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“I just don’t get it,” Stelle says. “Of all the things you’re capable of, you can’t set up one tent?”
“You’re not exactly being very helpful,” Dan Heng replies flatly, crossing his arms.
Stelle makes a face at him. He does not respond other than rolling his eyes, turning back to stare down at the mess of materials laid out along the ground.
March watches them with a smile, crouching a little ways away with her camera in hand as she prods at the fire she was in charge of making. The world is bathed in an orange-ish sort of light as this planet’s sun drops lower and lower towards the horizon, bleeding pink and purple into the sky above. Around them, the forest is quiet aside from the gentle sound of wind rustling through the leaves and, of course, the sound of everyone else’s voices.
Mainly Dan Heng’s and Stelle’s, because they’ve been trying to figure out how to set up a tent for the last ten minutes with very little success.
A little ways away is Himeko, checking over their supplies with Welt, though she’s taken to watching the other two with an amused smile. “Are you sure you don’t want help?” she calls.
“Yes!” Stelle shouts, while Dan Heng just rolls his eyes and huffs sharply through his nose. She turns to him. “Where did you put the instructions?”
“You were the one who had the instructions last.”
A beat. Then, “Was I?”
… And there they go again, squabbling like two birds. March sighs and tosses another stick into the flames, watching smoke billow into the air as the fire crackles and pops in a response.
She feels a brush at her back, then Himeko’s hand is there on her shoulder, a gentle and warm grip that she lets herself be led by as she is pulled slightly away from the campfire. “You did that relatively fast.”
March puffs her cheeks out indignantly, turning to meet Himeko’s smile with a small glare. “I can do stuff like this when it counts!”
Himeko laughs. “When did I ever say I doubted you?”
Against her will, March’s pout melts into a smile and she finds herself glancing back towards both Stelle and Dan Heng again. “Do you really think this was a good idea?”
Himeko hums, following her gaze to where Stelle is fiddling with one of the tent’s poles as Dan Heng contemplates the rest of it with a hand on his chin and his brow scrunched up in thought. That makes her laugh again. “I’m sure they'll get it sometime. Besides, a little break from trailblazing never hurts. Even the Nameless need their rest.”
The past few expeditions have been very stressful, is what she doesn’t say, but March hears it all that same. Himeko hadn’t been exactly subtle about it the first time when she proposed it anyway, back on the Astral Express with her eyes lingering on Dan Heng’s tense shoulders and the dark bags beneath Stelle’s eyes.
And that's most of the reason why March and Welt had agreed so easily to the idea of spending a few days camping on a planet that Himeko has been to once before, even when Dan Heng and Stelle protested—self-sacrificing heroes that they are.
Besides, March likes her breaks too. She’s never been camping before in a way that hasn't been for some sort of expedition, and her few experiences aren’t exactly the best.
(She’ll never forget the week she spent in the rainforest of some tiny planet, being pelted by searing rain and wading her way through all sorts of sludge with nothing but Dan Heng’s stoic silence and Welt’s poor attempts at comfort for company.)
Stelle lets out a sudden cry of triumph as the tent pops up, successfully assembled. Dan Heng has a relieved look on his face, an instruction manual smeared with dirt held loosely in his hand. It falls when Stelle tackles him with a laugh, clinging to his shoulders and shouting things like we did it, we did it and I knew we didn’t need their help and hell yeah!
And Dan Heng just goes, letting her cling to him with nothing but a single roll of his eyes. But the fact that he doesn’t fight her says everything March needs to know, because Dan Heng always smiles with his body more than his mouth. After all their time spent together, March is sure of that, at least.
“Yeah,” she says eventually, not shifting her gaze away from the duo. “You’re right.”
A smile pulls at her lips, and she doesn’t hesitate for a second when she lifts her camera to snap a picture.
They manage to get all the tents assembled by the time night falls. By then, Dan Heng is more than a little content to stop setting things up and move to other duties.
Himeko has acquired them a small clearing on a planet thriving with life, claiming that all sorts of people come here to spend some time in the wilderness and admire the scenery. Dan Heng has never been here before, but she had handed him a manual that detailed all sorts of different plants and wildlife that inhabit the particular region they have settled in, and it seems safe enough. It would make for good entries in the data bank, too.
It never hurts to be too careful, though. So while the others are busy deciding on sleeping arrangements and discussing dinner, he summons Cloud Piercer and goes for a stroll around their makeshift campsite.
The short perimeter check yields no results, thankfully, so Dan Heng allows himself to relax. When he returns to the fire, the others are all crowded around it. Stelle is sitting next to March trying to blow out a flaming marshmallow, while March is busy humming, putting together some odd amalgamation of chocolate and roasted marshmallow and some kind of cracker.
He takes a seat next to her, raising his eyebrows slightly at her antics. She brightens immediately. “Dan Heng! You want a s’more?”
“What?” Dan Heng asks.
“Himeko said she used to make ‘em on her homeworld all the time,” March replies cheerfully. Dan Heng raises his eyebrows even higher at that, because Himeko hardly ever talks about her homeworld—the place she called Earth, one of the few times Dan Heng heard her speak of it .
He turns his gaze across the fire, where Himeko is sitting beside Welt. She smiles at him and offers out a marshmallow along with some sort of metal rod, where he assumes he’s supposed to stick it on judging by what Stelle is doing.
Speaking of which, she’s finally managed to put out the fire and is appraising the blackened parts with narrow eyes.
With no reason to refuse, he takes the marshmallow and carefully sinks the tips of the poker through, making sure it won’t fall off. When he’s done, he looks at Himeko dubiously. “Am I supposed to cook it?”
“Until it’s lightly toasted,” Himeko tells him, handing another, uncooked marshmallow for Stelle to try again, given that she had just ended up eating her burnt one.
Welt holds up a plastic bag full of crackers and another one full of chocolate pieces. “And when you're done, make it into a sandwich.”
“A sandwich,” Dan Heng repeats.
“It’s good!” March insists. She waves around her s’more, the chocolate melting from the heat of the marshmallow and dripping onto her fingers.
Dan Heng quirks an eyebrow at her pointedly and she makes a surprised little noise before licking it off with a grin. He shakes his head, then wordlessly holds his marshmallow out to hover just above the flames.
“Rotate it so it cooks on all sides,” Welt advises, and Dan Heng does what he says. It doesn’t take long for the marshmallow to begin turning a light brown, so he waits a bit longer for it to toast a little more before pulling it back.
Welt shuffles over to hold out two pieces of the cracker, a small chunk of chocolate laid on the bottom one, and directs Dan Heng to place his marshmallow on it. He does so and watches as Welt presses down with the top cracker and slowly pulls the marshmallow off the poker. It flattens like goo, oozing out over the sides of the s’more, which Welt hands to him with a small smile.
“And there’s your s’more,” he declares, as if it is some grand thing to be given. Dan Heng thanks him quietly, eyeing the odd combination of ingredients rather dubiously as some of it sticks to his fingers.
“Stop looking at it and just eat it,” March says through a mouthful of chocolate. “It’s not going to bite you, dummy.” She has cracker bits around her mouth and Dan Heng tells her as much, which causes her to make a face at him before Himeko laughs and passes her a napkin.
He rolls his eyes and looks back down at the s’more. When he takes a careful, tentative bite, he finds that it’s… rather sweet, but that’s not unexpected. The heat from the marshmallow causes both it and the chocolate to soften while the cracker is crunchy, with a distinct taste to it that mixes well enough with the other parts.
It’s fine, he supposes. Dan Heng isn’t the biggest fan of sweet things, not that he’s a very picky eater in the first place. He eats most of whatever Himeko buys or makes (that doesn’t come out looking like it got dug up straight from the sewers of Belobog), but he drinks his coffee black most of the time and doesn’t care much for everything else.
Except March’s shoulder presses warm against his, and when he turns to look at her, she’s smiling, face free of any crumbs this time and nothing but hope in her eyes. “So what do you think?” she asks, and bumps their shoulders again. “Good, right?”
Dan Heng isn’t the biggest fan of sweet things.
But when he looks at March—and then Stelle, leaning against her arm on the other side, messy hair falling into her face as she pesters Himeko for another marshmallow, he finds himself nodding despite it all.
“It’s good,” he says, and finishes what's left of it.
With March’s laughter floating through the air as Stelle cracks a joke and Himeko snorts and Welt shakes his head with a fond smile, he thinks that maybe it does taste pretty good.
He’s not the biggest fan of sweet things, but he asks Himeko for another one anyway.
The next morning finds them at the nearby lake, small enough to make for a good place to swim but big enough that it takes Stelle a good amount of time to make it to March, who is sitting on a boat on the other side, chatting happily to Welt.
She grins, slipping through the water as silently as possible. Welt notices her quickly, but he says nothing as she holds a finger up to her lips. She sneaks up behind March, reaching over the edge of the boat to grab onto her arm and yank her forcefully into the water. March goes with a shriek, tumbling over the side in a pile of pink hair and flailing limbs.
She surfaces with a gasp and turns to Stelle with narrowed eyes, indignant but not really angry. “Stelle!”
“Shouldn’t have let your guard down,” Stelle replies cheekily. March splashes some water at her and she laughs, popping her head back up to wave at Welt. “I’m stealing March for a bit, Mr. Yang.”
“Go ahead,” Welt responds. He glances at the two fishing rods propped up against the side of the boat and adds drily, “I’ll simply catch all this fish myself, I suppose.”
Stelle beams, completely ignoring the sarcasm in his voice. “You’re the best!” She throws him a thumbs-up before grabbing March by the wrist and tugging her away. They swim until Welt is out of hearing distance and a little further than that, ending up in the middle of the lake.
“Did you drag me all the way out here just so you could try to drown me?” March asks, unimpressed.
“Of course not,” Stelle snorts, and twists around until she’s floating on her back, staring at the wide, blue sky. She slaps the water next to her invitingly. “Come on.”
March sighs but eventually does the same. Stelle pats around a bit until she finds her hand again, grasping it so they don’t drift apart, and March holds her just as tight.
They float in silence for a couple of moments before Stelle speaks. “I think Dan Heng had a nightmare last night.”
Not that nightmares are a particularly new occurrence when it comes to her or Dan Heng, to be honest. Himeko only had three tents on hand, which meant four of them had to share and only one person would get their own; which ended up being Dan Heng, because March and Stelle were sharing for obvious reasons like the fact that they were close in age and both girls, and Welt and Himeko have been traveling together long enough that they were unfazed by the idea of having to sleep so close to each other.
So that left Dan Heng with a tent of his own, which had been almost enviable all the way up to the point where Stelle had woken up in the middle of the night to someone else moving around the campground.
She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, simply assuming that it was someone getting up to use the restroom or get some sort of late night snack. But when she emerged the next morning and saw Dan Heng staring blankly into an empty cup of black coffee, shoulders slumped under the invisible weight of exhaustion and with a familiar, tired droop to his eyes…
… Well. It didn’t take rocket science to figure out that wasn’t the case, and the person she had heard moving around was just Dan Heng, probably doing perimeter checks again for his own peace of mind.
March is quiet for a minute before she responds. “About what?”
“I don’t know,” Stelle answers. She shrugs and water ripples around her shoulders, licking up the sides of her face. “Do you really think he’d say anything if we asked?”
“Point,” March says. A wry smile surfaces on Stelle’s lips. “What do you think we should do? Is there something we can do?”
“I don’t know,” Stelle says again, quiet. Not even her own nightmares really go away, although they’re not quite so frequent anymore. She hesitates, then says, “Maybe.”
March flicks some water at her. “Care to share?”
“It’s nothing that great,” Stelle says, huffing softly. “And I don't know if it'll help anything.”
“I don’t think Dan Heng is as complicated as he seems to be,” March tells her. “And knowing you, it'll help just fine.”
“Hmm,” she replies for lack of a better response. March squeezes her hand reassuringly and something curls up warm in her chest. She finds herself glancing towards the docks, where Dan Heng sits with his legs dangling over the edge and a book in his lap. An idea comes to her suddenly, which is quickly followed by a grin worming onto her lips.
She squeezes back, then flops over right onto March’s stomach to make her dip beneath the surface with a splutter. Stelle moves off her and she comes back up gasping, pushing her dripping hair out of her face. “Stelle!”
“Shouldn't have let your guard down,” Stelle says cheekily, laughing when March sends a wave of water towards her. She swims away and March doesn’t chase after her, simply floating there in the water with her arms crossed and cheeks puffed out in a pout.
Stelle swims until she nears the shore, ducking under the water to avoid being seen as she slips beneath the docks. Dan Heng is talking quietly with Himeko, who is comfortably sunbathing in a chair set up just inches from the water.
Stelle pops up just to drag cold, wet fingers along the side of Dan Heng’s bare ankle. He jolts sharply as she paddles away from the dock, laughing even when she hears a splash from behind and looks back to see him swimming after her with narrowed eyes. This only makes her cackle louder.
Until she turns around to see March quickly approaching with a feral grin of her own, and shrieks when she realizes she’s about to be sandwiched between two vengeful Trailblazers. “Himeko, help! Himeko!”
“I think this one’s all on you,” Himeko calls back, her laughter poorly hidden behind her hand.
“Traitor!”
Dan Heng and March reach her at the same time. Dan Heng gets a hand on her back to push her into the water as March latches around her shoulders to weigh her down even more, but it only lasts for a handful of seconds before she’s being pulled back up again to meet both March’s grin and Dan Heng’s unimpressed stare.
Spluttering and coughing out water, she pushes her hair out of her eyes. “Assholes.”
“That’s what you get!” March crows.
“You did this to yourself,” Dan Heng adds unsympathetically. But he’s not really mad, just like how March wasn’t when Stelle pulled her over the edge of the boat, and she knows that. She sticks her tongue out at him anyway.
He raises an eyebrow, then simply shoves her (and March, this time) under the surface once more.
Welt manages to catch three fish by the time evening comes once more, and Himeko calls them all back so that they can head back to camp for dinner. The air is cool on March’s skin when she accepts the towel that Himeko hands her, running it through her hair a few times before wrapping it around her shoulders tightly.
They had spent the rest of the time chasing each other around the lake, she and Stelle teaming up to dunk Dan Heng under the water before Stelle and Dan Heng, then her and Dan Heng, then her and Stelle, until they were all chasing each other in equal parts.
She plops down close to the fire as Welt and Himeko set about preparing the fish and whatever else they have for dinner. Dan Heng sits beside her after his offer to help is turned down, and Stelle comes to sit on the other side of him. March is instantly leaning into his side, because Dan Heng is warm like a living heater and she runs cold more often than not.
He makes a face. “Your hair is still wet,” he tells her, but he doesn’t push her away. He doesn’t push Stelle away either, when she eventually presses up against him too.
March just yawns, pulling her towel tighter around herself. She’ll probably need to get her jacket from the tent once the sun sets, but for now she’s fine enough with both the fire and Dan Heng’s body heat to keep her warm.
Welt and Himeko come back quickly with the fish and an assortment of other ingredients, vegetables and seasonings that they must’ve picked up from the town a few miles away when they first shuttled down to this planet. Eventually Stelle gets up and leaves, heading towards their tent. When she comes back her hair is tied up in a loose bun and she's wearing shorts and a plain black shirt, her black and gold jacket in hand. She passes it to March, who takes it with a grateful smile.
It’s too big for her, but it’s warm and smells like Stelle, airy and light and faintly like peppermint—which is a miracle, really, considering how one of Stelle’s hobbies is digging through whatever trash cans she can find. March slips it on and folds up the sleeves until her hands are free, her hair already close to dry with how short and relatively thin it is.
Stelle isn’t as lucky and neither is Dan Heng, but neither of them seem to mind their damp hair. March takes one look at the rat’s nest that is Stelle’s gray tresses and makes a mental note to corral the girl into letting her brush it before sleeping, or else she’ll get stuck with the worst knots in the universe.
But, more importantly: whatever tension that had corded into Dan Heng’s muscles as a result of his nightmare seems to have seeped out of him almost entirely by now. March is glad to see it.
Dinner ends up being grilled fish, rice, and some other side dishes consisting of mostly vegetables. March spoons her cherry tomatoes into Stelle’s bowl, then watches Stelle steal some of Dan Heng’s potatoes in exchange for the skin of her fish.
When she looks up from her food, Himeko is watching them all with a soft smile, eyes bright in the light of the fire. March smiles back, and then she steals some of Dan Heng’s carrots and giggles when he retaliates by jabbing her in the forehead with the butt of his fork.
“You have your own bowl,” he deadpans.
She pouts. “But yours tastes so much better!”
“Amen,” Stelle says, going for more of Dan Heng’s potatoes.
“We have the same food.” He twists away from her, eyes narrowed, which also means that he twists towards March in the process. She takes the opportunity to steal yet another carrot slice, and he whips his head towards her with a frown.
March just shoves it into her mouth and smiles. Dan Heng sighs, seeming to accept his fate and just lowers his bowl back into his lap. She laughs and knocks their shoulders together, leaning into him once again.
Dan Heng relaxes back into her just barely, and she gives him one of her cherry tomatoes. “A peace offering,” she says. “Happy?”
“You don’t even like tomatoes,” Dan Heng mutters back. But he eats it anyway, and he lets her steal a bite of his fish in return.
Stelle wakes up sharply. The remnants of her dream sizzle through her mind, leaving her heart thudding hard against her chest and her hands twitching restlessly. It takes her several moments to get a handle of herself, staring blankly up at the tent’s roof and listening to the soft snores of the girl beside her.
She concentrates on that, syncing her breathing to March’s, and slowly feels herself begin to ease.
Still, there’s a phantom pain in her side that has her rubbing absentmindedly at the left side of her chest. Stelle takes a deep breath and sits up, curling her fingers into the fabric of her shirt. And then she’s getting up swiftly, sliding out of her sleeping bag and heading for the tent’s flap.
It's cool when Stelle steps outside, the forest lit with the light of the planet’s two moons. She zips the tent back shut as quietly as possible, careful not to wake March.
A glance around the campsite and she spots who she’s looking for. On the far side of the clearing illuminated by a yellow lantern is Dan Heng, dressed in his typical clothes with Cloud Piercer propped up beside him where he is sitting against a tree. She makes her way over, rubbing her arms.
Dan Heng looks up once she comes close enough, shifting over slightly. She takes a seat next to him, pressing her back against the tree with a soft breath. He's reading his book again; it lies propped up against his leg with the pages stained orange-yellow from the lantern light.
“Can’t sleep, huh?” she asks, leaning towards him to peer at the words on the page and resting her head on his shoulder. She curls her legs close and leans so that they rest on Dan Heng’s thigh, soaking up his warmth.
Dan Heng hums, flipping the page. It’s some book about the surrounding wildlife, non-fiction and something Stelle and March would more than likely find entirely boring. “Nightmares?” he asks her.
She nods, cheek smushed against his shoulder. He makes another sound in the back of his throat in acknowledgement, but says nothing more, so Stelle says, “You too?”
A brief pause, before he answers with a slight nod of his own. A small, wry smile flickers along her lips.
Stelle reads along for a few pages before she grows bored and finds herself craning slightly to look at Dan Heng instead. She thinks that she rather likes him when he’s like this—all soft and unguarded, sharp edges eased by the warm light from the lantern, hair fluffy and curling slightly at the ends from where it had dried. Walls down, for once, even if it’s only a handful of them.
Then, after a few moments, Dan Heng asks, “Do you… want to talk about it?” He closes the book with a soft noise, adjusting slightly and resting his head against the tree.
She almost snorts out of surprise. It’s cute to see him trying, Stelle thinks, even if things like these tend to lend themselves more towards Himeko’s expertise—the whole talking about it thing, she means. And if not Himeko, then March.
But Himeko and March are different; March’s company is a distraction from things she doesn’t want to think about, while Himeko is a problem-solver at heart. They’ll offer solutions to her problems and give advice, like the fiasco with Asta’s rumors at the space station, but things like this are sort of where their expertise falls short.
Nightmares aren’t the sort of thing that are fixable, for someone like her. A lot of the time, she just needs someone to listen. And that’s what Dan Heng is good at, so he’s where she goes for company on nights like these.
It helps that he gets it, in the way that March and Himeko really don’t. He has nightmares just as much as she does, maybe even more. That's what she and Dan Heng have in common, she supposes; the fact that neither of them like sleep very much, not necessarily because of the act itself but more because of what they see during it.
Even so, there's nothing to talk about. Her nightmares have always been relatively repetitive, if only with slight variations to keep her gasping every time she wakes up. She dreams of a sword made of ice and the guttural rasp of the Stellaron’s voice and of falling. She dreams of Doomsday Beasts and the woman with velvet hair and the narrowed, golden eyes of the Aeon of Destruction.
She dreams of dying and watching others die, and being entirely helpless throughout it all.
“Nothing new,” she settles for murmuring. “Same old, same old.”
“Mm.” Dan Heng turns his head a little, till his cheek presses softly against the top of her head, warm breaths ruffling faintly through her hair.
“And you?”
She feels the slightest hint of his lips ticking upwards. “Same old.”
“Guess we’re both messed up then,” says Stelle. Dan Heng makes a huff that tickles through her hair. She smiles too, and they fall quiet.
When she glances down, Dan Heng’s hands are folded neatly on top of his book. She reaches out to grab one and he lets her, palm turning easily outwards so she can run her thumb over his palm.
His hand is bigger than hers, if only by a little bit. Calloused, Stelle thinks. But that’s not unexpected from someone who wields a polearm. She wonders where he had learned to use it.
Ah, but… he probably wouldn’t really tell her if she asked, anyway. Dan Heng is trained in just about all the methods of deflection in the whole universe, given how little any of them know about his past. The most she knows about him is that, other than the fact that he was born on the Xianzhou, he was the one who taught March how to use a bow; since Himeko has her technology and Welt has his… whatever the powers Welt has are called, though March has developed his teachings into her own style since then.
So many walls, Stelle muses as she traces the lines within Dan Heng’s palm. How long will it take until you let all of them down for us?
Her eyes catch onto the slightest glint of something gold in the corner of her vision. She follows it to lock onto Cloud Piercer, just barely visible from where it rests on the other side of Dan Heng. It has her sitting up to peer more closely at it; has Dan Heng turning to watch her with a question in his eyes.
“Speaking of polearms,” she says, jumping to her feet and rounding the tree to grab the spear. Dan Heng doesn't stop her, though his eyebrows raise slightly. She grins and backs up, twirling it in one hand. “You should teach me how to use one of these.”
“Why?” says Dan Heng, getting to his feet. He crosses his arms.
“It could be useful! I’ll teach you how to use a bat!”
“I’m fairly certain that I already know how to use a bat,” he replies wryly. She tsks. Touché. “You have a giant sword of your own, anyway.”
“That doesn't mean I can’t learn other things,” she pouts. “I might as well learn how to use new weapons while I can. What if I get into a pinch and don’t have my weapons on me?”
Dan Heng’s eyebrows arch even higher at that. A moment later, Cloud Piercer disperses from her hands in a puff of stardust, causing her to squeak and fumble. It reappears a moment later in Dan Heng’s hands, and he sends a pointed look her way.
“Smartass,” she huffs, crossing her arms. He snorts. “So that’s a no?”
“I didn’t say that,” Dan Heng replies. Cloud Piercer disappears once again and doesn’t reappear as he moves to sit back down. Stelle follows, returning back to her spot only to flop all over Dan Heng’s legs this time instead of simply leaning on him. He blinks down at her and sighs. “I can’t promise I’ll be a good teacher.”
“Well, March is still running around, isn’t she?” Stelle jokes.
Dan Heng rolls his eyes. She shuffles downwards until her head is lying on his lap and his hands are settling in her hair to brush gray strands away from her face.
He clicks his tongue in disapproval. “You should really brush your hair.”
“March did.”
“Then why are there still tangles?”
She shrugs, and Dan Heng sighs yet again. He continues to run his fingers through her hair, carefully undoing all the knots that have managed to accumulate over the course of her short few hours of sleep. Soon, Stelle finds herself getting lulled by the repetitive motion of Dan Heng’s hands carding through hair, brushing softly against her scalp. Her eyes flutter shut as she lets herself ease further into the soft grass, head pillowed in Dan Heng’s lap.
She’s asleep before the lantern even burns out.
Dan Heng wakes up to the feeling of being watched.
The second he opens his eyes, he spots Himeko looking at him, and just like that all of his muscles relax. He feels oddly well-rested, in a way that tends to be rather rare for someone like him.
Himeko smiles the second their eyes lock, amusement displayed openly on her features. “Did you two have a nice rest?”
Dan Heng blinks, lips parting. Two?
Himeko nods downwards, and only then does he notice the weight on his lap. He looks down and sees Stelle, eyes shut in peaceful sleep, gray hair falling into her eyes as she snores softly. That’s when the past night’s events come flooding back.
He sighs, shaking his head slightly as he untangles his fingers from Stelle’s hair to rest a palm gently on her forehead instead.
It takes a second before he remembers that he never answered Himeko’s question. So he says, “It was alright,” and listens to the way Himeko laughs, all light and airy like bells. Her smile widens slightly before she stands, brushing off her pants as she goes.
“Where are you going?” Dan Heng asks.
“To prepare breakfast,” she replies, turning away. “You’re lucky this planet doesn’t have mosquitos, by the way.”
He frowns. “You’re just going to leave me here?”
Himeko looks back at him, red hair cascading in waterfalls over her shoulders. Her amber eyes twinkle knowingly. “Are you saying that you’d like to wake her up so we can move her back to her tent?”
That makes Dan Heng pause, and he’s glancing back down towards Stelle again. The perpetual bags beneath her eyes have faded slightly, long eyelashes brushing faintly against her cheekbones. There’s a bit of dried drool on the corner of her mouth, and she looks… peaceful, for once. Free of nightmares.
“... No,” he admits, and moves a strand of hair away from Stelle’s mouth. Her cheek is soft against his fingers, her chest rising and falling in gentle, steady breaths. “She needs the rest.”
Himeko just laughs. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”
March catches up to him as he’s carefully mapping out a path up the nearby mountain, dragging Stelle along with her. “Running away already?” she calls as they get closer, grinning. “Don’t tell me you’re finally making your great escape from us!”
He looks up as they near, blinking slowly. “Fortunately for you, no.”
That makes March pause and frown, placing her hands on her hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Dan Heng just turns his eyes back down to the map as Stelle says, “It means that you’d be dead without him.”
“That’s so not true!” March exclaims. Stelle just shrugs, and she huffs, puffing her cheeks out. “Whatever! Where are you going, anyway? Himeko said you wanted to go on a hike today, but she and Welt wanna stay back at the campsite.”
“There’s a path that goes up the mountain,” he replies idly, folding up the map and placing it into the pocket of the backpack he had packed beforehand. “Are you coming along?”
“Obviously,” the other two respond, twin grins on both of their faces. He shakes his head and picks up the backpack, and on the other side of the campsite are Himeko and Welt, sitting in chairs near the firepit as they talk. Dan Heng raises a hand, waiting until Welt’s head swivels his way to give a small wave. Welt nods in return, a smile just barely visible on his face, so he lowers his arm and looks at March and Stelle.
“Let’s go, then,” he says. “If we keep up a good pace, we’ll be back by dinner.”
“If?” asks March, but Dan Heng is already walking away. “Hey!”
“Look at this rock,” Stelle says for the fifth time as March grabs the strap on the back of her jacket to yank her away from the riverbed and back towards the trail. “March—”
“You can’t collect every cool looking rock you see on the planet, Stelle,” March huffs. She sends a pleading look towards Dan Heng, begging him to help her out, but he just shrugs. “At this rate, we aren’t even gonna reach the top of the mountain before next week!”
“You didn’t look,” Stelle says as they step back onto the trail, sounding crestfallen.
Guilt shoots through her. Damn it. March swallows down a sigh before she turns around, crossing her arms. “Fine, show me the rock.”
Stelle perks up at that, lifting up her hand and unfurling her fingers. “It reminds me of you.”
March peers into her palm. Lo and behold, there sits the aforementioned rock, smooth and round. It is pretty, she realizes grudgingly, until she also notices that the rock is a shimmering mix of blue, pink, and white—all colors that she wears on a daily basis. Stelle is watching her hopefully when she looks up, golden eyes wide and expectant.
Aaaaand… there’s the guilt again. Darn it.
“... It is very pretty,” she admits reluctantly, and Stelle beams wide. March can almost see gray puppy ears and a tail wagging behind her. No, raccoon would be more accurate. Or maybe crows. Crows like shiny things, don't they?
“Keep it,” Stelle says, pressing the rock into her hand. She closes March’s fingers around it and pats her knuckles lightly before letting her go and practically skipping away, humming happily to herself.
March stares after her. Then, she looks at Dan Heng, who had been half turned around to watch them. He holds up his own rock—a small, blue-green stone in the shape of a crescent—with a shrug.
March sighs and walks towards him, tucking the stone into one of her pockets. “We’re not even in Belobog,” she complains as she catches up and Dan Heng resumes walking. “Why does it feel like she's gonna start digging through a trash can any second now?”
“We should chat with Himeko about investing in a leash,” he replies solemnly.
March laughs. “What, like a toddler?”
Dan Heng remains silent. She pauses.
“That actually might be a good idea.”
Ahead of them, Stelle gets distracted by something off the trail, head whipping towards it so fast that March thinks it's a miracle it even stays on her shoulders at all. She’s about to call out and ask what had caught her eye before Stelle loses interest in whatever she had seen and continues walking.
“She really is like a little kid sometimes,” March sighs. Dan Heng snorts, and they walk in silence for a bit longer before she sighs. “My legs are already getting sore.”
“You didn’t have to come.”
“Don’t be silly. Who else would defend you from the bears?”
“I think you'll find that I'm perfectly capable of defending myself,” he says drily.
She huffs. “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll be very scared of you waving your giant, glorified stick at them. They’ll probably think you wanna play fetch instead.”
“Bears don’t play fetch.”
“And how would you know that?”
Dan Heng rolls his eyes as she giggles. “We can take a break up there,” he says, nodding to a small boulder that sits on the side of the trail. “I brought water for everyone.”
She knocks their shoulders together with a grin. “Leave it to Mr. Cold Dragon Young to always be prepared!”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Aw, why not?”
“March.”
Then, just a handful of meters ahead, Stelle spots something interesting in a bush and promptly decides that the best way to investigate is to dive headfirst into it. And that's about when March starts shouting.
It takes them half the afternoon to near the end of the trail, and by then March is all but dragging her feet along, complaining about her legs being sore.
“I’m an archer, not a trackstar,” she whines, plopping herself down on a rock with a huff. “We walked like a hundred miles!”
“It was more like nine,” Dan Heng responds as he passes her a water bottle. March shoots him a dirty look that he doesn't react to, while Stelle laughs.
“Shouldn’t you be used to this kind of stuff?” Stelle asks her, grinning. “You’ve been trailblazing longer than I have.”
“Trailblazing expeditions don’t usually require this much walking!”
“She’s right,” says Dan Heng.
“Point taken,” Stelle concedes. March sticks her tongue out at her, and she just snickers.
“Besides,” Dan Heng continues, “we’ll rest here for a while before heading back down.”
“Back down?”
They both blink. Then Stelle looks around, and her breath rushes out from her chest all at once. She had been so caught up with teasing March that she hadn’t even noticed the shift in scenery.
They’ve made it to the end, she realizes. It's not quite the top of the mountain—to do that would require climbing, which none of them are particularly interested in doing right now—but it's very close to. Here, they're so high that the treeline all but ends a few meters away, and on the other side is… everything else.
They’re high up. From here, Stelle can see so much of the landscape. The lush forest stretches on for what seems like miles, interrupted here and there by small mountains just like the one they’re standing on. She can see the lake from here, and when she turns right, there’s their little clearing. At this height, the tents are about the size of pebbles. She can’t even see Welt and Himeko, wherever they may be.
March makes a noise of awe. Yeah, Stelle agrees silently, and suddenly she finds herself wishing that they could see stuff like this all the time. The view of other planets from the Express is stunning, sure, and space is magnificent in its own way; but there’s something different about seeing a planet like this, so unabashedly beautiful and full of life in sharp contrast to the snowy wasteland that is Jarilo-VI.
There’s a small rustle, then the click of a shutter going off. When Stelle turns around, March is smiling at her, camera in hand.
“Come on,” March says, gesturing with one hand for her to come closer. “I have to take a picture for my photo album!” And she’s pulling Dan Heng closer as she says it, too.
You already have so many pictures of us, Stelle wants to say, a laugh teetering on the tip of her tongue. But March’s eyes are alight with excitement and Stelle could never say no to that and so she goes, plopping right next to March and leaning towards her until their cheeks are pressed together and March is giggling.
She smiles for the camera and doesn’t stop smiling, even long after the shutter goes off.
“Is it served hot or cold?”
“Depends! Six.”
“Do people on the Express drink it often?”
“Fairly, yeah. Five.”
“That’s so vague!” Stelle huffs, kicking at a rock. Dan Heng watches it skitter down the trail and sighs.
“You’re the one asking the questions, it’s not my fault the information you’re getting is bad,” March fires back. She curls her arms tighter around Dan Heng’s neck, hair tickling the sides of his face when she rests her head on his shoulder. She had gotten tired halfway through the trek back down the mountain, so now Dan Heng is carrying her on his back, with Stelle being tasked with holding the backpack.
Thankfully, her earlier curiosity seems to have been sated by all the wandering she’d done on their way up the mountain, so Dan Heng isn’t all too concerned about her running off into the forest anymore. He adjusts his hold around March’s legs and sighs again, softly, looking up towards the sky. The sun is setting once more, signaling an end to the day and also to their trip.
They're supposed to leave by tomorrow, and Dan Heng is willing to admit that he'll miss this planet a little. He likes how peaceful it is; how beautiful the surrounding forest can be.
(He likes the way that March and Stelle seem to always be smiling here too, even though he'd never dare to say that part aloud.)
Perhaps Himeko will let them come back every now and then when trailblazing becomes too strenuous, or whenever they happen to pass by. She'd more than likely agree.
“Is it… your No-Berry fruit juice?” Stelle asks desperately.
“Nope!” March giggles. “You have four questions left, by the way.”
“You suck,” Stelle huffs. She bumps her side against Dan Heng's gently. “Help me out here!”
“I’m not playing,” he responds flatly. In truth, he hasn’t exactly been keeping track of their game of Twenty Questions. Though judging by Stelle’s answers, clearly what March has been thinking of must be some kind of beverage; but even that has a wide range of possible answers.
Stelle sighs dramatically. “You’re so mean to me,” she complains, throwing her head back and pretending to wipe a tear away from her eye with a loud sniffle. Dan Heng just snorts, and March presses a giggle into his shoulder.
He waits a handful of beats, then asks, “Is it tea?”
He feels when March smiles. “Close, but no. That’s three.”
“Coffee!” Stelle exclaims suddenly. “It’s coffee?”
“Um… yes and no? Two.”
Stelle tugs at her hair in frustration. “What does that even mean? This is so unfair.”
March only laughs, mischief clear in her voice. That’s when it clicks in Dan Heng’s head and he turns his head back a little so he can look at her out of the corner of his eye when he says, “It’s Himeko’s coffee.”
“Ooh, you actually got it!” March exclaims. She pats the top of Dan Heng's head in congratulations. “Good job!”
Stelle points at him accusingly. “He freeloaded off of all my info!”
Dan Heng rolls his eyes. “You asked me to help you.”
“That didn’t mean you should steal my answers!”
“You're impossible to please.”
By the time Dan Heng, March, and Stelle get back to the campsite, evening has turned to dusk and they're all more than a little exhausted. Himeko smiles and simply offers them the dinner she and Welt had made while they were absent, asking if the hike went well. March promises to show her all the pictures she took. They all retire to their tents fairly quickly.
When Himeko wakes up in the morning, Welt is gone and everything is quiet.
She stretches and yawns, checking her phone. Pom-Pom has sent her only a single thumbs-up emoji to let her know that they’re all set for their return. Himeko sets it down, then slips out of her sleeping bag, unzipping the flap of the tent to step outside.
She finds Welt immediately, mainly because he’s standing near March and Stelle’s tent with a cup of tea and his jacket hanging loosely around his shoulders. He looks up when she nears and quickly presses a finger to his lips in a signal to be quiet, wearing a small smile.
Himeko tilts her head curiously and comes to stand beside him. The flap of the tent is only half unzipped, but she can still see everything inside regardless. And everything happens to be the three younger members of the crew.
Lying on top of their sleeping bags, Dan Heng is sandwiched between March and Stelle, who are both clinging to him like a lifeline. The tent isn't made for three people, but they’ve somehow made it work anyway. Probably because Stelle has managed to fling half her body over Dan Heng.
On his other side, March is clinging to his arm like a pillow, her head resting on his shoulder, and Dan Heng’s nose is pressed lightly into the top of her head. They’re all sleeping soundly. None of them even twitch, despite her and Welt watching them like this.
Which is uncharacteristic for Dan Heng, Himeko muses, because he’s just about the lightest sleeper that she’s ever met.
“We’re supposed to leave by this afternoon,” Welt murmurs to her, amusement lilting his words.
Himeko smiles too, something warm unfurling in her chest. She crouches, observing the three idly. March is drooling onto Dan Heng’s shirt, and Stelle is definitely going to wake up with some sort of neck cramp later.
Somehow, they all look at peace regardless.
“We can afford to stay a few hours longer,” she says fondly. She zips the tent shut, and Welt shakes his head in mock exasperation.
Himeko laughs quietly and loops her arm through his, tugging him towards the campfire. “Let’s get started on breakfast, shall we?”