Chapter 18 Overcoming fear and moving on
Marianna was the first one to wake up the next morning. That was probably because a sunbeam fell exactly on her face. Reluctantly she opened her eyes and closed them immediately. Oh it was too bright for her eyes. Slowly she tried to open them again and this time she made it. At first she felt a little confused, because she saw no walls or windows around her. But then she remembered that she was sent on a mission in the damn nature. Carefully she rose up with her torso and wiped the sleep out of her eyes. Then she yawned really loudly without hiding it behind her hand. She knew that it was not Lady like, but for one she was alone at the moment and two she didn´t care about such thing as manners. While she stretched out her arms, she observed the surroundings. Last night was too dark and she was too tired to notice where she was. But now in the bright daylight the place they choose was really nice. They had a clear view on the sky above and there were not so much trees around. And she heared something dabble nearby. Which meant she could wash herself or take a swim before they went along. Suddenly a big snore brought her out of her thoughts. Immediatley she turned to her right and looked at her companion. Rath was lying on his back. One arm was thrown over his head and the other was on his belly. His mouth was wide open and a little drool was trickling down his cheek. And Marianna found that picture really sweet. He looked so at ease, like nothing could happen when he slept. Usually he wore his mean face, except when he thought nobody was looking or he watched his family. But now that was gone. There was only that peacefulness. Marianna was tempted to touch his face and feel the slight stubbles on his unshaved cheeks. But she didn´t do it, however tempting it was. Besides she had a necessity to do. Nature called and she better listened. Without making to much noise, Marianna peeled herself out of her sleeping bag and went hunting for a nice place to relieve herself. After that she made a little trip to the little lake to wash herself. When she saw her reflection in the water she was on the brink to scream. Her hair looked like a storm had been blowing. Thank god for her powers. Within a few minutes she looked like a girl again. And the cold water did wake her up fully now. But now she had a other problem. She was really hungry and her stomach demanded food. So she went back to Rath, who was probably still snoring loudly to himself. And when she arrived at their bivouac she saw that she was right with her assumption. Silently she sneaked up on him and kneeled beside him.
" Rath. Wake up", Marianna slightly shook Rath. Hopefully he wasn´t like her when it came to waking him up. She was cranky and it could happen that she would blast someone away.
But Rath only turned to the other side and continued sleeping. That lazybone! How could he sleep so deep. They were freaking outdoors with no protection. If they would be attacked Rath would probably sleep soundlessly through it. But Marianna had still some tricks up her sleeve. She would wake Rath sooner or later.
Marianna bend slowly forward until her mouth was at his ear. Then she used her sultry voice. " Rath baby. You have to help me. I got my clothes all dirty and now I don´t have any clothes to wear".
The only response she got was a really loud fart. Immediately Marianna jumped to her feet. That dirty bastard! How dare he to fart at her. She was tempted to kick his butt for it. But she could controll herself in time. Besides she already had a new idea in her head. With a smile she went to her backpack and searched for a container. To her dissapointment her luck ran out and the only thing she found was a little waterbottle. But beggers can´t be choosers. So she made her way down to the lake with the bottle. There she filled it with enough water to fullfill her evil plan. On her way back to Rath she used her powers to build pressure inside the bottle. When she finally arrived at the sleeping place of her companion she took of the cap and splashed to whole content on him.
Rath immediately woke up and jumped up from his place. " What the hell!".
" Good morning. Did you sleep well", if Rath didn´t know Marianna better or they weren´t the only ones here he would believe her innocent appearance. But because it was not the case he knew she was behind the water attack.
" Why did you have to do that?", Rath could imagine better ways to be woken up. However getting wet was not one of them. Desperate he tried to try his soaking clothes. Unfortunaly his body was not yet fully awake and his powers weren´t active.
" I had to wake you somehow".
Rath couldn´t believe it. " You could have tried another way".
" I did and it didn´t work", Marianna really enjoyed the picture of Rath all wet and pissed. He was just to damn funny. She wanted to laugh so badly that her complete body shook. She knew that she couldn´t hold her laughter any longer.
Rath was close to laughing himself. Marianna looked too cute for words. Her face was slightly red with her preventing to laugh and everything. He wasn´t mad at her for splashing him. Ok maybe he was at first, but now he found it just funny. But that didn´t mean that she wouldn´t be punished for her attack.
Marianna got a funny feeling when Rath watched at her really strange. A little smirk graced his face and he looked like he wanted to attack her any moment now. " Don´t you dare do something stupid. I´m warning you".
Rath didn´t intend to do something stupid. " You´re warning me? I´m shaking in my boots".
Marianna wanted to throw him a nasty remark, when Rath raced in her direction. Immediately she ran the other way. Over and over again she screamed at him that he should stop that. But Rath didn´t listen. He chased after her. Thankfully he had the longer legs and he catched her within a few minutes. He grasped her and threw her over his shoulder.
" Rath! Put me down!", Marianna was trashing with her whole body. He coudn´t do that to her. Althrough the view was really nice. She had his trained butt infront of her face. And if she was already so close to it she could do something she wanted to do for a while now. She pinched it.
Rath jumped a little. He didn´t expect her to pinch his ass. But it felt nice. " Stop that. Or I´ll drop you".
" I didn´t do anything", it was not like she hurt him. He should be flattered that she found his butt so irresistible. There were not so many girls out there who would do the same. " Where are you dragging me anyway?".
" Wait and see", and because he couldn´t help himself he slapped her ass really hard. If she could do it, so did he.
" Ouch. That hurt", Marianna only pinched, she didn´t slap. Now she would have his handprint for the rest of the day on her cheek. If he could see her now, she would be pouting like a little girl.
" That was for the rudely wake up call", Rath stopped his walk and then he threw Marianna with all his might in the little lake. He was glad that it was deep enough that she couldn´t hurt herself." And that´s for the water attack".
Marianna fell ass first in the water. After the shock was dissapearing and she could stand in the brook, she started to swear fast in Antarian. Even Rath had problems understanding the things she said. But he got the main thing. She cursed the day he was born and she called him names that turned his ears red. Damn some of the words he hadn´t even heared. But it was funny to see how Marianna bashed her fist in the water and everytime she did that drops would splash around her. He knew he shouldn´t do it, but he had to laugh. However that made Marianna swear some more.
" Don´t laugh at me!", she pointed with her finger at him. She found that not funny. She was wet and her clothers were glued to her body. If Marianna would come out of the water, Rath could see her breast through her shirt.
" I´m sorry. But you look so unbelievable cute at the moment".
"Cute! Cute!I´ll show you cute!", with that Marianna concentrated on the structure of the water and then she nudged it in Rath´s direction. Within seconds a huge fontain shot out of the lake and gushed over Rath. Now he was as wet as her.
Rath couldn´t believe that she did that. For like a few seconds he stood there with his mouth wide open and his eyes almost popped out of their sockets. His hair was glued to his face and the same applied to his clothes. And Marianna didn´t have something better to do as to laugh at him. " You will pay for that".
" I´m terrified", replied Marianna sarcastic. What could he do to her? Make her even wetter? That was impossible.
Rath pulled his tank top over his head and threw it on the ground beneath his feet. " You should be", and then he jumped with his feet angled at his body in the lake. Water was splashing everywhere and Marianna was almost drowned by a wave, which washed over her head.
Just as she surfaced from the water, she saw that Rath was right infront of her. He smirked at her and she didn´t like it. Before she knew what he wanted to do, he laid his hands on her shoulders and pushed her under the water. Marianna didn´t want to lose this fight. She grasped Rath´s legs and pulled him down with her. After that it was a water fight, which nobody wanted to lose. They behaved like little children on a hot summer day. It was quite a sight. If somebody would have seen them, they wouldn´t have guessed that these two were the best soldiers of the kingdom. Marianna was never so happy and so carefree like in that moment. Rath enjoyed it, too. In all his years in which he had contact with the other gender, he didn´t have so much fun ever. And it was a beautiful sight seeing Marianna so cheerful and her laughter seemed to float over the whole planet. Rath could have watched her like this everyday of his life. Sometime later they were really wasted and decided to go back to the shore to let them relax a little bit. And get their clothings dry. Marianna was the first who slumped on the ground just a few feets away from the lake. A little while later Rath followed her and laid himself besides her.
" That was fun", Marianna felt young and really happy for the first time in her life. She couldn´t remember a time when she let her guard down with someone other than her mother. It felt really great to let go from her problems for a while and just be herself.
Rath couldn´t get the smile out of his face, even if he wanted. He saw his first glimpse of the person Marianna really was under her stonewall." Yeah it was". And he didn´t mind if they would do something like that more often. " Althrough you were no opponent for me".
Marianna snorted at that. " Yeah. That´s what I let you believe". She knew Rath´s ego by now and she didn´t want to hurt it in any way. He was like every male on this and probably on another planet. They were so sensitive if they lost against in their eyes the weaker sex. " If I wanted I could have taken you down".
Rath propped his torso on his elbows and faced Marianna. " Is that a Challenge?".
" Maybe another time. We have still something to do", Marianna would love to take Rath down. But they were not here on vacation. They still had a mission to fullfill. And she didn´t want to dissapoint Mael. " Now get your big ass in gear". With that Marianna jumped to her feet and walked to their sleepingbags.
Rath got up from the ground insulted. He tried to turn his body that he could see his backside. But he wasn´t that flexible. " I don´t have a big ass. Maybe hairy, but not big".
Marianna looked back at her companion. He was trying to see his butt. But it didn´t work. Then he seemed to grumble something to himself, but she was too far away to hear what he said. She had to laugh about the picture. He behaved like a girl. Ok he had no big ass, but he was at least on his feet. With that thought in mind she waved her hands over her body until everything was dry again. After that she started to clear the camping side.
When Rath arrived by Marianna she was dry and in the process to put their sleepingbags in their backpacks. Either she was very quick or he wasted more time with praising his trained butt than he thought. So without a word he followed her example and helped to put everything away and destroy all evidence that someone was there. That was one of the first rule his father taught him. Clean your own shit and try to be one step ahead of your enemy. Strange that he remembered everything his father told him now and when his father asked him he didn´t know it.
" Are you ready to go?", Marianna jolted him out of his thoughts. She was finished with her backpack and was carrying it already on her shoulders.
Rath saw to her and then to his backpack, which was lying at his feet, fully packed and closed. " Yeah, we can go".
So they both resumed their trek, althrough neither of them knew which way to go. But they agreed that they should stay on the path as long as it was there. After all it had to have a reason to be there in the first place. Rath took the map and put it in his pant pocket. Just in case they needed it quickly at hand. Marianna smiled at that. Even if they tried to use the map they wouldn´t get far with it, because neither of them could understand a thing that was written there. They only could trust their instincts now and both hoped that they would find their way to this treasure and back again. They walked in a comfortable silence side by side and for the first time they had a feeling that their friendship reached a level where they could be open with each other. Marianna wasn´t afraid to show her feelings anymore and Rath finally saw behind Mariannas wall, even if it was only for a while. But he knew that he knocked a few stones out of it and he would do it as long until the last stone was gone. Sometime later Rath was the first who broke the silence between them. He wanted to know more about her life, before she came to their castle. He hoped that she didn´t avoid the topic or refused to speak about it. To his surprise she started to tell him some things about herself. Beginning with her 8 Birthday where she wanted to have a turquoise refty ( a pony with wings) and her mother gave her a beautiful pink dress. Althrough she was a girl and should have been happy about it, she was dissapointed and never wore it. When she was thirteen she wanted to do something nice for her mother and tried for her sake, to be more like a girl. She even had lessons in which she learned how a princess had to behave. But the teacher was speechless when she saw that Marianna wore boots under her dress. And the way she ate was not "proper for a princess". Just because she didn´t cut her meal in tiny bits and chewed with her mouth wide open. Sometime later the teacher gave up and declared her a "hopeless case". Thank god that her mother never expected her to do that again. With fourteen she started to train with the soldiers. Althrough Hewik, the leading commander of the army, didn´t think she was capable of defending herself, he let her train with his men. Then he saw what power she possessed and started to give her private lessons. He was technically the first male who treated her nice. She was something like his daughter. He was sterner with her and demanded more of her than any other men, but he believed in her. She would never forget the scene where one of the soldier tried to hit on her and she blasted him into the nearest wall. Hewik came immediately and looked what happened. When he saw that she wasn´t hurt in any kind he clapped on her shoulder and said that he was proud of the woman she was becoming. It was the first time that somebody appreciated what she did and showed her that she was good in something. Even her jealous brother seemed to be proud of her. He didn´t say anything, but his eyes weren´t looking so icecold at her anymore. At this point Marianna stopped talking. The thing with her brother was still bothering her. Even after the long time she had to think, she couldn´t find a reason why he helped her escape. Most people would think that it was because they were siblings. But not in her family. She and her brother weren´t that close like she saw with Rath and Ava or Vilandra and Zan. They were more like rivals. Marianna wanted the undivided attention of her father which her brother had and he wanted to be the best soldier in the army which Marianna was. Suddenly she was ripped out of her thoughts, because she noticed that Rath stopped walking beside her.
" We have a slight problem now", Rath pointed infront of them. There was a parting of ways. One path led right and the other left.
Marianna eyed both ways. Which was the right one? And where did they lead to? Marianna faced Rath. " What do we do now?".
" I think we can rule out the map, because neither of us can read it", Rath sighed loud while he scratched nervously his right eyebrow. There had to be a way to know for sure which way they had to go.
" The only suggestion I have is that we seperate and go different paths".
" No! My father told us to go together and we stick to that", besides he wanted to keep Marianna in sight. She was a trouble magnet and he wouldn´t let her leave his side because of that.
Marianna was startled, because Rath reacted so strongly about her suggestion. It was only a thought. Geez what was up with him now? " Alright. Then tell me Oh great one, what do you have in mind?".
Rath turned to the girl beside him. She really was a royal pain in the ass. But he liked it when she called him names, because she only did it with him and that meant something. " We choose a path"
" That´s your plan?", Marianna threw him an angry glare. Was he for real? Did he think that it was that simple? They couldn´t even agree on ordinary things and then they should choose a way? Great, they would be here for a while. Maybe she should look for a place to sleep.
" Yeah. Do you have a problem with it?", why couldn´t Marianna simply be on his side for once? Everytime he said something she had to say the opposite. Damn women!
" Actually yes" and even if she wouldn´t have a problem with it she would still say the same, just to see Rath with his pissed of look. He was so sexy when he got mad. His eyes changed to a darker colour and his aura screamed dangerous. It was a total turn on. " If we take the wrong path we´re losing valid time, which we can´t right now".
Rath thought about that. She was absolutely right. Even if he wouldn´t say that out loud, especially to her. She only would tease him with it. But what could they do then? Just as he tried to thought about another plan, Marianna started walking to the right path. " What are you doing?".
" I´m saving time", what did it look like she was doing? " I´m going that way while you take the other way".
Rath opened his mouth to disagree. But something in her eyes told him that he should shut his mouth and do what she said. Besides it was the only way they could abide to the time his father gave them. So without saying anything he took the left path.
Marianna tried everything to hide her smile. She knew that Rath wanted to voice his objections, but he didn´t. Finally he realized that her suggestion was the best one. Suddenly a really loud sound startled her. Shocked she tried to see where the noise was coming from. But there was nothing, besides trees, bushes and other greens. Then she noticed that the sound was coming from her backpack. Immediately she threw it on the ground, just in case that it was something that could explode any minute. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw that Rath was coming her way.
" Stay back. I think my backpack will blow up", Marianna went to a safe distant. She was rather safe than sorry. Rath meanwhile did the opposite. He walked straight to her backpack.
" Don´t worry", Rath knew what was up and why their backpacks made such a noise." My father put sensors in our backpacks, who give alarm when they´re too far away from each other" Just as he said that the noise stopped suddenly.
Marianna breathed out relieved. The alarm was really annoying and she would propably still hear it when she slept. She put her middle finger in her ear and wiggled it. " I think the noise cracked my eardrum".
" I can make it better", Rath wiggled his eyebrow seductively while he tried to stiffle his laughter. He only wanted to check if Marianna heared it. Judging after the face she made her sense of hearing was still intact.
Marianna went to her backpack, took it off the ground and strapped it on her shoulders again. Then she turned to Rath and smiled at him. " I quite believe that".
" What are we doing now? Going seperately is out of the question", Rath stepped closer to Marianna, out of fear that the damn alarm would go off again.
" You decide. I´m doing whatever you say", Marianna just wanted to find the bloody treasure and go back in the castle. She missed her bed and the food there.
Rath faced his companion. Did she really mean that? He knew what he wanted her to do to him. And it had nothing to do with choosing which way they were going. " Really".
" Yeah really", Marianna didn´t immediately realize what she had implied and how Rath understood it. But then she noticed the big smile on his face and she finally put two and two together. " Get your mind out off the gutter, soldier boy. I meant which way we´re going".
" Damn", upps did he said that just loud? Ok he should concentrate on the task at hand. He could dream about Marianna, who danced for him without any scrap of clothes on her body, later. " Alright. If we´re both already on this way, we should continue it".
Marianna stretched out her right arm and bowed. " Lead the way, commander".
Rath shook his head laughing. That girl was so damn unpredictable that he never knew what he should expect from her. Sometimes she was bitchy, then she was funny and other times she was so closed off. But one thing was for sure. Life with her was never boring. So with that Rath started walking. Marianna close behind him. Both were paying attention that they weren´t too far away from each other. They wanted to prevent that everybody in a hundred mile radius could hear them.