“A petition is the beginning of a mating,” he managed to get out, with all the inelegance of one mortified by the subject. “A marriage,” he clarified when her eyes widened in alarm. “A binding.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again, and he found his words coming in even greater force, hastily trying to explain his position. “The very first part, mind. A statement of intention that... I should like to know you. And that I am honourable, and have the utmost respect for you.”
He thought, but did not add, that it was the opposite of what mischief his fellow initiates had found in the taverns. She did not need to hear of that.
Penryn blinked, as if coming to some remembrance, one that did not please her. “But I am not a farmer’s daughter,” she reminded him, or maybe it was for her own benefit.
“No,” Grimult agreed. “You are not.”
And that should have been recognition enough. A simple statement that could purge the undesirable feelings that had seeped into his mind, twisting and justifying all that could not be.
Penryn nodded, turning away from him and going back to her clothes. “Well,” she answered briskly. “There is still laundry to tend to, Lightkeep or not.”
He did not know if he should allow the subject to drop, not when there was still a hunch to her shoulders, an unhappy turn to her mouth that he could just make out if he angled his head just so to peer at her. There was little else to say, not when their positions were so fixed. There was no point in indulging in what might have been, for it had not been. Everything had occurred just as it was meant to, and that precluded certain... desires.
He approached her all the same, and she glanced at him, wariness mixing with a hope that he did not know how to treat with all the gentleness it deserved. “You will need this,” he said instead, feeling awkward and feeling that pull toward her, not dissimilar to the tether he had experienced since he had taken charge of her care and safety, only stronger.
It was the want to be close, to hold her tightly, to press his nose into her hair, to skim lips across skin.
She accepted the bit of soap and it was his turn to suppress a shiver as her fingers skimmed against his before he released it.
She looked at it with some bemusement, and he realised that he had been gripping it so hard throughout their exchange that an imprint was left of his fingers.
“Afraid it would slip away?” she teased, although there was something forced in it that made him sad. He did not mean to discomfort her. He wanted nothing for her but peace and, if possible for one of her kind, happiness.
“Soap can be a difficult thing,” he informed her gravely, uncertain what she had used in the hallowed halls of the sages’ keep. He was certain they did not have her scrubbing stains out of clothes, but she must have had something to tend her hands and body in a bath.
And at her nod, he felt safe to retreat to his own side of the pool. It took a little manipulating, and a great many glances at her side to see that he was not being observed before he was willing to shed the last of his clothing and add it to the pile of his garments.
For all of the instruction he had received, laundering in the wild was not something of primary importance, as previous Guardians apparently did not care if their clothes reeked of travel upon their return.
He did. Not that he was close to the return, not yet, but he would stop here on the way back and do much the same.
Only then he would be alone. With time to sit as his clothes dried and remember Penryn and her company.
The thought alone was enough to send a strange ache through his chest, as if the loss was already too near.
He found a large stone near the pool’s edge that worked well as a washboard, each article of clothing receiving a throughout swirl in the water before being soaped and scrubbed and agitated against the unyielding surface of the rock. It was satisfying work, even if his mind was plagued with too many unknowns and wishes alike, and he appreciated the distraction.
Before long he realised that he did not hear similar sounds from Penryn’s direction, only sighs and frustration. He glanced over at her, wondering how a simple process could go wrong enough to lead to agitation, and quickly observed the problem. The stone she had chosen to mimic his actions was loosely nestled against two others, teetering and precarious as she attempted to scrub away a stain from her outer clothing.
“Do you require assistance?” he asked, noting also that she was at an awkward height for the entire endeavour. She would do better to sit on the edge of the pool and lean forward, her arms doubtlessly sore from the angle she had to maintain. But to do that would be to expose all of her nakedness to the open air—to him, and that was likely the reason for her persistence in a fruitless endeavour.
“I do not know why yours are cooperating better,” she complained with a sigh, her garment making a wet slap against the stone as she released it in her frustration. He could explain the reasons, at the very least suggest she find a more stable surface to utilise, but that would not change that she was simply too short to make good use of the environment given to them.
“I believe I was in error,” Grimult began, wondering if she would be too embarrassed to allow him to wash any of her clothing. He supposed it could be seen as an intimate act, to entrust one’s possessions to another in such a way.
