Roan was surprised by himself when he said yes. He shouldn't really be here and he should definitely not be with you, a Sky person. He should probably kill you, but he couldn't get himself to even consider it.
He agrees to teach you a few things just to be able to at least try to protect yourself and to have the necessary skills to be able to survive in this environment, then he would leave you. He couldn't really stay, he shouldn't even help you, but he did.
...
As you stayed together for longer, you talked more. The language barrier a bit of a struggle in the beginning, but eventually you find each other understanding more and more, not just words but also body language and reactions. You found him fascinating and interesting.
As his English was getting better from using it regularly and remembering more, it got easier. He would tell you about everything that he has heard has happened when your people first came down to the ground. You tried to tell him their side of it all, but you could also understand a bit of their reasoning for thinking your people were a threat.
Roan told you that he is banished from his clan as part of a deal to allow the Ice Nation to join the Coalition, forced by the Commander, Lexa. Queen Nia had tortured and killed her lover, because she believed that she knew all of Lexa's secrets. In retaliation, Lexa banished Nia's son, Prince Roan, him, as part of the conditions for allowing Azgeda into her Coalition.
During his exile, he's making a living as a bounty hunter. He would sometimes be gone for few days on jobs, while you stayed in the cabin.
...
You're out with Roan, trying to learn how to use a bow and arrow. After your fifth try, you pull the string back and aim again, but he interrupts you.
"No." He sighs annoyed. "Stronger. But relaxed." He says and puts a hand on your stomach and the other on the small of your back.
You were slightly taken aback by the sudden touch, but welcomed it as he guided you into the right position and told you how to breathe properly.
Realising he let his hand linger on you, he steps back clearing his throat.
"Again." He says nodding for you to shoot as he crosses his arms.
Taking a deep breath you realise the arrow when you exhale. The arrow hits the target for the first time and you cheer excitedly. His lip tugged a bit upward in a small smirk at your shot.
Then suddenly he has to catch himself with a nearby tree to not fall over by the impact when you had suddenly jumped and hugged him. His eyes were wide in panic as he just stood there, one hand on the tree keeping him up straight and the other just hanging limp beside him.
You pull back and smile brightly at him. His heart skips a beat and he stares at you when you walk over to the target to pull out the arrow to try again.
...
You asked him if he could bring you somewhere you could get cleaned up.
He brings you to a lake, making sure it's secluded and no one close by. Once you reach the shore you shudder lightly at the thought of how cold it would be.
You start undressing, not minding Roan standing there. His eyebrows raise a bit at you not caring that he was watching, he tries to look away but found it harder the more skin he saw. When you were standing in just your underwear, you look up and find him staring at you.
Chuckling you put your hands on your hips and smirk at him. His eyes move back to your face and widen a bit, but then he turn his face blank.
"You know, you should probably wash yourself too. You smell worse than me." You tell him, holding your nose with a smile pointing to him, to make sure he understands.
He doesn't care and just turns away from you to wait for you to finish. Keeping a watch out, just in case. You sigh and turn to walk to the water.
Hissing when your feet reach the water, Roan turned slightly to just check on you. But he shouldn't have done that, because now he couldn't move his eyes from your backside. When it's past the water as you walk deeper into the water, he shakes his head turning around.
After a some time he frowns at the silence. Turning around he finds you gone. Panic rises inside him and he begins to look around frantically, before glancing at the water again and seeing bobbles where you had been heading.
In seconds he was out in the water and making his way to you, but you come up from the water like a damn mermaid or something, throwing your hair back and and running your hands over your face and hair, with a satisfied smile on your face. He stopped dead in his tracks, staring at you in awe.
Opening your eyes again you see him halfway into the water toward you. Chuckling, you gesture to his clothes.
"Should probably try washing without those." You tell him and he wakes up from his trance.
He looks down and groan annoyed at realising he was now going to have wet clothes, and you laugh at him.
"Might as well now." You shrug and lean down to float in the water.
It was freezing but you found it nice actually, soothing your aching muscles. You weren't used to this terrain, as you walked the forest you used muscles you didn't even realise were completely unused up in the Ark. You kept stumbling and falling a lot as you went, so you had some bruises on your knees and legs. You ankle had twisted too, so you were limping most of the way.
Roan had to walk so slow he thought he was gonna fall asleep waiting for you to keep up. He had hissed at you for being so slow and mumbled a lot in his native language on the way. He was already planning to have you train a bit, to grow your stamina and teach you to walk properly in the forest without making so much noise all the time.
He walks out of the water and undress. You see him in your peripheral vision from where you float, when he turns slightly before taking off his pants, you see the scars on his back. Frowning you look at them, they were carved in a way it looked intentional.
Getting into the water, he walks out to where he can still stand and ducks down to get his shoulder length hair wet. Once getting up again, he shakes his head violently and you exclaim, covering your face.
He laughs at you and you retaliate, splashing water at him. You laugh swimming away. Swimming faster than you, he's captured you in his arms almost immediately, he lifts you up and you yelp in surprise when he throws you into the water with him.
Both coming up again, you with a surprised gasp, you can't help but laugh at the antics. You hadn't been playful and childish in some time and you found it freeing.
Roan sees you've gotten some algae in your hair, he moved closer and reach up to remove it. Never moving his eyes from yours as you look up at him with a soft smile, even after he removed it he couldn't move his gaze.
Without doing anything you slip on a stone in the water and cut your foot. Hissing and about to fall over, you're suddenly caught in Roans strong arms. Your face shows pain and you reach for your foot clutching it in pain. He lifts you up and carries you out of the water.
Putting you down, he's about to look at the wound, but you grab your foot and pull it up so you can see yourself.
He huffs and grab it from you when you struggle to look under your foot. He takes it in his hands and examines it. Touching it, you hiss in pain and he rolls his eyes.
"Like a baby." He mumbles in his language and even though you don't understand you huff annoyed and take your foot away from him.
He sighs and goes to put on his clothes. You move to stand up while he does that, but you fall and grunt when you try to stand.
"Stop it. So stupid." He grumbles.
He had a tendency to call you that so you didn't really need to understand the word to understand him. Rolling your eyes, you try to stand up again.
"Stop!" He says angrily and catches you when you almost fall again. He puts your clothes in your hands and before you know it, he lifts you up in his arms again and starts walking. Carrying you back to the cabin.
...
He teaches you to defend yourself. How to get out of a knife to your throat, how to punch someone for it to actually hurt them.
You didn't really want to learn to punch someone but understood that it might come in handy so you tried. You hadn't punched any hard while he had tried to explain what to do. But suddenly you did it, and you hit him hard.
He stumbles back a bit from the surprise and held his jaw. You gasped loudly and went to him with wide eyes.
"Oh, Roan! I'm so sorry!" You say and take his hand away from his jaw, you hold his face in your hands and examine where you punched him.
Not noticing him staring at your worried face. He was okay, it just surprised him, still you were so worried and upset about hurting someone.
As he teaches you more fighting techniques, you don't master anything, but you weren't completely useless anymore.
...
He teaches you to ride a horse. You were in complete awe the first time he brought a horse to the cabin.
You were a bit intimidated by the strength of the animal but you didn't fear it, bravely but still careful you approached it. The horse huff when you gently stroke your hand over its neck. You glance at Roan as you pet it, a look of wonder and joy as you turn back to the horse.
He found your fascination with basically everything enthralling. It gave him a new appreciation of everything the ground had to offer. What he was used to and have taken for granted since his young, was completely new and different to you. Having grown up in a tin box up in space, gave the two of you completely different backgrounds.
He was used to the brutality of the life on the ground, it was strange or, refreshing to be around someone who would never hurt a fly. He had to toughen you up a bit though, to survive, but he wouldn't do anything to change you.
You cried the first time you fired an arrow at a dear. It was luck that you had come upon it, he was a bit surprised by how well you had gotten at walking silently in the terrain, but felt proud.
You bent down behind a bush with Roan beside you, looking at the dear in fascinating and awe.
"Now shoot it." He then says and you whip your head to him.
"What!?" You exclaim but it comes out muffled since he saw it coming and covered your mouth immediately.
He looks at the dear and find it unbothered. Sighing in relief, he picks up his bow and gives it to you. You stare at it with wide eyes.
"Kill it." He says and you shake your head.
"I.. I can't do that Roan." You say, glancing at the dear.
"Try." He says pushing the bow on your hands for you to get into position. Taking a deep breath to calm yourself you do as he says.
Aiming, your hands start to shake. Roan notices and looks at your face. Tears are starting to form in your eyes. He frowns, but then relaxes his face and pull his hand to yours. You glance at him and see him giving you a nod, squeezing your hand lightly.
You squeeze your eyes shut, a tear falling down your cheek, before you turn to the dear again. Taking a deep breath you realise the arrow when you exhale shakily.
You wince and squeak slightly when it hits. The arrow hits the dear but wasn't a fatal shot, so it whines and grunts in pain on the ground. Your hand flies to your mouth and you sit down on the ground with you back toward it.
Roan runs over to the dear to end its life, so you don't have to listen to it suffer for long.
You feel a hand on your shoulder and you jump slightly. Looking up you're met with Roan frowning at you. But not disappointed, more concerned and even what looks like him trying to seem a little understanding. You sniffle and stand back up.
You stare at the dead dear, before just turning and leaving for the cabin. Roan watching after you intently before easily lifting the dear and taking it with him.
...
One day, some time later, he comes back to the cabin, limping and clutching an injury. As he opens the door and you see him, you gasp and run over to him, helping him inside.
A bounty hunt hadn't gone exactly the way he planned. Though he did get the job done, he got hurt.
You tell him to take off his shirt while you get some supplies from the chest in the cabin. When he saved you that first day, you had a small Med kit on you.
Turning back to him you freeze, staring at him. He's skin had a layer of sweat from having walked injured a long way and the light from the fire was making his skin glow in the dark.
He glances at you and sees you checking him out. Smirking he raises an eyebrow at you. You look back at his face and see his expression. Rolling your eyes, you walk over to the table to put down your tools. He chuckles at you and you smile at the sound.
Then he goes to the fire place and leans down picking up a burning hot knife and is about to burn the wound.
"Whoa!" You exclaim and stop his hand, he just brush you off and burn it.
You gape at him while he barely flinches at the pain. When he's done you snatch the knife from him and stare at the now burned wound. He raises an eyebrow at you and you just keep gaping at him. He smirks and tries to take the knife back, but you pull it away from his reach, making him frown at you.
"I'll take the back, you won't reach." You tell him. He rolls his eyes and go to sit down on a stool with his back to you.
Carefully you start to clean it. You hear him grunt a bit when you start to stitch up the cut on his back, but still he barely moved. Your eyes trailed the scars on his back while you worked.
When you were done with stitching the cut you couldn't help yourself from trailing his scars with your finger, cautiously avoiding his wound. You see him tense at first, then he relaxes and shudders slightly at your touch.
Once done he goes to stand up, going for his blankets on the floor to sleep but you stop him.
"Let me just check the burn." You say.
He winced slightly at the thought of having to go through that again and you laugh. He glares at you but reluctantly sits down to let you.
He hadn't enjoyed the slow and painful process it was to stitch him up. He didn't like that needle from the 'Med kit' you called it.
Now sitting between his legs, you look at the wound on his chest.
"You're lucky it didn't hit anything vital." You mumble, as you gently start to clean it.
Concentrating on it you don't notice him staring at your face. Looking down at your lips, he sees you biting your lip in concentration. Your eyebrows in a frown and your eyes and skin softly glowing from the light the fireplace shines on you.
Once done he sighs in relief and you chuckle. He grumbles under his breath. He had put a knife on the fire because he planned to just burn the wounds close but when you approached with the small pack, you looked so determined and confident.
You make him lay down on the bed, finding a position to keep the worse cut on his back up, to not rip the stitches. He usually slept on some furs and blankets on the floor but you made him take the bed since he was injured.
...
The next morning you wake up to an arm over your stomach. Looking down you realise you had fallen asleep in the bed. You didn't intend on staying in the bed all night but you must've fallen asleep and during the night his arm had wrapped itself over you.
As if to make sure you stayed. Because removing that arm was a struggle, it was heavy and he kept tightening his arm around you to move you closer in his sleep when you tried to move.
You manage to get free eventually, without waking him up and started to make some breakfast. When you're just about done, you hear shuffling beside you, turning to it you find Roan trying to sit up with a groan.
You try to stop him but he just ignores your attempts and sit himself up in the bed, legs over the edge. He looks up at you as you stand between his legs.
You reach your hand up to his face and carefully trace the scars on his face with you fingers. His eyes close unintentionally and he just sighs deeply, savouring the feeling of your touch.
"Did you do them yourself?" You ask him and he nods slightly.
"They signify the pain is over, the wound is healed, so that we never forget. The scars are how Azgeda show that we're ready to go to war." He tells you. His English had gotten a lot better.
Just nodding you look at the scars in fascination, gently holding his face you stroke your thumbs over them again. Then your eyes meet his, staring into them for a moment you feel his hands brushing your legs from where they had just been leaning on his knees.
Then hearing boiling, your eyes widen and head whips to the breakfast, running back you pull it off the fire and opens the window for the extra smoke to went. Not noticing him just staring at you, with a look of yearning.
He shakes his head, trying to look away from you and think about anything else.
You eat together and the next few days is quiet and calm. Just letting him rest and heal. He tries to go hunting but you plead for him to stay, and get more rest first, you could make do with what you had for now. He reluctantly agrees, but sooner than you wish, he was out hunting again. But you couldn't fight it, he would need extra food to build up his strength, and you weren't good at hunting.
After that first night sharing, he just end up sleeping in the bed with you every night.
...
He teaches you to speak Trigedasleng and Azgeda.
Finding a steady rhythm you take care of each other, while you both stay alive, stay low and out of site. Both of you not yet feeling the need to leave, this place or each other.
Before you know it, you've been with him for almost four months.
(I think that makes sense for the timeline in the series.)
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