Yanka almost scolded poor Sril for not telling her where he was going and for the fact that some of her work with the servants in the kitchen went to waste. But when he apologized, giving her the sweetest smile we've ever seen, she went speechless for a moment. Clearly, she noticed the considerable change in him and temporarily retracted further questions. We offered to help her bring dinner from the main mansion and we ate together this time.
I felt a bit bad about what we did next instead of enlightening her, but my heart couldn't hold back. Sril asked me if I was in the mood for practicing swordplay a little, and there was no way I would refuse. We borrowed a simple sword from our host and went to the clearing between the mansion and the forest at the east side.
After practicing some raw movements we wanted to try a little sparring, but we were caught by the sunset, which reminded us of how tired we already were. We returned to the mansion and Sril excused himself for a bit, wanting to talk to Kaan about something, so I retreated to my room.
Yanka appeared in it merely a few minutes later.
"You're unbelievable..." she said, silently closing the door behind her. "How did you manage to do that so fast?"
"We shouldn't take the improbable for impossible," I gave her an innocent look.
"So what, there isn't even a point in asking?"
"I suppose not."
She sighed in pretended surrender and sat down on the edge of bed. "I'm helping you to come up with a strategy against this stubborn winged kinsman of a mule and this is how you thank me?"
"Well, take into account that you're talking to one of his kin right now."
"Right, why be straightforward when you can have it complicated..." she suddenly snatched one of the pillows, arranged neatly in a pile at the head of the bed and smacked me with it straight in the face. I think she didn't consider though, that I would pick the game up as quickly as I did.
When I was already on my third pillow, the previous two being lost somewhere underneath the table in the corner of the room, the door opened suddenly and Sril appeared in the doorway. Almost at the exact same moment Yanka's pillow flew right above his head and landed in the anteroom. He glanced over his shoulder, utterly confused, then turned to us again, raising his eyebrows even higher.
"What... are you doing?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Well... I think anyone would be interested in why you suddenly decided to demolish your room... and with the help of a beautiful woman no less..." At this point he had to dodge quickly, when I snatched a pillow laying near Yanka's knee and sent it his way with a clumsy flick of my wrist. "You're asking for it..."
"Well, maybe that's what I want?"
Sril picked the pillow up and looked Yanka in the eyes briefly, before throwing it. She dodged quickly enough to not become the target, and slowly enough to not give me time to move out of the way.
"That's not fair..."
"Didn't you just say, that this is what you want?"
"Oh you..." I squeezed the fabric firmly, got up to my knees and hurled it back at him with everything I had.
It took around a quarter to use up all of our energy, with me collapsing first. A few minutes passed in silence, before Sril broke it. "Thank you..."
"For what, making your hair look like Sian's every morning?" I heard Yanka's breathless reply from somewhere in the head of the bed.
Sril laughed silently and started setting his bangs in order. "No. For the fact that you didn't give up and write me off like I did..."
"We couldn't just leave you..." I managed to answer. "But if you pull something like that off again, I'm going to use something heavier than a pillow next time..."
I felt Yanka shift on the bedsheets slightly, and her voice sounded a bit more serious when she spoke again. "If you lose something, you can always find it again. But if you purposely cast something away, you might never be able to recover it..."
Sril looked at her for a moment, then smiled gently and bowed his head, accepting the warm reprimand. He then sighed contently and leaned his head on my stomach.
Maybe the chasms, that I imagined between us three at the beginning were never truly there to begin with...