Arrion was startled out of his reveries when their companions woke up and started to get moving.
He stood up, sweeping Dawn into his arms. He was not quite willing to let go of her. Right now, he just felt this need to be near her. The urge to continuously kiss her, cuddle her, and tease her was making it hard to leave her alone even for a minute. Not that that was all that new, he had always wanted to keep close to her.
Dawn's eyes widened when he stood up without letting her go. And she gasped, her arms wrapping around his neck to steady herself. The look she gave him was somewhat exasperated and yet also tinged with a hint of adoration.
He carried her with him over to where the animals were tied up for the night and only set her down when he arrived. And then he set her down gently and, before straightening up, planted a kiss on her lips.
It was only a peck that he gave her before he pulled back, and began to stand up. He looked into her eyes and noticed that she was frowning a little.
Her hand reached out grasping his arm and pulling it making him pause and lean back down, as he wondered what she wanted. Oh, he had an idea, and it made a grin come to his face. But even if it was not a kiss she wanted he would still happily give her whatever it was that made her stop him.
"Arrion…" Her lips turned up and he nodded to show he was listening. She continued, "You carry me all the way over here and then just lightly peck me? Seriously? You should at least do a more lingering kiss."
He rather liked how confident she sounded. In the fact that he was okay with her talking to him like this, in his love for her, and in that she could get a kiss from him so easily.
He covered her lips again, this time softly lingering in a gentle caress. He smiled when he pulled back and whispered softly and tenderly, "Better, my queen?"
"Mmm…" She tilted her head, as if thinking about it, "Acceptable."
"I could kiss you again," He grinned at her as he leaned closer so he was only a breath away from her again, "Again and again until its enough."
Now she flushed, her cheeks turning a pale pink that was adorable on her. But still she managed to keep that almost imperative tone of voice, "Maybe later. When we are home. You will make up to me almost dying then."
"I need to make up the fact that I almost died?"
"And lost your memory."
"I had little control over that, my queen."
"You forgot me!"
"No, I forgot everything but you, sweetheart. If I had not been blind…"
"You also didn't immediately say something when your sight came back."
"…Didn't you already forgive me for that?"
She smiled at him, her face looking rather obstinate. "You still need to make up for the fact I was deprived of your kisses for months…"
"I see." He grinned and shook his head, "Alright then. What about the other things you were deprived of?"
She did not answer him and instead got up and walked away from him, still somewhat flushed.
Arrion chuckled to himself and turned away, back to the animals. Time to get these little friends ready for travel.
It did not take him long to feed them, water them, and tighten their saddles. It helped that they would never misbehave on him. All of them were eager to please him, and were almost vying for him to praise them more than the others.
Unfortunately for the rest of them, Zyph was the best trained of all of them and could easily secure more praise. But Arrion did his best to be fair and sweet talk them all evenly. They were all trying their hardest. Except maybe Zyph, who was more relaxed with him and less enthusiastic as he was used to him and already knew he was a good boy.
Arrion sighed to himself. He really did love animals, even if he had never really chosen this particular path. Just he had inherited his father's ability to attract all sorts of critters, and so he had been promptly trained to use it better and became a druid on top of how animals instinctively already liked him.
It seemed tied into how he was a shapechanger. Perhaps because he had a bit of animal to him. But the human in him, at least he assumed he was human – it was hard to know for sure as shapechangers got tricky in regard to race, made him dominant over these animals. So, they always seemed to see him as an alpha or leader.
Add onto this his druidic training and he could get any animal to do as he wanted. Magical beasts were a bit more hit and miss, but the ones on the lower end of the scale, like griffins were fairly easy. He would never try on a unicorn to command it though. Or really any that was as intelligent as humans were.
But from the only unicorn he had ever met, he was pretty sure at least that particular intelligent magical beast was pretty fond of druids. Made sense really – unicorns and druids both were said to be guardians or nature.
Not that he minded the path he had been forced on. It was rather fun to always be surrounded by nature and to be able to have an innate understanding of it.