She hadn’t really begged, he might claim that she had but he was a stuffy Landian and so what did he know.  Keto had simply pointed out that it had been a couple of weeks hiking through wildernesses.  That such wandering had been capped off with a small skirmish with a rogue pack of Kercs.  She had then noted that such a feat seemed to deserve a reward.  Like a meal they hadn’t cooked, a bath, and a resupply in wine.  Most importantly it should involve a bed under something better than tree branches and on something softer than a bedroll.

Quartes had cruelly asked that hadn’t he been the one that had fought the Kercs.  Keto had countered that they had both played their roles.  Quartes had fought, and Keto had recorded.  Quartes had conceded the fight and with her point made they had deviated to a village the Last Landian knew of.  It was not a large town, no doubt a stay over point on the road to Koric, used when farmers were bringing their harvests in.  The earliest of those harvests were enough to bring a crowd to the local inn but Keto was fortunate enough to find a single room was still available.

Quartes for his part had made some comment about wanting to look around but had left Keto with a bag that gave a sizeable clink as he left.  She swore she saw a smile on the Landian’s ever stoic face as he did so.  She had taken advantage of his lapse in oversight and beyond the room had made arrangements for a bath and a nice meal.

The niceties, the excitement of seeing a crowd and the potential it brought for a performance, had all distracted her from a key fact until Keto found herself dressed and trying to dry off her hair.  A act she did while staring at the room’s large bed.  It was a large bed, certainly by bedroll standards, but it was one bed.  One bed, and there was two of them.

Keto felt her face grow warm.  Then she laughed and was in the midst of doing so when Quartes, without a knock, entered the room.  Keto paused at his entrance, looked at the Landian, back to the bed, and then rolled into another fit of laughter.

The Landian silently raised an eyebrow, his pale eyes doing their own dart to the bed but not finding an answer there.  “I hadn’t realized the trail had taken your senses from you.”  He offered after a moment.  Keto, slowly getting her laughter under control, gave another chuckle and shook her head.

“No,” she paused as she wiped a tear from her eye.  “No,” she started again, “it’s just that,” she paused, looking for a way to explain this to the Landian.  “I’m guessing you haven’t read many romances?”

“Landians were always oral storytellers,” he offered and Keto looked up for a moment.  She wondered if that meant that Quartes couldn’t read but she filed that away as she returned to drying her hair as best she could.

“So nothing about one bed?”  She asked through the towel.  She paused long enough to watch as Quartes’ gaze darted to the bed again, brow now furrowing.

“If you’re concerned about sharing,” he started, words coming haltingly, his thoughts trying to work this out, “I can sleep outside of town.”

“No,” Keto offered, shaking her head and laying the towel aside as she fought down another laugh.  “When people are making up romantic stories, a way the teller can force their characters to…”  Keto paused looking for the right word and felt her cheeks growing hot again.  She knew if she wasn’t specific here Quartes would at least feign confusion if not be actually lost.  “…have an close and personal moment, is to find them in a situation where there is only one bed.  Which they then have to share and…some sort of intimacy results.”

Keto finished.  A smile had spread across her face, the banality of it and the confused look of Quartes just too much.  Once more his gaze shifted between her and the bed.

Was that red she saw in his cheeks?

“Couldn’t one of them just sleep on the floor?”  He offered.

“Sure, but usually the other makes a big show that there’s no reason either of them should be uncomfortable, that there’s plenty of bed, or such.”  Keto fought down another laugh as the Landian’s brow dropped into another furrow.  “I think you may be assuming that these made up stories are full of reasonable people.  The stories are often made because people want the romance to happen.”

Quartes fidgeted from one foot to another.  Keto shifted in the chair as she offered him a warm smile.  This was more comfortable, she had explained made up stories to him before.  They were a thing he knew existed, had even claimed he’d experienced them before meeting her, but they made him uncomfortable.  Landian memories and unleashing the chaos of the Fey he had claimed.

It may not be the only reason he’s uncomfortable, a thought chimed.

Keto shook her head.  She focused back on Quartes, the Landian’s gaze having shifted to the ground as his brow remained in thought.  “Some people like to read a bit of romance,” she added, “gives them adjacent feelings.  It’s similar to how people like to hear the stories of old because it gives them hope for what can come or…”

“I’ll sleep with my bedroll on the floor,” Quartes offered and began to move to unpack his haversack.

“Oh,” Keto offered.

“Bedroll is comfortable enough,” he added as reassurance.

Keto nodded, heat now again coming to her cheeks.  She watched the Landian silently unpack. Were his cheeks really red?  After a moment she looked to the bed and smiled.  It was good size and it did look comfortable.  That was win enough for the day.