Kaldalis settled down in a comfortable-seeming spot, having a seat on the grassy ground. As soon as he did, he stopped being surprised that Dalgaard was that deeply asleep. It was soft and comfortable. This clearing was likely designed by the devs for some specific quest or cutscene to find this perfect little oasis in the middle of the jungle, or maybe - as Dalgaard had hoped - a location for some sort of player housing. Though, as Ara settled in beside him, he wondered if this was a setup for some unseemly side content.

Despite the straightforward design of the upper body of her robe, everything below her waist looked a little too ornate. He hadn’t noticed when she had been sitting still, but now that he’d seen her standing and now that she was making herself comfortable again, the robe was a lot more complicated on his second glance. There was a wide sash around her waistline, and then below that the garment became a mess of beltlike sashes that hugged her hips and upper thighs, keeping the profile of the garment close in around her legs. The hem of the garment fell all the way to the ground and beyond, pooling there and dragging behind her a bit, making her step carefully to avoid treading on it. Despite the ways the robe seemed designed to titillate, he didn’t even catch a flash of thigh or calf. Even her shoes didn’t poke out of the bottom.

It took her a moment to settle into her spot. While she didn’t sit right next to him, as soon as she had her legs and sashes arranged comfortably, she leaned sideways towards him, putting her weight on her arm.

The shift in posture suddenly made it feel like she was sitting a lot closer to him.

“So,” Kaldalis said, clearing his throat. “You had questions for me?”

“I don’t have questions of my own,” she said, “but I thought I could borrow yours. You have a name for me, but I don’t have one for you. What should I call you?”

“I’m Kaldalis,” he said. He was slightly confused by her word choice. Was Ara not her name? He didn’t begrudge her some anonymity, especially since he likely had a stream watching over his shoulder. But why would she assume he would give her an alias as well? Why would he do that? “So, are you going to tell me why you were hovering over my friend?”

“Mmm, so protective,” Ara purred at him, leaning a little closer. “Is there some romantic entanglement I should be aware of?”

Kaldalis almost said yes. He wasn’t sure if it would get her to back off or not, but it might. Just the same, though, it was an outright lie. He was a decent liar, but not great. He might only get two or three lies past someone in one sitting before they caught on to his tells. He didn’t need to tell this lie for his own comfort if it meant he wasn’t going to be able to exit the conversation without giving up his quest for Onirioago.

“I’m protective of my friends,” Kaldalis said at last. “That’s all. It comes with the territory as a tank.”

“Their loss, then,” Ara said, her eyes roaming down and back up his body again. “Not just handsome, but of noble spirit, too? A big strong protector. You’re quite the catch.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Kaldalis said, trying to regain control of the conversation. “And now I’ve answered two of yours. Why were you sitting like that over them?”

“The jungle is unsafe at night, even in such an idyllic pocket as this lake,” she said, gesturing at the dark wall of foliage that felt suddenly dangerously close. “I thought they might be alone out here, inviting the most terrible of disasters.” She shifted in her seat, moving herself closer to him. Her leaning posture meant her head moved to almost lean on his shoulder. “I had no idea that a big strong man like you was taking care of them. Maybe you can take care of me, too?”

Kaldalis shifted away, but tried to cover his discomfort by adjusting his armor. “You’re right, it is dangerous out here,” he said carefully. “I’d be more than happy to travel back to the encampment as a trio rather than make you walk home alone.” He was glad that her reasoning had been a protective instinct rather than anything perverted, but she wasn’t exactly being subtle about her intent towards him. “Shall I wake my friend and we can go now?”

“Oh no,” she said, lowering her voice to a breathy whisper, “it’s much too late for that now, it’s it? We’ll be stuck out here all night for sure.”

“It’s not at all too late,” Kaldalis said, looking up at the moons. “Sure, it’s what… Eleven-thirty? Maybe midnight? It’s something like a two or three hour walk to get to camp - maybe a little longer in the dark - but we’ll be back in time to catch five or six hours of sleep, depending on when sunrise is.”

“Why go all the way back, though? You could sleep here, couldn’t you?”

“Not safely. You said it yourself that it’s dangerous.”

“You don’t have to sleep,” she said. “Just lay back and relax until the sun starts to rise. Save yourself from having to blunder through the jungle in the dark.” She leaned in, he found himself leaning away so that she didn’t plant her chin on his shoulder. He could still feel her breath on his neck. “It’s just as good as sleeping, and you’d have an extra… How much did you say? Two or three hours?”

“I’m sure if I just lay down here I will probably fall asleep,” he said, trying not to be obvious as he scooted away from her a little more. “And if I do, I might wake up to find myself already halfway down the gullet of some horrible dinosaur-thing. As lovely as it is to sit out here and have a polite conversation, getting back to town makes the most logical sense.”

“Polite conversation,” she heaved a sigh, scooting in closer, following his retreat. “Is that what you want?”

“If it were, then we could have it - or whatever else - just as easily and twice as safely back in camp.”

“Is safety all you care about?” Ara leaned back out of his personal space at last, pursing her thin lips. “I thought you signed up to be an adventurer. Why are you so afraid of the dark? Don’t you want a little danger?”

“I told you already I’m the protective type. I’m not afraid for myself. There’s nothing out here in this jungle that scares me. I’m a tank in decent gear,” he said, and hooked his thumb over towards where Dalgaard slept, “and I have a healer in my party. The only way anything is actually a threat to me is if it gets the jump on me. I have to be awake and aware or anything that bursts out of the brush could get on them before I can protect them. Or you, for that matter.”

“Oh, you’re going to protect me, are you?” she said, her pout turning into a smirk again. “Then perhaps I should speak in something closer to your language, since you want to be such a thick shield.”

She leaned forward suddenly, planting a hand on his shoulder. Her arm tensed, the thin silk sheath on her bicep going suddenly taut as she shoved him bodily.

Unexpected strength sent him to the ground flat on his back.

In a flash she was leaning over him, one hand on each shoulder. Her flowing hair wreathed her face, backlit by the moons above.

“Please let me repay you,” she purred, leaning down towards him, “for your generous protection. Big. Strong. Man.”

Her raven hair encircled his face as she came down. The ring of hair cast her eyes in shadow, but he could still see her thin lips parting as she approached.

“Whoa,” Kaldalis said, recovering from the momentary stun of her sudden strength and abrupt forwardness. “Whoa, stop. Please.” He planted his hands on her shoulders in turn, fingers landing on the openings that showed her flesh, letting him feel the muscles tensing beneath her skin. Despite her relatively slim frame, she was heavier than he expected, and he only managed to stop her about six inches from his face. The whole world was nothing but the dark curtain of her hair and the vague shape of her paper-white face. “I’m sorry, I’m not dense. I’m just not interested.”

Her body tensed, and he could see her eyes fly open, though in the darkness he couldn’t quite identify her expression. Horror? Indignance? Rage?

The furrowed lines across her forehead were definitely something.

“I’m sorry, it’s not you,” he said quickly. “I’m just not that kind of guy. Not that, uh. Not that I’m morally opposed to casual sex, of course. Even, uh. Even with you in particular.” He was rambling. He had to put aside coddling Ara’s pride and make his point. “But context is very important. Even if I were interested in a semi-anonymous roll right now - and I’m not, I just can’t stress that enough - I’m really just not in the mood right now even if the whole situation were different. The middle of the jungle at night is not the place for that.”

The lines on her face deepened. Whatever she was feeling, he’d made it worse instead of better. Her chest hitched for a moment and there was a sound that was something like the sharp intake of breath between gritted teeth.

Under his fingers, he thought he could feel the temperature of her skin drop perceptibly.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings. Honest. You seem…” He tried to think of a single quality that their conversation had impressed upon him, besides thirsty. “You seem mysterious. Smart. Playful. All very good qualities. Definitely sexy. And, you know, the muscles. Very nice. But if an irritator or daemonraptor comes out of the trees, I don’t want to be caught literally with my pants down.” He tried to push her off of himself, but found her as unyielding as stone. “Not for myself, but for you. I’d hate myself for the rest of my life if something happened to you because I put a quick fuck ahead of your safety.”

“So noble,” she said, breaking her silence at last with a low hiss. “Not afraid of anything. More concerned about a woman’s safety than for her value to you as a lover.”

“I would be equally concerned even if you weren’t a woman,” he said quickly. He was still panicking, his mouth spitting out words without his permission. “Just saying, being out here is dangerous to everyone. And a woman’s value is far beyond her capacity to-”

“Shut up,” she snapped. Her grip on his shoulders redoubled in strength. The pressure of her bearing down on him intensified, and he grunted in effort as he tried to maintain the six-inch distance between her face and his. She drew an inch closer, and he saw spots before his eyes at the effort needed to stop her there. “Noble you may be, but you are an idiot. You shouldn’t be afraid for me.”

A pair of hands parted her hair right above him. For a horrible moment he thought someone else was standing above them, but there was no one there in that slice of moonlit sky. The pale hands were, instead, perfect duplicates of the ones now holding his shoulders down.

“You should be afraid for yourself,” Ara said, as the light let into the curtain of raven hair illuminated her face. The lines on her forehead widened, not the lines of a furrowed brow, but three more pairs of eyes, these ones black and beady.

Her lips weren’t parted for meeting his own, but to make room for two three-inch fangs now pushing past them. A drop of sickly yellow fluid gathered at the tip of one of them.

Only the moment of paralysis inflicted by his terror kept him from screaming.

But only for a moment.