[A/N]: "Smother" belongs to Daughter.

The hooves of the horses kicked up clouds of dust whenever they hit the ground. Summer seemed to have crept upon them quite suddenly this year, or perhaps Gwen simply hadn't been conscious of the seasons. The blue sky stretched ahead of them behind the full treetops, not a fluff of white visible. It almost hurt to breath with how dry the air was, and flies buzzed around the heads of the travellers who tried to swat them away before they could land. The horses snorted and swished their tails on a regular basis.

A long breath escaped Gwen's nose as she stared at her arms, which were covered by the sleeves of her familiar tunic, although someone had cleaned it during her… 'stay' at the farm. Claire's words echoed inside her mind as she thought of the thin white lines that her sleeves hid from prying eyes.

"Who did this to you?" the doctor asked, her hands squeezing the half-elf's wrist. Her eyes cut towards the door, and from the tenseness in her shoulders, Gwen knew that if she didn't do something, the woman would charge out of here and murder somebody.

"No one," she replied as she tried to pull herself free, but the other would not let her go. "Just forget about it. They didn't do anything."

That seemed to catch her attention and Claire's gaze met hers. Her eyebrows scrunched together and wrinkles appeared across her forehead. The moment of realisation was visible in her eyes that were so dark they were almost black. "You…"

This time, when Gwen pulled her arm back, Claire did not resist, her hands falling into her lap. She bit her lower lip and when she exhaled, her shoulders slumped. Before either of them could say or do anything, the door swung open.

Before anybody could enter the room, however, Claire's hand squeezed Gwen's once, and with a small smile she said, "It'll be all right. Trust me."

Words spoken with such conviction, they had somehow managed to struck a chord inside the half-elf, though she didn't understand it herself. Six meagre words that anybody could say. Empty, meaningless. They would not take away the scars, nor the memories that they sheltered. They could not prevent the pain that was to come. Why, then, did Gwen find herself clinging to those two sentences like a prayer?

It'll be all right. Trust me.

What could a doctor who primarily worked with animals possibly know about any of this? Why couldn't she just forget what she had said? Why did it always come back to 'why'? Gwen cringed every time she heard or thought of that one word, as if it were an attack on the mental barrier she had raised around herself.

A dull ache pulsed through her arm in time with her heartbeat, but it barely hurt anymore. Richard had deemed that enough of a requirement to drag her back onto the cart with the others and leave. Another guard, Francis, muttered about all the time they had lost because of her, but she only shot him a sweet smile. At least, as sweet a smile that she could muster when standing on shaky legs and working on a mostly empty stomach, disregarding the broth that Claire had all but shoved down her throat. The strange soreness in her chest she could ignore now that she had bound herself up properly once more.

The two captives who had been with her at the beginning were softly talking to each other again. The two guards manning the cart had stopped snapping at them a while ago, which in turn softened the atmosphere surrounding the prisoners. It looked like the two humans were on a casual daytrip, not on their way to prison.

Much like her, the large man who sat beside her remained silent throughout it all. Gwen still did not know what his voice even sounded like. Even so, she felt most at ease next to him, despite his pungent smell. He had not tried to strike a conversation with her like the others had. That made him all right in her book.

She guessed that, since she did not speak to him either, he tolerated her presence more than he did that of the others. The fact that he had almost crushed the dh'oine's head who had tried to get too close to him only strengthened that thought. Then again, that dh'oine had muttered something to him when she got close enough and had rather obviously had intentions that were less than savoury.

No, the most interaction Gwen had had with the big man had consisted of eye contact after Claire had allowed her to climb the cart by herself. She was just fine with that.

With the warm days came the lengthening of them. Before the shit with her arm, she had mostly slept, drifting in and out of various states of wakefulness only to find that time had jumped to somewhere in the future. In a way that was almost more tiring than whatever was actually making her tired in the first place.

Now, although she continued to doze off occasionally, she often had her eyes open and witnessed more of the days. Their unbearable length, for one. She almost wished she could just sleep the rest of the trip away again. Especially when the sun began to sink, casting the world in shadows, their surroundings became less visible. With nothing to catch her eye, Gwen quite frankly was bored out of her mind.

"I think we've gone far enough for today," Richard announced the very moment she nodded off again.

Out of habit, Gwen watched the others shuffle out of the wagons. Francis stood next to the burly man even before his feet hit the ground. The same was the case for his enemy in the other cart, who scowled at the man without a name. Rodrick glanced at Gwen and lingered while the others set up camp, but he didn't talk to her.

Before long, Richard climbed into the cart. This time he had a bowl in each hand, which he held up in the air as he sat next to her. Once he had settled down, he handed one to her, his head cocked to the side. The stew smelled a little bit better this time and Gwen's stomach groaned again.

With a sigh, she accepted it, bringing a spoonful of it to her lips. Saliva gathered in her mouth even before she opened her mouth, and before she knew it, she began to shovel it onto her tongue. It hadn't had the chance to cool down and she had already she emptied the bowl, her tongue aching from the stew's scalding hotness.

Richard stared at her, blue eyes wide. He held his spoon in his hand but otherwise his food remained untouched. Then, the corners of his lips twitched and he sputtered before he burst into laughter. He almost spilled his stew with how his body shook.

"I doubt that reaction was called for," Gwen muttered. In an attempt to hide her burning cheeks, she lowered her head and hid her face behind her hair. It had grown long enough to barely reach her shoulders and easily slid forward to shield her from his sight.

"S-sorry." Richard chuckled a couple more times and reached out, forefinger brushing strands of black hair behind her ear before it moved to push her chin up. Gwen jerked away from him and he dropped his hand to hold his bowl again. "Sorry."

The half-elf shook her head and parted her lips. She felt guilty for the holdup she had caused, wanted to be less harsh on him. Wanted to say that it didn't matter. But she couldn't. Every time she tried to speak, she would see Elric in front of her with that look of hatred and disgust on his face.

Humans, in their diverse appearances, all resembled each other in some way or other when it came to one thing, and that was how they treated that which they did not know. Richard himself had shown it in his pity for himself and his grandfather while completely disregarding his grandmother's experiences.

No, it wasn't a human thing… It was something all living beings did. Elves were just as bad. Why… why else would Iorveth have thrown her out, but for her mixed nature? Half-elves were just something nobody could understand. They didn't want to understand, either. And they never would.

But maybe… Maybe she could try to cut herself some slack without trusting anybody.

Though his laughter had long since died down, Richard stayed by her side, silently eating his food while looking over at the campfire and the humans surrounding it. Gwen leaned her head back and took in the multitude of stars scattered across the dark sky, spread out in irregular patterns and shining with varying degrees of brightness.

"Do you…" She licked her lips, wincing slightly at the throbbing of her tongue. "Do you know any constellations?"

"What?" Richard whipped his head towards her. From the corner of her eye, the half-elf saw him scrunch his face up in confusion.

She gestured towards the sky. "I asked if you knew any constellations."

Still frowning, he looked up. Then his mouth formed an 'o' before it curled into a grin. "Not really. Sorry to disappoint. Didn't take you for the type to be interested in that kind of thing, to tell you the truth."

"That one, over there," Gwen began, pointing towards a group of lights, "is called the mushroom." She ignored Richard narrowing his eyes at her and moved her finger towards a different place. "This one they call the tree of life."

"Looks more like a broomstick to me."

"No, it's a tree. And that, the one just to the right, is known as the nekker."

"Nekker? Did they put something in the stew?"

"Over there you can see…"

The two of them continued going back and forth until their conversation dwindled and Gwen fell asleep, her head dipping down to rest of his shoulder.

Much to everyone's chagrin, the day after proved itself even hotter than the one before. The very moment Gwen opened her eyes, it was to find herself sweaty and uncomfortable. For the first time since leaving Vergen, she was the first of the prisoners to wake up, though the guards were already up and about.

Rodrick and Richard stood watch by the campfire while Francis and another guard busied themselves with removing their breastplates. They set them on the ground and removed their chainmail and undershirts until they were half-naked. Their skin shone with sweat, which wasn't much of a surprise since they must have worn their armour almost nonstop these past few days.

Richard laughed and yelled something at them, but Gwen didn't catch what he said. She sat up, stretched her arms and rolled her shoulders until she felt her back pop. Her tunic chafed against her skin and, in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to lower herself into a pond of cold water.

Before the image of Iorveth by the waterfall could take root inside of her mind, she got on her hands and knees and crawled to towards the back of the cart. Behind her, a soldier sat at the front of the wagon, his dark eyes on her as he sharpened his knife. She ignored his gaze and, with a sigh, took a seat at the edge.

The guards by the campfire laughed again. When Gwen glanced at them, Richard made his way towards her holding a skin in his hands while the others set about waking the others.

"We're leaving sooner than planned," he said as he handed her the skin. "If it's already this warm, we should try to get as far as possible until it gets too hot. There should be a river further down the road, so we'll probably make a stop there."

Taking a sip from the skin, the half-elf determined its contents to be water and gulped down enough to satisfy her suddenly parched throat. With a nod, she gave it back to him before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She moved back onto the wagon while watching Richard move around the camp with the skin of water.

The other prisoners moved rather sluggishly towards their carts, complaining loudly about the heat until one of the soldiers snapped at them to shut up. By the time all of them had found their respected seats, the horses had been attached to the wagons and the camps had been cleaned up.

In this weather, even just doing nothing was too much. Francis manned the horses still without his armour, as did one of the guards on the cart behind them, much to Richard's dismay. He didn't pull rank, however, probably understanding that, at this rate, they were more likely to die of a heatstroke than a blade or an arrow.

The nameless man beside Gwen even let out a sigh at one point, surprising her. She glanced at him and noted that his cheeks were red, but he kept his arms crossed over his broad chest and pretended to ignore everything. Their eyes met and the half-elf quickly averted her gaze. Somehow, for some reason, he had almost seemed pleased, and she felt like knowing that broke some unspoken contract they had had.

By the time Richard signalled for the horses to stop, most of the prisoners had all but melted into puddles, despite the fact that they had yet to reach the hottest point of the day. A rush of excitement went through the humans, who stopped the carts and released the horses in record time. Even the animals seemed glad for the break.

In the blink of an eye, Gwen was sat on the grass beside the calm, shallow river that meandered throughout this region, her breeches rolled up to her knees so she could bathe her legs in the cool water. She tried to concentrate on the noise of the others chattering like a group of children instead of prisoners and guards, although the soldiers remained tense throughout it all. Tried to watch them wade through the stream.

Suddenly, the sound of water lapping at a shore brought with it the musky smell of sweat, blood and leather, as well as a hint of burning wood and roots. The memory was so strong that it overtook her at once.

He shifted closer, pressing his body against hers, and looked down at her. She craned her neck, her cheeks turning pink as she noticed the lack of distance between their lips. His breath fanned across her face, and they stood like that for a few moments, her eyes staring at his face. She wanted to be defiant, to push him away, to smirk at what seemed to be his affection for her... But at the same time, she craved it just as much as she wanted to sneer at it.

His lashes were so long, Gwen noticed all of a sudden. She tried, again, to ignore the scar that ran down his cheek, the sunken hollow where once an eye had been. What did it feel like to have one's eye removed from one's socket? A shiver ran down her spine at that thought, and so she tried to banish it from her mind.

Still he waited. For her. Seeing him in front of her, eye shut, mouth almost against hers, something inside of her fluttered. Nobody had ever waited for her.

And so she closed the distance between them.

Rough fingers wound themselves in her hair, deepening the kiss instantly as his tongue found hers. His hips brushed against her stomach, together with something else, and the half-elf placed her hands upon his breast, which was surprisingly soft to the touch. Iorveth understood at once and kept his distance… at least when it came to his lower body.

His tongue moved against hers in rough strokes, teeth occasionally clashing with the urge the two of them had to touch each other in as many places as possible. Her hands roamed his body, caressing every scar she found, and as his hold on her hair remained, his other hand slid down her neck. It caressed the dip of her collarbone, stroked her shoulder, and she winced when his thumb brushed over the arrow wound.

Somebody heaved a sigh beside her. With a gasp, Gwen snapped out of her stupor. Her heart hammered in her chest when she turned to find the nameless man climbing out of the river to sit next to her. His drenched trousers clung to his legs as he did so, emphasising the muscles of this thighs. Now that it had finally been washed, the hair on his head revealed itself to be dark brown, almost black. Drops of water slid down his arms and chest, getting tangled up in the hair that covered his skin.

Gwen watched the droplets for a moment, though she was mostly fascinated by the appearance of coarse hair on a man's body. Sure, she had seen it once or twice from far away, especially then with the other half-naked humans splashing about in the water right in front of her. Up close, she had never witnessed it before – Elric, with his fair hair, had barely had any at all.

Before he could realise she had been staring at him, she forced her attention back to the matter at hand. The two of them watched the humans wash themselves in silence, the forest around them coming to life with all different kinds of sounds, from the chirping crickets to the pecking woodpeckers.

And still, right then, Gwen felt like she was the only thing alive.