Chapter Text
Ifan was right, Lohse had basically inhaled that book on restoration, and by morning Astrid was feeling fine apart from a small pain when she bent the wrong way.
As she sat on her stool eating, her shield and her wand on the ground beside her, Ifan approached and grabbed the shield, holding it steady on his arm. She looked up at him and was a little taken aback by how strange it looked him using something that wasn’t a crossbow. He smiled over the top of it and down at her.
“Did you think I was kidding?”
“No, I just think the look suits you,” she joked, putting her empty bowl down and standing up. She was almost a full head shorter than him, and there was something overpowering about him when he stood that close. He passed the shield to her.
“Come on, we’ll go down to the beach so you don’t get distracted.”
The irony, she thought, as he was the most distracting part of it all.
They got to the beach on the outskirts of the sanctuary, a warm, salty breeze rolling off of the sea. Looking at it now, it was almost possible to forget where they were, and how trapped.
“Now,” Ifan started, standing at her side, “I want you to bend your elbow like this.”
The way he stood was almost funny in a way. The posture of a true soldier. She’d found herself forgetting that he was a soldier. He held his arm in front of him, visible muscles down his scarred forearm. Funny – she was too distracted to do it herself. She felt limp and weak, like she was carrying something rather than using it.
“No, no,” he muttered, smirk on his face. He stepped behind her and put an arm just above her elbow, guiding it into the right position. “Think of it as an extension of yourself, and always be conscious of it. Don’t forget about it, or you end up with arrows in your hips.”
She looked over her shoulder at him with a feigned grumpiness he only laughed at. It was strange, but she loved the way he bared his teeth when he laughed. There was something animalistic about it that she couldn’t explain.
He turned and picked up a lightweight but long piece of driftwood from the sand and dusted it off. Before she had time to react, he swung around as if it were a sword and smacked her on the stomach, not hard enough to hurt. She flinched and instinctively whacked the stick away with her shield, laughing.
“I wasn’t ready!”
Ifan stood all soldier-like again, pretending to sheathe the stick at his hip.
“You’ll never be ready when death strikes!”
He whipped the stick out again, but this time she caught it. It hit the sheild and snapped a little bit, but it didn’t stop him. He bounced around like a true swordsman, and she almost shielded every hit. They laughed together as her dodges and his swipes got gradually more ridiculous until they were almost child-like. He smacked her lightly on the side of the thigh.
“I’ve cut your legs off, now what?”
Astrid shrugged, “I’ll ask my friend Ifan to stitch it up?”
He chuckled and threw the broken stick back into the sand.
“You’ll get better with the shield, just remember what I told you.”
He stood behind her again, putting his hands on her shoulders and straightening her posture, then putting his arm over hers and wrapping his fingers around her wrist to direct it into the correct position. His hands were warm but calloused, rough but somehow soft and gentle at the same time. She was hyper-aware of everything under his touch, forgetting completely about what he was actually trying to teach her. All she could think about was his hands so close to hers, and the way he held her. She wanted it, but everywhere. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention, her toes curling into her boots in anticipation. Then it hit her all like a bag of bricks. Lohse was right. She did like him, and she had it bad.
“--and then you can bash them in when they get too close.”
She nodded as if she’d heard everything he’d said, catching his eyes over her shoulder and then looking away silently.
“Now, we best get to Lohse and his Highness and get a move on. We have to find that Gareth , don’t we?”
Astrid nodded and tried to hide her immovable smile, happily following him back to camp.