021: STARS
For a while all Corosa could hear was the sound of the wilderness around them, and the lake not too far away.
Then, out of the night-- "Fuck, would ya look at that?" And a shove to his good shoulder.
Corosa didn't mind the rude awakening. Only because it hadn't been an awakening; Corosa hadn't been asleep, and had no intention of doing so within the next few days. Weeks, if he could stretch it out that long. He wasn't about to abandon Satero, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't mistrustful.
"What?" he asked, eyes flickering over to the dark shape next to him. It was busy getting up.
"Shut it and jus' look, will ya?" Satero tugged on his sleeve. A tug from Satero was a yank from everyone else, so Corosa didn't have much of a choice in getting up. But as soon as he was sitting, he twisted his arm out of Satero's grasp and surreptitiously edged away. Closeness was not something Corosa appreciated. He remembered awkward hugs. Cold eyes on his. A smile he never returned.
But when Corosa finally turned his gaze on whatever it was that so enraptured Satero, he didn't immediately protest the arm slung around his shoulder.
Just a bright streak against the sky, he thought. Still gleaming as he followed its arcing path, a clean slice through the darkness that flashed and disappeared into the fade of the horizon.
"Yes," he said, sounding entirely unimpressed. He made a pointed attempt to shrug Satero's arm off.
"Shooting fucking star!"
And for a moment, Corosa could just see Satero's face in the darkness, even without light. The image was sharp in his head, the wide eyes, the teeth drawn back into an innocent grin. Childlike, for a man of thirty. Especially so for a man of thirty usually seen lugging a battleaxe around.
Corosa glanced back towards the sky, but there were no afterimages. "You see them a lot, this time of the year."
"Aw, fuck you," Satero laughed. He gave Corosa a shove to the back of the head and with that he was off, vanishing, disappearing into the forest faster than a cripple was allowed.
"Shit," Corosa said to himself, awkwardly getting up off the ground as Satero's mocking, jeering laughter ricocheted through the air to him.
It's far too dark for this, he thought. Maybe if he stayed right where he was, Satero would come back himself. That was the logical course of action. Never mind any emotional attachment Satero might have towards him, no man wandered around at night injured and weaponless.
Except there were things in the world that overruled logic, and Corosa (picking his way through the dark, toeing the ground in front of him, searching for snags and tree roots and whatever else might trip him up), Corosa grudgingly supposed Satero was one of those things.
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The chase went like this.
Corosa took fifty-four steps, stopped when his right arm nudged into a tree, and yelped when Satero's arm shot out to smack him upside the head.
"Hey there!" the mastersmith said cheerfully, and this time Corosa could see nothing in his head but the inordinately pleased grin.
"Wipe that off your face," Corosa grumbled. He rubbed his jaw where Satero had hit him, as if trying to scrape the pain off. "I can see your teeth from here." Self-satisfaction brighter than any star, he thought.
"You're a filthy liar," Satero responded, easily, still far too smug.
"I suppose. And It's done me good so far." Corosa reached out, resting his palm against the weathered bark of the tree he'd walked into. "What did you run off for? Just to get another hit in?"
"Ya angry?" Satero asked. The smugness faded away from his voice. Corosa heard him shuffle, leaves crackling under his feet. Then a cough, and a muttered "Sorry."
Corosa tapped his fingers against the trunk. "I'm not angry."
The hit had hurt, but Corosa was willing to accept that that wasn't Satero's fault. Childlike, he thought again. Didn't know his own strength? Corosa always thought smiths needed to have some amount of control, and that mastersmiths needed it sharpened to a point. Perhaps Satero's parents were right; the man would have done better as a knight. Not that Corosa would appreciate him as such. Corosa didn't usually appreciate people whose sole profession was the killing of other people, sometimes including him.
--you hate the people who remind you of yourself, don't you
"Yeah, well, I'm still sorry," Satero said, fingers finding Corosa's hair as they usually did. "Hope that doesn't bruise."
"Am I allowed to hit you back if it does?" Corosa escaped Satero's hand and put the tree between them. "Your leg alright? You shouldn't be running."
"Wasn't," Satero whined.
"Technically you shouldn't--"
"You shouldn't be talkin'."
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The argument went like this.
Corosa delivered his side of the dispute from his side of the tree, Satero yelled over him from the other side, and then Satero unanimously won when he stepped over and stifled Corosa by sticking his hand over Corosa's mouth.
"See, I like you better this way," Satero said when Corosa finally stopped trying to pull his hand off. "End of that, now. I'll do whatever the hell I want and...you're not allowed to lose your other arm."
Corosa tried to say 'good luck stopping me when you're one-legged', but it all came out incoherent, and he strongly suspected that was exactly what made Satero laugh at him again. There was something pleasing about the laughter, though. A softness around the edges of the otherwise sharp derision, and it lessened Corosa's irritation somewhat. Or maybe it was the smell of Satero's glove; a mess of leather and blood that left a metallic taste on Corosa's tongue when Satero finally let go.
Corosa resisted the urge to spit. "That's it," he said, deadpan as usual. "I'm throwing you into the next river we see."
And Satero only laughed.
"One-armed? One-armed?"
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And the explanation, finally, when they were sprawled in the grass again and after Satero was done bitching about insects and dirt and rocks and everything in the world from Corosa back to Corosa again--
"I was searchin'--"
--for stars, Satero said, but Corosa already knew the answer.
Author: NO I WILL NOT ABANDON THIS STORY I WILL DROWN YOU ALL IN GAY
or rather, Fushi-chou on deviantart (sorry, I don't know your username! ;-;) reminded me that...this dumb thing is still sitting here. oh god. yes. i have to finish it I WILL FINISH IT DAMMIT
hi guys i'm back