Dag had slept for three centuries the last time he succumbed. He had no intention of closing his eyes again anytime soon. Instead, he took advantage of the human’s retreat to reconnoiter around her home and gather whatever information he could. He did this for the sake of their security; knowing the building’s entrances and exits made it easier for him to defend them. His burning curiosity to know more about the little female had nothing to do with it.
He repeated that to himself a few times, just to be sure.
He found her home to be spacious and structurally appealing, with lots of wooden surfaces and accents colored by the patina of age and stability. Given the small female’s sharp tongue and impudent personality, he found the classic architecture mildly surprising.
He stifled the urge to examine the third floor, which she had indicated held only her private sleeping and bathing chambers. Somehow he thought that if she were to wake and find him prowling through her personal space, she might prove her screaming ability up close and personally. Instead, he first prowled through the level where she had left him before descending to the main floor and making a more thorough survey than he had managed when they initially arrived.
If her home provided any clues as to her character, then the small female appeared to be a study in contradictions. Most of the rooms in the large old house stood empty but for stacks of sealed brown boxes. Only about half of them could boast so much as a single stick of furniture. However, a few select spaces, like the office and the kitchen, brimmed with interesting and amusing indications of a female with an unusual sense of humor and a decided streak of whimsy. This did not surprise him, but the fact that he found such things appealing did.
On the wall of the impressively sized living room hung an enormous print depicting a vessel of some sort posed against a background of stars and empty space. To one side, glowing script proclaimed to any onlookers that someone associated “aim[ed] to misbehave.” An oversized sofa in a nubby material the variegated color of beach sand and a low table looked cozy and inviting, but they proved to be the only fixtures in the room. The rest of the space appeared even darker and more barren in contrast.
He wandered through the main level, finding much the same scene wherever he turned. A room between the living area and kitchen sported not even a box, an echoing cavern between a high plaster ceiling and a gleaming hardwood floor.
Signs of life began in the kitchen, where at least most of the boxes appeared to have been unpacked. Plates, bowls, and drinking vessels in various bright hues filled the expanse of white cabinetry, and several sharp knives hung suspended by a magnet against the wall. A set of canisters on the marble counter depicted a frog-type creature playing a stringed musical instrument, an anthropomorphized pig in a dress and pearls, and a wide-eyed version of a child’s stuffed bear in a polka-dotted bow tie. Despite labels claiming they contained coffee, tea, and sugar, he found each of them as empty as the next.
The office he had already seen appeared to be the room where she spent the most time. If he couldn’t tell by looking around him, he would have known by the way her scent filled the air inside. Already it had committed itself to his sensory memory, unexpected and alluring, and in the enclosed space it teased him mercilessly.
Dag existed for battle, a warrior from the moment of his summoning to his last gasp of air. He had come into being for that singular purpose. Over the centuries it had offered him little opportunity to experience any of the softness of life, from the peace offered by nature’s wonders, to the comfortable companionship of creatures not intimately concerned with the fight against the Darkness. Few humans and fewer human females had therefore ever entered, much less lingered, in his presence.
Still, he could remember no fragrance like Kylie’s. Something inside him had expected sweetness, like sugar or honey, perhaps because of her sweetly delicate appearance. Then she opened her mouth, and he might have expected spice, the sharp bite of cinnamon, maybe, or a bittersweet clove note.
He got none of those. Instead, her fragrance reminded him of the desert, dry and fresh and ancient. Her sweetness came from the smoky depths of gum benjamin and blended with the buttery richness of cedar and the piquant freshness of frankincense. In fact, she smelled to him of the land her ancestors had called Holy, rocky and steep and unexpectedly bountiful. It made him think of a hot sun and warm breezes, of dark eyes and secret smiles.
And, now, it made him think of Kylie.
He should not waste his time dwelling on the human, he reminded himself. His exploration of her dwelling was meant to inform him of her character as it pertained to her role as his Warden. He needed to know if she was quick-witted or deliberate, steady or volatile, courageous or timid.