Conquering the Emperor

“Can we get to our destination like this?” I had to shout to make myself heard.

“No…” Ren answered shortly and bluntly.

I thought so…

“Then…should we find a place to get out of the rain?” I asked hopefully.

“There should be a cave somewhere in that direction,” Ren said as he pointed forward in the direction that we were headed.

“How do you know that? You’ve been here before?” I asked curiously.

“Yeah…I didn’t think we’d have to use that cave to stay the night though,” Ren replied smoothly.

“Stay the night?!” I exclaimed in shock.

“Of course. Did you expect that we’d spend the whole night in the rain?” Ren retorted sarcastically.

I didn’t want to get into a fight so I decided to just shut up and face forward, not that I could see much up ahead.

“We’ve lost them. Fortunately,” Ren muttered more to himself than to me as he slowed the horse down to a trot.

…

The cave was much smaller than I thought it would be. Since Ren mentioned spending the night in this cave, I had imagined that it would be of a decent size like a small room. However, the cave was much smaller. There was enough room for us to light a fire, sit around it and perhaps lie down without moving around much.

Before I knew it, it was already dark outside. After Ren managed to light up a fire to light up the cave, we sat close to fire side by side. I stared into the fire lost in thought. The stress of the chase was catching up with me and I felt very tired and sleepy.

“Take off your clothes,” Ren spoke up, breaking the silence.

“Umm…” I didn’t quite know how to respond to his crazy instruction.

“Your clothes are wet. Take them off so it can hopefully dry for tomorrow,” Ren said as he turned around.

Without another word, Ren began to strip off his clothes. Shocked at the sight, I shut my eyes and turned around in the opposite direction.

I can’t believe my lack of luck. How did I get into such a mess?

I sighed loudly in defeat and started to slowly strip off my wet clothes. Damn the rain because everything I had on was completely soaked and it was getting cold. We’ll both end up sick if we stayed in our wet clothes. Perhaps, Ren was practically right, and I was just being over sensitive.

After I had stripped, I reached out for my robe. At least I can use this to cover my body…

I had a nagging feeling like I had forgotten something important and now I realized what it was.

“Ren, show me your arm!” I cried out as I turned around.

Unlike me, Ren didn’t bother to cover his body with any clothing and was sitting next to fire completely naked as he poked at the firewood with a stick.

“Why are you completely naked?” I asked as I shut my eyes.

“All my clothes are wet. Now open your eyes and come look at my arm all you want,” Ren replied with a face that clearly showed he didn’t care for my womanly non-sense at seeing a man naked.

It’s like we come from different worlds which was probably quite close to the truth.

I walked over to him trying to keep my eyes anywhere except for on his well-built and muscular body. I crouched down next to him to examine the wound on his left arm. Although it had been bleeding quite a bit, true to Ren’s words, the wound was nothing more than a graze. The arrow must have grazed his arm during the fight. I silently thank all holy beings that the wound was not serious because I didn’t have a lot of medical equipment with be besides first aid.

“The wound isn’t deep and doesn’t seem to be bleeding anymore…” I commented as I began searching for the general medicine for cuts and the like that I usually carry around with me. I didn’t think it would come in handy in a situation like this though.

“I told you it was just a scratch,” Ren said so softly I almost didn’t catch it.

“Stay still, it might sting a little,” I warned as I began applying the balm onto Ren’s wound.

Ren stayed completely still as I had told him to during the whole process. It was a bit of a struggle applying the medicine to his wound with one hand while holding a robe in front of my body with the other. I prayed silently that our clothes would dry when tomorrow comes.

“All done. It should heal in no time,” I said cheerfully.

“Thank you,” Ren replied.

I nodded and smiled at him. I began getting up when Ren grabbed my arm to stop me.

“Ren?” I called his name questioningly. Did he need something?

“Come here,” Ren said as he turned to look straight at me for the first time since I’ve taken my clothes off. Thankfully, my body was shielded from his sight by the robe I still held in front of me.

“Wait…” I protested but I couldn’t resist against the power of his strong arm pulling me down.

He pulled me down until I was sitting next to him on the ground. Very conscious of our nakedness, I quickly tucked my legs up and hugged them to my body. Then I felt Ren’s arm around my shoulders pushing me to lean on him.

“It’s cold, right?” Ren said softly.

“Hmm…” I replied as his hand pushed my head onto his broad shoulder.

We sat side by side like that with me leaning my weight on his body and my head on his shoulder for a while. I felt much warmer next to Ren and the fire, and my fatigue was quickly taking over me as I felt my eyelids feel heavy.

…

“Hmm….” I moaned softly as I drifted in and out of sleep. My eyelids felt heavy with sleep as I slowly started to open my eyes. I must have drifted off to sleep without realizing it. I wonder how long I was asleep for.

--To be continued....