The air was thick with the scent of brine, a biting wind whipping off the cliffs and stinging your cheeks. Below, waves crashed against jagged rocks with a relentless fury, as if the sea itself reflected your mood. The world was a patchwork of stormy greys—clouds, water, and the stone ruins at your back blending into a palette of hostility. Fitting, you thought, given your circumstances.

Four months. Four excruciating months since the arrangement was made—no, forced—upon you both. You could hardly remember agreeing to it, and yet here you were, shackled by tradition, duty, and the thin veneer of civility you both clung to. Draco stood a few paces away, his broad shoulders squared against the wind, his long coat billowing like dark wings behind him. Even here, in the wilderness of the Scottish coast, he managed to look impossibly composed.

"Do you ever stop glaring, or is that your natural expression now?" His voice carried effortlessly above the roar of the sea, smooth and low, with that infuriatingly cultured French lilt.

You crossed your arms, refusing to dignify the comment with a response. His smirk deepened, as if your silence amused him more than any retort ever could.

“You know,” he continued, turning slightly to face you, his silvered hair catching the dim light of the storm. “If you expend all your energy despising me, you’ll have none left to enjoy this charming little... adventure we’ve been sent on.”

"Adventure?" you shot back, finally breaking. "Oh yes, because trudging through mud and rain to retrieve a cursed artifact screams romance and whimsy. Why you couldn’t come alone, I’ll never understand."

Draco arched a brow, his piercing gaze locking with yours in that maddeningly calm way of his. "Believe me, chère, this isn’t exactly my idea of a holiday either. But if we’re stuck together, perhaps you could make an effort to be less—what’s the phrase?—utterly intolerable."