Chapter 38: Pitching a Tent

Camp duty, it turns out, is divided along refreshingly traditional lines.

Val eats.

Lucien labors.

Simple.

The dragon has claimed a flat rock the size of a dinner table and is systematically working his way through what looks like half of their travel provisions, tearing into salted meat and stale bread with the focused enthusiasm of a man who considers manual labor beneath his considerable dignity.

Lucien, meanwhile, is on his knees in the dirt, sleeves rolled up, wrestling with a bundle of firewood that seems determined to remain exactly as unlit as when he started.

Above them, wedged into the crook of a wide, gnarled branch, Serenith sits with her legs swinging idly beneath her, chin propped on one hand, watching him work with an expression she hasn’t quite managed to make neutral.

Val glances up between bites, follows her line of sight, and smirks. "Enjoying the scenery?"

"Yes," Serenith says automatically, warmly, almost fondly. Before her brain catches up with her mouth. "No! I mean... I wasn’t looking at—"

She goes crimson from her collarbone to her hairline and vanishes backward into the leaves so fast an entire cluster of branches shudders in her wake.

Val bellows a laugh loud enough to rattle teeth.

"Something funny?" Lucien calls over, still crouched by the pathetic little pile of unlit kindling, sparks fizzling uselessly off his fingertips.

"Divine beings," Val says, wiping his eyes, "always makes things interesting."

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s the only one you’re getting. Hurry up, I want to sleep."

Lucien mutters something uncharitable about dragons and unpaid overtime and turns back to the fire, striking sparks against flint with the grim determination of a man discovering, for the very first time, exactly how much of his old life he took for granted.

"Yesterday," he says, mostly to himself, "I tore a valley in half with my bare hands. Today I am losing a fight against a moist twig. A little help would be nice."

"You wanted this," Val replies with a shrug.

"Come on," Lucient pouts, "You could probably light this thing with a fart."

Eventually, after considerable swearing, one minor singed eyebrow, and a fire that finally catches more out of pity than technique, the camp comes together. A crooked tent, canvas sagging on one side like it’s already given up. A ring of stones around a stubbornly small flame that gutters every time the wind so much as thinks about shifting. Bedrolls that Lucien arranges with the misplaced pride of a man who has just built his first house out of popsicle sticks and would very much like someone to acknowledge the architectural achievement.

Val surveys the whole operation with visible disdain.

"This," he says, "is an insult to shelter. It’s rickety. It’s crooked. There’s dirt on everything."

"There’s dirt on everything because we’re outside."

"In the Ashlands, I had silk sheets and a personal masseuse."

"In the Ashlands, you also ate an entire cow in one sitting and called it a snack," Lucien says. "Get in the tent, Val."

Val complains for another solid ten minutes, in exhaustive, itemized detail, about the bedroll’s firmness, the fire’s insufficient warmth, and the general moral failing of an empire that hasn’t invented memory foam yet.

He drafts, unprompted, what he calls a formal grievance, and threatens to dock it from Lucien’s next quarterly report.

But an hour later he is splayed flat on his back beside the fire, snoring with the volume and cadence of an actual dragon, which, strictly speaking, he still technically is.

Lucien lies on his own bedroll a short distance away, hands folded behind his head, staring up through the gap in the canopy at a scattering of stars he can’t remember ever really looking at properly before tonight. No penthouse ceiling. No enchanted skylight. Just actual sky, cold and vast and indifferent, and something about it makes his chest feel strangely light.

Something thumps inside the little tent nearby.

"You good in there?" he calls, propping himself up on an elbow.

"I’m fine," comes Serenith’s voice, muffled and slightly strained. "The tent is just... very small. My wings barely fit."

Lucien winces. "Sorry about the accommodations. In my defense, nobody consulted me on the floor plan."

"Noted."

"You know," he adds, grinning at the tent flap, "this could’ve all been avoided if I’ve done a little survival training. Instead of, say, several straight weeks of very hands-on magical tutoring with a horny demi-goddess."

A pause. Then a small, reluctant laugh drifts out through the canvas. "Hindsight."

Lucien bites back a smirk, softening his voice before he speaks again. "Seriously, though. You okay in there? I worry."

Silence.

His heart does something small and stupid in his chest while he waits for it.

"Can I come check on you?" he adds, quieter.

The silence stretches a beat longer than it should.

Then, flatly, "No."

"Understood. Sorry for... everything. Goodnight, Serenith."

Lucien sighs, long and theatrical, and flops back down onto his bedroll, staring up at the stars.

Inside the tent, Serenith sits bolt upright, wings clutched tight around herself like a shield, biting down hard on her lower lip as she physically restrains her own hand from reaching for the flap.

"What is wrong with me?" she whispers to no one, glaring at the canvas wall like it personally offended her. "Why can’t I stop thinking about a perverted Demon Lord who just watched me nearly fall out of the sky today."

Eventually, she peeks out anyway.

Just a fraction.

Just enough to check.

And finds herself staring directly into the wide, delighted grin of Lucien, who has apparently been lying in wait three-feet from the flap the entire time, waiting for exactly this moment.

"So just to triple-confirm," he says pleasantly, "you’re really, really sure I can’t come in?"

Serenith shrieks, yanks the flap shut, and seals it with a glyph of holy magic.

"Stop being so annoying!"

From the other side of the canvas, Lucien just chuckles, thoroughly, insufferably satisfied with himself, and settles back onto his bedroll with his hands behind his head.

"This," he says, to no one in particular, smiling up at the stars, "is going to be a wonderful two weeks."