Tintin hums contentedly.

"You are very good," he says eventually.

—Taharqi laughs, and places a kiss on the back of Tintin's neck. "You are very good, too."

Tintin shivers happily. "It is pleasant having a - whatever we are."

"Adventuring companions forced together by fate and forces bigger than themselves who occasionally fuck? ...more than occasionally, if we extrapolate."

"Ha! Yes, if we extrapolate from the data then it looks like we might be fucking pretty regularly."

Tintin stretches. "Back to camp?"

Another neck kiss then, "Yeah, let's."

And back to camp they go.

Raziya and Horan are both asleep, and either too deeply into it or Taharqi and Tintin manage to be sufficiently quiet to not wake them up.

"Do you have some fancy technology thing that will wake us up if we get attacked again or should we sleep in shifts?" whispers Taharqi, as this is the second time he and Tintin return to camp to find the other two asleep despite the dangers.

"I could set up a perimeter alarm if I had, well, different technology than I have. Let's sleep in shifts, I don't need more than five hours."

"Useful! First or second?"

"Oh, whichever you'd rather not." Tintin is aware that this is insufferable but if he chose then he might inconvenience Taharqi, which would be terrible. 

Taharqi laughs. "I'll take first, then."

Tintin nods, and kisses him lightly. "Goodnight, sweet prince."

He grins and kisses back. "Good night, brave adventurer."

Then he sits down and... watches.

Tintin pulls out his sleeping bag, situates himself, and is soon out like a light. 

That night is uneventful.

The same does not hold true of all of the following nights. As they make the way along the wall and then down south along the river, they are variously accosted by wolves, wild boars, enormous crocodiles, unreasonably large snakes, even larger scorpions, and even the occasional very angry stag. The fauna is not large enough to be called mega but it sure is larger than one would normally expect from Earth. At least the fish aren't hostile.

Taharqi does take a detour or two when he spots other villages from a distance—the majority of exile settlements around here are of the "stab first ask never" school of thought, and while he's pretty sure he could hold his own the same is not true of their companions. Raziya doesn't carry her weight, not really, but after a few stern words from Taharqi and close calls with the local animals she starts being less of a burden. Horan, on the other hand, advances by leaps and strides, slowly recovering from the mind-numbing draughts the hyena-people gave him; he has a rough but warm personality, and quickly recalls more-than-passable skill with a sword. He also recalls that he comes from the one of the Nordheim villages, when he recovers his higher faculties, but he continues travelling with them for the moment, as he expects he will not fare well on his own especially unclothed and mostly-unarmed like he currently is.

But after several days of this trek, they finally arrive at a cosy wooden house by the river, illuminated from the inside.

Tintin beholds this dwelling. "How utterly charming," he declares.

"You actually built this?" marvels Horan with his recently-acquired ability to speak.

"I had Sendhei's help."

"The architecture is remarkable, for the materials you have available. Where did you learn this?"

"I... was pretty sure I would be exiled if my little stint back in Kush failed so I tried to study as much about the various things I would need here as I could."

"Great foresight."

"Sendhei is inside?" asks Raziya as they get closer.

"Should be. Sendhei!" calls Taharqi, clapping a few times. "—oh, and here you are, my lucky girl," he says when he catches sight of his horse around the building.