, Rhapsody, evet marva hidion—Listen without rancor, Rhapsody, I think you are a beautiful magnet. Abria, jirist hyst ovetis bec—I love to watch you squat. Kwelster evet re marya—you have the most beautiful muffins. It was all she could do to keep from choking with laughter. While his Old Cymrian was not too far off, his knowledge of Ancient Lirin was even more limited than he knew. And she spoke the truth, as always. She didn’t understand him at all.
They had taken to sitting shorter, more frequent watches, mostly because of her nightmares. After an hour or so of deep sleep, Rhapsody would invariably begin to toss and turn, muttering under her breath, sometimes crying, sometimes gasping as she woke in shock. Ashe wished he could comfort her when these dreams occurred, and thought often about waking her gently to save her from them, but he knew that she was probably prescient. If she was seeing visions of the Future it might be important to allow her to do so, no matter what it cost her. So he sat in frustrated sorrow and watched her suffer through the nights, sleeping lightly, to wake, trembling.
They spoke little during the day. It was the evening that eased the tensions and facilitated conversation. Darkness cloaked the forest; its sounds increased, along with the crackling of the fire and the whispering of the wind in the trees, so difficult to hear in the daylight. By day words seemed as though they were held up to the light, and so were used very little. The night hid them, made them safer, and so it was then Rhapsody and Ashe were able to exchange them.
They were but a few days out from their destination. Ashe had said they would make Elynsynos’s lair by week’s end. There was still a wide river to cross, and many more leagues to travel, but they were within reach.
There was a loneliness in the air that night. They had been walking in the forest so long that it was hard to recall when they were not surrounded by trees. Rhapsody’s sunset devotions seemed to be swallowed by the forest canopy, as if the songs themselves were suddenly too heavy to soar to the stars. She sat now on the rise of a small forest hill, watching those stars appear in the twilight one by one, to duck again behind the passing clouds that swallowed them intermittently. It put Rhapsody in mind of tiny minnows, their scales twinkling in the water of a dark lake, pursued by misty white predatory fish that consumed them and moved on.
“Rhapsody?” Ashe’s voice broke her solitude. She turned in the direction of her shadowy companion. He was sitting at the fire’s edge, its light flickering off his misty cloak, wrapping him in haze.
“Yes?”
“Do you feel safe here with me?”
She considered for a moment. “As safe as I do anywhere, I suppose.”
The hooded figure looked up. “What does that mean?” His voice was soft, almost gentle.
Rhapsody looked into the sky again. “I guess I don’t remember what feeling safe feels like.”
Ashe nodded, and went back to his thoughts. A moment later he spoke again.
“Is it because of the dreams?”
Rhapsody pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Partly.”
“Are you afraid of meeting Elynsynos?”
She smiled slightly. “A little.”
Ashe picked up the kettle and poured himself another mug of tea. As if to | make up for his rude behavior earlier in the trip, he was now drinking most of the pot over the course of a night, which she found amusing. “I could go in with you, if it would help.”
Rhapsody thought about it, then shook her head. “I don’t think that would be wise, but thank you.”
“Have you ever felt safe?” He took a sip from the mug.
“Yes, but not for a long time.”
Ashe thought about asking her what he wanted to know directly, but decided against it. “When?”
Rhapsody inched a little closer to the fire. She was feeling chilled suddenly and pulled her cloak around her shoulders.
“When I was still a young girl, I guess, before I ran away from home.”
Ashe nodded. “Why did you run away?”
She looked up at him sharply. “Why does anyone run away? I was stupid and thoughtless and selfish; especially selfish.”
He knew of other reasons people did. “And were you beautiful as a young girl?”
Rhapsody laughed. “Gods, no. And my brothers told me so constantly.” Ashe laughed too, in spite of himself. “That’s a brother’s main job, keeping his sister in line.”
“Do you have sisters?”
There was a long silence. “No,” he finally answered. “So you were a late bloomer?”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Isn’t that the term for a girl who was, well, not beautiful as a child but becomes beautiful as a woman?”
Rhapsody looked at him strangely. “You think I’m beautiful?”
Beneath his hood Ashe smiled. “Of course. Don’t you?”
She shrugged. “Beauty is a matter of opinion. I suppose I like the way I look, or at least I’m comfortable with it. It never really mattered to me whether other people did or not.”
“That’s a very Lirin attitude.”
“Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m Lirin.”
Ashe let loose a humorous sigh. “I suppose this means that telling you you’re beautiful is not a way to get into your good graces.”
She ran a hand absently over her hair. “No, not really. It makes me uncomfortable, especially if you don’t mean it.”
“Why would you think I don’t mean it?”
“There seem to be quite a few people in these parts that think I’m odd-looking or freakish, but that doesn’t really bother me most of the time.”
“What? That’s ridiculous.” Ashe put down his empty mug.
“It is not ridiculous. I have to endure strange glances and curious looks more often than you might think. If you saw me walk down a street, you’d see what I mean.”
Ashe wasn’t sure whether to be amused or annoyed at her lack of grasp of the obvious. “Rhapsody, haven’t you noticed that men follow you when you’re walking down that street?”