Armand hated night watch. The wagons rolled along like tortoises, so slow and boring that it wasn't any effort at all to keep up between them.

All of the excitement would be elsewhere, at the edges of the caravan where the reavers liked to lurk. Or overhead, where occasionally someone flew by and punctuated the light from the moon. But not for him. The air frosted as he breathed out, and he pulled the piece of fabric he had to protect his mouth and nose a bit tighter around his face.

Someone would probably be out scouting, now, killing ground striders and skinning them for canteens. Not that he'd ever see one. They stayed far away from the noise and light of the caravan, along with all the other critters Armand would only ever hear about.

Maybe some other time, Griffon had said when he'd asked again yesterday to go with them on a hunting trip out into open desert. Just like he'd said the day before. And the day before that, right back to when Armand was thirteen and thought maybe some other time was a period that had an endpoint. Maybe some other time. More like not in the next decade.

A shadow darted through his peripheral vision. Armand unsheathed his sword. His breath caught in his throat, and his feet got a tiny bit lighter. A smile crept onto his face. He hunched down between two of the wagons, then slipped in front of a camel's legs and out the other side.

A figure pressed themselves to the wagon boards, covered almost entirely by a pale cloak. Armand crept closer and rose on the balls of his feet, so they wouldn't make any noise. The person wheeled and gasped. Armand caught the flash of something metallic as the figure reached into the folds of their cloak. He seized their wrist and held it.

"Let go!"

The figure ripped the hood of her cloak off her head, eyes shining for a moment in terror before she blinked in surprise. Wren’s eyes stared back at him, all surprise. "Armand?"

He let go of Wren's wrist. "Sorry."

"You scared me." Wren tucked the blade back into her pocket. Her cheeks had burns where the sun had bitten through her tanned skin. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her hair looked like she hadn't brushed it in days. She rubbed at her eyes.

"What are you doing out here?" Armand asked. It was well past midnight, enough past that anyone that didn't have a crying infant would have been asleep for hours by now.

"I couldn't sleep. My father has a cough and he's been snoring like a rasp weaver, and my mother keeps smacking him so he'll stop. I haven't slept at all since we started moving."

"You thought it was a good idea to wander at night alone, then?" Armand raised his eyebrows. She turned her face away from him.

"I do it all the time. It's not like we're at the edge of the caravan where the animals are. And obody can see me in the dark."

"That doesn’t mean you won’t run into someone. You just did and you’re lucky it was me." He looked around them. Still nothing out here but the click of wagon wheels over dried earth, and the occasional sound of a screaming child.

"I have a knife if it makes you feel any better. My mother would kill me if she knew I took it out of its packing box." Wren rolled her eyes as she produced the throwing knife out of her pocket. The handle wrap unraveled as she put it in his hands.

"You could jab it in someone's eyes, I guess." He turned it over in his hands. There was rust on the blade, and it didn't look like it had ever really been sharpened. "But really, what did she do this time?"

Wren sighed deeply and rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. Now that he looked a little closer, there weren't bags under her eyes at all. They were red and swollen, and the redness spilled out from around them and onto her cheeks where he thought she’d just been burned.

"I'm fine. My mother's just—"

"--Terrible?" he finished for her. Wren gave him a look like that wording didn’t really please her.

"She doesn't want me wandering the caravan anymore. She thinks it's the reason I stopped getting suitors. Apparently people noticed me doing it."

Armand felt a pang of guilt. He looked away and toward the ground. Suddenly he wanted to change the subject, to anything but this. He searched for words to reassure her, but nothing came. His chest ached, though that ache wasn’t really for her so much as for him. The thought of her stopping her wanderings and not seeing him anymore made him hurt.

"I should just keep doing it anyway. They have to run out of new ones eventually." Wren laughed in a bitter sort of way, then pulled the cloak more tightly around her shoulders. "She's latched onto some new guy. She wants me to meet with his family tomorrow."

Armand glanced at Wren, then realized his hands were shaking. He didn't know why, but he felt very relieved, for some reason, that she didn’t seem interested. He stuffed them in his pockets and moved a half inch farther away from her. An hour ago, being on night duty seemed like the worst thing in the world. Now he could think of much worse things.

"Well, I'll try not to get myself killed so you have someone to hang out with when you sneak off." He laughed, a hearty, deep sound, desperate to keep her from crying again. He wouldn't be able to keep his composure if she cried. "Not that I would get killed. There's nothing dangerous out here anyway."

Wren returned the laugh. Armand's shoulders relaxed as the tension left his body. This was easy. He didn't need to try to comfort her when there was nothing for him to say. He didn't need to find an excuse for them to wander. Just like it had always been. They walked like that in comfortable silence until the sky started to glow around the edges from the rising sun. If he didn't get back soon there would be questions.

"I need to set up bedrolls. I can bring you back to your wagon if you want, though I'm sure your scary throwing knife speaks for itself." He shot her a glance and she smirked at him. Armand wanted to laugh again.

"No, I'll be hearing enough from my mother, thank you very much. Though it might get her to shut up for a bit." Wren let out a snort and shook her head, then pursed her lips in thought for a half second. Her smirk widened into a grin. "On second thought, why don't you come and the problem can fix itself?"

Armand knew it was a joke, but it still felt like someone had punched him in the gut. The smile on his face fell to just a quiver. He looked off in the direction of the guard tents, where Griffon would be waiting for him to come help set up.

"I'm already in enough trouble. Griffon will chew me out if I'm not back soon." Armand prayed she would take the bait so he could leave.

"What did you do this time?" Her voice dripped with sarcasm that wasn't really sarcasm.

"I'll tell you about it later." He did a cursory check to make sure he still had his sword, then turned to walk off, glancing over his shoulder to make sure she was doing the same. The ache in his chest hadn't quite subsided, and as she walked away, it only got worse. He thought for a second about calling her back to him, but didn't. It would just cause more trouble anyway.

There was light spilling across the wagons when he got back to where Griffon was setting up camp. He grabbed a bundle of cloth and furs from his brother without saying anything.

"You're quiet," Griffon noted after a few moments, as he unfolded his own square of fabric.

"Tired," Armand said, even though he didn't think all the stiff drink in the world would be enough to send him to sleep. "Long night."

"Mmm," Griffon replied, in a way that wasn't conducive to further discussion. Armand was secretly glad for it. They still hadn't talked about the incident with Rannok, and bringing it up would be like sticking his fingers in a wasp's nest.

He finished unrolling his bed, then grabbed a whetstone out of a small leather bag. He unsheathed his sword and ran it down its length. The sing of the stone against the cool metal soothed him. Armand felt the muscles in his forehead relax. Griffon would come later, to talk, and there was no denying it. He'd have to come up with a response that would keep him out of too much trouble. And then later on, he'd worry about Wren.