~ Jaden kicked the stone base impatiently.
"This could not be that complicated!" he shouted in irritation. Andrew came up behind him and layed a hand on his shoulder.
"Calm down there, Big Guy. Worst case scenario: we die horrible deaths. It's not that big of a deal." Jaden looked into Andrew's ice gray eyes and made a concerted effort to relax his jaw.
"You're very reassuring Andy, has anyone ever told you that?"
"I'm going to choose to ignore the sarcasm that's dripping all over my shoes and take that as a compliment..." Suddenly Andrew's eyes drifted out of focus for a moment, then snapped back to Jaden's. "Hellfire and damnation... I think I've got the answer! Haha, I'm a genius!" Andrew slapped Jaden on the back and leapt up on the platform, snatching up the ropes. "We just burn one of these at both ends, that's 15 minutes! And when that is up we burn the second at one end for the other 30. It's so freaking obvious! Why the hell were we stumped at all?"
Jaden and Takyle both stared at him for a moment, trying to think of any reason why it wouldn't work. They couldn't.
"Light em up Andrew," said Takyle with a shrug. "Now all we have to do is wait I guess."
"Does anyone else feel that so far this race has been nothing but long bouts of waiting interspersed with various forms of misery?" asked Jaden.
"Misery?" Andrew lay the burning rope down on the stone and stepped down. He began to lapse into his old-man-telling-a-story tone. "Why son, you ain't seen misery until you've had your foreskin caught in glass crusher and-"
"Eeeww! ANDREW!" Takyle punched him hard in the shoulder. "That is disgusting! What is wrong with you? Gross!" Andrew looked only slightly abashed.
"Sorry baby."
"You're not forgiven! That was horrible. You should be ashamed. What would your mother say to that?" Andrew leaned in and kissed Takyle's lower lip.
"Well maybe I can help take your mind off of it..." He kissed her again, lingering a good deal longer this time. "And my mind off of my mother." Takyle laughed and shoved him back.
"Dickwad!" She looked over and, from the look on her face, seemed to remember Jaden sitting there for the first time. He was pretty sure that she actually blushed.
"Sorry Jay." In response he murmured something along the lines of it being ok. But what do you know? Was Takyle actually aware of his general discomfort with their "friendship", or was it just this particular instance that she found embarrassing to share in his company? Jaden felt slightly the lesser man for thinking it, but he did feel a marked upper hand if it was in fact true that Takyle was not completely comfortable with the situation. At least it wouldn't be just him if that were the case.
Andrew sat down next to Jaden on the edge of the platform and lay back.
"Do you want to keep an eye on that burning rope Ta, and me and Jaden can do the power nap thing for a few minutes?" he asked, arm already flung across his face to block out the firelight.
"Sure. Sweet dreams."
Jaden tried and failed to find a comfortable position on the stone platform, and finally just gave up and lay down on the damp, but soft grass. At first he just stared into the black trees and didn't think that he would be able to sleep, but then his body reminded him of just how tired he was, and what an awful lot of walking he'd done that day. His eyes closed and he immediately began dreaming of wizards and a magical forest and floating, unconstrained by his mortality. ~
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