It happened suddenly: with no warning at all. The dark clouds rolled in, lightening flashed and the heavens opened up and soaked us all. The trail we'd been hiking was steep, and the section we were on traversed a narrow defile in the side of the mountain. There was barely room on either side of the trail to sit, but sit we did. In our hurry to erect some kind of shelter from the pounding rain we'd divided ourselves up: me, Casavir and the gnome on one side; Bishop, Shandra and Khelgar on the other.
The hastily constructed shelter barely kept the rain off us, but with the incessant pounding and sudden boredom, the gnome fell asleep. I was seated between him and Casavir, and all of a sudden I felt a small weight leaning against me and heard a soft snore. I poked him, trying to get him to lean against the cliff side, but it did no good. He just kept snoring, his mouth open and his tiny eyes squeezed shut.
I glanced across the trail. Shandra was between Bishop and Khelgar. The distance between her and Bishop could be measured in number of bodies between. Surreptitious glances confirmed that she didn't want to be anywhere near the crazy son of a whore. He, on the other hand, was staring daggers at Casavir, who was nonchalantly ignoring them. Once again, without physically being so, I was stuck in the middle.
Trying to manage this eclectic group was a headache. There was the fight loving dwarf, the tiefling with sticky fingers and the farm girl; all of whom I got along with and didn't really mind. It's difficult to be a fighter for a living if you don't like what you do. And Neeshka's sticky fingers had come in handy more than once. Shandra didn't have much to offer, but at least she was kind and considerate and did her share of the work around camp when we were out on the trail.
Casavir was a good man. A little crisp around the edges for me sometimes, but a good man nonetheless. He also did his share of the work, and was awfully damn handy in a fight. For all his flaws, Bishop was decent in a scrap as well. But his petulance and the slimy feeling I got from just talking to him more than compensated for any promising features he might have had.
I sighed, digging a hole with my foot in the dirt. Water dripped on my head, oozing down my hair and following one strand all the way to the end to drip in front of my eyes. My elbows were balanced on my knees, and I sat disconsolately and waited for a break in the weather.
"There is something I would like to tell you," came a deep rumbling voice from my right. Casavir. He was probably going to offer some suggestions on how to manage the group, or how to fight the upcoming skirmish, or even how to properly cook stew over a campfire. The man was full of suggestions and opinions, even when I'd not so politely told him to piss off.
I sighed again. It was going to be a long afternoon. A headache was forming behind my eyes. "What?" I asked, not even having the courtesy to meet his eyes.
"I…" he paused. Great. Something he was going to find hard to say. Must be some comment on my fighting technique again. Or how I'd burned the stew last night and I should have let him cook instead, like he'd asked me to. He cleared his throat. The tension rolled off the man in waves. I couldn't help myself. I turned my head to the side and looked at him, squinting as a drop of rain landed in my eye.
"I love you," he blurted. Apparently it was easier to say if he didn't look at me, because he was pointedly staring at the ground in front of him.
"What?" I asked, my mouth dropping as the impact of what he'd said just hit me. It felt like a physical blow, and my mind was reeling from the charge. "You love me? You don't even know me! How long have you known me?"
I stared at him, waiting for an answer. He squirmed. After a long, uncomfortable silence, he turned to look at me, his blue eyes flashing. He wasn't even wet. "Two weeks," he answered.
"Two weeks," I replied. "Two weeks and a confession of love already. Can you really love someone you barely even know?" Again I looked pointedly at him. He obviously hadn't thought this out. I mean, it was crazy, to confess his love for me after only two weeks. He'd barely said more than a handful of words to me on any given day. Usually confessions of love were preceded by romance and flowers and all that nonsense.
He met my gaze defiantly. I wasn't sure he'd had it in him, but he seemed determined to make his case. What else did I have to do? The rain continued its way down my face, dripping onto my hands. A quick glance across the path showed me that Bishop was looking intently at Casavir, while Shandra had fallen asleep on Khelgar's shoulder.
"I know you as well as I need to. You are a capable and courageous leader. You give of yourself generously and are constantly looking out for your companions. Even though you carry a shard within you, and have every right to feel sorry for yourself and bemoan your fate, you don't. I admire you. I love you," he said again, staring straight at me that time.
The rain pounded harder and more rivulets began flowing down my face. I didn't have a response. He was wrong – totally wrong about me, and yet he still believed I was capable of the things he thought he saw.
"Well that just proves what I was saying," I shouted. The storm was getting louder, and I could barely hear myself think, let alone make myself heard. "I'm not any of those things! Are you putting me up on that pedestal to look up my skirt?"
A weary shake of his head was all I got in return. It was obvious I wasn't going to win this argument. Just as it was probably obvious to him that I didn't really believe what he was saying. It caused too many problems. I couldn't start a love affair with a warrior in my group. It was bad for group harmony and dynamics. Bishop would probably kill us all in our sleep if he thought for one second I was sleeping with someone that wasn't him. And then it hit me. I wasn't thinking of my own feelings on the matter – just how it would affect the group. Perhaps Casavir was right about that one thing. And if he'd been able to see that, maybe he wasn't so wrong about the others. A smirk came to my face, full of scorn. No, he was wrong – way off target. I wasn't that person at all. But I had to assuage his feelings, or he would mope for days.
"It's not that I don't care for you," I found myself saying, laying a hand on his knee. "It's just not a good idea. You understand, don't you?" I could see that he did. He'd resigned himself to my response. He'd probably done it before I even opened my mouth.
With one last loud boom, the storm spent its fury. The rain slackened off, and then stopped. The sun emerged from behind the clouds, evaporating some of the rain and causing a mist to form. I stood, pushing Grobnar over and waking him up in the process. "Let's get moving," I shouted, and began hiking up the trail. I can't say my mind wasn't reeling from Casavir's confession. But somehow, instead of making things worse, the day was just a little brighter.