eleven
Numair had never ever been as sore or as tired in his entire life as he was now. Everything ached, and places he didn't even know he had ached. Blisters on his hands from the brief bout of raking with Daine burnt and stung, and his shoulder muscles screamed with protest each time he tried to move.
And his backside… Numair winced.
"A little sore?" Onua asked almost sympathetically.
"You have no idea," he said with relish.
"Oh, I think I do," she disagreed. "I remember learning to ride."
"You do?" he asked, surprised. He thought she had always ridden, same as Daine.
"I was a few years older than Daine is now, when I first learnt," Onua admitted, standing up and gathering their dinner plates. "Daine, I had a call from Stefan while you were teaching Numair to ride. I'm going down to help him with one of his mares tomorrow; she's too small to take his weight so he wants me to have a go with her. Do you mind checking the ponies by yourself?"
"Not at all," Daine said quite happily. "Was there anything else you wanted me to do?"
Onua shook her head. "When I've finished with Stefan's mare, I'll have him and Sarge come spend a day with us down at the campsite fixing the corral and some of the jumps. It works out quite well – we should have most of the big work taken care of by then, so it's only small odd jobs. Take the day easy tomorrow, you've worked hard."
"We'll do the dishes," Daine said firmly, much to Numair's horror. "You have an early night."
Onua smiled her thanks. "Don't rush out of bed tomorrow, Daine, take your time and sleep in." She glanced at Numair. "I don't need to tell you to sleep in," she added.
"I've been getting up early," Numair protested. "Earlier," he amended.
Onua shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Good night, you two."
Numair couldn't force himself to move, but it wasn't right, letting Daine do all the dishes on top of her day's work. He wasn't entirely sure how she kept going after so long a day, looking as fresh as a daisy.
"Aren't you tired?" he demanded, trying to make himself stand up. His legs refused to obey.
"Not as tired as you," she said cheekily. "Come on you big lug, you're not getting out of it."
Numair sighed and hauled himself to his feet. He'd been beginning to think the wilderness wasn't as bad as he'd thought, but the primitiveness of the house still left something to be desired. Maybe he'd by Onua a TV set and a dishwasher as a Christmas present, he thought aimlessly as he picked up a soapy plate and started to wipe it dry.
---
"Why are you so interested in the stars?"
Numair looked up from the book, startled by the question. "I'm sorry?"
"The stars. You read about them all the time. Why?" Daine asked curiously.
"I'm curious about what they are," Numair said finally. "A lot of places and people believe that the stars and the planets determine things about our lives. The zodiac, for example."
"Do you believe that?" Daine asked doubtfully.
Numair smiled. "I don't know what I believe."
"Tell me about them," Daine asked hopefully. "The stars and the planets."
"I can do better than that," Numair said gruffly. He closed the book and set it by the small coffee table, and rose unsteadily to his feet. Muscles, stiff and sore, protested loud and long. "God, Daine, I think I broke my butt riding today."
Daine grinned. "Wait until your first fall. Then you'll really feel like you broke something, especially your pride."
"The chickens already broke that," Numair said dryly. "Come on, let's go."
"Where are we going?"
"I'm going to teach you about the stars, Daine. Do you want to know or not?"
---
It was cool outside, and damp – Numair was grateful that Daine had insisted on stopping to find an old blanket. They were lying on their backs and staring up at the sky; Numair hadn't seen a sky so studded with stars in a long, long time.
"I forgot how much better the real thing is," he admitted, his voice sounding too loud in the silence. "The pictures in the books just don't make it real."
"So tell me about the books," Daine offered.
"How much do you know, before I shoot my mouth off and find you know it all already?" Numair asked dryly.
"Not much. Grandda taught me the 'Dipper, so I could find my way around, and I know Orion."
"It's too early in the year for Orion," Numair said.
"I know."
He smiled to himself. "Do you want me to teach you or not?"
She fell silent. "Okay, we're in early spring and most of the more popular constellations are in hiding for the year. But you see that one over there?"
"Where?" she asked.
He grabbed her hand and lifted it, pointing at a bright star. "That bright one is called the Assellus Australis. It's sort of the middle, where it forks." Her skin was rough and soft at the same time; he wondered how it could be both.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Imagine a straight line up from the Assellus Australis, okay? You see those stars?"
"Yes."
"Okay, good. Now, look at the Assellus Australis again. You see down and to the right there's another bright star? That's where the right fork ends. Back to the Assellus again – follow it down and to the left, the star there is a bit higher than the one on the right, and not quite so bright. That's Cancer the crab."
"Oh."
"You don't sound very impressed."
He imagined he could see her smile in the starlight. "The Dipper was useful, and Orion had a nice story. This is just… stars."
"Cancer has a story too!" Numair said loudly.
"Tell me the story, Numair."
"You heard of Hercules before, from the Greek mythology?"
"Of course I've heard of Hercules," Daine said scornfully. "I'm not completely uneducated, you know."
"Well, then you'll know that Hercules was set twelve tasks by King Eurystheus as penance for murdering his own wife and children in a fit of madness – which, incidentally was brought on by Hera, Zeus' consort, you do know that Zeus was Hercule's father, and that Hercule's would have been-"
"The stars, Numair, tell me that story."
"Right. So, Hercules was given twelve tasks as penance. Well, the second task Hercules was set, was to slay the Lernaean Hydra, a mythical serpent-like beast with no name. While Hercules was battling the Hydra, the goddess Hera - you remember, she's the one who brought on Hercules' initial fit of madness which drove him to-"
"The Hydra?" Daine promted.
"If you keep interrupting me, Daine, I won't get to tell you the story," Numair pointed out.
"You keep getting distracted and telling me the wrong story," she responded. "I want to hear about Cancer."
"Okay. So Hercules had to slay the Hydra. The Hydra lived in a swamp near Lake Lerna, and its lair was filled with poisonous fumes. Hercules fired burning arrows at the beast to draw it out of its lair, and then tried to slay it with a harvesting sickle. The Hydra was almost impossible to slay though, because each time Hercules cut off one of its many heads, two more sprouted from the stump of its neck. Realising that cutting the thing's heads off wasn't working, Hercules turned to his nephew Lolaus for help, who suggested he burn the stumps after cutting off the heads to stop new heads from growing back."
"What about Cancer?" Daine persisted.
"I'm getting to it," Numair said. "Anyway, Hera saw that Hercules was winning and wasn't happy with it at all, so she sent a crab to distract him. Legend has it the crab – Cancer in Latin – grabbed hold of his toes, but the distraction didn't deter Hercules at all, and he slew the beast. Even though Cancer didn't stop Hercules, Hera rewarded the crab by putting it in the sky."
"That's a fair gruesome story," Daine remarked.
"Well, what makes you really feel sorry for Hercules is that Eurystheus found out Hercules had help by way of his cousin, so he tried to say that the task didn't count because he didn't do it by himself. There's some conflict as to whether it was actually ten or twelve tasks that Hercules completed. I read a piece some time ago which-"
"How do you know all this?" Daine interupted, wriggling on the blanket.
"I studied it at university," Numair answered. "Are you cold, Daine?"
"A little," she admitted. "The nights are still cool."
"Come here." He hadn't realised he was still holding her hand, but he tugged on it now to draw her closer to him.
Her body was tense as first when he pulled her into the crook of his arm, but they were silent for a while and she started to relax.
"Tell me about yourself," she requested.
"What do you want to know?"
"You know about me, it's only fair I know about you."
"My family is one of the oldest and richest of the Spanish," Numair said blandly. "My brothers are all succesful businessmen with wineries and families and, ironically enough, stud farms with horseflesh that breeders pay millions for."
"And yet you don't know the first thing about horses?" Daine asked doubtfully.
"I was the one with my head in the stars," Numair murmured. "Never happy to do business or learn the art of fencing. I'm the shame of my family, a disgrace that's only brought out on Christmas Day and at big events like the birth of another nephew or niece. Even then I'm kept closeted away in the library so that my exploits aren't dragged out as frequently as they could be."
"So what do you do now?"
"Nothing," Numair said. For the first time he realised that he wasn't happy doing nothing. "I flit from one aimless task to the next. I study philosphy, astonomy, political science and attend more parties than anyman I know. Sometimes I study biology or physics and try to find something that makes sense. Once I tried lecturing, but the students were absolutely infuriating."
"Doesn't your head hurt from so much studying?" Daine asked dryly.
Numair laughed. "No, but I think maybe I need to find something useful to do."
"Like?"
"I don't know. I don't know what to do. It's hard being brilliant at everything, you know," he said. "You can do what you want without needing to pour in your soul, and then move onto the next thing without the slightest tinge of regret."
"It's nice to know you're so modest," Daine said pertly.
"Shut up and look at the stars," Numair ordered.
She did as she was told, and he lay on his back with her snuggled in his arms, wondering if maybe there wasn't more to life than books and parties and fine clothes. Her hair smelt fresh like the scent he was beginning to associate with the breeze as it played throuh the pine trees. He realised he was stroking her arm with his fingers and brushing her hair with his lips. He froze, scared, uncertain.
Daine didn't move though; her body warm and relaxed against his own.
Despite himself, Numair dropped a kiss onto her brow and lay for a while longer under the stars with a wild girl asleep in his arms.
---
And the romance starts…
You all know what I want –wink wink nudge nudge--