On behalf of Queen Nola. I told him where to find you. Why was Queen Nola looking for her? No, not just looking for her, but sending a big, scary male to take her to Mivraga. Was she responsible for whatever had happened to Nicolai? Kaeda needed to find out.

     She decided she had to try talking to the asshole Nola had sent to retrieve her, but she knew that wouldn’t be easy considering she’d shoved a hot candlestick in his eye and he probably wasn’t very happy with her. 

     She figured he couldn’t kill her if his queen wanted her, but he could still hurt her - he’d already proven that. She would need weapons to defend myself.

     After returning to her house and finding it empty, she grabbed her one good knife from the small kitchen counter and her heavy iron pan from the rack. They weren’t the best weapons, but they would have to suffice. She didn’t have much of a plan, so she just watched the door and waited nervously. She had to find out if this brute knew anything about Nicolai.

     She pauses telling her story to help Nico clean up and pack the few things they've scattered around the small campsite. Once the bedroll is secured under his pack, they agree to head to the river so they can both get cleaned up. She is really looking forward to getting all this itchy, dried blood off her skin and out of her hair.

     It’s not a long walk to the river, and they don’t say much to each other, lost in their own thoughts about the information they’re sharing. She keeps glancing at him, and catching him looking back at her. She wonders what he’s thinking, but she doesn’t ask.

     “We’ll have to wash your clothes and lay them out to dry. It’s going to take more time than I wanted to spend here, but it’s that or leave in wet clothes.” Nicolai explains. “It shouldn’t take too long with the suns so high already.

     He’s right, the suns are already nearly to their peak in the sky. She’s not sure how long she slept, and they sat telling her story for so long. They should have gotten an earlier start. Nothing to be done about it now, and they have very little choice but to wash her clothes because a woman walking around covered in dried blood probably won’t go unnoticed. 

     Nicolai grabs her dress, leaving her underthings to her, and they plunge them into the river and start scrubbing. He produces a small bar of white soap from his pack, which helps a lot. Some of the blood has set into the fabric, but they’re able to get most of it out, and her dress is at least presentable enough to not raise too many questions. The shimmering silver fabric is still stained and torn, but it will have to do.  

     They lay her clothes out to dry on a large rock on the riverbank, and Nicolai hands her the remainder of his bar of soap. She breaks off a piece and hands it back to him. “You’re going to need this for your tunic,” she explains, and then promptly removes his tunic and passes it to him. 

     She only glimpses his face long enough to see his eyes go wide before she turns and walks into the clear river. The water is surprisingly cold, considering the climate on this continent is always warm. It feels refreshing though. 

     She dunks her head under the surface and scrubs her long, pale lavender hair between her fingers. She starts lathering soap into it, and turns to see that Nicolai has occupied himself with washing his tunic. It occurs to her that she doesn’t have any dry clothes to wear when she’s done bathing.

     “Nicolai,” she calls to him, “do you have something I can wear while my dress dries, or shall I walk around naked?”

     She catches his smirk before he takes off his white tunic and holds it up. “You can wear this, and I’ll put on my black one when it’s dry,” he says. 

     Her eyes shamelessly roam his torso. His body has changed in the last four years. There’s so much more definition to his muscles, and her fingers itch to feel the way his smooth skin dips and rises over each one. Her body temperature rises, and she feels her core respond to the thought of letting her hands glide over his gorgeous body.

     “You okay, Kaeda?” his voice snaps her out of her wild thoughts and her face flushes a bit. His smirk is bigger now, and she can see the little twinkle in his eye. He obviously knows she was staring at his body, but he doesn’t call her out. So what? They were lovers once. 

     “Yep, just getting a little cold in here.” she says, as she walks out of the river, right towards him. She can feel that her nipples are pebbled from the cold water dripping off her skin. He tries not to stare, but he definitely looks. She takes a moment to ring water out of her hair, before she takes his tunic from him and slips it over her head. Like the one she wore before, it falls to the middle of her thighs. “Thank you.”

     He’s still staring at her when he says, “Of course. Let’s eat while we wait for our clothes to dry.”

     “Food sounds good to me. Where are we headed?” she asks, using her fingers to comb through her hair. 

     “North.” Nicolai explains. “My mother is still in Tavedor, and I want to check on her. Queen Nola will be expecting you to keep heading south. We’ll travel by water part of the way, to avoid crossing through Mivraga. I doubt she’ll have men looking for you in her own kingdom, but we should still be careful.”

     Queen Nola probably will expect Kaeda to keep traveling South, maybe even to cross the ocean, anything to get further away from her. Going North is smart. Knowing she’ll be going home to Tavedor after all this time feels strange. It will be good to see Nicolai’s sweet mother again though. 

By the time they finish eating, their clothes are dry enough to wear comfortably. The fabric can finish drying as they walk, so they put them on and begin their journey north. Towards home. As they walk, she continues telling Nicolai what happened when the man who broke into their house returned.