Quinn wasn’t one to disappoint, every day she would come, and talk even for just a moment, as Ana continues to gather the courage to finally confess the very thing that has plagued her mind.

In the cold and damp cell that holds her, Ana appreciates her company until she’s absent one day, an irregularity that causes doubt to once more seeps into her heart, something that now she quickly dispelled to be vindicated the next dawn.

With the moon slowly fading away from the night sky, Quinn arrives inside her prison fully equipped, her cheeky countenance hiding actual worries that shines through her eye.

Seeing her figure, Ana stands up from her bed only to be gently but firmly pushed down with Quinn who sits beside her. “Quinn?” Ana called out, not daring to reach her for how agitated she was.

A state of emotion Ana only ever seen her in once before, in the fateful night of their break-up. So eerily similar was she with the past that when she grabs a dagger. “Now, do you trust me, Ana?” And asked the same question, Ana can’t help but be pulled to the past.

By muscle memory alone, her hands move, both of them expecting it to be the exact same reaction to the first time Quinn asked her question. Yet, there’s no force in her hand as she reaches out this time, no divine energy swirling around them to separate them.

A pleasant surprise that causes them to lock eyes, feeling the intensity deep in each other’s gazes, the anticipation for a kiss that never comes.

For Ana uses her mouth to do something better. “I do,” she answers her, not a speck of doubt in the monotone of her voice, no sign trickery or falsehood written on her expression.

Death will soon approach her, and she wants to meet it honest and brave, without regret for the things that could’ve been, and she hopes Quinn feels the same as she slowly leans in to finally kiss her, tasting her one last time before—she hugs her.

With tender wants and temperate warmth, she sighs longingly, charging the air with fondness too gentle for the damned, too kind for the doomed. How could anyone do anything but hope after such a display of affection?

Wishing this was no dream, Ana gathers up all the courage she has made for herself with a breath and—“Quinn, I…”

“I’m sorry, Ana,”—Quinn rushes to cuts her off as she pulls away. “For everything! For the way I treated you, for the lies I told, for the secrets I hid. I—your betrayal hurt me, but it was the least I deserve after not being honest to the person I cherished most.”

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At the word, Ana’s heart thrums fast and faster, buzzing from joy, bursting free from her ribs with happiness indescribable. She has never known herself to be holding such a deep yearning for her attraction, yet now that it has arrived, she wanted more.

Like the drowned tasting air after minutes of struggling in the brine, Ana hungrily reaches out to Quinn, bypassing proper decorum, and kiss her with ardor. She was thankful to the divinities above and below that Quinn responds by escalating the situation, only separating herself away when the need to breath became too urgent to ignore.

There then, she can see a streak of sorrow lighting up her visage in an instant. Just as quickly as it has appeared, the expression escapes her face, who are now full of nothing but surety.

Accompanied with it. “They’re going to kill you, Ana.” Quinn delivers the most obvious news yet, invoking an amused smile on Ana’s lips that Quinn replied in kind before her countenance turns serious again. “I know, I know! A surprise to us all, but they’re going to do it soon, and I wouldn’t allow that.”

“What do you propose we should do, then?” Ana asked, the we rolling so easily and jubilantly off her tongue.

Quinn plays along. “We ran away, my darling heart.” Pulling Ana closer to her, causing excitement to burns in her stomach. “You lead the way, and I will follow.” Until it drops when Quinn spoke the last sentence.

She frowns. “What do you mean, you will follow? Are we not going out together?”

“We’re going out together,” Quinn jokes, which only manage to deepen the creases on Ana’s temple. “But I will distract them as you make your way off to a tunnel that the royalties of old uses to escape a failed revolution.” As she continues to explain the plan, describing to Ana in detail the path she must take and the obstacle she shall face.

Something Ana struggles to absorb, not because of the complexities of the arrangement, but due to what it involves. Every part of her screams for her to object, to force Quinn to come with her.

And Ana are sure Quinn can feel it, too. The way her body trembles at the thought of losing Quinn before she could reply to her words in kind, the way Quinn swiftly and softly hugs her for a moment before standing up, putting a distance between them.

There, she stands with the dagger she has shown Ana so many days ago, using it to open a new wound in her palm, beginning a ritual sacred and old.

“I will always return to you, Ana,” she starts. “The all-knowing stars will see to it, the bottomless sea will keep me good for it, the very earth shall swallow me if I break it. I promise you, by my name and blood, I will always return to you, my darling heart.” The oath and pet name at the end flowing so easily out of her that it injects Ana with identical confidence.

With a word. “Okay.” She gave her assent, presenting her chains for Quinn to effortlessly broke. She only needs to find her equipment now before teleporting away, trusting Quinn to be more than capable of doing the same.

After all, they’re both professionals with jobs to do for no one but each other.