Shiva began cleaning the rat with his small knife. "There are some creatures that are not allowed to be eaten, but a rat is not one of them."
Ash finished half his can before speaking again. "Give me a little."
"No."
"I have never tried forest rat before."
"Hunt your own if you want to try." Shiva turned the meat over the fire with the tip of his twig.
Ash grumbled softly, his voice not forming any clear words, and Shiva laughed quietly without turning toward him.
The fire licked between those stones. The rat meat began releasing an aroma that turned out to be not as bad as imagined, more like beef grilled over wood.
Ash was still spooning his can. Shiva was still watching the fire. The two of them did not speak for a while, and the silence did not feel awkward.
Then suddenly Ash stood up, his can falling to the ground.
There was no sound beforehand, no sign that he was about to move. He just suddenly stood up, both hands at his sides, facing a direction away from the fire.
Shiva raised his head. "Why–"
He stopped speaking when he saw it.
Thin veins of bright blue covered the entire visible surface of Ash's skin. Not only on his neck and arm like earlier in the city, but now spreading to his face, to his temples, to his jaw, to the back of his hands. The pattern widened like cracks growing in every direction, glowing faintly under the light of the fire.
"Ash." Shiva stood slowly.
Ash raised one hand, not toward Shiva, but toward his own temple. His hand trembled. His breath came out irregularly, going in shorter than usual. His skin on the arm area began to redden, like heat rising from within to the surface.
"Go." His voice came out with great difficulty. "Go now."
"What is happening? What can I–"
"Go, Shiva."
Shiva did not move. His eyes moved from the blue veins on Ash's face to his trembling hands to his reddening skin, trying to understand what he was seeing and finding no answer.
Ash turned around.
His gaze fell toward Shiva, and Shiva immediately knew that what was looking at him now was not entirely the same person who had been eating beside him earlier. His eyes were still Ash's eyes, but their focus had changed, dropping from Shiva's face to the area of his chest that was only covered by a tight cloth with no hoodie over it, and did not move from there.
Shiva swallowed. "Ash, I am going to leave now."
There was no answer.
Shiva lowered his body posture slightly, bending his knees, adjusting the weight on his feet. One breath in, then he leaped.
His feet left the ground at full speed, his body shooting forward, passing the large boulder to the right of the fire. However, before even a second had passed in the air, something grabbed his ankle.
Shiva's body was forcibly stopped in midair, half of his body already past the rock and the other half held back. He turned his head around.
Ash stood below him, one hand raised gripping Shiva's ankle, the blue veins across his entire arm and face glowing brighter than before under the small flame of the fire.
Shiva drew a deep breath, and for the first time since they had left Blackridge, no words came from his mouth.
Shiva hung in the air with one ankle gripped in Ash's hand.
Blood rushed back to her head because of her inverted position, and her vision that had been dark began to find shapes around her.
The small fire between those rocks was still burning, reflecting orange light onto the surface of Ash's skin covered with bright blue veins, spreading from his neck to his jaw, from his shoulder to the back of his hand, like something alive and moving beneath the layer of his skin.
Shiva pushed her body upward with one hand, trying to reach Ash's wrist. "Let me go."
Ash did not answer. His eyes looked at Shiva from below, and Shiva immediately knew that gaze did not belong to the man who had been eating beside her earlier. His focus dropped, stopped at her chest area covered only by thin cloth, and did not move from there.
Not the gaze of a human being with consideration. More like the gaze of something that only knew desire.
Shiva swallowed. Her hand moved quickly to touch Ash's fingers, and she released an electric shock directly there.
Ash growled, his body tensed for a second, but his grip did not loosen. The blue veins on his hand glowed brighter for a moment, as if absorbing part of that shock.
"Damn." Shiva gritted her teeth. Her energy had not fully recovered, that shock was only a fraction of what she could normally release.
Ash pulled Shiva downward with one movement, and Shiva's body swung down. Her long tight trousers caught on Ash's grip, and one pull tore the lower section from the knee down, revealing her calves and ankles that were pale under the firelight.
"Ash!" Shiva pushed the man's chest with her palm. "Snap out of it!"
There was no meaningful response. Ash grabbed the collar of Shiva's upper clothing, and the already strained fabric could not hold, the tear widened upward to her shoulder, revealing part of Shiva's collarbone and arm.
The elf woman immediately crossed her arms to cover her chest area, her back pressing against the large rock beneath her.
"What do you want!" Shiva looked directly into his eyes, her voice coming out louder than she had intended.
Ash slowly spread Shiva's legs apart, like something that was not in a hurry because it knew its prey had nowhere to go. His gaze dropped again, and Shiva did not need long to understand the answer to her own question.
"Damn, I am not your breeding ground!" Shiva began calculating her options quickly.
***