Back to Aravis again. Sorry this took so long. I have been unfortunately ill. Thanks as always to Heyna Blackstar, PadrePedro and Le Faucon Bleu for your reviews :)

The Beacon – Aravis

The beacon was Aravis' idea and she was rather proud she'd thought of it. She was also rather glad Cor's raft idea could not work as their first option because it meant that she'd won this round in the competition.

True, Cor had called a temporary cease to competitiveness, but thinking up the beacon still counted as her victory because he'd mentioned the raft before he'd called the truce and the beacon was part of the same conversation.

She needed a victory right now anyway, what with having had to go to Cor's shelter last night and the indignity of it.

Though maybe it was also nice not to have to worry about competing either.

Now they could just focus on getting the job done.

They started the beacon by collecting small splinters of wood for the kindling and then moved onto the larger branches.

Cor didn't talk much and nor did Aravis. It felt like something had shifted between them since last night and Aravis wasn't sure if it was the truce or something else on top of that.

Though it might also just be her letting Cor go to her head.

She kept thinking about his mussed blonde hair and his bright blue eyes and his pale freckled cheeks. But most of all, she kept thinking about his promise not to let any slavers take her away.

Though she would never admit it, she felt safer when Cor was with her. Ever since their escape from Calormen, she'd always thought they could survive anything as long as they were together.

They might survive with arguments and insults and sniping at each other's abilities, but they would survive.

-O-

Setting the beacon alight was more challenging than collecting the wood, but fortunately it was almost high noon by the time they were done piling wood which meant they had all the heat of the day at their disposal.

Aravis and Cor decided to make the fire starting equipment together, though decided was perhaps not the right word. Truly, they just didn't object when each of them proposed which tasks they were going to take. Aravis volunteered to find a stray piece of bark and carve out a starter groove whilst Cor volunteered to whittle a thin piece of wood into the refined cylinder they'd need for the rotational friction.

Then using the dry shredded palm leaves as kindling, Aravis and Cor took turns twisting the wooden stick until the flame caught.

Aravis even let Cor place it in the beacon pile.

And then they both stood together, watching as the fire caught and the wood began to crackle and dark smoke rose into the sky.

"Let's hope someone benevolent sees it," said Aravis.

Cor nodded.

"Do you think the rest of the ship are okay?" she asked after a moment.

She'd thought about the other members of the crew a lot since she'd fallen overboard. She and Cor had been on the deck glaring at each other when the wave had hit, washing them both away with it.

They'd found the barrel, but they'd been swept away so swiftly she hadn't been able to see what had happened to the rest of the ship.

All she knew was that it had still been whole when they'd left it behind and she hoped it had stayed that way.

"I don't know," said Cor. "But I hope so."

"At least you and I are still together though," said Aravis. "I feel like falling overboard could have been a lot worse."

Cor gave her a curious look. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "It could have been a lot worse."

-O-

"So what do we do now?" said Aravis as they sat on the beach, the beacon fire blazing behind them. They'd set it up on the longest stretch of sand on the island, a good few hundred metres from their shelters with the prevailing wind blowing embers out to sea so stray embers wouldn't set their shelters on fire.

Cor shrugged, and cracked a coconut on the side of the barrel. "I guess we have fun," he said.

"Fun?" said Aravis. "We are stranded on an island in the middle of an ocean."

"Yeah and there's nothing we can do about it right now," said Cor. "So we might as well relax a bit whilst we wait."

Aravis wasn't sure she was in the mood for fun, but Cor was smiling so brightly at her that maybe she could consider it.

"Alright," she said slowly. "I guess we could have a sand castle competition?"

Cor shook his head, tutting.

"No more competing until we get back to Anvard, remember?" he said.

Aravis grumbled, but did not disagree. "Well what do you want to do then?"

Cor gave her a soft smile. "Why don't we build a sand castle together?"

I should be able to edit and post the next chapter in a month.