Serian was lighter than he expected, but after an hour of walking through the dense forest with her on his back, even a light weight started to feel heavy. His legs burned with the strain of carrying two people over uneven ground, his shoulders ached where her arms were wrapped loosely around his neck, and her head rested against his shoulder with her soft steady breathing a constant rhythm against his ear.
'This is so weird,' he thought, trying to focus on the path ahead of him, on the sounds of the forest around them, on anything but the feeling of her being so close. It didn't work at all because his traitorous mind kept coming back to it no matter how hard he tried to push it away.
