Can’t sleep - the penguins will get me.

* * *

Mishke poked at the campfire with a stick. Starting the fire was just about the only thing she was allowed to do. Well, that and blow up anything that attacked their camp, but really, as responsibilities and work went, it wasn’t a lot. Arconius seemed to want to do *everything* else. He wouldn’t even teach her how to do stuff, just gave her a hairy eyeball and said he didn’t live this long by living dangerously, only by fighting in an unending war. Then he laughed. She had to say one thing, Death Knights had very weird senses of humour. Or maybe it was just him, it wasn’t like she’d met another.

“Not that I object to the company, of course, but what’re you doing here anyway? I mean, I’d have thought you’d be off on the front lines.” Mishke looked up through her pink lashes to where the soldier in question was carving into a stick.

“A priestess of Elune said my soul was heavy and dark and I needed a rest.” He replied with a roll of his eyes.

“Elves!” Mishke agreed in disgust. It didn’t matter if it was the magicless Night Elves or the ravenous Blood Elves, they were all stark raving nuts. Trees didn’t have souls, birds didn’t talk. One you used for fire, the other was dinner cooked over the former. Elves had to make a big deal out of everything and they didn’t even think it was funny when you asked them to pray for the soles of your boots.

“So, I got kicked to the rear, then kicked to guarding Ironforge, and then told to go guard the tavern, then you found me and dragged me off to Gnomergon.” Arconius continued, not looking towards her.

Mishke flipped a coin between her knuckles and fingers. It was very hard to sit still, even though she knew her fidgiting annoyed the dwarf to no end. “How long were you guarding that tankard?” Mishke teased, hoping to lighten the dour mood. She knew he could laugh, she was just not sure what would make him laugh at any given time.

“Seventeen days.” He replied.

“Ohhh.. so just after the tertiary explosion of the secondary mago-energy conduit in c sector.” Mishke said, knowingly. “That’s about when I got to Ironforge.”

He gave her a hairy eyed look with one eye closed, “As you say,” he agreed warily.

“So what’re you gonna do now?” Mishke asked, “I thought about heading up to the front myself and seeing if I could help out. As you know, I’m pretty good at making things go boom.”

Arconius’ knuckles clenched around the hilt of the knife, “Lass, you wouldn’t last a minute up there.”

“Hey..!” Mishke started to protest and then saw the grey tinge to Arconius’ skin, she scampered around the fire to stand behind the knight, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I can take care of myself y’know.”

He looked down and kissed her clasped hands, “No, no you can’t.” He said with a smile. “You’re the most helpless, and hopeless, dangerous person I’ve ever met.”

Mishke rolled her eyes and started to remove her hands in a sulk, but he was quicker taking her hands in his own and pulling her around him to sit across his lap. “I mean no insult, but you’ve a lot to learn before you wade into that depths of darkness.. and I’d rather you not learn them.”

Mishke wasn’t quite sure what any of that was supposed to mean, sometimes Arc got off on weird tangents and she just had to humour him. He’d not touched her, nor let her touch him, since that kiss in Gnomergon, he’d just kept muttering ‘one problem at a time.’ So, she wasn’t going to rock the boat if she actually got snuggle with him, putting her cheek against his collar bone. Well, at least, it was where his collarbone probably was buried under all the layers of armour. Strangely, the metal wasn’t cold, but warm against her skin.

Arms around her, Arconius went back to his carving, humming tunelessly under his breath as he worked. Mishke just closed her eyes and listened to him breath. For a man who said he didn’t know how many pieces his soul was in, he seemed awfully strong. Or maybe that’s why he survived when so many other paladins hadn’t.

* * *

Mishke woke, hand grabbing her staff in reflex. She blinked and rolled over, realizing she was alone in the tent. She could hear gruff voices outside. She felt the bedroll beside her and it was cold. Stupid chivalrous knight, he’d obviously slept out in the dirt. If he was going to be so silly, he should have just bought a second tent! She was about to go smack him with her staff when she spotted his carving on her pack. A polished wooden rose on a necklace made of links of wood. She marvelled at the craftsmanship, wondering not only how he’d managed it but how he’d managed it in one night. She also wondered at his sanity of giving something that burned so easily to a fire happy mage.

She managed the clasp and to get the necklace on before shrugging into her robe and pulling on her boots. It sounded like dwarven was being spoken outside and her dwarven wasn’t the greatest. She got the feeling Arc spoke half a dozen languages easily, but her ability only went as far as reading and writing languages and glyphs long dead and moldering. She’d been very surprised to learn Arc couldn’t even read Dwarven very well and didn’t write at all. Apparently, only dwarven nobility learnt that stuff, and he was a knight chosen by the priesthood from the commonborn. With male dwarves outnumbering the females three to one, it wasn’t too surprising that so many became warriors of one sort or another. She chewed on her lip before opening the tent, if it WAS dwarves out there, what would they think of one of their greatest heroes hooking up with a gnome? Not that they’d *actually* hooked up, damn stubborn sod, but still..

She hopped from foot to foot in indecision, the human sized “pup tent” leaving her plenty of room to do so. In the end she decided it was just too much to figure out and stepped out into the sunshine to find a small patrol of dwarves munching their way through rations. The Captain of the patrol, a fierce, bristly fellow with one eye, was punctuating his story with waves of his eating knife.

Arconius nodded to her as she stepped out, surprised that the sun was several finger lengths above the mountains already. He’d let her sleep in quite late, unusual since he seemed to want to race the sun most morning. The new dwarves turned to look at her and then obviously dismissed her as irrelevant. She would wham them on the heads with her staff for that, but they were wearing helms and besides, they might be friends of Arc’s and she didn’t want to start a brawl.

Arc seemed to be explaining to them the defenses of some fort and really didn’t look happy doing it. It was weird, he’d talk about his childhood, and his adolescence, but anything after he was picked to be a paladin to a few weeks before his return to Ironforce he refused to discuss. Mishke didn’t want to press, after all, who’d want to remember all that stuff anyway? But it seemed to her, these dwarves were grinding the knife pretty deep in old wounds. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and make that pain go away.. but knew it wasn’t that easy OR that he’d particularly appreciate such displays infront of his kin folk. Dwarves could be pretty silly about that stuff.

The discussion continued, growling, gruff voices. She could pick out a few words here and there, but they were going much to fast for her. Arc finally snarled something and slammed his hands down on the ground before standing and stomping off. She stared after him, wide-eyed. She turned back to the patrol. “What the fire did you say to him?” she asked in trade-tongue.

The captain mumbled into his beard while the others just continued to finish their rations.

“Well?” Mishke asked, thumping the end of her staff against the hardened, frozen, ground.

“It’s none of your business.” The Captain said, getting to his feet and brushing crumbs out of his beard. He gestured for his patrol to follow suit.

“Damn straight it’s my business!” Mishke said, jumping in front of the leader. “That’s MY friend that just stomped off and I want to know why.”

The Captain looked down at her from under drawn brow, “Then I suggest you ask your friend.” He finally said and walked around her.

Damnit, didn’t anyone take her seriously? That is what she got for being so gosh, darn, cute!

She watched the dwarves continue on down the road and sighed. She wanted to go after Arc, but abandoning the camp didn’t seem too smart. Besides, she probably couldn’t find him anyway. And if he wanted company, he could find her.. and.. She sighed and picked up one of the ration packs the soldiers had left behind. She didn’t want to sit her, Arc needed taking care of whether he knew it or not, she just wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.

It seemed hours before he returned to find her going through a tome on the history of humanity. He grunted and sat down on the log beside her. Mishke stuck a feather in to bookmark the page and looked to him. “You okay?” she asked, not really sure where to start.

He wasn’t one to preamble. “They are planning to invade Kiragard Keep.”

“Yeah?” Mishke said warily. She was pretty sure where this was going in a hurry and she didn’t like the destination!

“They’ll get slaughtered.” He said, studying his boots.

“So you want to wade in and help them, but you want to ditch me to go do it.” Mishke finished for him since he’d probably take five years to get around to the point at the rate he was going.

“Aye.. no..” He sighed. “You’d get slaughtered too.”

Mishke grabbed his beard and tugged his face around to look at her. “Arconius, I am an adult. It is my choice where I go, what I do and who I do it with and why. My home is destroyed, my race half-slaughtered, and for whatever reason you need me and I need you. So if you think I’m going to just let you dump me off by the side of the road while you go off and try to kill yourself, you’re not thinking at all!”

He blinked at her and took a deep breath in. Mishke was preparing arguments for the counter argument when he just let the breath out again and took her hand. “You’d just follow me anyway, wouldn’t you?”

Mishke grinned, “Damn straight I would! You need me.”

He looked down at her hand and kissed it, “Aye, I suppose I do.” He turned her hand over in his, “But I’ve lost so many that matter to me.. I don’t want to lose you too.”

Mishke put the book on the ground and clambered over Arconius’ leg to straddle across his lap - mostly. He was a lot wider than she was. “Put me in a tower, wrap me with silk and try to prevent me from being with you when you risk, and you’ve already lost me, because that’s not who I am or want to be.” She wasn’t quite sure that made sense, but he seemed to grasp it.

“Aye, I suppose.” He said and wrapped arms around her to pull her against him, mouth seeking her’s. It was almost a kiss of desperation as much as passion, but Mishke was more than happy to return it, her hands digging into his beard.

Just when things were starting to get interesting and she was wondering how exactly one undid plate mail anyway, he broke off the kiss and stood up, putting her on her own feet. “We’d better get on the road and catch up with Captain Myur.” He said, voice gruff, the strange echo reverberating more than usual. His eyes were hooded, but the smolder deep within them seem stronger than usual.

Mishke managed to not quite stare at him open mouthed as he started to take down the camp. Fricken’ knights! Was he going to be spending the next however-many-nights sleeping across the threshold and holding her at arm’s length? Maybe she’d have to spike his ale..