Children of the Mirror
...22nd Part: Krad...
Dark's soft breath on my face was what woke me up the next morning. The thief actually looked somewhat pleasant when he was sleeping that soundly.
I blinked the thought away, sitting up. His fingers brushed my arm before his hand fell back to the ground near his face.
I brushed some messy violet hair out of his face and nudged his shoulder. "Dark? If you think we're going to find some mass of buildings by tomorrow, you'd better get up."
His hand felt around on the ground for me until he touched my leg, then whacked me weakly, just like any teen searching for their alarm clock to turn it off.
I whacked him back. Not every alarm clock did that, now, did they? The corners of my lips pulled up in a small, awkward sort of smile. "Come on, Mousy. Get up."
"Stop calling me that," he complained.
"Why?" I wondered. He had never rejected the nick-name before this. Hesitantly, I bent down closer to his face. "Gone back to hating me, have you? Even after yesterday?" I prodded at his fingers. "Even after last night?"
"Go away."
"Well, you're bitter today," I noted.
"I have a headache," Dark explained.
"Oh."
Dark slid his bleary eyes open, and with one of those cunning smirks, kissed my lips quick before turning away.
"Stop that!" I objected.
"Stop what?" His voice was muffled by his arm, in which he had buried his face.
I just glared at him until he gave up and sat up to look at me.
"What?" he asked again. "I didn't do anything wrong, did I?" He gave me another of those smirks when I didn't answer. "I knew it," he boasted, poking my chest triumphantly. "You like it when I kiss you."
"I do not!" He knew it was a lie. I knew it was a lie – I just didn't want to admit it. He knew that, too.
Dark just grinned.
When we stood to gather up our things and kick about the remains of our camp, he did it again. "Would you stop that, already!" I nearly shouted. "Seriously – you're on the verge of overdoing it."
Dark only laughed, walking ahead of me on our continued journey through the unknown.
. . .
He had been wrong about timing. We were in the next town by sunset, which looked eerie over the old structures. The place didn't look very inhabited, either. There might have been a few people wandering around, but not enough to really call it a population.
I got an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach as soon as we neared the first stone building in the collection. There was something here.
"This is it, isn't it?" Dark whispered. "Kinda creepy..."
"Yes," I agreed. "It is."
"So... what now?" he wondered, laying his hand over my shoulder companionably.
"Maybe we should wait until tomorrow to figure it out," I suggested. The feeling welling up in me was definitely unease. Now that we had found where whatever we had been searching for was located, I wasn't so sure I wanted to find it.
I had the distinct feeling I would lose something valuable if we reached it; something close to me...
I wrapped my arm around Dark's waist possessively.
"Promise me we'll never be enemies," I said softly.
"We are enemies," he laughed. But his laugh sounded uncertain. He was feeling the same thing I was, I was sure of it. "It'll never get that serious, Krad," he told me, then. "It'll never get as bad as those dreams."
I nodded once. "Never," I agreed.