A/N: GREMAYA WILL REIGN
Something seemed off at the soldier's mess hall. Amaya knew immediately what it was, but she hesitated to admit it aloud. There appeared to be a certain red-haired, freckled translator absent from the morning meal, which may have created a vague sense of loneliness in Amaya's chest. Although nearly every soldier signed into Katolis's ranks could sign and translate with the same talent as Commander Gren, none seemed to carry his general goofiness or could match how easily he interacted with her. She missed him.
At that realization, Amaya straightened in her seat, narrowing her eyebrows and driving out the thought. She sopped up the rest of the sugary syrup on her plate with her pancake and hurriedly stood to take her dishes to the washing pit. Where was the Commander anyways? He rarely missed a meal, especially one as good as the pancakes and fresh fruit from the market served this morning. He often couldn't function without breakfast, Amaya had come to notice from previous instances. So where was he? Morning drills were soon, and he'd be punished and worked even harder if he skipped them. Was he assigned on a special mission?
Bored without the resident jokester by her side, Amaya went searching before the call time for the drills she led. Yesterday had been exhausting, hours of intense training in the roasting Katolis sun. Maybe he was sleeping in? Amaya didn't like to admit how many times she had visited the Commander's room previously, but when she needed to explain herself she frequently said it was because he was her right-hand man – and closest friend.
His door was in front of her all-too-soon, and, out of habit she knocked even though she knew she wouldn't be able to hear the answer. Because of their familiarity, she sometimes found herself opening his door without warning and stumbling upon him changing his clothes or shaving. Her outward appearance was unfazed by the former, but Gren got very flustered very quickly and later in the evening she may or may not have found herself feeling similar emotions as she recalled the few incidents. Although she had seen him without a tunic on before during training (only rarely, as he burned horribly in the sun), these moments caught both of them off guard. Shaking her memories from her head to clear the faint heat on her cheeks, she stepped inside.
The soldiers of Katolis often shared bedrooms in pairs of two, but because of Gren's growing in the ranks (which Amaya sometimes found herself being pleased over), he had his own room, simple with one window, one wooden desk, one wooden chair, one wooden dresser, a cozy closet, a small mirror on the door, and a single bed. In a typical Gren fashion, his clothes were piled in various heaps on his floor, most of his dresser drawers ajar, along with his closet doors. Like she had figured, her right-hand man lay sprawled on his stomach on the bed, blankets tangled around his legs and waist, arms tucked under his pillow. He must not have heard her knock or enter, because a small stream of drool trickled onto the cushion under his head.
She crouched in front of his bed, waving her hand in front of his closed eyelids. After being ignored for a minute, she shook his shoulder that was under the blanket and could see his mouth open in what seemed like a yelp of pain. Gren mumbled something into his pillow that Amaya couldn't read because of his smooshed face. He cracked open an eyelid and Amaya took the opportunity to sign a wake-up call to him.
We have training in thirty minutes and I won't make it easy for you if you're late.
Gren responded with speaking again, which only infuriated her because his lips pressed against the cushion in a way she couldn't read what he was saying. It must have been a protest, because he shifted in his bed, turning his face the other way on the pillow. In the meantime, the blanket slid down his shoulders, revealing his toned muscles in his upper back. Amaya usually prided herself on her stoic-ness, but in this moment, she couldn't help but grow warm at the sight. Upon closer look though, she noticed his bright red, peeling shoulders which must have been from the brutal sun even though she remembered him wearing a tank top instead of going shirtless as the other soldiers often did.
Giving up on signing her concerns about the morning drills to him, she spotted the special cream prescribed by the castle's doctor open and nearly empty on the top of his dresser. Gren had bought the cream after suffering a terrible sunburn that led to a small heat stroke. The doctor had suggested that the cream would lower the chances of his body overheating if his horrid sunburns continued. Turns out they occurred routinely in the summer, so he repeatedly needed to crack open the container to feel some sort of relief on his burning skin. There was a circumstance where he asked her to rub it on his shoulders after training in the shade of a tree, and she never mentioned to him that she found herself getting embarrassed at seeing his freckled skin and feeling his muscles under her fingertips. She'd never tell him.
Amaya tried to steel her feelings for her friend, whatever they might be, as she dipped her fingers into the goo before spreading it gently across Gren's shoulders. She felt – and saw – his body rise and fall slowly as if he were heaving a big sigh, and he sunk further into his mattress. The tips of his ears burned red, and Amaya swept a line of cream across the top of them, but they didn't feel hot on her fingers. His shoulders were the worst, peeling, and his freckles almost seemed to disappear under the harshness of the sunburn. He had told her once that he burnt so horribly in the sun, but could never get warm brown skin like any of the other soldiers or like herself. He was red and then pasty white, a constant cycle of one of the two extremes.
Gren slid his arms from under the pillow (Amaya desperately tried not to focus on the feeling of his shifting muscles under her fingertips), signing a mess of jumped phrases and gestures to her. Training morning? Time is you lead drill sleepy I burn sun hot tomorr—yesterday hurt training? He didn't bother to open his eyes, so it was pointless signing back to him.
It'd be time for the drills anyways, so Amaya slapped his shoulder hard and she could almost hear his yelp of shock as he jerked up. I'm awake now, he signed. Still in his semi-sleepy state, the blankets dropped around his waist once he sat up and he didn't make a move to cover his exposed (and toned) torso. Amaya bent down to pick up a tunic and chucked it at his face with astonishing speed before moving towards the door.
As she turned the knob, she caught a glimpse of her face in his mirror. Did she get sunburnt on her cheeks? She didn't see that a few hours ago.
Despite convincing herself that the sun must've got to her as well, a little part of her brain knew otherwise.