Moving through the forest again was strange. After the intensity of the briar wolf attack, Eres had expected the same sensation of fatigue from being on guard to overwhelm him quickly, but it didn’t come. Instead, he felt almost relaxed. He was still watching his surroundings and listening for anything moving around them, but rather than feeling on edge, he felt comfortable. He felt sure of himself.

Looking around at his companions he saw that they seemed to be feeling the same. The fight had bled the tension out of them and now they were on guard but not wound as tight. They had tested themselves against an ambush and survived. Sure, it hadn’t been a complete success, with Eres' injury and impulsiveness, but they had killed monsters they had previously only ever read about. It seemed that was the confidence boost they needed to start to feel at home in the twisting confines of the forest path. There was still tension in the air, but it was wariness and readiness.

It made Eres feel proud. Proud of himself and his companions.

Companions, Eres reminded himself, they are just my companions.

He tried to circle the thought again and again, but the thought of Freya’s face, flushed with worry for him and then anger at him, kept creeping into his mind. Was it just leftover worry from having to look after him for much of their lives? Concern for her friend and companion? Or maybe something more?

Eres shook his head ruefully. Most likely wishful thinking on his part. He wasn’t oblivious and he could tell that Freya had some affection for him at least, something that had become increasingly clear as they got older and that he had needed to try harder and harder to pretend to be oblivious to. Now she wasn’t his maid though… He found himself doubting those feelings. Maybe now she had more freedom to do whatever she wanted that affection would fade. Maybe it was just a physical attraction. He just didn’t know.

In his last life, he was big on honesty and communication, but as Eres… He hadn’t even told his friends that he remembered his last life. They knew about his Blessing and that the Gods were interested in him, and he had been open about basically all his thoughts in this life, all except the ones that concerned anything more than friendship.

That look on Freya’s face though, Eres thought, it isn’t so bad no matter what. If she holds that affection and wants to pursue it, then I want that. If she just wants to be a companion, a friend… Well, I can survive a little pining.

He looked over at her and saw the swaying ponytail as walked carefully along the trail. Her posture was relaxed and her gaze scanned the treeline, focused on their journey. Her hips swayed with her gait and Eres had to fight to get his own gaze back onto their surroundings and away from her figure. Puberty had been a particularly trying experience with her always around, but he wasn’t a horny teenager anymore. He could concentrate.

Yet no matter how many times he refocused himself on the task at hand, he found his mind drifting. Now he felt less stressed out and anxious about their travel, it left his mind free for other thoughts and it seemed that it would invariably circle back around to romance and his friends.

That was the other problem. Eres was aware of his somewhat less common romantic nature in his last life as Adrien, and that seemed to have followed him into this life. He knew that because at the moment whenever he thought about romance, sex or anything in that vein it wasn’t just Freya he imagined, it was Myla too. Hopefully at the same time, if it was an option. He wasn’t sure how common polyamory was in this world, but he hadn’t seen it mentioned in any of the books he had read and that led him to believe it was pretty uncommon, or at least not talked about often, just like it had been in his last life.

Thinking about the headache that was falling for more than one person at a time led him to look back at Myla who had taken up the rearguard position in their little procession. He found himself looking directly into her ice-blue eyes while her face almost immediately began to flush red. She quickly looked away and started looking anywhere but at him, but the blush that settled onto her face didn’t leave for a little while.

Eres knew it didn’t leave for a while because he found himself looking back at her a few times over the next few minutes. Had she been watching him? Staring at him? He had noticed Myla get more shy around him in the last few years, but maybe it was more than that. He certainly didn’t mind if she had been checking him out, though it made his current thoughts and worries come back to focus, and no answers seemed in sight.

As he continued pondering the issue he felt a touch of wetness against his cheek. The slight gaps in the trees above showed a darkening sky and he wondered how much longer they had before the weather truly turned.

Then, as if his thoughts had summoned it, a bright flash of lightning split the sky above them and a peal of thunder rolled through the forest barely a moment later. The patter of rain impacting the leaves and branches above them began in earnest, more and more droplets finding their way through.

“Alright, that looks like as good a sign to find camp as any, no point travelling through a storm if we don’t have to,” Eres said, gesturing at the trail, “No way we reach the next waystation today in this weather, so let's get to the next clear site and get the tents up before it gets too wet. Sound good?”

“Well, it’s no feather bed but I agree we aren’t getting much further today. I think you are right, lets camp early.” Freya let out a sigh as she spoke, but nodded at Eres’ suggestion.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Myla?”

“Huh? Oh, right. Yeah, I think camping is the right call. Storm looks like it will get pretty bad, and we still have rations and supplies enough to make a longer camp easy enough,” Myla said quietly. She still seemed to be having trouble meeting Eres’ eye, but he figured that would change.

“Alright then. Let’s find a rest spot.”

***

It hadn’t taken them long to find a spot that was relatively clear of foliage and brush but still somewhat covered from the rain. They had quickly divided the work of setting the camp and set to it.

Myla had cleared space for the tents and was now gathering stones to ring the campfire, as well as getting anything out of the packs the others needed. Freya was setting up the tents and making sure everything was sealed and as watertight as it could be, while Eres was ranging out to gather firewood, tinder and kindling so that they could get the fire going sooner rather than later, and hopefully get it large and hot enough that the rain that got through the canopy wouldn’t be an issue.

They all settled into their roles like they had done this hundreds of times and Eres felt strangely comfortable with the circumstance. He had known these women for years, and collaborating with them like this felt natural. Everyone working together to get the campsite set up, moving around in comfortable silence with only murmured instructions or requests. He found that he had a smile plastered across his face by the time he was actually building the fire, and he noticed similar expressions on Freya and Myla’s faces.

“Alright, lunch was just boring dry rations, but I have a soup base I made in here somewhere. How about I throw that together with some of our salted meat and make a stew,” Eres said once fire was flickering between the pieces of wood he had neatly arranged in the ring of stones, “Probably won't be as good as the food at a waystation or inn, but it's better than another meal of bread and cheese.”

He was still rifling through his bag when he realised that his question had only been answered by silence. He looked over his shoulder to see both of the women staring at him in confusion.

“Eres… you can cook?” Freya asked, eyebrows raised in surprise. “When did you learn to cook?”

“I mean it isn’t like I'm a chef, but I can put the basics together yeah,” Eres laughed as he pulled ingredients and a cookpot out of the weirdly enlarged space of his bag, “I used to sneak into the kitchens to practice once in a while. I didn’t want to get you in trouble with the others though Freya, so I left you out of it.”

“Wait,” Myla said, brows furrowed and mouth twisted slightly, “No one taught you? You just snuck in and practiced?”

“Well yeah. Again it’s not like I can put together a three-course meal, but I can fry or grill meat and veg and I can work out what tastes good together to make a soup. Is that so strange?”

“Eres… You do know that you are a noble, right?” Myla sputtered out, “They don’t cook or clean for themselves. They wouldn’t know how because others always do it for them.”

“Okay, but I’m not a noble anymore.”

“I know that! But…but…” Myla seemed to deflate and let out a big sigh, “Freya, this is weird right?”

“Oh yeah, weird as anything,” Freya laughed, but she seemed far more comfortable than Myla, “I just stopped assuming anything Eres did would be normal when he was about eleven. It helps with the anxiety.

“That being said, Eres, the point Myla is making is most nobles wouldn’t have bothered to learn even if they knew they wouldn’t be nobility forever. It is just another thing you have done that completely ignores the logic that we consider normal. Hence her being so flustered.”

“I wasn’t that flustered! Just… surprised,” Myla muttered as she slumped to the ground.

“Of course love,” Freya laughed before turning to Eres, “Go on then, Master Eres, dazzle us with your stew.”

Eres shivered. “Only if you never call me that again. It feels so very wrong now.”

“Nope. I reserve the right to use it to freak you out at any time,” Freya said happily. All three of them laughed at that, and Eres started setting the pot above the fire, using Mana to summon clean water from the atmosphere and adding various powdered ingredients to make the soup, adding in chunks of meat and placing the lid on top.

“Am I really that unusual?” Eres said once he could hear the stew simmering.

Both of the women smiled at him, but their gazes were full of laughter. “Yes, Eres. You saw how the rest of your family was. They are the norm. Even Ellsa was the same until she started spending more time with you, but then you rubbed off on her.”

“I don’t think it's a bad thing or anything,” Myla added, poking the fire with a long stick she had found and watching the embers swirl through the air, “If anything it's good. I like that you are so surprising or unusual or whatever, I just forget sometimes. Sorry if I made a big deal out of it.”

Eres laughed at that and reached over to give her shoulder a brief squeeze. “You don’t have to apologise, I just… I never really think about whether or not I fit in, I just do my own thing. I didn’t realise how obvious it was, but I’m not going to suddenly start trying to act some other way. Especially now we are travelling and it’s just us a lot of the time. Easier to be yourself around people you trust, you know?”

He stirred the stew and looked at them, both smiling at him again.

“What?” He asked.

“Just good to be reminded you trust us,” Myla murmured, looking back into the fire.

“Yeah, she's right. And you better keep that in mind next time you dive into a monster's gaping maw!” Freya laughed, poking Eres in the ribs.

“Gaping maw?” Eres laughed, “It was hardly big enough to qualify, and I already apologised for that one multiple times! Alright, this stew will take another hour at least. I’m going to go and grab some more firewood, keep an eye out, yeah?”

Both made happy sounds of affirmation as Eres wandered away from the fire shaking his head, with a large smile still plastered across his face.