Hunt
(T/HRONE OF GLAS$ SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVEN'T READ PAST Q/UEEN OF SHADOW$ BE WARNED!)
My love for R/owan is boundless, and the series would be infinitely better if he was sick.
This is a multi-part fic of A/elin and R/owan training on a mountain and YEAH! HE HAS A COLD!
not much sneezing yet but it will come I promise
likes comments reblogs always loved and giggled over <3
****
Aelin stalks through the underbrush with lethal silence. Leaves covered with dew from the early morning mist streak across her face, dotting her cheeks. Her prey, a mountain hare the size of her head, nibbles on the sparse grass a few yards away.
She knocks her arrow, slipping in a breath. She can’t wait to see the look on Rowan’s face when she brings back a hare this size. Slowly, she pulls the bowstring back, kissing against her face. The hare turns, startled, breaths coming fast. Now or never–
“hh’rZzSHHh’uh!”
Aelin gasps at the sound that echoes around the mountain. It cracks like a whip, scaring even the crows nesting in trees. The hare takes off and she desperately releases the arrow after her prey. The point finds its home in the thick trunk of a tree rather than the soft neck of the hare.
There goes breakfast. Her stomach growls pitifully. Seething, she rises from the brush and goes to retrieve her arrow.
Five minutes later, Aelin stalks back to the makeshift camp she and Rowan had assembled the night before. The Fae prince had forced her to run from the castle to these distant mountains, shifting in and out of her Fae form to master control, where he then informed her they would be camping for a week out in the elements. And she was to hunt their every meal in between training.
It was a pathetic time, especially with the rain that has settled across the mountain. Damp and cold to her bones, Aelin approaches their campsite. Rowan, appearing much drier than she, sits by the fire she had sparked earlier that morning. He looks oddly run down, like he hadn’t slept much the night before.
Aelin is sure he hadn’t. The mountains were too misty to sleep outside without waking up damp, so they had packed just one tent to keep their baggage light. Lying beside Rowan, last night she had been the private audience to his tossing and turning, grumbling, and finally his snoring.
“You fucking bastard. You scared off breakfast,” she hisses as she approaches, throwing her bow and bundle of arrows down by the tent. Rowan does not look up from the dagger he cleans in his hands.
“And how – snf! – pray tell, did I scare breakfast from here?” He grumbles. Aelin catches the way he sniffles thickly, his nostrils twitching up with the force of it.
She drops her satchel, full of only a bundle of pathetic berries. “You sneezed.” She tries not to give in the warmth that pools in her lower stomach at the memory of the sound. It’s the first time she had ever heard him sneeze, and she was not disappointed. “For someone so keen on silence, I expected you’d know how to sneeze more quietly.”
Rowan doesn’t even grace her taunting with a reply, or a snarl. He just continues rubbing a cloth down the length of his dagger. Strange. He must be feeling really tired if he didn’t bother to punish her for such a remark.
She sits down across from the fire, on a log they’d rolled over so they didn’t sit on wet grass. Feigning interest in destemming the berries she’d picked, she studies him through the crackling flames.
His white hair is loose around his shoulders, creating a curtain that shields the dark tattoo running along his tan face. The tips of his Fae ears poke out just behind the white strands. After weeks of training with him, sleeping out in the elements beside him, she’s learned that he prefers to tie his hair up. It’s so rare to see him with it down.
“More hand to hand combat training today, or magic training?” She asks, breaking the silence that is only marred by the crackling flames.
Rowan sets the dagger aside. “Your job was to hunt. And since you still haven’t caught anything, your job is still to hunt.” He settles his sharp green eyes on her, brows set. If he didn’t piss her off so much, she might actually tremble under his gaze.
She raises her palms in defeat. “Fine, fine. But if you sneeze and scare off my prey again, I won’t be sharing the catch with you.” Even if she’d very much like for him to sneeze again, she’d rather eat first.
In one swoop, she picks up her bow and arrows and satchel again before setting off. With her Fae senses, she could scent a herd of deer in the southwest. Now that would show Rowan. Perhaps she’d bring back a buck, and spear him with its antlers.
As soon as she leaves the camp, nearly out of earshot, she hears the same thunderstrike from before. Perhaps Rowan had been waiting for her to leave.
“hhzjHSHHhieWw!”
A shiver runs down her spine as more startled crows caw in the trees.
****
Two hours later, Aelin returns with a small doe slung across her shoulders.
It’s mid afternoon. She had been lucky a herd was still grazing so late in the morning down by the clearing. She’d been even luckier that Rowan had either gotten his sneezing under control, or learned how to be quiet, because nothing had startled her catch this time.
“Lunch,” she declares to Rowan, dropping the deer to the grass. He hasn’t moved from his spot by the fire. “Is served.”
“It was supposed to be– snf! Breakfast,” he mutters, reaching the dagger at his side from earlier. His voice sounds dulled, like he’s congested.
Aelin rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s not like you helped. And I got us a catch to last us days.” She pats the stomach of the doe proudly. It isn’t very old – there’s still a sprinkling of fawn spots across her back. Aelin feels a twang of guilt for not singling out an older one.
Rowan pinches the bridge of his nose, breathing through his mouth. Aelin hardly has time to prepare before he jerks down towards his crotch, a light mist spraying across his trousers.
“hiHh–... yHhZzSHhhyuu!” A familiar, rushing heat spreads through Aelin’s gut. She swallows, watching as he rubs his nose on his wrist and glares up at her. Is he going to get mad at her for his sneezing?
Rowan chooses not to comment on it, something Aelin is secretly grateful for. “You were– snf! instructed to catch something small. We’re moving camp this afternoon.” He angles the pommel of the dagger towards her.
“What?!”
“Rain is coming tonight and will flood this area. I told you this morning. And now you’ve wasted a young doe’s life.”
A flame of rage flickers to life inside her chest. This is all his fault. “Well, I wouldn’t have wasted jack-shit if you hadn’t ruined my catch earl–”
“Aelin,” he growls, a no-nonsense sound. The tips of his canines poke past his lips. Aelin shuts up immediately.
He stands, crossing the camp in two strides, and shoves the pommel of the knife against her stomach. She glares beneath his gaze. “You missed the catch because you did not act fast enough. Now you can either carry the doe across the mountain, or… hhH—!” His breath snags, eyes looking off into the distance for a split second. Aelin’s heart hammers in her chest.
He quickly recovers and sniffs again, much to her disappointment, and focuses his gaze on her. “Or you can leave it and realise you wasted a young animal’s life for your pride.”
Before she can retort, he turns on his heel and she offers a middle finger to his large, muscular back.
As if sensing her, he says over his shoulder, “And– sNf!– pack up the tent.”
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