Nate !
Helping.
“I don’t need help,” Nathaniel said tersely. He jerked back as the stranger approached, so the offered moss fell off to the side rather than in the basket. Nathaniel’s expression was closed, his dark eyes sparking, the muscle under his clothing taut as wire. Everything about the stranger screamed wrong. Wrong was not something anybody wanted to encounter in the forest, out of the neighbors’ earshot, when in Caido. Nathaniel stepped back again, widening his stance just slightly, and bringing himself out of range of those long arms. He had never seen anyone quite so tall. Had certainly never seen anyone quite so naked running around in the wild. Clearly, something was wrong with the stranger. Brazenly, desperately wrong if the way he looked at Nathaniel’s boots were any indication.
Why, of all days, did the naked maniac decide to take a walk today?
Still crouching, the stranger moved again. One long arm extended toward Nathaniel, and Nathaniel stepped back again. “Hey!” he snapped. It was the same voice he used when the dog was getting into something off-limits: hard and sharp and thunderous. “Hands to yourself,” he added in that same tone. “Don’t touch me.” He waited a moment then to see if the stranger would comply, or if he really ought to start fearing for his life. He probably wasn’t going to be as fast as someone this tall, so if it came to it, he was probably looking at stabbing the weirdo. And then what? Say the stranger was strong, too? Or got the knife away from him somehow? Damn it all, Nathaniel was trying to get away from the horrible things in his life, not add to them.
He sighed, and his eyes skated warily left and right, as if help might arrive at any moment. But no one would be looking for him. He was on his own. And he had never been gifted with diplomacy.
Vynter
“I don’t need help,” Nathaniel said tersely. He jerked back as the stranger approached, so the offered moss fell off to the side rather than in the basket. Nathaniel’s expression was closed, his dark eyes sparking, the muscle under his clothing taut as wire. Everything about the stranger screamed wrong. Wrong was not something anybody wanted to encounter in the forest, out of the neighbors’ earshot, when in Caido. Nathaniel stepped back again, widening his stance just slightly, and bringing himself out of range of those long arms. He had never seen anyone quite so tall. Had certainly never seen anyone quite so naked running around in the wild. Clearly, something was wrong with the stranger. Brazenly, desperately wrong if the way he looked at Nathaniel’s boots were any indication.
Why, of all days, did the naked maniac decide to take a walk today?
Still crouching, the stranger moved again. One long arm extended toward Nathaniel, and Nathaniel stepped back again. “Hey!” he snapped. It was the same voice he used when the dog was getting into something off-limits: hard and sharp and thunderous. “Hands to yourself,” he added in that same tone. “Don’t touch me.” He waited a moment then to see if the stranger would comply, or if he really ought to start fearing for his life. He probably wasn’t going to be as fast as someone this tall, so if it came to it, he was probably looking at stabbing the weirdo. And then what? Say the stranger was strong, too? Or got the knife away from him somehow? Damn it all, Nathaniel was trying to get away from the horrible things in his life, not add to them.
He sighed, and his eyes skated warily left and right, as if help might arrive at any moment. But no one would be looking for him. He was on his own. And he had never been gifted with diplomacy.
