The Prince's Mark

The Road to Dezmer - Sixteen

Tracou woke up cold. Groaning, he sat up, unhindered by stray limbs. Mirthal had rolled himself all the way to the edge of the bed.

This initially did not bother him. Tracou went about his day, flitting about outside before settling in with Serpouhi to hash out wedding logistics. When he returned home for dinner, he tried several times to chat with Mirthal, but he couldn't hold his attention long enough to keep a conversation going. Mirthal kept retreating into himself. The glassy look in his eyes frustrated Tracou, but he decided that he and Pendaer must have worked particularly hard that day and had let it go.

Maybe Mirthal needed a break. Tracou wanted one, too, so they could take one together. Better to do something now rather than wait for snow.

Before, Tracou had told Mirthal about the ocean and he had been interested. Traveling there would be cumbersome and require about a day to get there and another day to get back, but they could stay the night. The fishermen in Ergakan lived both in Ergakan and by the port, meaning that they left shacks behind when they returned to the village for the winter. Tracou and Mirthal could stay in one of them.

Again, Tracou awoke with Mirthal huddled on the other side of the bed. Often he let Mirthal sleep, but if they got ready now and left before Pendaer woke up, maybe they wouldn't have to bring him along.

After a lengthy effort, Tracou got Mirthal to open his eyes. He flinched when he saw Tracou and averted his gaze.

"What time is it...?"

"Early."

"...Why?"

"I was thinking we could go see the ocean today."

Slowly, Tracou's words hit Mirthal's brain. At first, his eyes lit up. Good! If he had been impressed by that waterfall, then the ocean would bowl him over!

But that light soon dimmed and Mirthal shook his head.

"Will we go swimming?"

"Do you want to? I can heat up part of the water enough for it."

Mirthal finally looked at Tracou, his brown eyes landing on his torso before he ripped them away.

"I don't want to swim."

"Okay... Well, we can just look at it."

"I don't think we should go."

Tracou's eyebrows furrowed. "Why?"

"I'm tired."

"You'll wake up soon."

"Ngh... Aren't you busy today?"

"I decided we should do something instead. If we don't do this now, I'll be too busy to go for at least a week and it might start snowing then. And aren't you tired of training with Pendaer all the time? We can leave him here—especially if we go early. We'll leave a note for him so he doesn't rip Ergakan apart looking for you."

Then again, maybe going to the sea together, without Pendaer, would be a bad idea. It would amount to a lot of time alone together. Time where Tracou would be able to look at Mirthal, to look at his awed expression as he took in the expanse of water in front of him. 

Mirthal had been distant yesterday. Tracou should let that continue so he could stop hoping. A smarter man would have suggested that Pendaer and Mirthal shared the larger bed through the winter, so he could feed the gap between himself and Mirthal. But he hadn't.

Frowning, Mirthal rolled onto his back on the edge of the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

"I don't want to go," he said, with a finality that smacked Tracou in the face.