"You think I care? You are here to serve me, and yet here I am, carrying you because you are too lazy to walk." His words are dickish as fuck, but he says them in a quiet, calm manner, as if he doesn't truly mean them.
I don't know what to make of that. Or of him at all. Damn arrogant prick. I wish I'd been found by the god of cupcakes or kittens instead of the arrogant god of battle. And storms.
Wait.
"Aron," I gasp, clutching at him. Blackness fades in and out of my vision, and I'm so overheated it feels like I'm going to die. "Can you make it rain?"
"You wish a storm? Why?"
"I need a drink," I whimper at him. I know I'm whining, but I don't care. "Please. I'll do anything."
He sighs and holds me close against his chest. "I forget how fragile you mortals are." For a moment, I think his voice sounds curiously gentle, but that has to be the heatstroke talking. But then thunder crashes overhead and clouds roll in. The terrible sun that feels as if it's baking me like a potato disappears, and a moment later, a downpour drenches the skies.
The temperature changes immediately, so quickly that it sends a sharp pain through my head. I gasp as cold, wet rain pounds my skin and soaks me, washing away dirt and heat and all the terrible things of the day. Even so, it’s wet and refreshing and I don’t care how much it makes my head hurt. I moan and tilt my face back, catching the rain in my mouth.
"Better, little mortal?"
"Thank you," I gasp, and then drink more. I cup my hands to drink as much as I can, and then collapse back against his chest, exhausted.
The downside of rain is that after it fades away, the air is humid and sticky once more. My wispy gauze dress is soaked, and I suck on the moisture there for another drink later, and then fall back against Aron's shoulder, unconscious. I want to tell him that I'm not normally such a wimp. That I can usually handle myself and I'm a decent hiker, but I don't have the energy.
This is what it feels like to be dying, I think. Strange how it came on that fast. Shouldn't it take a few days for me to die of thirst? But I feel like I'm at my end as it is, and Aron seems to think so, too.
"Not much farther," he tells me as I fade in and out of consciousness.
I'm pretty sure he's lying to me. That's all right. It's a nice lie.
Distantly, I hear the sound of thunder, and I feel more rain patter against my skin, but I'm too far gone in sleep to pay much attention. I want to wake up and thank him, but it feels like a huge effort, a mountain that I'm sitting at the base of, and it's much too far to climb.
"Not much longer, my friend," Aron says, his voice a whisper against my hair.
Aw. He thinks we're friends now. It's a nice thing to hear right before I die. I struggle awake despite the mountain of effort and manage to open my eyes. The storm clouds roll overhead, highlighting Aron's unearthly beauty.
"Look," he tells me. "Shelter."
It takes everything I have to turn my head, but when I do, I see…grass, like a green carpet. In the distance, there are small bushes and neat rows of what looks like a tended field. Off atop a distant cliff there's a tiny building with a plume of smoke rising from the chimney.
Huh. We've reached the edge of the Dirtlands.
I must have drowsed off, because the next thing I know, I open my eyes and the house is right in front of us. Come to think of it, it looks less like a house and more like an old timey church, complete with long stone walls and straw roof. I don't care, though. As long as they have food and water, I'll sleep on a church floor.
Aron, being Aron, goes up to the heavy wooden door of the church and kicks it. "Open up," he calls out in that imperious voice of his. I want to tell him that's not exactly how you ask for a place to stay for the night, but I'm too tired. I just rest my head on his shoulder and try not to think about how