I am wrapped in three blankets like a sad overcooked dumpling and still shivering. My nose is leaking. My ass is frozen. There's moss in places moss should not be.
We found shelter under a lopsided dolmen, half-collapsed and fully useless. Probably built by some prehistoric idiot who thought stacking rocks was architecture. I sneeze so hard I see stars. Again.
The Dragon, smug bastard that he is, hands me a steaming cup of tea with the smugness of a thousand-year-old nanny offering herbal regret. "I don't understand," he says, "what exactly possessed you to dive naked into a glacier-fed lake in early spring?"
I blow my nose into a wool scarf I heroically liberated from a very startled marmot-hunting hermit. "It was sunny," I mutter.
"Sunny," he repeats, as if sunlight cancels hypothermia.
"And the lake was pretty. And refreshing. And I was wearing fur boots and a wool tunic and I smelled like campfire and regret."
He arches one brow ridge like he's trying to crack his own skull in disdain. "So obviously, stripping down and hurling yourself into snowmelt was the answer."
"I needed to feel alive," I snarl into my scarf.
"You needed a bath, not a near-death experience."
I wrap the blankets tighter and glare at the fire like it owes me money. "I felt joy," I grumble. "For like twelve seconds. Before my nipples froze solid and I swallowed a water beetle."
He sips his tea and snorts. "Twelve seconds of joy, followed by three days of fever, convulsions, and snoring like a drunken badger."
I take the cup to my lips and whisper, "Worth it."
Then immediately burn my tongue and whimper like a kicked duckling.
He doesn't even laugh. Just watches me with that smug, ancient face like he saw it coming from the moment I took off the damn lynx-tooth necklace.
I sneeze again. Loud. Wet. Tragic.
He flares his nostrils and exhales, voice flat with theatrical disappointment. "No more skinny-dipping in mountain runoff. Not until summer. Or ever."
I bury my face in the blankets and groan. "I'll die of boredom."
"You'll die of pneumonia first," he snaps, tail twitching like he wants to slap some sense into me. "Also. You need to start wearing actual clothes."
I mumble something obscene into the rim of my cup.
"No more spontaneous nudity. No more cult-girl peplos with nothing underneath. No more strappy tunics when there's snow on the ground."
I cough for sympathy and sniff. "I'm not dressing like a librarian."
He narrows his eyes. "The Month of Mukthaw is not the time for bare thighs and lynx-tooth necklaces."
I mutter, "It's always time for bare thighs…" then sneeze so hard the tea sloshes and scalds my leg.
He doesn't flinch. "You deserve that."
"I'm allergic to shame," I croak.
"You're allergic to insulation."
"Same thing."
He turns back to the fire like he's choosing patience over violence, muttering something about "brainless nymphs" and "aquatic death wishes" and "crotch frostbite in high-altitude idiots."
I watch him, all hunched and cranky and warm and unfairly smug, his silhouette flickering in the firelight while my toes finally start remembering what being alive feels like.
He cares. That's the damn problem.
He cares, and it makes everything harder.
I sneeze again and yell, "That's not a sign! Stop pretending that's a sign!"
From the front of the dolmen, he sighs. "It is a sign. A sign that you should stop bathing in meltwater and start wearing undergarments."
"Undergarments ruin the silhouette," I croak.
"Saya, you went swimming wearing only a necklace."
"It was ceremonial."
"It was deranged."
I flip him off with the hand not currently occupied by tea. "I looked like a pagan huntress queen."
"You looked like a fever dream."
"Well," I grumble, sinking deeper into my cocoon of shame and damp wool, "maybe next time nature can just not seduce me."
He glances over his shoulder, all golden eyes and sarcastic judgment. "You got seduced by a lake."
"…it was very convincing water."
And now I'm dying in a rock hole.
Blanket burrito of plague and poor choices.
Perfect.
Without a word, he coils his tail around me like a giant smug heat snake. I don't fight it. I never do. It's warm, and solid, and smells like ash and scales and burnt pride. Like safety I never admit to wanting.
"Drink up," he says, still facing the fire. His voice is gentler now. "I'll make soup later."
I blink. "You hate soup."
"I do," he says. "But you don't. And since you insist on skinny-dipping in death traps, we're doing soup."
I sip the tea.
It still tastes like moss and boiled bark, but I don't complain.
"Real soup?" I ask. "Not squirrel broth or buzzard stew?"
He exhales through his nose. "Real soup. Chicken. With dumplings."
I almost smile. "You're getting alarmingly domestic."
He grumbles, tail tightening around me. "And you're getting alarmingly feral."
"I'm a free spirit."
"You're a respiratory hazard."
"Flattery will get you everywhere."
"And blankets are cheaper than resurrection spells."
Steam curls around my face. Rain drums the hills beyond. His tail holds me still.
Maybe I won't die after all.
Maybe next time, I'll just splash my feet.
(Maybe not.)