It wasn’t much of a campsite, just a little cleft of mostly-level ground with some marginal shelter from the wind. But with daylight dwindling and a bank of dark clouds fast approaching, it was the best they were likely to get before the weather hit. Krissik, being a kobold, didn’t much care about the daylight – he could see just fine in full night and even underground, after all – but the weather was another matter.

There wasn’t enough room for each of them to set up tents, and there wasn’t enough time, either; the wind was already starting to howl past the cleft, eddies tugging at their clothing. Without even discussing it, the four of them paired off, the women wrangling one tent while Krissik assisted Kepi. Of them all, Kepi was probably the least threatened by the weather, but that wasn’t saying much and the vanara wasn’t dallying. He got the poles and canvas sorted out, Krissik hammered pegs, and just as the rain started to rise from a few erratic drops into a full-blown squall, it was done. Kepi urged him in, an instruction with which the kobold was only too happy to comply, while he himself went to confer with the other two.

That last bit of work had been all the time it took for his cloak to soak through; he peeled himself out of it and slid it over one of the poles, out of the way. His normal travelling clothes were brief and usually dried out in a hurry; with this squall around them, though, the latter might not be so certain, so he hung them up with some care. For his scales, he did what he could with a few rags, shivering. He’d just gotten the worst off when Kepi wiggled in after him, pausing at the edge of the ground-sheet to tie down the flap.

“Ironscale has the first watch,” he reported, starting his own strip-down. “She can at least make herself some more shelter, and she doesn’t mind the wet, just the cold, so she’ll keep a fire going as best she can. Reesh is on second. The rain shouldn’t last that long, but just in case it does, I figured I’d best take third; you’re looking a bit ragged as it is.”

Krissik felt himself trying to curl up, and it had nothing to do with conserving heat; he fought it off. “I agreed to do my part, not…” He tried to find words.

“You’ve been doing your part, and better than anyone had a right to hope for,” Kepi responded, peeling off another layer. Cumbersome as the numerous layers looked, at least the lower ones had only wound up looking damp, not soaked. “You won’t be doing us any favours if you put yourself in harm’s way for something any of us could do with less risk.”

“If you could do it just as well, I might agree with you.” Krissik paused to bite off a curse, fumbling with the clasps on his tail bags. “But I have the best night-eyes among us, and you know it.”

His point was met with a sigh. “True. I still think it’d be better for your watch to be after the weather’s turned, though.” The vanara peeled off the last of his upper-body wear, and didn’t even bother stringing it up, just folded it to set aside.

Krissik swallowed hard. That same night-sight he’d just mentioned meant he could see every detail, even in the dim confines of the tent—and that wasn’t always a blessing. While it wasn’t the first time he’d seen his lemurish companion in a state of abbreviated dress, it was the first time it had been this close and with his fur slicked down. Under that fuzz, he was a study in understated power. And grace. Plenty of grace, while Krissik couldn’t even get his damned packs off without fumbling for half a minute.

There was a metallic clink, then a soft squeak of hinges. Kepi had set down his bullseye lantern, the aperture facing the tent flap, and set to striking it. “Krissik…” He paused. A few more strikes later – a few sparks, though none that caught – he went on. “I was hoping to ask about this for its own sake in some more comfortable place and time, but needs must. I can see you shivering from here, I’m hardly the most comfortable I’ve been myself, and the rock makes for a poor bed. What say we, ah… use your bedroll for a bit of extra padding, and share warmth in mine?”

Krissik finally got the clasp of his pack-strap undone, and then Kepi’s suggestion hit him, and the packs hit the ground sheet without even a token grab. A dozen glimpses and a hundred moments of longing swept through his mind, and for a moment he just wanted to shout yes!

But he hadn’t survived this long by readily giving into impulse, and his caution clamped his mouth shut. He swallowed hard, trying to muster something vaguely resembling coherent thought. As the lantern flared to life, he managed to produce, “I – I shouldn’t. There might be some, uh, consequences beyond my control.”

A strange sort of sigh escaped Kepi then. It had a sort of quaver to it, maybe just a hint of a groan. “If I’m completely honest,” he said, choosing his words with unusually exaggerated care, “I’d have to give a similar caution. Pakal knows I wouldn’t be complaining if yours turned out to happen. But the offer was in good faith, and I swear not to pursue any of those consequences until and unless you give me explicit leave. Please? Even if one of our bodies makes it awkward, surely it’ll be better than suffering the cold apart.”

Krissik blinked. He’d been barely-tolerated for enough of his time above ground that he’d kind of come to assume uplanders didn’t really want him around, much less want him close by. To some extent, despite how cordial his companions in general and Kepi in particular had been, he’d sort of run on the assumption that he was just an ally of convenience for them. This, though—even not being the most socially deft of people, he couldn’t miss the rather clear message that Kepi did in fact want him close by. Very close by, and by the sound of it, without much of anything separating them. And it made that part of the kobold that had been appreciating those mostly-accidental glimpses downright giddy, even as the larger part of him fretted over not having more than the most basic of notions of what they could do together.

There was one thing that was abundantly clear, though, and that was that it was cursed cold up on this little crag, and the tent alone wasn’t doing much to stop it. Even the lantern that Kepi had lit and now shuttered was a pretty small gesture on its own. Being nestled against the taller man, though—Krissik’s sudden shudder had nothing to do with the weather. “Y-yes,” he managed. “You’re right.” His bedroll, bulky as it was, was one of the few things he’d stowed on his back instead of his tail. Now he shrugged out of that half-pack, and with the clasp in front of him, managed to get it undone in a much less embarrassing amount of time than the other one. “Where do you think is best?”

“Probably right where you’re standing. There’s a bit of an edge on this side.” Kepi shook out his own bedroll, bent down to wrangle one end of Krissik’s, and then tossed the end of his over to the kobold in turn.

It seemed natural to let the bigger man get settled first, and Kepi wriggled in with a haste that made plain his own chill was unfeigned, then squeezed against the folded side as much as he could. Krissik took one final moment to slip off his sandals and let the cold chase him in too.

Once he was in up to his neck, Kepi switched from holding the edge of the bedroll up to clutching it tight, which necessitated one arm around the kobold. The other arm, lower down by Krissik’s waist, had no such impediment to manage and just wrapped around him directly. It drove home his shivering in a way that the struggle with his packs hadn’t, somehow; even more mysteriously, that suddenly felt like no bad thing.

For all his nerves at being this close to his companion, there was no denying that the warmth under his fine fur was a blessed relief, and the way Kepi nestled in suggested he was just as glad for the contact. Maybe some of the shaking he felt wasn’t his own. He shifted a hand to press through that fine pale fur and against Kepi’s collarbone; the vanara tensed slightly, shivered a bit harder, and let out a soft sound not unlike the one he had when Krissik first demurred; then he settled there, though his arm shifted under Krissik’s waist and wrapped a bit tighter around him.

It was a strange sort of sound, that. It didn’t sound distressed, and the vanara certainly wasn’t giving him any clear message to stop, but it sounded rather… wanting. The thought of just what he was wanting sent a fresh shiver along Krissik’s spine.

Well, for now, it was enough that the contact was fulfilling a few needs for the both of them. Krissik tucked his snout under his companion’s chin, slung an arm over him in turn, and – there was really no better word for it – snuggled up. Each breath he took was laden with the other man’s scent, as much a reminder as the heat and contact that he was not alone.

The heat was welcome for its own reasons, though, and as both of them stopped shivering, Krissik nestled in that much more comfortably. It was… it was good. On some deep level, it was satisfying a need that he hadn’t let himself realize was going unmet: that for simple closeness. Of course, that in turn was starting to draw attention to other urges he’d been telling himself weren’t really needs, and having Kepi’s scent on each breath was quickly proving that a lie. Needs like intimacy. And – as that part of him he’d been worried about when he tried to decline Kepi’s offer was eager to explore – like sex.

They weren’t pressed so close against one another that Kepi was likely to notice that part of him pushing out of its usual hiding-place, past his loincloth, and into the open. But they were close enough that just breathing was enough of a shift to brush sensitive flesh against the vanara’s fur. He swallowed hard.

Kepi presumably noticed some change in him, because he shifted his hand in turn, patting Krissik’s shoulder. But he apparently hadn’t noticed the details, because what he said was a simple, mild-mannered “Better?”

“Much,” Krissik admitted, pulling his head back a bit. Kepi’s eyes were half-open, his irises, a warm brown by daylight, now the thinnest of silver rims around pools of black to Krissik’s dark-sight. His expression was still somewhat foreign to the kobold, despite their weeks on the road together, but he seemed to be relaxed, even sleepy. How much of an improvement was that? “…You?”

“Oh, same. I mean, also much better, yes.” Kepi started to duck his head, but paused short of making contact. “Hmm. Do you think your magic fingers could snuff the lantern? I think we’ll manage without it, now – I knew you were warmer than Ironscale, must be that dragon blood, but I hadn’t counted on how warm – and it is a bit of a hazard, especially keeping it shut like that…”

“It’s a bit outside the usual,” Krissik warned, “but let’s see.” By ‘magic fingers’ Kepi probably meant his basic utility cantrip, the one he used to heat food and keep his gear clean and such. Lighting or dousing fires was not one of its usual functions, but he could fashion a temporary shroud over the flame, and if that didn’t immediately work, try cooling it to the point that the flame couldn’t sustain itself. If it meant neither of them needed to get more than their heads out of the bedroll, that was worth a little concentration and ingenuity—and at least he could concentrate now.

He half-closed his eyes, the better to look beyond the physical. Every practitioner had their own particular flair in spell-casting. In his mind’s eye, fine currents of force ran throughout the world, tangled amongst one another but not quite touching; flowing, but not interacting with each other or with the physical world. Mostly they flowed in straight lines or smooth curves, but sometimes they had sharp kinks as they avoided one another. To effect action, he needed to bend the right ones together – with the resonance of precise speech or by using careful gestures to build bridges between them with wisps of his own essence; for more potent works, with the essence of some carefully-chosen reagents. For simple effects like this, it needed no more energy than he gave off just by being alive; concentrating to make it happen was more burdensome than the loss of energy.

So he intoned a few careful syllables and traced a few circuits, and his will reached out of himself. First, a few strands of earth-power twisted together dumped their energy into a form of something similar to stone, forming a cup over the candle’s wick. The light coming through the lantern’s seams dimmed sharply, but as he was doing it without actually seeing properly inside the hood, it was hard to be sure he’d managed a good seal; so, next he snared another current, this one aspected to fire energy but almost wholly depleted, and hooked it over the spot where the flame ought to be, holding it there to siphon heat away.

It wouldn’t have sufficed on its own, but with the impromptu snuffer already mostly-starving the flame of air, it was enough. The subtle hiss of the flame went silent. It was hardly the most impressive thing he’d done with magic, but it let both of them stay snug, so that made it oddly satisfying.

Krissik undertook one more, small manipulation to swing the lantern’s hood open, saw no trace of light coming from it nor heard any sign of the flame, and so let his awareness return to the physical. The “merely physical,” he might have thought, except that in this case, the magic was the distraction; the physical reality was what he longed to immerse himself in, for once. Warm breath over his crest; the gentle scent of his companion filling every breath he took; fur caressing his scales – and a bit of skin that that little interlude had not been long enough to discourage – and a fine warm body beneath it; life was good.

“Think that’s done it,” he managed to mumble. With his hands no longer needed for that task, he wrapped his arms around Kepi’s reassuring warmth and pulled in close again. His fingers encountered the vanara’s spine. Such a simple thing, that; all of them had one. So why did it feel like such a landmark? What prompted him to follow it, one hand going up, the other down as far as his limited reach allowed? Why—well, okay, it really wasn’t a mystery why he wanted to feel his way lower still, not if he was honest with himself, but why were those urges, things he’d long been used to analyzing and setting aside, now moving his hands before he could even stop to consider them?

“Krissik…” Kepi uttered the name in another of those anxious, wanting groans, tensing under the kobold’s hands. “You are making it rather hard to keep that pledge.”

For a moment the kobold was perplexed. Pledge? But then he remembered what Kepi had sworn, just before Krissik acquiesced to his – in hindsight – wonderful suggestion. Oh…

He was really going ahead with this, wasn’t he? Well, from the start Kepi had shown himself to be a considerate sort, not given to stereotypes. And while he could be good at misleading people, at letting them believe what he wanted them to, he’d never, in all the time Krissik had known him, done so with malice, nor had he done it to those who gave him and his companions – all of his companions, even the small scavenger-looking one – basic respect in the first place.

In short, the vanara had shown himself a decent person. There was still a part of Krissik that worried about making himself vulnerable, but, well, he was an adventurer; one didn’t get the best rewards without accepting some risk. And sometimes pain. At least with Kepi, he could be confident that any pain that came of it wouldn’t be intentional.

And since Kepi had show him the courtesy of being clear in his attentions, it behooved the kobold to show the same courtesy in turn. He pulled his head back and looked his companion square in the eye, and as carefully as ever he’d spoken an incantation, said, “I release you from it.” That ought to satisfy the substance, but it didn’t feel enough. It didn’t make plain why he was doing it, what he felt.

Kepi had confessed a want to be close to him without the mundane need of sharing body heat. And while he hadn’t let himself even consider the possibility, now that it was right in front of him he ought to do that considering. Which didn’t take long; the result was an eager yes. “I want this,” he went on. “I think I have wanted it for a while now, and just hadn’t thought I could ever have it. But now that you’ve made it clear in a way even I could understand, I do want this. With you, in particular.”

Kepi didn’t look sleepy anymore; his eyes were wide and intent. As Krissik spoke, the look on his face turned downright eager. “Well then,” he said when the kobold had finished. “I didn’t want to show disrespect by making a pest of myself too soon. Didn’t want you to think that was the real reason I brought you into the group. But now you know, and now I know, and we don’t have to dance around it any longer, hmmm?” He took his turn to stroke along Krissik’s back, feeling his way down the row of keeled scales atop his spine.

Something about the rhythmic succession of scales being pushed down and released sent a rush of sensation ahead of the contact, down to where his torso met his tail, and then forward. Krissik squirmed, unable to stifle a whimper. If Kepi had felt anything like this, no wonder he’d spoken up!

That squirming drove him to shove forward against Kepi’s chest, though, and at that point he had a whole other thing to focus on, with his member sliding through his companion’s – his lover’s fur and along the warm skin beneath it. That was an intensity he wasn’t ready for! He wasn’t such an innocent that he hadn’t experimented on his own, but it hadn’t ever come close to feeling like that!

“Well now. Feels like some part of you has warmed up nicely,” Kepi breathed. His other hand slid in between them, caressed the top of Krissik’s member, and then slipped between it and his own chest to stroke its underside. “Huh. I’d thought you’d be, well, smaller than me here, too, and that would have been fine and more than fine. Feels more like of a size, instead—and that’s its own sort of appealing.” His fingers curled around Krissik’s tapering length and gave it a squeeze.

The words barely registered when the touch felt so damned good, but one important detail managed to sink in. “You—you like it.” It wasn’t quite a query; more like a reminder to himself, really. A refutation of his own doubts.

“I like it very much,” Kepi replied. He started briskly stroking, which rather drove any analysis of those few words – and any possible reply – clean out of the kobold’s mind.

Not that he wanted it to stop. It felt good—of a kind with what he’d done to himself, but more so; where he might ease off or even lose coordination, Kepi just kept going. Krissik had just enough presence of mind to remember their companions, not far off, and mostly-stifle his whimpers; past that, all he could do – and thankfully, all he needed to do – was clutch his lover’s shoulders and hang on.

That choice of anchor, however accidental, turned out to be a lucky one a half-minute or so later. As Krissik felt himself drawing near his peak, Kepi took note of it too, wiggling his way deeper into the bedroll. Krissik didn’t have long to wonder what he was up to; his stroking hand pressed flatter against Krissik’s body, keeping the kobold’s shaft more-or-less steady, while the wet warmth of his lips and tongue took over what his fingers had been doing.

Some distant corner of Krissik’s mind, almost fey, had just enough time to think well, that’ll avoid a mess, at least; then a wave of ecstasy surged and broke over him. His head jerked up; he clenched his teeth to stifle a cry; and he came hard, weeks’ worth of pent-up seed coursing over Kepi’s tongue, each jet rushing out of him with palpable force.

That same part of him that was still capable of stringing thoughts together wondered how much distance he’d have got if the vanara hadn’t been drinking the stuff down. It had felt like it was shooting out of him with enough force to hit himself in the jaw. While sitting up. Then that part of him, too, succumbed to the pleasure and stopped thinking.

How long it took, he couldn’t possibly have said; when he was spent, panting and exhilarated, he felt winded as though he’d run a mile, but otherwise just pleasantly abuzz. Kepi’s head reemerged from the bedroll, touching lips to the kobold’s jaw in a soft kiss, and then he settled much as he had been before things turned frisky.

It was a good feeling, an excellent feeling, but that giddy part of Krissik’s mind was back, and it wondered how Kepi was feeling. And what he felt like. The difference in their heights meant he couldn’t just reach down and find out, not with his hands, and he didn’t have a vanara’s nimble hand-feet; but by stretching out and splaying his toes, he could feel his way down his lover’s belly. To his loincloth, and there, pushing past it on one side, to something firm and so very, very warm.

Kepi shivered and let out a soft but exquisite groan, squeezing tight around his shoulders. “Feels good that you’re interested,” he murmured. “But maybe we can pursue that somewhere more comfortable, hmm? Where we can just wander off from camp in the evening…”

“It’s not like I need light to see what I’m doing,” Krissik pointed out. Kepi had wiggled deeper into the bedroll; for him it’d be that much easier, wouldn’t it?

Kepi chuckled. “True. But I don’t think I could be nearly so discreet as you.”

Oh really? Suddenly Krissik was very curious indeed… but if Kepi didn’t want to go into that now, then it would have to wait. “I wouldn’t want to disturb our companions,” he allowed.

“Just so. It’s not that I’d be ashamed to partner with you,” the vanara said with sudden strength. “Give me a token and I’ll wear it with pride, but keeping the neighbours awake – especially our friends and allies – is something I’d rather not do. Or distracting the one on watch.”

A token, huh? Krissik had never been in a place to even consider what kind of token he might share with a lover. But even as that musing crossed his mind, so too did a number of possibilities. Nothing he had handy right now, but maybe the next time he moulted… His scales shed individually but in fairly quick succession, more like a bird’s feathers than a lizard’s scales. It’d be easy enough to put a few of them to some other use, if this thing budding between them prospered and was still strong in a few weeks. One from his spine, probably, the keels made them more distinctive, and besides, both of them seemed to have a very nice response to a touch on the spine.

“Don’t have anything really suitable right now,” he said aloud. “Maybe in the morning I can find something, though.”

“Soon enough for me.” Kepi planted another kiss on Krissik’s brow; a curious feeling but not an unwelcome one.

“Speaking of soon enough – if the rain is done by third watch, or mostly, you know I’d make a better night watch than you,” Krissik pressed. “Especially with a warm bedroll to take your place in after.”

A soft laugh. “All right, lover. I yield to your logic and good sense.”

Lover. Krissik had been called a number of things in his time, he reflected, closing his eyes and letting the world drift away; but that one was new.

On the whole, he rather liked it.