Waves of Grey - The Harem and the Guard

Chapter 9

Keith

Lance didn't say a word after that. He followed diligently. Or . . . At least as diligently as a person who's never walked in uneven terrain could. It was kind of like watching a stereo typed princess walk though the forest. Only Lance was a fish out of water trying to walk in a forest so it was a lot less aggravating and more on the sad end of things.

Not to mention that Lance was beginning to understand the whole clothes and shoes thing if Keith had to guess by the way he was walking on his toes.

But one plus side of watching Lance fumble through the jungle was that Keith had a chance to take in the markings the Siren possessed under the luminance of the midnight forest. He had markings under his eyes that looked nearly Altean although they were far longer and sharper and traveled from his cheek up to his ears.

It was a little strange. With Lance being entirely exposed there wasn't a part of him that didn't illuminate. His marking were glowing far more Vibrantly than Keith's. Keiths colors seeming bleached out in comparison to Lance's cobalts and ocean hues. He had stripes that ran over his torso and to his back where they all met to become one vertical line on either side of the Siren's back. Lance's back overall was covered in symmetrical curved lines and tear dropped shaped marks on his neck and shoulders. They're where oval swirls along his hips that curved back and down to accent all of the muscles of his legs and ... rear. It seemed like there was little on Lance to not be brilliantly decorated. Even his eyes shifted, the whites shifting black so that his iris and pupils could glow vibrantly.

"Here." Keith sighed and backtracked to take the Siren's hand while they tried to push a branch away expecting it to drift from his sight rather than fling back and try to poke his eye out. Luckily Lance was quick enough to jerk out of the way.

The hybrid took the Siren's hand and tugged him along. Lance continued his bout of silence as they walked only to startle at the alarmed screech of a Flexin, a small cat-like creature with four wings that nested in the trees of the forest. Their pelts were black and speckled white like the night sky.

"It's nothing," Keith muttered as he pulled Lance along once more. "We're going to hike down to the coast. We're only a little under a mile inland but we're going to have to walk alongside the shoreline fifteen miles if we want to make it to shorelines that go unmonitored by Altea and are noted as uninhabited by the local Siren population. The reefs are still dead there, so nothing really moves in the area. It'll take a day since we have to walk over terrain. Normally it would be about a five-hour walk but we don't have the luxury of roads out here."

"Oh." Lance responded quietly as he stared at the ground watching where be put his feet down. Most of the jungle floor was covered in blue moss and fallen leaves but there also lurked small creatures willing to bite the first thing they saw. Lance didn't have the luxury of his protective scales here. He also didn't really know how far a mile was so what Keith was telling him was useless information.

Keith hummed a note before silence crept between them both. Nothing but the snapping of twigs under Keith's boots and the sound of Lance's occasional uncoordinated wobble. It was the initial tug on Keith's shoulders that brought them to a halt as the prince fell back on his ass with a grunt.

Lance stumbled and fell Just next to him, having been tugged down by his hand in Keith's. He wrinkled his nose and looked over at his dark-haired master with something on the edge of blame. He'd been doing pretty good before he was pulled off his untrained feet.

Keith looked over his shoulder and felt his face warm as he saw the problem. Since a little discussion with his father prior to the initial threat on Lance's brother, Keith was being forced into his status. And when asked to wear something a little more traditional . . . (Or normal over all) he'd refused. He preferred the dark clothing the blade supplied its soldiers with. It was more comfortable and drew less attention to himself. Or at least it did when he wasn't out in public. Then he stuck out like a sore thumb. He had forgotten that his mother had someone Royale adorn everything he owned except for his mission armor which only happened because he managed to hide his precious armor by throwing it into Lance's pool until the officials were gone. He currently was wearing a simple set of dark clothing that was thick enough to offer protection against the elements. With a cape . . .

The cape that had been sewn into his clothing was dark to match his color scheme with a red border and crimson on the underside. His mother was kind and wasn't going to force him to have a ridiculous theme by giving him custom white and gold adornments.

"Take this." Keith the said handing Lance his knife. The Siren looked down at it in alarm before looking back at the prince as he tugged his clothes free of the underbrush it had been caught on. A few twigs flew through the air as they were snapped off in the process. "Cut this thing off. An inch from the seam so it doesn't rip my shirt."

"Are you sure?" The maiden questioned warily as they sat back before getting on their hands and knees to crawl towards Keith's back.

"Do you know how to use a blade?"

"Of course I do."

"Then yes I am," Keith answered simply.

Lance made a sound of displeasure before he took the blade. The sound of ripping fabric filled the air as the cape was cut away. The prince quickly turned and stood once he was free. Lance stared at him with a frown from where he knelt on the ground as Keith went and picked the fabric up and put his hand out towards Lance for his knife.

"What are you doing?" Lance asked warily as he stood while watching the prince tear into the fabric with his knife even more. He flinched back when Keith lifted the fabric up like he was going to put it over the Siren's head.

"It's something for you to wear. Now just hold still." The prince muttered and resumed what he was doing. Instead of smothering Lance Keith simply put them through the new hole he'd made for Lance's head and let the fabric fall over their front and back. It hardly gave Lance dignity, but it would be warm. And the siren could always wrap it around like a blanket.

"Now what are you doing?" Lance continued, sounding like a child as he watched Keith with an innocent gaze while flattening the makeshift poncho on his chest with his palms like he was trying to figure out whether he liked it or not.

Keith didn't answer as he pulled off his boots and socks. He gave Lance the later. He wasn't going to give him his boots when he'd clearly warned him more than once about wearing clothes.

"Put those on. Then we're going."

"Okay."

Keith ties his laces back up while Lance figured out how to use the socks. "They feel weird." He complained shaking his foot once he got one of the socks on.

"So are you. Now hurry up." Keith said with a small frown as he watched him. He was a very strange person...

Lance. Lance was the strange person.

His emotions and actions were never consistent. Keith had yet to actually know Lance at all. It was apparent he was acting properly with small acts of rebellion in between when he was alone with Keith. And then there was the period of time where he neglected to do anything, followed by today's outburst. Keith hadn't seen Lance act in his own true intentions until he'd put him in a state of complete despair. And even then that's not knowing a person. He just understood the true motive and care for who Lance had left behind.

Was lance that rebellious, mildly activating person that had acted behind closed doors or was he this sort of clumsy, anxious child that didn't understand the world he was in?

"We'll walk until the night bugs start coming out. Then we'll camp okay? I have a spot we can stay at until morning." Keith decided, taking Lance's hand once he had his socks on. If he was lucky maybe he'd still have an extra change of clothes there too so Lance would actually . . . Not risk getting a stick up his ass or something. "There's a spring there. You might like it." He added on a second thought, his words quiet and almost too low to be heard.

Lance had been tugging at his new cape shirt before he paused to look over at Keith, his curious eyes glinting under the glow of the forest around them. Keith met his eyes, staring back into their depth. He couldn't read what Lance was thinking. When he wasn't faking an aura of his class as a maiden his expression shifted from guarded and hard, into something else. His face was innocent and young, cheeks still slightly round but still somehow sharp from having yet to completely become a man, or maybe that's just how Sirens looked. His eyes were big, open and mysterious. Keith still found himself being pulled in every time he looked into them for too long.

So he looked away.

And he didn't say another word as they started once more.