It was nearly midnight by the time Gideon and Surelin returned to the inn. The same clerk who’d been part of the hubbub earlier was still on duty at the front desk, and he watched warily as they climbed the stairway to the second floor. Gideon noticed the clerk's alarmed attention on them, but was too exhausted to care.

Surelin entered the room ahead of him, and sat down on the left-hand couch still wearing her ruck. A sigh exploded from her as she slipped her shoulders out from under the straps.

Gideon watched her as he dropped his own ruck on the opposite couch, and made a sudden connection.

“That first time you walked into the room,” he said. “When you dumped the sack on the floor. I thought you were just trying to piss me off, but that’s not it, is it? You dropped the sack because you couldn’t hold it anymore.”

A mix of anger and embarrassment spread across her face.

“Well, sorry I’m not a musclebound giant like you!”

He blinked. “No, uh…I’m just surprised. I guess a princess wouldn’t normally do that kind of thing. Carry something heavy.”

She stood up and stormed past him, towards the bathroom.

“I’m taking a bath.”

He shrugged and bent over his ruck, unbuckling the top flap. A drink or two before bed sounded heavenly.

“Alright. You do that.”

Surelin paused after grabbing the bathroom's doorhandle. A look of concern was on her face as she turned back to glance at Gideon.

He pulled the whiskey bottle out from his ruck, looking up when he felt her eyes on him.

“What? Something wrong?”

“...It’s nothing,” she muttered, turning away.

She entered the bathroom, and Gideon heard the door’s lock click into place.

What was that about?

He shook his head, and set the bottle down on the couch. She could be very difficult to understand at times.

A feeling of relief washed over him as he loosened the buckle keeping his claymore strapped down. Next he loosened the knots for his armor, and dropped it all on the couch beside his ruck. Freed from all his gear, he dug through his ruck and pulled out one of his new shirts, along with a pair of shorts, and for the first time in over a year changed into a brand new set of clothing.

The quiet sound of the bath running in the bathroom prompted Gideon to get on with it. He grabbed his claymore and whiskey, then walked over and sat down on the bed. After getting comfortable he pulled the whetstone out of his pocket and placed it on the bed beside him. Finally, he pulled his claymore out of its sheath and carefully set the blade in position.

It had been an extremely long day, perhaps one of the longest days of his life, but as he settled the blade in the proper position he finally felt himself starting to relax. He stopped briefly to take a quick swig from the whiskey bottle. It had a powerful, oaky flavor, and he smiled as it warmed his insides all the way down to his stomach.

He then set to work on the claymore, zoning out while rubbing the edge of the blade back and forth against the whetstone. The various notches across it's edges made the work more difficult then it would be otherwise.

What is it about Surelin that's got me helping her all of a sudden? he asked himself. I’ve never given anyone else the kind of help I gave her today. I’ve ignored other people with greater need than her.

He paused to take another drink.

Loso is very far away. The road isn’t easy, and Lake Men are crawling all over it. It feels like I've committed myself to a hard journey for basically no reason, something even less than a whim.

He flipped the blade over, rubbing the edge against the whetstone with care and practiced precision. Surelin’s angry face during her lecture in Abraham’s house appeared in his mind’s eye.

I care about what she thinks of me, he realized. Why is that?

A different memory came to him, this time of Surelin sitting across from him on the couch, her arms and legs crossed as she stared out the window. The traces of sadness he saw in her expression when she mentioned how her parents died.

We both lost parents at around the same time, but I only lost one. She lost both. And she obviously cared about hers much more than I did for Dance.

He shook his head. That kind of sympathy might've played a small part in his snap decision, and yet something told him that wasn't really it. But what was it?

The memory of Surelin’s defiant face in the temple district came to him then, followed by the memory of her running up and telling him she’d like to go to Loso after all.

She’s brave. I really like that. I need to be more like her.

From there, his mind wandered in random directions. He was still lost in thought when Surelin stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later. Her hair looked a bit wet, and she shot a glance at him as she walked over to the couch. She sat down beside her ruck, avoiding his gaze.

“You done?” Gideon asked.

She nodded.

“My turn for a bath, then."

He sheathed the claymore and left it on the bed, then trotted over to the bathroom. As his hand closed around the doorknob, Surelin called out to him.

“Gideon.”

Frowning, he released it, and turned to face her.

"Why are you helping me?"

The question took him by surprise, and he broke eye contact with her. His eyes traced the mural on the ceiling above as he wondered how to explain it.

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"Funny you should ask," he said eventually. "I was just wondering that myself."

She peered at him in silence, waiting for him to continue, and the realization finally came to him.

"I guess it goes back to what you said about your life being destroyed," he said. "The role I played in that. You're not the only person whose life I've made worse just by...being present. I let someone I hate make decisions about my life for a long time, and now that I'm free I think I want to try and make up for that somehow. If that's even possible."

Something in her expression told him she'd liked that answer. Her eyes searched his face for a few moments before she responded.

"...I see. I'm not entirely sure I enjoy being adopted as the thing to assuage your guilty conscience, but...I think your intentions are honest. And I'm not so petty as to get in the way of someone who is trying to better himself just because he was rude to me."

He nodded, his gaze briefly dropping to the carpet by his feet.

"What's in Loso for you?" she asked.

"Nothing, really. It's not Kenan. That's pretty much the entire reason why I wanted to go."

"I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment." She paused. "So there's no one waiting for you there?"

"Nope," he said, shrugging. "The last living member of my family died two months ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that. But it wasn't quite what I meant."

"Oh, you meant a girl? No, there's no one like that."

"Really?"

He scoffed. "...What do you mean, really?"

"Well, you're tall and good looking. Plus you're obviously in very good shape. I naturally assumed you wanted the gold from the tournament to spend on someone special."

Gideon was taken aback.

"There's no one like that," he said emphatically. "So what about you? Surely there were tons of men back in Forelia pining for the princess."

To his surprise, she let out some laughter. "...Not exactly. I was always much more interested in my hobbies. Grandmother despaired of ever finding a proper match for me."

"A proper match," he scoffed.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Hm? People aren't meant to be 'matched'. You either find someone you like, or you don't. It's that simple."

Her eyes rolled in response. "Spoken like a true commoner."

"Common sense is obviously better than royal sense. Oh, actually...."

He approached his ruck and quickly dug through it, looking for Dance's buck knife. Surelin looked on with silent curiosity, and her eyes widened once he'd found it and held it out to her.

“Here. You can have this.”

She glanced between the knife and his face. “Um...I don’t know how to use it.”

“It’s way easier than it looks. Use the sharp parts on the bad guys. Common sense, right?”

Her fingers closed around it with hesitation, and she studied it in her hand with wide-eyed curiosity.

“Hopefully you won't need it. Now I'd like to go take a bath, if you don't mind.”

She nodded, still staring at the knife in her hand. He half expected her to stop him once again, but this time she said nothing as he entered the bathroom. With nothing remaining in his way he began to run the water in the tub, stripping out of his clothing while it quickly filled up with hot water. It was full within moments, and he stepped into the scalding water gingerly. After taking a long while to simply soak in peace he began to scrub himself, unspeakably happy to finally get completely clean.

There was no real reason to rush, so he took his time. The water was so warm and enjoyable that even after his fingers began to prune he couldn't will himself to leave it. The last complete bath he’d taken had been nearly a year ago, several months before the siege in Forelia. In the meantime he’d only been able to take an occasional shower, when he’d been able to bathe at all. A decent bath was quite rare in his line of work.

Eventually, when his pruning fingers finally became too uncomfortable, he grudgingly stepped out of the bath. A loud yawn escaped from him as he dried off. The hot water had certainly felt amazing, but it hadn’t done much to counteract his exhaustion. When he was dry, he got dressed and stepped out of the bathroom, only to witness a truly horrifying sight. Surelin was preparing to get into the bed—she'd already thrown the covers back.

“Oh hell no!” he immediately shouted. “You are not sleeping in my bed! Don’t you dare get in there! Get—”

“What?! No! Where am I supposed to sleep, then?”

He pointed at her with alarm. “You can sleep on the damn floor for all I care! Now back up!”

His mouth fell open with silent outrage as she suddenly dove into bed, hiding herself within the covers.

“How can you be like that," she shouted from beneath the blankets. "A man should be noble and make sacrifices for a lady, necessary sacrifices!”

“This is my fucking room! I paid for that piece of shit bed, and I’m going to use it! I earned it! Now get the fuck up!”

“No, I won’t! Don’t you have any shame?! You’re going to make me sleep on the floor even after you made me carry the money?”

It shut him up. He stared at the princess-sized lump beneath the covers as he tried to think up a new avenue of attack. Surelin cautiously peaked her head out from under the blankets, staring at him.

“I haven’t slept in a real bed in nine months,” he said. “During that entire time I’ve either slept on a shitty cot or literally on the fucking ground. I risked my life for the money that paid for that bed. I’m going to sleep in it.”

She shook her head, totally unmoved.

A frustrated growl left him, then his eyes narrowed.

“I’m sleeping in that bed even if you’re in it.”

Her mouth gaped with shock. She looked down at the covers with a look of deep frustration before she violently flung them off and leapt out of bed.

“Fine! Take the stupid bed then, you churlish bed-hog! You nasty, vulgar bully! You’re an awful person!”

She stomped over to the couch and dropped onto it in a huff. Gideon watched as she crossed her arms and craned her head away from him.

His face scrunched from mental pain. Fuck. I have to let her have the bed.

“...Alright, nevermind. You can have it.”

She turned to look at him with a wary expression.

“I’ll just…sleep on the couch. Fucking….”

A defeated sigh left him as he walked over to the bed.

“I’m taking a blanket. And some pillows.”

He gathered up the bedding and dumped it unceremoniously onto the floor by the couch.

“Thank you.”

Gideon clicked his tongue with disappointment and began to transfer all his gear off the couch. Surelin lifted herself back to her feet and returned to the bed.

He watched with chagrin as she entered it. Once she appeared to be settled in he walked between the room's wall mounted lamps, blowing them out. Deep darkness filled the room, the only remaining illumination being moonlight streaming through the blinds.

“Get some sleep. We have to wake up at the crack of dawn if we want to find a caravan before they all leave.”

He heard the bed's covers rustling. “You don’t know which one we’re going to take?”

“Nope. No idea, but we’ve got enough money to buy seats on any caravan.”

“...I see.”

Gideon returned to the couch and laid down on it, pulling the blanket over himself. The couch was not nearly as uncomfortable as he expected it to be. It was, after all, a fancy couch in a high-class inn. Still, it wasn’t long enough for him to stretch his legs out. He laid on his side, with his knees partially bent.

The darkness of the room seemed to be drawing him in. His eyes traveled along the mural on the ceiling, illuminated by the faint moonlight. He suddenly became aware of how quiet the inn was. At other inns he'd stayed at it was normal to hear noise from the nearby rooms—people walking around, talking late into the night, that sort of thing. The absence of that ambience was troubling, somehow.

He certainly felt tired enough for sleep, but somehow it didn’t come. The day’s events bounced around in his head like a startled rabbit, refusing to relax.

“Gideon? Are you still awake?”

A frown appeared on his face. He debated with himself for a few seconds over whether to reply.

“...Yeah.”

Nervousness tinged her voice when she spoke again.

“Are you really going to keep helping me?”

He blinked. The honest fear in her question unsettled him.

“Yeah. As much as I can. Within reason.”

The room was silent for a long time before her response came.

"I don't have any way to repay you. And even if my grandmother is still in Loso, it's possible she won't be able to repay you, either."

“Don't worry about that. We're both just headed in the same direction.”

More silence.

“It’s not that much trouble for me. Honestly.”

A quiet sniffling became audible that went on for a few minutes. Eventually, she spoke up again.

“Why did you fight that man in the arena? Everyone else ran away.”

He rolled his eyes. Please let me sleep.

“I didn’t want to run away, is all.”

He could practically hear her absorbing his statement.

“Weren’t you scared?”

The memory of the Easterner suddenly flashed across his mind. The way he'd turned to Gideon after everyone else fled. The fear that clutched at his heart when they locked eyes.

“Yes. I was scared.”

The covers rustled for a moment, then stopped. He waited, but her voice failed to come out of the darkness again.

Finally he drifted off to sleep.