Jamie assumed it to be a seventy-thirty division in her favor and he didn’t want to test her vowing to stick a blade in his throat if he so much as motioned inappropriately towards her. Where Caitlin hid the blade in her evening wear courteously provided by the O’Doerery’s side business was a mystery he had no intention of trying to solve. Despite the threat of a sudden and violent death looming just across the bed, he was on his way to a deserved rest. After toiling through the dangers of life and putting up with the Princess’ ceaseless onslaught of insults and putdow-

“Hey.” A whisper Jamie opted to ignore. If the Princess wanted something, it could wait until morning.

“Hey!” A slightly louder whisper and a finger tapping him several times on the shoulder followed.

There was no getting out of this one. Jamie slowly turned over to find the Princess looking at him with her usual intensity. “What?”

“It’s bloody freezing in here. Is there no form of temperature control in this place?” Caitlin said.

“What do you suppose I should do?” Jamie asked, even though it really was rather cold. “Force a pair of dwarves to upend-”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant, don’t be obtuse, just...” Eye contact was lost. “If you tell anyone about this, I will have you executed at dawn for the whole Kingdom to see.”

“And what did you have in mind?” He was smirking, but he genuinely had no idea what she was going to ask.

Caitlin Faraday looked as if she to shortly undergo anesthetic free-teeth removal in the middle of the most horrible busking competition ever performed.

“I suppose it wouldn’t be so awful if you...put your arms around me. So we could huddle up for warmth. And nothing else.”

The smirk blossomed into an ear-to-ear smile. “For you, my Princess? Anything.”

The Princess scooted over, so Jamie put an arm around her the back of her neck. Despite his outwardly bold expression, he felt more than a bit apprehensive about holding Caitlin, let alone touching her. Once she was done adjusting herself, she settled her head on his shoulder, forcing him to realize that she was extremely warm and had a curiously Earthly smell to her. Not like dirt or something repulsive, but the intensely familiar smell of blossoming flowers and the serenity of nature. Lilacs. Jamie’s chest tightened and he wondered if she could feel his heart go thumpathumpathumpa.

“I’m not made of glass, Christiansen.”

He looked at her. “Is everything alright?”

She rolled her eyes. “I give you permission to actually hold on to me, not what you’re doing right now, whatever it is.”

Caitlin had a point; his fingers were barely touching her frame, as if the slightest misstep on his part would shatter her. To try and remedy her discomfort, he more fully wrapped his arm around her, delicately pulling her closer to him.

“Is this better?” He asked, his voice not being nearly as steady as he hoped.

    “Better.”

    Jamie was open to the possibility that this was all some vision or an extremely elaborate hallucination. Journeying across the land with the woman of his dreams was one thing, but having her curled up next to him in bed was something he never would’ve considered in his most lavish, far-flung fantasies. He felt compelled to completely pull her next to him, to completely break the border separating their bodies, but he lacked the temerity to test his supply of luck. The woman he fell in love with all those years ago was practically cuddling with him as they both fell asleep. If he wasn’t so mortally terrified of overstepping his boundaries and, to a lesser extent, being murdered, he’d be ecstatic.

Still, there was something exceptionally endearing about having the ferocious, tough-as-steel warrior princess cuddled up next to him in her evening gown. One didn’t need precognitive abilities to determine that she preferred to keep people at arm’s length, so he considered it something of a milestone to have reached this side of her. Sure, she dispensed insults like they were linked to some sort of plague, but he got the sense she enjoyed his company, at least marginally more so than she would ever willingly admit.

“If you don’t mind my asking, Princess,” Jamie said. “Did you change your hair?”

“Yes,” She said. “You’re very observant.”

He smiled. “May I ask why?”

Caitlin inhaled deeply, gently draping an arm over Jamie’s side. “It’s more difficult to grab if it’s short and the darker color helps me blend in at night. I never really liked long hair, I had it mostly to appease my mother. You know how she gets, delegate this and look good for this ceremony that. It’s all rather dreadful.”

That certainly made sense. Jamie suspected the princess possessed an ambivalent-to-hostile relationship with being perceived as ‘girly’, but the role demanded certain things from her with little room for compromise. Although chopped short and black as raven’s feathers was the superior option when it came to combating the forces of evil, he was having trouble deciding which he preferred from an aesthetic perspective. Both made her look positively angelic, and she would doubtless look similarly wondrous in any styling. Caitlin could be in a full set of chain-mail armor covered in Golog blood after a fierce battle and still look fantastic. If he were a more confident man, he’d most likely tell her that. If he couldn’t confess that he found her attractive in certain respects, he’d never be able to go beyond that.

“You don’t need my permission to ask a question,” Caitlin said, clearly on her way to the land of dreams. “And you don’t need to refer to me as Princess.”

“Oh,” Jamie said. “Okay. Whatever you desire.”

    Caitlin was just so damn cute, even more so when she was tired. She was warm, smelled nice, and that sleepy voice of hers just made him want to squeeze her tight and never relent. If he were an utterly senseless man, he’d definitely tell her that. The first comment might get him a stern look because it could conceivably be taken as a compliment to her skill as a warrior, but telling a ferocious warrior princess she was adorable would certainly earn him a dagger to the chest.

    “I think you look beautiful in either hairstyle.”

    A chill worthy of the Old Guardsmen of Winter’s Calling overtook Jamie’s body and his heart ceased to function for a few moments as he prepared for a well deserved demise.

            “I-I’m sorry, Caitlin,” He pleaded for mercy. “I don’t know why I said that. I mean, not to imply you don’t look angelic in either style, you could wear your hair any way you want and look fantastic, I was just suggesting that you-uh, that you.” When no form of swift vengeance arrived, he shut up. Amazingly, he received no form of response beyond the gentle rhythm of her breathing and the movement of her chest. Jamie closed his eyes and let his head fall on the pillow, grateful his companion slept through his confession. It would likely take some time to fall asleep, so he intended to enjoy the current situation as much as possible.

    Some time later, when she was certain Jamie was asleep, Caitlin looked up at him, a smirk tugging at her lips.