Cinder was acting weird.

Not her usual "loud, obnoxious, over-confident sort of weird".

She was acting quite the opposite: quiet, nervous and... wanting a vacation?

What kind of murderous criminals took VACATIONS??

And trying to control him. She'd never done that before. Treason let it go because something was clearly bothering her... but what?

The Kingdom of the Sea, then. He'd been there before, but briefly. He had to admit, it had been nice, but they really didn't need a vacation. On the flight it had begun to rain. He blinked rolling water out of his eyes and powered himself higher into the sky, above Cinder, trying to keep her dry. He knew she hated the rain.

She tipped her head up and smiled at him, making his heart melt. Even though he didn't want to go on vacation, it would be a lot worse to be without Cinder. At the end of the day, she was all he cared about.

A few moments later a band of lightning split the sky in the distance. Cinder flared her wings out to hover and nodded toward the ground. "Not safe!" She managed to roar over the wind.

As soon as Treason landed, he sunk down to his ankles in the mud. Growling, he struggled to free his talons from the gooey substance. He hated the Mud Kingdom. It might have been the worst kingdom of all, after the Ice Kingdom. They were nearly to the bay, but to get to the Kingdom of the Sea they'd been forced to fly over the Mud Kingdom. They could have soared over without needing to land, had it not been for this dumb thunderstorm.

Cinder landed behind him and wiggled under his wing. They started moving, her pressed close against his scales, until Treason managed to heave them both onto a mossy island jutting out of the swamp. Cinder wandered off, still keeping her tail on his shoulder, and waved her talons at an impossibly thick tree nearby. She looked back, eyes shining.

"Come on!" She called, vanishing. Her head popped out a moment later. "This tree's hollow!"

Treason shook out his wings and followed her inside. It was remarkably dry inside. Cinder was scraping together a pile of sticks and leaves. "Light this," she said to Treason, hopping over the pile and sitting next to him. Her scales were cold and she was shivering, but, weirdly born without fire, she couldn't light it herself.  Treason leaned forward and shot a tiny breath of flame at the pile. It caught fire right away, snapping and crackling and illuminating the whole shelter.

Treason wrapped his wing around Cinder's back and pulled her tight against his side. She leaned her head against his shoulder, sighing contently. "This is gonna be good for us, you know," she said. "What we do... isn't easy. We needed a break."

"Then why haven't you brought it up before?" Treason asked, confused. "Why only now is our work exhausting?"

Silence.

"Cinder."

Cinder didn't answer.

"Cinder," he growled.

"There's no reason," Cinder insisted. "I only just realized that we needed this. Just stop—please stop acting like you can't trust me." She pulled away from him and curled up by the far wall.

Maybe I can't! He thought angrily, but didn't say anything.

After about an hour, the rain slowed to a stop. He stamped out the fire, wincing slightly at the heat, and flicked Cinder with his tail. "The rain stopped," he told her.

Cinder got up, stretched, and climbed out the hole. The water in the swamp had risen to at least double the depth it was before. The mossy island was now a strip of dirt, all the vegetation washed away by the rain. "Yuck," Cinder spat, shaking a blobby leech off of her talon before it could latch onto her scales. "Let's get out of here."