Title: Sandy Skies
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones
Characters: Vanessa, Tana, Innes.
Theme: #2 Sunburn
Rating: PG13
Summary: Desert conditions and Pegasus Knights don't mix well.

Disclaimer: Rallalon does not own Fire Emblem.

.-.-.-.-.-.

She really didn't want him to see her this way. It was bad enough that her armor was scorching and Titania was nearly too exhausted by the constant heat of the Jehanna sun to fly. It was bad enough that she had sand everywhere and Titania had next to nothing to graze on.

Her green hair only made the red of her face stand out all the more.

Vanessa knew herself to be a creature of snow. Her mount was a creature of mountain skies. Being in a desert wasteland wasn't doing much for either of them. Rather, it was doing much against them. Besides from taking a physical toll on Pegasus and knight, this was a horror for Vanessa's confidence.

More than anything, Vanessa wanted to be like her big sister. Syrene was talented and responsible and... beautiful. If she could be like Syrene, strong Syrene, respected Syrene, attractive Syrene... Well, maybe then she'd be someone worth falling in love with. Someone a prince would glance at, then glance at again before giving into the urge to stare.

Unfortunately, right now, he would feel the urge to stare, and for all the wrong reasons.

Vanessa's face was currently red and peeling, her clothes were drenched with sweat, and she felt as if she would die of heat stroke before sunset came. With three or four healers running about, the last didn't seem to be something she had to worry about and the rest weren't things she could do anything about.

All she could do was pray as Father Moulder had taught her to. She'd pray, and ask forgiveness for praying about something so vain and insignificant as not letting the prince see her sunburn. As long as she stayed in flight while traveling and avoided him during meal times for a week, it should be all right.

That was never going to happen.

The ruins they were taking shelter in were far too small for any real avoiding to be done. Fortunately, as long as the sandstorm was raging outside, there wasn't much movement going on either. So long as Vanessa stayed where she was, holding a cloth over her face and a hood over Titania's face, she would be fine. She didn't dare risk a glance to her left where Princess Tana and her mount were taking shelter in the corner, further protected by the human-and-equine buffer Vanessa and Titania had formed.

The Pegasus tried to toss her head, her ears flattening down, upset by the wind and noise. Vanessa held on, murmuring into her mount's ear and petting the animal's nose. Displeased, Titania snorted into her hand, the hot air barely noticeable in this desert heat. Wind roaring ever louder, Titania finally got it into her loveable head that the hood was a good thing, an idea which she kept forgetting between these sandstorms. The Pegasus stepped into her, pressing her hooded head against Vanessa's chest, the equivalent an affectionate and frightened hug.

Fighting the urge to cough – once she began, she might not ever stop – Vanessa felt a hand touch her elbow. Keeping her right arm around her mount's neck, she carefully moved to take that hand in hers, squeezing gently. Far less calloused than hers, though far from soft and unused, the princess's hand felt strangely delicate, a sharp contrast to her strong grip.

Sharing that silent support, the two Pegasus Knights waited out the storm with cloth around their faces and their eyes squeezed shut, each feeling a pounding pulse in the other's hand.

.-.-.-.

"That was an adventure, wasn't it, Vanessa?" the princess said later, untying the hood from her Pegasus' bridle. "Achaeus seems to be all right. How's Titania?"

In reply, said Pegasus spread her wings and flapped once, snorting and sending sand flying. Both women hurriedly covered their eyes as Achaeus followed suit.

Coughing, Vanessa told herself they were just lucky their mounts didn't have enough room to stretch out to their full wingspan. Titania sneezed and then nuzzled her arm, paying more attention now that her rider was busy hacking sand up a dry throat.

So of course, in her moment of coughing, wheezing, sand-blasted, sun-scorched glory, the prince had to make his entrance.

Standing tall and proud and more than slightly irritated, Prince Innes was a distinctly different shade than she had last seen him. There was a clear line of sand going across his face, reminding her uncomfortably of the mercenary Gerik's scar. Above the line, sand thickly peppered his face. Below, the suggestion of a scar was enhanced by the angry red tinge of his skin, almost the color of blood. It was difficult to tell that the original colors of his clothes had been, so encrusted by sand they had become. All this combined with his manner, making him look like a man who has gone through battle with some clawed desert beast and come out the victor.

Vanessa immediately turned back to Titania, keeping her head down and forcing herself to stop coughing despite the protests of her throat.

"There you are, Tana."

The note of frustration in his voice was highly noticeable, even to the ears of a woman trying not to listen. She was having a hard enough time trying to breathe through her dry nostrils and ignore the irritation in her throat.

"I'm fine, brother!" the princess protested, already on the defensive.

Hold it... Hold it... Dignity...

"Tana, you can't-"

Dignity… Not looking like an idiot in front of-

Another coughing fit erupted. Forget about not coughing, she wasn't breathing! She held onto her Pegasus for support, Titania quickly offering her neck and giving a nervous snort. Vanessa's world narrowed to the white coat of fur under her fingers and the harsh burn of her throat. A hand touched her back as a water flask was held up before her eyes and lowered. She took it, feeling a steadying hand under hers. Managing to raise the flask to her lips, dry and cracked, Vanessa nearly coughed out the water before she could force herself to swallow.

"This is why I don't want you out here," the prince continued after that briefest of pauses, speaking to his sister while his knight took frustratingly small sips from his flask. "It's not simply the battlefield you're in danger on."

His sister had switched to a different topic entirely. "Vanessa, are you all right?"

The knight nodded, fairly certain this was the truth. A moment later, once her mind had once again expanded to subjects beyond air and water, her face burned beneath its sand covering.

The prince was keeping a stabilizing hand on the flask, minding the scarcity of water and Vanessa's unsteady grip. Her fingers over his, his thumb over hers, Vanessa imagined that she could feel his pulse. And his other hand was still on her back, still there, still touching her. If her right knee were to wobble and if she was to topple over to the side, she would fall against him and into his waiting arms.

Looking into eyes so pale a green as to seem grey, Vanessa became very conscious of her right knee.

Those eyes were trained on her, watching her closely, carefully. He slid his hand out from beneath hers, removing the other from her back, leaving her so strangely cold in the desert heat. Taking her last small, controlled sip, a thought occurred to her, one that nearly brought on her third coughing fit of the day. Almost choking, Vanessa tried without success to push her realization to the back of her mind and pointedly ignore it until it went away.

He almost made a grab for the flask when she jerked, almost touched her again, but decided – perhaps fortunately – that she wasn't in need of help. He looked at her questioningly as she handed the flask back to him, didn't seem to notice when their hands touched and Vanessa experienced yet another one of those incredible temperature changes.

"I'm fine, sir." Her voice was a little rough, but perfectly usable.

Prince Innes smiled.

He smiled at her.

He smiled at her, and he said, using that soft, satisfied, captivating tone of voice that always made her want to close her eyes and lean against his chest where she would listen to him for as long as he would speak and remain there even longer, even once he had fallen silent because then he would touch her hair and look at her as if she was beautiful

Prince Innes smiled and said, "Good."

Soon enough, the Frelian prince and princess had moved their argument elsewhere, Princess Tana taking Achaeus with her. Vanessa's mind had kept slipping back to her slightly awkward realization, stopping her from paying complete attention to what they were saying.

That was probably for the best.

Titania snorted, shaking her mane, sending yet more in the air. Vanessa closed her mouth immediately, holding her breath and giving her mount a look which was Not Amused. The Pegasus, her ears tipped back and slightly out to the sides, only gazed back at her, unmistakably bored. Still having some time until the army would resume its trek northwest, Vanessa pulled out a brush from her saddlebags and began what was now the highly repetitive chore of getting sand out of her mount's fur.

Her mind strayed back to a moment in the previous few weeks as she went about the familiar brush strokes. She could see him, standing behind an outcropping of rock in the mountains. She could see him, pulling that flask out and removing the stopper. She could see him, raising it to his lips and tilting his head back, eyes closing slightly against the glare of the sun.

Part of her was desperately trying to remember the taste, to filter through the memory of warm, stale water tinged with a metallic tang, to search through it and find a taste even the most vivid of dreams could not supply.

The rest of her was desperately trying to ignore what that part was doing. Because to have to resort to that, to regret that she hadn't found that taste right away and to regret it so deeply that it was physically painful... This was not what she wanted.

"Duty first," she said to the sandy ruins, the sounds of her fellow soldiers distant yet close.

Titania turned her neck to look back at her, one ear perked up towards her rider.

Vanessa tried a smile and went back to brushing down her mount, not yet realizing that she'd forgotten to be embarrassed about her sunburn.