6.

"Food's ready."

Anders stirred slightly, not ready to get up just yet. It felt like he'd barely fallen asleep. The nagging pang of his empty stomach, however, was more than enough incentive to wake up.

Leto watched him as his eyes fluttered open, blinking blearily up at the elf before he seemed to remember where he was and why.

"Don't want it," he mumbled, burying his face in his arm.

Leto knelt down in the tent and hesitated before laying a callused hand on the mage's arm. "You need to eat," he insisted. "And this is all we have."

Anders tensed beneath his touch, and shot him a dark look. "And if someone asked you to eat a cat, would you?"

"If I was starving in the woods?"

Anders glowered, horrified. "I should've known better than to ask."

He knew that Leto was right, as much as it sickened him to think of it. If they had nothing tonight, instead of the rabbit, would that honestly be better? He was cold, exhausted, and still soaked from the rain. He didn't need to add 'refusing food out of sheer stubbornness' to the list.

Leto offered a hand to help him stand up, but Anders didn't take it.

"There's still blood under your fingernails," he muttered.

Leto pulled away and said nothing.

The stew was hot but not scalding, and they took turns spooning it out of the tureen. With no bowls and only one spoon, it was very uncomfortable, and they ate in silence. Leto felt like he had as a child, with his family and the other slaves eating out of a communal dish, everyone's grubby hands reaching for the same scraps.

Anders chewed the meat as if it was poison, its taste ash on his tongue, clay in his throat. He barely managed to swallow any of it without wanting to be sick.

"This is awful," he said quietly, a bitter note of resentment in his voice.

Leto looked at him for a long moment. "You... you get used to it, after a while."

Anders stood up abruptly and kicked over the tureen, spilling the precious stew into the sodden ground. "I don't want to get used to this!" he shouted, miserable. "I hate it! I hate you! I never should've left!"

He stalked off into the woods despite the storm, despite the darkness. Leto quickly righted the tureen in an attempt to save anything still clinging to the inside, and watched as Anders stomped away. He'd give him a minute to calm down, and then go after him. Following so soon would only antagonize him.

In all honesty, Leto should've seen this coming from miles away. The mage had never left the comforts of city life before, never been without feather pillows and three meals a day. It was too much to expect him to adapt so quickly, but what other options did they have? Anders couldn't have expected to spend his life on the run dining well and staying in pleasant inns, could he? It just wasn't realistic.

Leto piled some more wood on the fire and grabbed the ceremonial knife before leaving the camp. He didn't want them to be defenseless if someone tried to attack them while offguard.

For what may have been the first time, he wished he was wearing actual shoes. The forest floor had Maker knows what crawling around on it, and he didn't need to be tending to a snakebite on top of everything else. In the pitch blackness, he had no way to tell what he might accidentally step on, and it made him nervous.

Leto scanned the area, straining his eyes in an attempt to spot the mage. No luck.

"Anders?" he called, trying to keep his voice fairly low. "Anders, where'd you go?"

His head whipped around as he heard a small sound to his left, and he stepped slowly toward it. He knew what was happening before he saw it.

Anders was sitting in a pile of sodden leaves, his knees to his chest, shivering and crying. Leto could tell he was struggling to stay quiet, but with limited success.

"Sod off," he snarled. "I don't want to talk to you."

Leto took another step forward, anyway. "You're going to make yourself sick."

Anders wiped at his face with his cloak, which was still wet from the rain and therefore didn't do much to help. "Just leave me alone."

Leto stood next to him for a moment before leaning back against the damp bark of the tree. "I can't do that," he said, almost conversationally. "It's not safe to be out here by yourself."

Anders rolled his eyes and sniffed back mucus. "And what are you going to do? Fight off a bear with that spoon?" He laughed darkly. "There's nothing special you can do that my magic can't."

"Does your magic feed you, then?" he asked, irritated with Anders' petulance. "Does your magic keep thieves away from the tent while you're asleep?"

Anders glared at him in the darkness. "There weren't any thieves."

"Not that you ever knew of."

Anders balked. If the elf was telling the truth - and he always was - then that certainly put things in perspective. "I... I didn't..."

"Of course you didn't."

Anders looked up at him, wounded. He felt like a scolded child.

"Now stop being so damned ungrateful and come back to the camp." Leto pushed away from the tree and began to retrace his steps. He didn't spare the mage a second glance.

Who did Leto think he was, bossing him around like that? If this were anywhere else but the middle of the Maker-forsaken forest, the situation would be quite the opposite! Anyone watching would be horrified to hear an elf speaking to a human - a mage! - with such disrespect.

Anders sulked by himself for a while longer, until the rain picked back up and not even the thick foliage above could shield him from the downpour. He growled out his frustration to the woods around him, and stomped back towards the camp. By the time he reached the tent, he was thoroughly drenched, and at least half of him was covered in mud.

Leto glanced up at him with a wry smile. "Perhaps next time you'll think before running off during a thunderstorm."

Anders fixed him with a glare, but didn't have the strength to think of a proper retort. To his great surprise, the elf offered him the tureen, cleaned of stew and now filled with an aromatic, hot liquid.

"How did you make tea?"

Leto grinned at him. "Red clover."

Anders took a long drink of it, desperately needing the warmth. He was chilled to the bone. It was sweet, maybe a bit minty, and altogether not unpleasant. He licked his lips and handed the tureen back to Leto, who sipped at it thoughtfully.

The mage sat down at the entrance to the tent, shivering like a nug in the Anderfels. He wanted to hang his clothes to dry, but the fire had long since been doused by the rain, and there was nowhere to put them, anyway. Instead, he simply curled his arms around himself beneath his cloak, and tried not to let his teeth chatter too much.

He gradually fell into an uneasy sleep. Leto didn't wake him until morning.