“You again?” The doctor seems surprised upon seeing Xander, not quite able to comprehend how one person could be in and out of the infirmary so frequently.
“Yeah, it’s me again,” Xander takes a seat on the bed, still feeling the pain of the wounds he suffered in his bout with Drakthar.
“So what is it this time?” The doctor asks.
“He got hit and kicked in the stomach quite hard,” Gwendolyn explains, having gone along with Xander.
“Alright, lift that shirt up,” the doctor orders.
He gets a closer look at Xander’s abs, noting spots where the skin is starting to turn a shade of faint purple.
“It seems you are heavily bruised,” the doctor notes as he leans forward to inspect further.
Xander winces as the doctor touches one of the bruises to check its severity.
“This kind of thing is going to take a while to heal, but it shouldn’t keep you from going about your day. Take this and apply it often. Oh… and do not get yourself into any more fights,” the doctor prescribes as he hands Xander a bottle of ointment.
“Yes sir,” Xander agrees, slowly getting back up from the bed.
“Alright let’s get you back to our room so you can get some rest,” Gwendolyn comments as she lets him use her shoulder to help him walk.
Seconds after the two of them leave, the medics, who were at the battle, come rushing in with Drakthar. The bleeding from the wounds on his back and arm has been bandaged, but he remains unconscious.
“This must be the other guy,” the doctor throws up his arms, annoyed that they are making more work for him so unnecessarily.
After a day of rest, Drakthar walks his way out of the infirmary, running into Kayde on the way back to his room.
“Oh, hey man. Looks like you’re finally out,” Kayde notes, thinking he was still at the infirmary.
“Yeah,” Drakthar grumbles, not in the mood for talking.
“Now that you're out I’m going to go get the others, we have some things to discuss,” Kayde notes, turning around to go knock on doors.
They all meet up in the lobby at Kayde’s request.
“So… now that all of this Sacrosanct Empire business is out of the way, I thought it’s now the right time to talk about what we’re going to do next?” He begins the conversation, for the first time the group doesn’t have a goal that will bring them to a new destination.
“The next thing I’m doing is getting married,” Gwendolyn is the first to speak up, very insistent not to let anything else get in the way that could put either Xander or herself in danger.
“So… we doing that right now or?” Kayde asks, unsure of how this kind of thing works, weddings being a foreign concept to him.
“No, we need to make invitations and invite people. Actually, Xander, I know you are really good at calligraphy because of that poem you gave me, based on this model I made could you write the rest of the invitations?” Gwendolyn requests, while Drakthar begins to mentally throw up in the background.
“Yeah, that’s no problem,” Xander agrees before he truly understands what he has gotten himself into. He takes the model from Gwendolyn and begins to read over it. “One month huh?” He notices the time more than anything.
“We live dangerous lives, the sooner the better,” Gwendolyn explains why so soon.
“Sounds good to me,” Xander feels similarly.
“Great, now if you could start working on writing all of these,” Gwendolyn pulls out a giant stack of papers tied together by twine. The sheer amount makes it heavy, so she has to strain as she lifts it out of her bag of holding.
Everyone stares at the stack, feeling sorry for Xander’s hand already.
“Looks like that is going to take you some time. I’m going to go back and visit my laboratory, my wolves have been on their own for too long now,” Lunette tells the others, planning to get her things in order.
“Fore and I can go with you,” Kayde offers.
“Yeah, that’d be nice,” Lunette smiles, patting Fore on the head as well.
“Gives me time to train,” Drakthar states, his only focus on getting stronger so that he will be victorious next time he and Xander clash.
They all go off their separate ways, Drakthar and Kali heading into the woods to spar, Xander heading back into his room to begin writing, and Fore, Lunette, and Kayde heading back to Lunette’s hovel deep within the forest.
The walk back to Lunette’s home is a quiet one. Kayde, who is usually a man of many words, remains silent, an unfamiliar sense of nervousness putting him on edge. The quiet is only broken by what Lunette hears as Fore’s barking.
“Aren’t you going to ask her to be your mate?” He asks Kayde, having a good idea of what they have been doing each day in the other room at the inn.
Kayde’s eyes widen as he looks down at Fore, trying to signal he can’t have this conversation with him right now, at least not in front of Lunette.
“If you leave she can’t be your mate,” Fore continues, not able to read Kayde’s facial expressions.
“What’s he talking about?” Lunette asks, having noticed the specified barking.
“Uh… he is asking if you’re coming with us?” Kayde finally finds the right words, technically it isn’t a lie.
“Oh, do you want me to?” Lunette smiles a bit, wanting him to admit it.
“Yeah, if you want to. You’re really fun to be around and your inventions are really useful,” Kayde tries to explain in as calm a way as possible.
“There isn’t any other reason?” Lunette bats her eyes jokingly.
Kayde sighs, “I already said you were fun to be around didn’t I?”
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” she starts to laugh a little as she walks further ahead.
Kayde looks down at Fore and whispers, “Be cool man, be cool”.
“Yeah, it is cold in the forest,” Fore agrees, not quite understanding what Kayde means.
Kayde brings his hand to his forehead, “No, not like the temperature, like… be more smooth,” he tries to find the right way to describe it.
“People do think my fur is soft and smooth,” Fore misunderstands again, not familiar with such terms.
“No… no, not like that. You know what, don’t ask me questions like that right in front of her,” Kayde gets down to the basics of it.
Lunette starts to laugh in the distance, Kayde’s voice raised from frustration as he got further into his conversation with Fore. Once they reach her lab, Lunette goes inside and starts to sort through her things.
She picks up each item and either puts it in her bag or throws it over her shoulder, sometimes looking at the item a second time and changing her mind. It’s an odd sight to behold but Kayde finds it endearing.
Lunette stands up straight, readying to leave her laboratory behind forever, “Okay, I’m good”. They walk outside and are met by all of Lunette’s wolves.
“Hey guys,” she leans over and starts to pet all of them.
“Can you tell them I am going to leave?” Lunette requests of Kayde.
“She is leaving this place, do you guys all want to come with us?” Kayde offers the other wolves, wanting an entire pack so there will be more friends for Fore.
“No, this is our home, if our lady is leaving we will protect this place until she comes back,” the wolf Lunette aptly named the Doctor responds.
“If that’s what you guys want,” Kayde lowers his head slightly, disappointed they won’t be coming along.
Lunette says her goodbyes to each of her wolves individually before walking off with Kayde and Fore back towards the city. Kayde notices her start to cry silently.
“Are you going to be okay?” He asks her, knowing this must be hard.
“Yeah, I’m just proud… and sad, but mostly proud,” Lunette explains how she feels about her wolves’ decision to stay.
“It’s going to be fine, we’re going to do some really crazy things… well once we get past this wedding garbage,” Kayde enthusiastically wraps his arm around her, attempting to raise her spirits.
“Yeah, thanks,” Lunette appreciates his efforts.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
They arrive back in the city in the dead of night, not many people are out in the usually crowded streets of the capital. Most people are already inside their homes asleep, but Xander is not one of those people, he is continuing to slave away writing invitations upon Gwendolyn’s request.
He is so out of it by this point that he doesn’t notice when Gwendolyn enters the room. It takes until she sits down to examine his work so far does he notice.
“Oh, hey… can I have a break, I’ve been working on this for the entire day,” Xander requests groggily, despite her telling him he can’t take a break until he is finished.
“You can stop when you finish. I want to get things ready as soon as possible; we have a lot of ground to cover before the wedding,” she doesn’t let him off the hook.
“Can I just take a quick nap?” Xander asks while trying to look as pathetic as possible to play on her sympathies.
He thinks it works when she agrees, “It is late, I guess you can lie down for a bit”.
Xander is filled with a sense of relief, more shocked that she is letting him have a break than anything. He throws himself on the bed and immediately closes his eyes, waiting to drift off into blissful sleep.
Just as Xander thinks he is finally starting to fall asleep, he feels something heavy dropped on his pelvis. He looks up, shocked to complete consciousness by this feeling, and sees Gwendolyn straddling him.
“Please Gwendolyn, can I just sleep?” Xander requests, knowing what she wants.
“Oh come on Xander, I’ll make it quick. You can just lie there, I’ll do all the work,” Gwendolyn assures him, continuing whether he wants her to or not.
True to her word Gwendolyn finishes him off in only a few minutes.
“Alright, that was enough of a break. Get back to work now,” she tells him as she gets off of him.
“What? That wasn’t a break!” Xander complains, incredulous she would do this to him.
“Well, you weren’t working on invitations, so yes it was a break,” Gwendolyn points out the technicalities.
“You might want to clean yourself up a bit before getting back to work,” she chuckles as she takes his place in the bed.
“I feel used,” Xander mumbles to himself as he pulls his pants back up and heads to the bathroom. He sits back down at the desk and gets back to writing, continuing through the night while Gwendolyn sleeps in the bed beside him. Xander is annoyed at her doing this to him but considering everything he just put her through, he doesn’t feel like it is unfair of her.
The next morning, once Gwendolyn has already woken up and left the room, Kayde knocks on the door to check how much longer it is going to take, keen to get back to the other side of the sea. He doesn’t hear an answer so he lets himself in.
“Hey buddy, how much longer until you’re finished?” Kayde knocks on the desk to get his attention.
“Oh… Kayde… I’m sorry did you say something?” Xander looks up at him in his zombie-like state.
Kayde notices the deep bags starting to form under his eyes, “Are you okay dude?”
“No… no, I am not,” Xander answers honestly, not sure himself how he is still going.
“Wait, have you been working on these since we all split off?” Kayde asks, putting it together after looking at the sheer number of invitations Xander has already written.
“Yeah,” Xander responds lifelessly, continuing to work on the invitations as if it was all he can do.
“What the hell? Take a break and sleep man, are you crazy?” Kayde tells him, not aware of Gwendolyn’s conditions.
“I can’t Gwendolyn would know, she is tracking my progress,” Xander informs him of his hopeless situation.
“Scary,” Kayde lets out, having seen this side of Gwendolyn himself from time to time.
“Yeah, anyway I need to keep going,” Xander gets as focused as he can and struggles on, his hand starting to cramp a little.
“Good luck,” Kayde wishes him upon leaving, not too opposed to this because he also wants them out of here as soon as possible.
Everyone except Xander meets up for lunch to talk about where they are headed next.
“So where do you need to go to hand out invitations?” Kali asks Gwendolyn, curious to see where they are off to next.
“Well, I have to stop by the airship, there are a few people I need to invite in the capital and I think Xander mentioned something about people in Melusarej,” Gwendolyn lists off the places they have to visit to hand out invitations.
“Okay, so three places, no one else has a problem with this right?” Kayde asks the others, his tone a bit off from knowing that Xander is slaving away while the rest of them eat casually.
Kali shakes her head and Drakthar gives his answer, “I want to fight Xander again, wherever he goes, I go”. This causes Gwendolyn to look down, disappointed to find out what Xander predicted would happen is correct.
“So we will sail for Melusarej once Xander is finished,” Kayde notes the plan.
“I’ll send a message to my father so he can pick us up in the airship so we don’t have to waste time heading to the capital,” Gwendolyn informs them.
“Sounds good Gwendolyn, see you all tomorrow after Xander’s done with his slave labor,” Kayde quips offhandedly. Gwendolyn shoots him a look, not appreciating his comment as he, Fore, and Lunette get up and walk off.
“I’m going to go back into the woods and train? Do you want to come with me?” Drakthar asks Kali when he gets up.
“No… but I’ll come find you if I change my mind,” Kali tells him as he leaves.
Gwendolyn catches Kali smiling as Drakthar walks off, “You look happy. I’m glad things are finally working out for you”. To her surprise, Kali’s smile fades.
“What? Now you look sad,” Gwendolyn points out, thinking things were going well between her and Drakthar.
“Look, Gwendolyn, I’m worried about you,” Kali starts to explain.
“Me? Why? I’m doing great, Xander’s back, his Sacrosanct mission is done, and now we are getting married. What is there to be worried about?” Gwendolyn is confused as to what Kali means.
“I… okay, I know you don’t want to hear this, and I am only telling you because I care about you and Xander... but you need to stop treating Xander like this,” Kali gets it off her chest.
“What do you mean?” Gwendolyn feigns confusion, maybe hoping Kali will back off so she doesn’t have to confront this.
“Come on Gwendolyn, you know. You manipulate him all the time. Like right now he has been writing invitations for two days straight with no breaks because you are holding his fight with Drakthar over him. Not to say he was right in doing that but you can’t keep using every mistake he makes against him. I know Xander will do whatever you tell him to but if you keep on as you are he is going to start holding it against you,” Kali tries to get Gwendolyn to understand.
Gwendolyn remains silent, she knows what Kali is saying is true, but it is a bad habit she has not been able to overcome.
“I don’t know what is up with you? Everything is fine,” she tries to deny it, trying to avoid this at all costs.
“Gwendolyn stop. You know what I am talking about. You are very controlling and too possessive. Not to say he isn’t yours but you could trust him a little bit more instead of just jumping to conclusions. I mean you can’t seriously tell me you don’t trust Xander fully at this point. We both know there is no way he does anything with anyone but you,” Kali piles on giving Gwendolyn more examples of the problems with her relationship.
“I know,” Gwendolyn finally acknowledges what Kali is saying after a long pause.
“It’s just complicated. I… it’s hard for me to trust people anymore… especially when it comes to relationships. I know I make it seem like Cenred is the only person I ever dated before Xander, but that isn’t true. I’ve had a bunch of boyfriends and in every single relationship I’ve had... someone has cheated. More times than not it was the guy… but I’m not completely innocent either. I know it’s unfair of me to project all of these things onto Xander all the time, he’s so much better than anyone I’ve been with… but I can’t stop the doubts from creeping in. I’ve been conditioned to expect it… I know you are right Kali, I do have to change. I’ve been avoiding it until now, but you’re right I’m going to make Xander hate me and that’s the last thing I want to do,” Gwendolyn candidly analyzes her flaws, only feeling comfortable enough to do so in the company of her closest friend.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Kali apologizes, thinking maybe she went too far. This subject seems sensitive to Gwendolyn.
“No, don’t be. I needed this. I can’t ruin this. If I do I’ll just continue this cycle of driving people away… and I don’t want Xander to leave... so thank you,” Gwendolyn tells her, grateful for what she had the courage to say.
“Wait! He is writing all of those invitations right now. I need to get back there and tell him to take a break,” Gwendolyn realizes there is something going on that could potentially hurt their relationship as she and Kali speak.
“Go get him,” Kali tells her as Gwendolyn rushes off. She lets out a deep sigh before getting up and heading to the woods to try and find Drakthar.
Gwendolyn makes it back to her room and finds Xander, who is writing the final invitation.
“Done, now I can sleep right?” he declares, glad to finally be able to rest.
“Yes! Yes… please sleep. I’m sorry for putting you through this,” Gwendolyn apologizes, confusing Xander greatly, hours ago she was adamant he finish before resting.
“Here let me help you to the bed,” she grabs his arm and helps him over there.
“Thank you…?” Xander isn’t quite sure what is going on.
Xander falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. Gwendolyn takes a look at the stack of completed invitations, each one is perfectly written exactly the same, she couldn’t tell two of them apart if she tried. She looks up from the invitation at her sleeping fiancé and starts to cry, she had been so hard on him and he was so incredibly tired yet his work is perfect. She grabs a small stack and leaves, heading towards the capital building.
A soldier spots Gwendolyn as she approaches the capital building.
“It’s you. Are you here to see the commander?” He greets her warmly knowing exactly who she is.
“Yes, her and Oswald if he is available,” Gwendolyn responds politely.
“I think we are supposed to call him his majesty now,” the soldier whispers to her, warning her against making a mistake in front of him.
“Pfft, I think I’ll accept the consequences of continuing to call him Oswald,” Gwendolyn tells him, not able to bring herself to call Oswald that.
“Okay, I guess if you want to take your chances, follow me,” the soldier bids her forward, leading her through the halls of the building. They arrive outside Avesa’s office, the very same one that used to belong to commander Volkov before he retired.
The soldier knocks on the door, “Commander, Gwendolyn is here to see you”. The door opens and they see Avesa and Oswald inside.
“Am I interrupting?” Gwendolyn asks as she enters, seeing the two of them alone and perhaps suspecting something is going on between them.
“No, I got word you were here so I came over to see you,” Oswald mentions, wanting to see one of the people that pushed all of this responsibility onto him.
“Good this makes things easier,” Gwendolyn doesn’t waste a second; handing the two of them freshly written invitations, “We would like to invite you to our wedding”.
“Oh and here is one for Alwin as well,” Gwendolyn hands Oswald a second invitation.
“I am honored that you would think to invite me to such an occasion, but I am afraid the king nor I will be able to attend. It is on the other side of the sea, a place far too dangerous for one such as he to travel,” Avesa turns them down as graciously as she possibly can.
“Actually we will be in attendance,” Oswald overrules Avesa’s decision immediately.
“My liege, you cannot be serious?” Avesa questions him, thinking he is crazy to do something so brazen.
“In fact deliver a message to the leader of the desert tribes that I wish to have a summit in Melusarej with him where we can discuss ending the war between our peoples and ensure a prosperous relationship going forward,” Oswald hands Gwendolyn a piece of parchment he had already written the same request to Hector.
“There is no way he will agree to this, the second you go they will kill you,” Avesa doesn’t give up on trying to change his mind, having been on the frontlines before and knowing exactly how ruthless the desert commanders can be.
“Why? Why would he kill the man who can single-handedly end the war against his people?” Oswald asks, pointing out the flaw in Avesa’s reasoning.
“Well… I…” Avesa tries to come up with something else to say, but she can think of nothing.
“I’ll deliver it,” Gwendolyn assures him, knowing that Avesa’s stuttering means the matter is settled.
“Thank you, I appreciate all you have done and all you continue to do for us,” Oswald tells them.
“No thank you for coming to the wedding,” Gwendolyn turns it around, wanting it to be as big an affair as possible.