Hello! I'm still here! It's been a busy year and I've had a lot of other projects I'd been working on but this has always been on the backburner and now that I've had the time for it here it is!

This was more angsty in my head but it's definitely still hard to write these two arguing so it still had it's fluff. As always.

Enjoy!

"I'm not sleeping in there," Daine snapped, exiting the cave mouth and into the mist outside, not bothering to see if her companion followed.

He did of course, as he always did, despite them both knowing how much he hated being cold and damp. Were she in a better mood, feeling better disposed towards him, Daine might have smiled at Numair Salmalin and his infallible desire to be forever her shadow. As it were, she was too wound up to even bother glaring at him.

As the fall had became winter, their Immortals missions had gotten more and more dangerous, more and more strenuous, and more and more often. Neither Daine nor her older friend had much time spent alone, spent resting, or spent still, and, as it happened, this served to make both of them more than a little irritable.

"So you've said," he said. "Twice now. You have yet to tell me why."

Daine watched the forest, breathed in the cold - all too aware that once the sun set completely it would turn to snow or ice or some messy combination of the two. But it wasn't the cold air that made it hard for her to breathe.

"I can't."

"You said that, too. I'd just like to understand why." Daine said nothing, and she heard his sigh, exasperated. "Daine, you and I both know – every animal in this forest knows – there is a serious storm coming and I, for one, would like to be sheltered for it."

She turned to him, attempting to look confidant and stubborn, and immediately wished she hadn't. He was looking down at her, and it was so much easier to argue with someone a foot taller than you when you weren't looking at them. His expression, part confused and part hurt, wasn't helping things. She and Numair squabbled plenty on a day-to-day basis, and more so when they were traveling together, but she never liked it, and certainly didn't like truly fighting with him, like this was promising to become. And, in this particular case, she was fully aware of her own irrationality. She couldn't help it; she could not sleep in that cave. She would not be able to breathe.

But she could not bring herself to admit to that, either.

"I'm not asking you to sleep out here, you know," she said instead.

"Daine," he said again, at last a note of irritation in his voice. "I'm hardly at peak strength after the day we've had – I can barely manage shielding this cave, much less keep the area outside of it safe for you."

Daine scowled. She wanted to tell him she didn't need him to keep anything safe for her but that wouldn't stop him. It never did. His protective nature was both endearing and annoying and right now, on top of everything, it was smothering. It infuriated her that Numair, the man who could easily read her expressions, understand her life and her oddities better than anyone she knew, couldn't just understand that so that she didn't have to talk about it.

"What's the point of traveling with a mage, then, if you can't do anything?"

She hadn't meant to say it, and certainly not so sharply, and when her friend flinched she felt her heart clench with guilt. There were two things Daine had learned got under Numair's skin: any implication that either his great magic had somehow failed him in helping or protecting the people he cared about, or that the only reason those people even cared about him was because of his power. And she had gone and done them both at once.

Unable to look at him, Daine kept her eyes lowered and spoke again before he could possibly respond. "I'm- look. Forget it. I-I'll manage. I know you hate being cold." Refusing to look up, she moved to brush past him, thinking perhaps if she made herself into a marten or a bat it would not feel so suffocating.

He caught her wrist before she could leave, and those his grip was gentle it stopped her completely. She waited but he said nothing. "Numair?"

Her friend was looking at her thoughtfully, his expression more concerned than hurt. "I do hate being cold," he mused. "And I suspect you hate small spaces just as much."

Daine stiffened even as she felt her relief at his understanding. Hearing him say it, though… it sounded so small and silly.

"I'm sorry, Magelet. I should have guessed before, but…you could have said," he added, voice quiet.

"It's nothing," she mumbled.

"Nothing enough to argue over?" He shook his head, releasing her wrist. "Daine, I hate the cold because I nearly froze to death, my first winter in Tortall. I've told you that. You hate small spaces because Ozorne locked you in a cell and, Mithros, I'm willing to bet you had at least mild claustrophobia before that. It's the most natural thing, after experiencing trauma."

Unable to say anything in reply, she nodded. She never had thought much about that part of her Carthak trauma, when she thought about it at all. Her imprisonment had felt like nothing compared to what had followed. It wasn't until she had gotten back to the palace that she felt the lasting affects; nightmares of suffocating, of being locked in, of walls slowly closing in around her, crushing her plagued her intermediately. She couldn't even sleep in her room in the stables as the fresh air couldn't negate the panic the tight quarters instilled in her.

She never mentioned the nightmares or restlessness to any of her friends. Regardless of what Numair said, it felt ridiculous to have this be the lasting effect that she carried with her after everything that had happened, and now that it was said, it also felt so easy to admit to, a pointless thing that she argued and upset him over. Like her madness, nearly three years before; hadn't she learned already that hiding her fears and self-doubt only hurt her in the end?

Numair took in her silence, and smiled gently. "We have a few hours, you know, there's a chance we'll find something larger."

"No," she said quickly. "No, it's not worth- I shouldn't have even brought it u-"

"Daine-"

"It's not," she said. "I'll make myself something small, and I'll be fine. I hadn't been thinking – I mean we've both been so stressed and I was just mad about everything and I should have even-" She shook her head, taking a breath. "I mean it, Numair, I'll be fine."

Numair watched her, carefully. Aware, as he often was where she was concerned, that this was her apology for snapping at him. "You're sure?"

"I am."

The smile returned, happier. "Well come on, I think I have enough magic in me to start a fire and I'm starving. You?"

Daine didn't sleep well that night. She didn't have nightmares, but she felt restless and her head ached fiercely.

But Numair knew now, without her saying so. When she was especially groggy and tired in the morning he made no mention of claustrophobia, but told her they'd find a village to stay in the next night, and tied Spots and Cloud with a loose rope.

"We've no rush," he said, when she looked at him curiously. "If we go slow enough, will you be able to sleep – or at least rest?"

He said it casually, but there was a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth. He was happy – to see her happy, it seemed – and Daine wondered again at how forgiving, how understanding her best friend was. She was moody, easily frustrated, and still sometimes didn't know how to communicate, even to him, and he still cared for her so much. Did so much for her comfort. It was almost more than she could comprehend.

She smiled, the first time in at least a day. "I'll try."

These children. Are very in love. That's all I have to say on the matter.