Riding Tornac out of the village Murtagh was determined to get to the camp as soon as possible. He focused on Rachel's breathing to remind himself that he needed to stay with her and not got off to kill the rest of those men. He felt her small hands holding the other counterpart around his abdominal wall, holding onto him. He slowed Tornac to a slow pace when they got to where the trees got nearer to each other.
Stopping just by the camp circle he got off the horse, picketed it to the earth near some grass to eat and then gently, compared to earlier that day, helped her off the horse and onto the ground again. She kept her head down. He placed his hand to the side of her face to make her meet his gaze.
"I know you're disappointed in me but-" he began clippingly.
"You had to do it," she finished his sentence without really thinking about it.
"Well what else would you have had me do?" he asked knowing he trumped her this time.
Looking up at him she answered before he could add more questions. "I didn't say it was the wrong thing to do," she said quietly but still loud enough for him to hear. "They might stop now they've had someone kill them for what they've done to others. It might help someone else."
He was puzzled by her sometimes. "How can you think rationally at the moment? Or about someone else?"
He noticed the frightened look behind her calm façade. "I'm rational now in hope to stay rational later. I'm scared at the moment of…" Pausing she notified his attention to the fact she wrapped her arms around herself and he reached out to her to comfort her but refrained before she noticed.
"What are you afraid of?" Murtagh asked kindly.
She looked up with her scared deer like eyes. "I'm scared of falling asleep and of what I'll see when I dream." Now he reached out to her and held her in his arms. Responding to his touch Rachel loosened her stiff composure and held onto him finally feeling safe and able to breathe deeply. He felt an odd stirring in his chest but he brushed it away as a protectiveness of his friend.
"Murtagh…" she mumbled into his chest. He felt it in his chest more than heard it.
"Yes?"
"Thank you," she said.
Then he did something without thinking. He kissed the top of her head. She looked up into his astonished eyes then looked down at his lips. If truth be told she had once or twice looked at his lips like the way she was looking at them now but had always made herself stop her thoughts somehow. She looked at them and felt something tighten in her stomach. She bit her lip and looked into his eyes. Eyes that seemed to respond with the same feeling. Leaning in she brushed her lips against his feeling a spark somewhere and he kissed her back. His hands moved with hers to each other: his to the back of her head with one twining his fingers in her hair and the other trailing down her side to her waist; and hers moved with one resting her hand resting against his cheek and one against his chest.
After a few minuets their lips separated and something clicked into place as if they were supposed to feel this way for each other. Murtagh looked at her and realised that, even though he occasionally had looked at women of the court in their finery, she was the most beautiful girl he had ever met. She had some kind of ethereal quality to her: her dark wavy hair catching the moonbeams light and giving her a tiara or halo and her blue eyes shining like they were made of stars which made her seem so desirable. He wondered at how he hadn't seen it before.
"Murtagh?" she asked bringing him to the present. "What did that mean? We should really talk about this-" He out a finger against her swollen lips.
"We'll talk in the morning," he answered concentrating on his breathing. He whispered instructions in her ear for her to go to sleep and he watched over the camp for the night with a calm peacefulness that now exuded him.