Lephas laughed. He clutched his side, the pain doing little to dim his mirth.
Lori playfully punched his arm. “That was mean!”
“It's only a rabbit, you wuss.” He teased, carefully heaving the bag onto his back.
“Adeadone!”
Lephas just smirked before leading them ahead through the forest. He heard the faerie jog forwards to catch up with him and she slipped her hand into his – the one without the dead rabbit in it, naturally.
Lephas decided to allow it and silently gripped her dainty hand in return. A wave of strange, masculine pride washed over him. He wasn't accustomed to having a woman he needed to care for and protect. It called to some primal urge he hadn't been aware he had.
The same urge that had him eagerly awaiting the next opportunity he had to get on top of her. He felt like a teenager again, never had he been so keen to get someone into bed.
“Are you alright? You look deep in thought,” Lori asked.
“Yeah, I'm fine.” Lephas smiled to himself, looking away.
The faerie gazed up at the sky. “It looks like it might snow again later.”
She was right, the vast blue sky from earlier that morning was steadily growing grey once more.
“It won't matter, we'll camp up soon. I'll light us a fire this evening - I think we're probably far enough now that it'll be safe. Besides, I'm going to need to cook this rabbit as soon as possible.”
They walked onwards, hand in hand, struggling through the deep snow. The demon's side ached him constantly. Short spikes of pain radiated from the injury whenever he moved too quickly or slipped, jerking himself suddenly.
Lephas didn't want to go too far from those snare traps. He made a mental note to head back down to check if they had caught anything else the next day.
At last, he spotted a suitable camp spot. It was nice and flat, nestled between two large exposed tree roots.He would be able to use one of those roots to attach the one side of the lean-to, the other would block any wind that may pick up.
Now the sky had clouded over, it was hard to tell what time of day it was but Lephas's growling stomach told him it must be at least late afternoon. He had barely eaten anything for days and it was starting to take its toll.
“Can you start searching that snow around the base of the tree?” he asked Lori, dropping the bag to fish out a large waxed sheet he knew was folded neatly at the bottom.
“Sure, why?”
“That's where we're going to camp. Just make sure there's no stones or anything underneath where we'll sleep,” he instructed, pulling the sheet free.
Lephas shook it out and measured it up mentally. It should just about reach. He dug through a side pocket of the bag. Inside were some specially designed hooks that would attach the sheet to whatever he chose to screw them into and some heavy-duty metal tent pegs.
The wood of the tree should be soft enough that he would be able to get them in by hand, but it was going to be a bitch hammering those pegs in with the ground so hard.
He took two hooks, one for each corner of the sheet, and trudged around to the far side of the tree. After a bit of fumbling, his cold fingers not as dextrous as they usually were, the commander managed to screw the metal deeply into the bark. He hooked the small holes in the material over the ends before walking back around.
He scanned his eyes around the snow.
“What are you looking for?” Lori asked curiously.
“A heavy enough stone to hammer these pegs into the ground with.” His boot hit something solid and he knelt to dig it out.
“Ah ha.” He pulled a rock free triumphantly. Lephas grabbed the loose end of the sheet and pulled it taught. Carefully he held one of the pegs between his thumb and forefinger and brought the rock down heavily on top of it.
As he had predicted, it was hard work. He had to apply a lot of force, but steadily the peg began to sink into the frozen earth. The snowy rock slipped from his grasp and landed painfully on the hand that was steadying the peg.
“Fuck me!” he hissed and shook his bruised hand.
Lori snorted, a smirk fighting its way onto her face.
“It's not funny,” Lephas protested but was unable to stop himself from grinning back at her.
