I kept my mouth shut and opened my ears. Margon’s trudging footsteps gradually faded, and I even heard him enter the tent.
It had been noisy until evening, but once the night deepened, I couldn’t sense anyone moving around. It seemed everyone had gone to bed.
Only after confirming the silence did I stretch. Just a short dash had left my whole body stiff. Thinking about sleeping on bare ground in this condition made my vision darken.
Still, there was no helping it. Last night I’d spent it lying across Varen’s legs, but I couldn’t impose on him again today.
“Let’s get up as well, Ceryl.”
Varen then cleared away the blazing campfire in a single motion. Like blowing out birthday candles, one soft “whoo” of breath snuffed the flames instantly.
I stood up reflexively, following him.
“Where are you going?”
“You didn’t sleep properly yesterday. You should sleep tonight.”
“Ah... going back to that tree?”
“No. Somewhere with a roof and walls.”
The phrase I’d said last night had been perfectly absorbed by Varen.
And with that one sentence, the word “Aylos” filling my mind evaporated. A different kind of tension rushed in instead.
Yesterday, I’d said that in the context of not doing anything obscene unless it was a place with a roof and walls. Apparently in just one day, Varen had found a suitable location.
We’d been together all day — when did he even get the chance?
“Ceryl, aren’t you coming?”
“...Yeah. Let’s go.”
In the end, I stood at the expectation faintly shining in his eyes.
I had no grounds left to refuse, looking at a face that had clearly been waiting for night to fall.
We walked through the dark forest path hand in hand. With every step, dizzying memories grew clearer.
I secretly let out a sigh and cooled my heated forehead, steadying my messy thoughts.
It isn’t mating season now, so he won’t cling to me for five days straight, right? But how much does he usually... In the inn we didn’t go all the way, but he still didn’t let me go until my whole body was soaked.
My thoughts kept spiraling until I remembered I had a schedule early tomorrow morning. I couldn’t let it interfere — just once... If he insists, maybe twice...
“No one comes here at night.”
“......”
“You can use the blankets we brought from Beljena. Come in, Ceryl.”
The place Varen led me to was a tent identical to the communal lodgings. Inside, it turned out to be a storage warehouse piled high with random junk.
As I frowned at the dusty darkness, Varen produced a small flame above his palm.
Then I saw a white cloth spread in the center of the storage — the blanket he’d mentioned from Beljena.
I wasn’t expecting romance. But the unsanitary environment automatically twisted my face.
“You want to do it here?”
My inner thoughts slipped out of my mouth in disbelief.
Varen looked at me like he didn’t understand what was wrong. Then he left a fist-sized flame floating in the air, removed his shoes, and climbed onto the blanket.
Judging by how the blanket sank under his weight, there was at least a mat underneath. Two pure white pillows lay side by side at the end.
Erase the background and it would’ve been a cozy bedding fit for newlyweds. The problem was the dust floating in the air and the musty smell.
I hesitated to step onto the mat, but Varen grabbed my hand and pulled me. Pretending defeat, I lay down, patting the fluffy pillow.
“Lie down now, Ceryl.”
“...Haah, can’t be helped.”
I rested my head on the pillow and obediently closed my eyes. Then I tried to interpret this situation positively.
It was too unsanitary for sex, but this was probably the best Varen could find. Still, it did have a roof and walls like I’d said. He hadn’t taken my words lightly.
I folded my hands neatly over my stomach and breathed low. During Varen’s mating season I’d been drunk on dragon blood myself, but trying to mix skin while sober made me incredibly tense.
As I calmed my breathing, a soft whoosh sounded and darkness fell over everything.
Only after the light went out did I blink and turn my head. Varen lay on his side, propping his head on one arm, looking down at me.
“Sleep comfortably. I’ll keep watch. You couldn’t sleep at all yesterday.”
“......”
“A human body is really inconvenient. Miss even a day of sleep and you lose energy all day.”
His voice was plain, almost empty of thought.
That was when I realized he had never intended anything in the first place.
I yanked the Beljena blanket over myself and turned away. I could feel his gaze prickling the back of my head. But I didn’t have the confidence to face him.
My eyes, brighter now, could read Varen’s expression clearly even without light.
The same would be true for a dragon. No matter how I tried to hide it, he might’ve already noticed my ears burning red.
“Ceryl, why are you suddenly heating up? Are you sick?”
“...No. Just tired.”
“Oh, we should’ve come earlier. Aren’t you cold?”
“...Not cold.”
With a dragon radiating heat right behind me, there was no way I’d be cold. Besides, my insides were burning from my own embarrassing assumptions.
I buried my flushed face in the pillow and gripped the blanket tightly.
Just a while ago I’d been shouting not to touch me, yet I’d unknowingly gotten my hopes up. I felt like drowning myself in a basin.
Varen quietly watched the back of my head. Being conscious of his gaze, I couldn’t move.
“Ceryl, I’m here, so relax and sleep. No human will harm you.”
He seemed to think I was scared. The misunderstanding was better than the shameful truth, so I kept my mouth shut.
Then one of Varen’s arms lightly wrapped around my waist. His firm chest touched my shoulder blades — I squeezed my eyes shut — and at the hot breath brushing my ear I clenched my fists.
The dragon didn’t understand human hearts at all. He simply began gently patting the arm around my waist.
“There, there. It’s alright, Ceryl.”
“......”
“Everything’s fine, so don’t worry.”
Having lived underground his entire life, Varen had learned most behaviors from me.
The soft voice and comforting pats were what I’d done for him whenever he burned with fever under the rising moon.
I hadn’t realized while doing it, but receiving it myself was effective.
Each word he spoke melted my tension away, and my heartbeat slowed to the rhythm of the repeated pats.
My body quickly settled as if it had never heated up. If I relaxed like this, I’d fall into deep sleep immediately.
But it felt a waste to end a night alone with Varen like this. Yesterday we’d been pressed together but hadn’t talked at all.
I gently overlapped my hand over the one patting me.
“Varen, who told you about this place?”
I spoke in a voice heavy with drowsiness. Varen answered warmly, a hint of laughter mixed in.
“Noance told me. He said no one comes here, so the two of us could spend the night comfortably.”
At the unexpected name, I lifted my eyelids. Until now, Varen and Noance had growled at each other whenever they made eye contact.
I immediately turned to face Varen and cupped the cheek of the naive dragon who couldn’t properly respond to that sly human.
“Noance didn’t say anything strange to you?”
“What do you mean.”
“That bastard always says nasty things to you.”
I recalled the words that crushed Varen’s confidence. If he’d tried to discourage my dragon when I wasn’t looking, I planned to go break his command staff at dawn.
Varen scanned my face with gentle eyes. He even brought my hand on his cheek to his lips and kissed it repeatedly.
“He didn’t say anything you should worry about.”
“Really? Unexpected.”
“Yeah. But he said something I’d never heard before. When I asked what it meant, he told me to ask you.”
“What did he say?”
“What does ‘pounding rice cake’ mean?”
“......”
“When I asked if there was a place for just the two of us to sleep, he told me to quietly pound rice cake here.”
The innocent face uttering an obscene expression made me release the cheek I’d been kneading.
When I lay flat staring at the ceiling, Varen raised his upper body and approached, not having received an answer.
“Why won’t you answer?”
“What rice cake? I don’t know either.”
“You really don’t know?”
“I said I don’t.”
“...Alright.”
Giving up on getting an answer from my stubborn attitude, Varen lay back down.
Maybe because of the slang that heated my face, the heavy sleepiness completely vanished.
Silence settled for a moment. Only now did the scattered items around us come into view. Four-tier shelves packed the tent, but the objects filling them were sparse.
And only then did I figure out the source of the musty smell.
“Varen, is this a food storage?”
“Yeah. But they’re all old. Looks like they were rationing even that.”
