It is easiest when she doesn’t have to see him.

The lake is small, easily avoided in the large forest of Sylva. There are plenty of other streams to drink from, other lakes to bathe in that are not watched by a pair of grey eyes. If she finds them unsatisfying she does not admit it – even to herself.

It is only water, she repeats silently, pawing at the thin crust of ice that has formed at the edges of the spring. It breaks easily (the temperature had barely dipped enough to freeze it over night), and she drinks in large draughts, enjoying the sensation of the cold water as it slides down her throat. Dawn is just beginning in the wooded land and everything around her is still tinged in soft blues and greys. Overhead in the east, the sun has started to press through the canopy, and soon enough everything will be bathed in the rosy light as it filters through the leaves.

There is someone ahead of her in the trees, she realizes as the sound of hooves reaches her ears. They’re up awfully early – or perhaps just haven’t gone to bed yet. Djinni calls out a curious: “Hello?” as she moves away from the spring, peering through the dimly lit woods in an effort to identify her early morning companion.

So focused on avoiding the lake, she hadn’t even considered that he might be somewhere else.

@[Stillwater] is facing away from her, and she thinks that it is possible he hadn’t heard her over the crunching of his feet in decades worth of fallen leaves. She says nothing; she can’t. Her throat seems to have frozen solid from the water, yet her mouth is bone dry. From where she stands, Djinni can see the angles of his handsome face as he picks through the grass, see the still-present rakes along his shoulders from her teeth. The heat from their night in the cave simmers even in her frozen chest, but she is as bound by the season as they all are. She still wants him to cover her, but not in the way that he had before. No, this is something different, something calmer and far less passionate. She wants him beside her, watchful, keeping her safe.

She is perfectly capable of keeping herself safe, argues the logical part of her mind, and he’s as likely to put her danger as he is to shield her.

Logic doesn’t win.

But Djinni is equally unable to smother the warmth rising in her chest and the instinctual desire of a pregnant mare to stay beside her child’s father. So when he finally looks up and meets her eye, she disappears with a shallow gasp, leaving only golden sand to mark her presence.