“Should we stock up before we leave?” I wondered aloud. “Maybe make a fire bundle?”

Taryn, who had seated next to me, looked up from the half-eaten fish in his hands. He studied the lay of the land as though it was enough to answer the question. An urge to press onward could be felt through our connection, a need to get back home and away from this unknown place.

“Lets just scavenge while we travel,” Taryn tossed the remains of his fish toward the ocean.

Always such an idiot.

“We can’t just abandon a spot where we have access to food!” I somehow managed to not yell at him, my hands quivering as I kept in the anger that had flared up. “What if we head north and there are no fishing spots? We have no idea what we’ll find or how long it’ll take us!”

Taryn leaned away from me as I spoke my mind, his gaze never once stopping on my face for more than a split second. Instead he kept glancing to the left or the right as though desperate for some means of escape. His hands lifted up to make a plea for me to stop, though I paid little attention to it.

“I thought Alise took you around and taught you how to survive, how could you be so irresponsible!”

“We never really talked about that stuff,” Taryn admitted with a shrug of his shoulders. “It was mostly how to stab things until they stopped moving.”

I let out a long sigh while I cradled my head in my hands. The beginning of a headache had begun to creep up on me and I could only hope it was due to dealing with Taryn, and not something related to the near drowning I had suffered.

“Look, if we just abandon this spot it could take over a week to reach the harbor.”

“Over a week? I thought we were already pretty far north before the ship went under?”

“Gods you really don’t know much,” I grumbled at the thought of how sheltered he had been. “According to my lessons the size of this continent is so large it’s still unknown. Every ship that tried to sail around it has vanished.”

“Sounds more like pirates got to them, or sea monsters,” Taryn brushed the sand off of his legs as he stood up. “The fish was good, thank you.”

“I would hope so since you ate two of them,” I let out a small laugh.

The atmosphere shifted, a tension in it that hadn’t been there a second ago, while Taryn’s attention turned toward the jungle. Even beneath the ravaged clothes he wore I could see a tensing of the muscles as he prepared for something unknown. It was not through my own ears but his that I picked out the noise of something as it rustled hurriedly through the underbrush.

Before it arrived I armed myself with two of the sticks that I had used for cooking the fish. Though it would offer little in the way of combat potential it was still a better weapon than my bare fists. While I stood there nearby Taryn and waited for the creature to appear I once again felt a longing for my shatterblade.

When it burst from the jungle I instinctively leapt away from our simple camp I had created. The beast that had emerged was at least twice the dimensions of a war horse. The beast was coated in short fur colored various green hues.

The faces of the monster, plural as it had two heads instead of one, called to memory a wolf. Each fang of the creature was more than large enough to rival a long dagger. Behind the beast a long tail flicked, a set of sharpened spikes visible near the very end of it.

Taryn made no move to pull out his sword, instead he took a fighting stance that I’d expect to see him take against a regular opponent. Though I could feel the uncertainty through our connection there was no hint of fear. Those green eyes of his glared at the hellhound with little regard for anything else around him, a confidence within that only helped to reinforce my own.

Before the creature could choose to attack I threw the stick in my left hand at it. The simple projectile let out a light whistle while it travelled through the air, before it was snapped in two mid-flight by the left head of the creature. An audible growl began to emit from both heads as two of the four eyes glared at me.

“Well that-” was what I started to say before the hound chose to attack.

Though it was a very large animal it moved with a speed that even I had a hard time following. A dash that took it from where it had emerged to right in front of me in a matter of two seconds. Both mouths of the hound opened up in an attempt to devour me.

What I did in response caught the creature by surprise, as the normal response for a prey is to either run or freeze. Instead I dove down below the open mouths, dangerously bypassing both jaws as well as the paws of the hound. When I hit the sand I twisted my body, ramming the stick in my hand into the soft underbelly.

The shaft pierced up into the belly easily enough, blood an immediate reply along with a howl of pain from the hound. While the blood spurted out from the fresh wound, coating my body from head to toe, the beast pulled away from me. As I still clung to the stick the wound opened up even worse while the hot liquid continued to shower onto me.

From behind the hound a figure darted into the blind spot of the distracted monster. When Taryn was within reach he thrust out with his right hand at the back leg. The sound of bone as it snapped could be heard over the painful baying of the wolf heads. Afraid it might fall onto me I abandoned the stick and rolled out from under my foe.

“Lily! Grab your stuff!” Taryn cried out to me in the midst of the fight, his eyes locked onto the hound. “We need to get out of here!”

My immediate thought was that he didn’t believe I could handle the fight, a thought that made me bristle inwardly. After a few seconds of internal raging I managed to figure out why he had called for a retreat. Like any wolf or dog the monster before me howled not only in pain, but with what sounded like a plea for help.

I chose not to argue with Taryn and ran for my clothing that I had left to dry. My hands moved quickly as I gathered and bundled up the ragged clothing. With that task handled I turned back to check on the situation, a hint of fear that something might have happened to Taryn tickling at my mind.

What I saw was that the right head of the hound had managed to turn around toward Taryn. When it attacked it turned out poorly as Taryn knocked the head aside with a backhand. Much like with the leg the sound of a bone as it cracked could be heard, though this time nothing splintered out from beneath the flesh.

I signaled to Taryn with my free hand before I began the long run northward. Behind the sound of the injured hound grew dimmer with every step. It was only when I could no longer hear the noise of the pained animal when I came to a stop, checking the south to make certain everything was alright.

Taryn had managed to stay close to me and also came to a stop, though his chest barely moved as he stood there. While I had been coated in the blood of the hound Taryn had somehow managed to make it through untouched. He had even managed to pick up my fishing spear, unruffled entirely by what should have been a tense and dangerous escape.

When Taryn looked at my body I could feel through our connection something that had only been a hint in the past, an emotion that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Every muscle I could see on his body tensed up while his eyes widened, and then he turned his gaze toward the south. I could sense an overload of emotions from Taryn, while he stood there and muttered quietly to himself.

It was then that a door slammed shut.

That is the only way I could describe that sensation, what had been similar to background noise you’d hear through an open door came to an end. It was an abrupt shift, one that was combined with the fact that I could no longer sense Taryn. It was not an absence of existence like when he had been knocked out, instead there was a block in the way. A door that had always been left open, whether he meant to or not.

Before I could ask him what had happened he gestured toward me. “Are you alright? Did you get hurt during the fight?”

“What? No, I’m fine, it’s all from that hound,” I tilted my head downward and looked at my body. Though I had lost quite a bit of the loose blood that had coated me enough remained that it looked like I was adorned in a crimson dress.

For a brief second I could understand why Taryn had worried about me, yet he continued to avoid looking directly at me. It was as though he was disgusted with me, a thought that caused my temper to flare back up. He had even shut me out from his mind, something he had never done before.

“Hold onto these for a second,” I ordered Taryn as I roughly tossed the bundle of clothing at him. “I need to get clean.”

I gave Taryn no chance to respond and instead strode toward the ocean. I waded out into the waves and dove in, disappearing beneath the calm surface. With strong kicks of my legs I pushed away from the coast before I turned my attention to the blood. The red stain came off readily enough as I scrubbed at it with my hands, a red cloud forming temporarily about my body.

When I emerged from the waters I threw my head back, my long hair arcing through the air before it slapped wetly against my back. I walked slowly out of the sea, my eyes turned skyward as I studied the placement of the sun.

“Lily,” Taryn once more held out my clothes to me, his eyes downcast even as he spoke with a strong tone. “We should get a move on.”

I nearly growled due to the way he had reacted to me. I stalked over to Taryn and leaned in as close as I could to him, my modest chest an obvious presence against his side. While he looked down at me with an indescribable expression I reached past him and plucked the fishing spear out of his other hand.

“Hold onto the clothes until I dry,” I ordered him, turning away before he could respond.

Without another word to Taryn I walked toward the north, the warmth of the sun a constant presence against my bare skin. Already I knew that by the end of the day I would have a sunburn. It had been during my legionnaire training on the sands that I had learned of my susceptibility to burns. I might have grown accustomed to the warm environment, but that sensation of my flesh as it burned was one I could never enjoy.

While we trekked to the north I paused every so often whenever we came across crabs. An easy enough source of food, I made certain to have Taryn collect as much as possible. Before long we had enough that I took back my clothing from Taryn so he’d have more room to hold it all. He even took off his shirt and began to use it like a makeshift bag, a distraction that helped to cool my temper.

Hours crept by and our progress had thus far looked to be none, everything around us had changed very little visually even with the distance we’d travelled. A weaker willed person would have despaired like an infant at the unchanging scenery. I pushed the lack of obvious progress to the side and focused on what lay ahead, of the new town we would find and the passage home we both sorely wished for.

When the sun hung precariously over the jungle I signaled to Taryn. We came to a stop at a small area of the beach that slanted toward the north-east, the shoreline curved eastward even as the jungle struggled. A bit of a reef could be made out amongst the waves, though I had no interest in exploring it.

“We need to set up for the night,” I told Taryn, though I was already walking toward the jungle to gather up some wood. “Make a spot for a fire.”

“There are still a few hours before night!” Taryn tried to argue, though for what I cared little.

While I continued to stride toward the jungle I spun about, going from a forward to a backward walk, and glared at Taryn. “If we try to set up after the sun goes down we could hurt ourselves in the dark.”

“Be careful walking like that!”

“Dig!” I ordered, pointing with my right index finger at the beach near him. “I’ll be right back.”

I stopped our discussion there with a rotation of my body. Once more I strode into the jungle to gather some wood and material, though I would have to go without a shelter given the time of the day. Even if I built one we would probably press onward, if we stayed in one place too long it was too likely something similar to the two-headed hound would attack us.

While I worked to gather enough wood for a strong fire the sun continued her downward movement, a change that brought with it cooler temperatures and a lack of light.

♪ ♫ ♬ ♫ ♪

By the time I managed to get a new fire started long shadows cast by the trees had covered the beach. We both had set to work on eating the crabs gathered earlier in the day, a small feast that I could only hope would help stave off starvation. The salt-laden food was good enough, but it left me with a thirst.

After he had eaten his own share of the crabs Taryn had stood up and walked away. When I had called out to him to ask where he was going a comment about checking on something was the reply given. When he had left the light of the fire and vanished into the shadows a part of me had gone cold.

The cool breeze that filtered in off of the ocean sent a shiver down my spine, hands unconsciously reaching up to rub against the bare skin of my arms. Though the fire put out a good sum of heat it was little against the chill of the encroaching night.

From the south I heard the sound of Taryn’s footfalls as he emerged out of the darkness. His approach to the fire was slow, every few feet he would glance over his shoulder as though expectant of some visitor.

“Didn’t see any movement,” Taryn felt the need to tell me as he knelt down near the fire, hands extended to catch as much warmth as possible from the flames. “If there is a pack I doubt it’s tracking.”

I didn’t respond to him, if any more hounds came I was certain of our victory. Instead I merely looked at the silhouette of his backside against the light of the fire. All I wanted to do was to reach out and wrap my arms around him, to pull him in and hold him as close as possible.

I already knew his scent well enough, a familiar musk that made me relax instinctively, and I had felt his warmth time and again in the past. While he had been unconscious after a fight I had used him for warmth in the middle of the night, and even during a dream I found myself wrapped about him. I let out a long sigh, shifting my attention away from Taryn and toward the ocean.

Moonlight glittered dully off of the waves as the crescent white shape hung overhead. When the sunlight vanished a small amount of illumination remained, a helpful hand from fate that we sorely needed. If anything came at us in the middle of the night we wouldn’t need to rely entirely upon the fire I had lit.

“Lily, get some rest,” Taryn ordered me, his head half-turned in my direction. “I’ll keep an eye out for wolves.”

It was a reasonable thing to do, I needed sleep and I had no problems trusting Taryn to guard me. Yet the way he went about it, that brusque approach that was more order than gentle request, that irritated me.

To make it all worse he had continued to keep that door in his head closed. That constant feel that Taryn was linked to me had been reft away for no reason. When I had gained it I hadn’t even noticed it, yet with it gone a new feeling had grown within me. A hollow sensation that started in the pit of my stomach, one that made me want to grab hold of him and never let go.

Before I realized it I had already walked over to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. My light frame leaned against Taryn’s back while I breathed quietly into his left ear. “Why?”

The feel of his muscles as they tensed could be felt, a signal that made it seem as though he was ready to bolt at any moment. Taryn’s hands lifted up to grip lightly at my wrists, his head half-turned once more to look in my direction. The fire that crackled in front of us both illuminated my face as well as bathed it in light warmth.

“What are you talking about?” Taryn gave a small laugh, though his hands quivered as they touched against my wrists.

“Why are you such an idiot?” I demanded in a quiet tone of him. “We’re stranded, we’re alone and we need one another to live and you’re pushing me away?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Taryn released my wrists, his gaze once more focused on the fire in front of him. “Go to bed.”

Out of the short time I had known Taryn I had learned his personality well enough. He had a very blunt approach to life that had its own charm about it. When someone threatened him or his loved ones his response was a punch. When he saw people who were being harmed he ignored the rules of society and did what he felt was right, often falling back onto the tried and true method of punching.

So the fact that he sat there in front of me and avoided telling me the truth stung. I somehow resisted the urge that came over me to hit him upside the head. Instead I stood up and turned away from Taryn, walking away from the warmth and light of the fire.

Behind me I could hear the sound of Taryn’s ragged clothing rustling as he stood up. “Lily where are you going?”

“Does it matter!” I spun about even as I shouted at him, the anger that had steadily built within bursting out. “All you want to do is keep me at arm's length! I thought you trusted me!”

The look on Taryn’s face spoke volumes of his current state of mind. With a furrowed brow he stared toward the sandy beach in between us. The movement of his lips nearly unnoticeable as he muttered quietly to himself.

“Fine,” Taryn finally said in a voice loud enough that I could hear. “Fine, if you really want to know then I’ll tell you.”

For the first time in a while he properly looked at me with those green eyes. A shudder ran across my body as I could not only feel the weight of the gaze but also something more, a feeling that lurked on the other side of the door he had closed. With slow steps he gradually closed the gap between us.

“Lily,” Taryn’s right hand lifted up but stopped short of my cheek. He continued to look at me, but a look of uncertainty had formed on his face. “You’re walking around nude in front of me, why do you think I don’t want you in my head? Do I really need to explain that?”

Both of my hands grasped hold of Taryn’s extended right hand, a tight grip that made it obvious I had no intention of letting him go. “You idiot, you really are an idiot,” I muttered before I stepped in close to him. “You can’t tell how I feel about you?”

“Even though I forced my soul onto yours?”

“I already forgave you for that.”

“Even though your side effect forces you to see and feel things I do?”

“I actually like that,” I honestly replied, my face pressing in against the side of his neck.

“Even though I can control you like a puppet?” Taryn asked, his voice quivering from the nature of the question. “Like some sort of monster?”

Yet it was a question that I had already known would eventually come. A fact that I had learned of in the town of Oakvale when he took control to tear the curse of Nixi from my body. I let out a long sigh, one that tickled the skin of his throat, before I answered.

“There’s nothing you’d make me do I don’t already want to.”