One hot bath and night’s sleep later, I felt like a new man. A late breakfast came and went, and we opted to get some laundry done before returning to the road. All of us were in my room; Red, Wysteria, and Grajo were making ready to do a little training, while Tanis was getting our gear together and I was lounging on the bed, flipping through the grimoire. There was a new entry for an ignis imp (Nickels) and an onikuma (Thaddeus), neither of which provided me much more insight into their abilities than actually watching the espers fight did. My experience rose to twenty-one and I was considering upgrades to either Wysteria or Grajo to give them a bit more edge in the next fight that they lacked against Argenti’s crew. Helping out both would leave me without Xp for who-knows-how-long, though, so I decided to put it off any improvements until we crossed the threshold of thirty.

“Wysteria says you guys did some sparring with another chainer last night?” Red asked, distantly. He was surprisingly asleep when I got in, having left a key to our room at the front desk. He must’ve been burning the candle at both ends more than I understood, but he looked a lot more well-rested and bright-eyed now than he had in some time.

“Yeah, this girl named Argenti. I was surprised enough to see another chainer, nevermind one who was so enthusiastic about getting some practice in.”

“Sounds like a good night,” he breathed. Something about his posture changed, but I couldn’t quite get a read on what it meant. “Think they picked anything useful up? I could ask them, of course, and I will. But you’re the chainer; I’d like your insight.”

“Yeah, I think so,” I nodded. His tone was even, but lacking his typical lilt and peppering in the word ‘chief’ he felt… angry somehow. Upset. “They got better as the night went along, and Wysteria’s poison was amazing!”

“Glad to hear it. We should get going.” He turned for the door without looking at me, and the espers followed in tow. Grajo gave me a glance of confused sympathy as he left, which made me feel less insane about Red’s behavior. Could I have somehow offended him, or disappointed him? There was an urge inside me to follow after him and ask and make things right, if possible, but I put forth the greater effort to stay put and respect his obvious boundaries.

My mind was already full with last night’s events and my own idiotic hormones, but this unexpected mood swing of Red’s made me feel that much more screwed up and miserable. I closed the grimoire and sighed a lot over the next few minutes, looking around and trying to gather my bearings enough to determine what to do next. With my mind even more like a minefield than normal, I needed to feel constructive; create order out of the chaos and focus on that instead of a bunch of questions I had no way to gain answers for. I would talk to Red later, maybe when we made camp for the night, so we had some privacy. Argenti was most likely gone, and even if she wasn’t I would not be chasing her down to ask if she wanted to maybe date me. For so many reasons, firstly that simple politeness did not constitute a flirtatious advance, and second that I had no idea how dating worked in Barbavia. Although, the thought occurred to me that might be something actionable.

“Hey, Tanis?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you know about… dating?”

“What do you mean?” She turned sharply to look at me with an expression I couldn’t quite place. Amused? Insulted? Gassy? Perhaps I was fumbling my Focus checks today. Also, the fresh haircut really cleaned up her silhouette and gave her back some of the intimidating edge she had when she introduced herself in Varmveg, and it was distracting me.

“Well… I know how dating works on Earth, but like… some cultural stuff is pretty different here, y’know? Say I fancied someone and wanted to, like… court them. What’s the normal way to do that?”

“Well, first people tend to get to know one another,” she took a few steps toward me with more swivel in her hips than usual, her eyebrows intensely arched. “There’s some light flirting or maybe heavy flirting… then they’ll go on a date to dinner or a show or something if you’re fancy, or just hanging out together somewhere. Then, y’know. Holding hands. Touching. Kissing.”

“So… yes. Basically like Earth,” I nodded, trying to keep my composure in the face of whatever jape she was pulling with her sashay. “Followed up by marriage and children, I expect?”

“Depends on the couple,” she flopped next to me on the bed, dropping her act. “Some folks aren’t the marrying type, even if they’re the dating type.”

“And, like… casual sex, multiple partners… does all that stuff exist here, too?”

“Oh yeah. Everyone pretends like it doesn’t, and traditional ‘husband and wife’ stuff is the only thing anyone does, but people get plenty freaky.” She looked me up and down, appraisingly, that smile tickling the corner of her lips. “Were you big into hookups back home?”

“That’s a hard no,” I laughed. “I did more dating in school than you might expect, though.”

“Oh, yeah? Long line of broken hearts?”

“Well, I dunno about that. Some broken hearts, some who broke mine, others were kinda mutual.”

“Well, paint me a picture. What’s the kinda girl Glenn Anura is into? What unifying traits brought this long line of ex-lovers into your arms?”

“You make it sound so poetic,” I chortled. “I was a kid. Most of my relationships didn’t last for more than two months.”

“C’mon, don’t avoid the question.”

“Uh… most of them were pretty geeky. Do you guys have that word? ‘Geek’?”

“No.”

“Bookish, I guess? More interested in facts or niche stories than, like, athletic pursuits. Nerdy is another word for it.”

“Oh, yeah, we totally have nerds. I get you.”

“Cool. Some of them were more reserved, some were more rough around the edges. Sometimes I was drawn to them because they liked the same things I did, and I thought that was enough basis to start a relationship on. Sometimes I just liked talking to them and the way I felt around them, but we wanted different things, or we were just young and fooling around more than we realized. Sometimes they were more unstable than I bargained for. Sometimes I was the unstable one. But… no matter how many times things went south, I kept plugging away at trying to find The One. I really wanted to live that dream of settling down with your high school sweetheart and building a life right away so I could clear that goal and make way for everything else. Plenty of time to start a career, get a house, have some kids… but… I dunno. That didn’t end up happening for me, and I changed my mind about kids later on…”

“I get that. Growing up without parents really changes your perspective on procreation. I caught up with a few people from the orphanage after we all grew up, ran into them while workin’ the gig. It made them wanna do better for their kids, sorta doubled them down on that lifestyle. Not me. I don’t feel mature enough to be raising sprogs, even if a lot of people ten years younger than me are doing it.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six. You?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Huh. I would not have painted you as older than me.”

“Because I’m so irresponsible and carefree?” I joked.

“No, I guess I just think of people older than me being… like… bald and wrinkly.”

“There’s only two years’ difference between us, Tanis.”

“Yeah, I’m not saying it makes sense. It’s just how my brain works.” She shook her head and waved her hands to move things along. “Anyhow, what happened that changed your mind? On kids, I mean.”

“My first major girlfriend out of high school. We were pretty irresponsible in general, and we fought all the time. One night we were literally on the floor screaming at each other over… god, something I don’t even remember. It was small and pointless, whatever it was. And it just sort of hit me, us getting so worked up over something that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I started laughing and said ‘man, we’d make terrible parents’.”

“Oh come on, you can’t really believe that. You’re kind, and nurturing--”

“Maybe I am,” I stopped her with an upraised palm. “But the ship has sailed. I thought about it a lot after that night, and the more I thought about it the more I realized even if I would be a good dad, it’s not what I actually wanted. I like my free time. I like my hobbies. I’ve struggled a lot with mental health, just dealing with my own issues, keeping the stupid, broken way my brain works in check while trying to scrape by making a living... I mean, there’s another reason right there. I don’t have the money to raise a kid, and I sure as hell don’t have the patience. I don’t wanna put myself through that, or them. I don’t wanna be responsible for bringing someone into existence, y’know? For snapping at them if they screw up or lashing out at them because I had a bad day. For forcing them to face whatever fresh hell of disaster the world throws at them in their lives. Whatever satisfaction I’d get out of seeing their accomplishments, whatever bond we’d share and the joy I’d get out of it just isn’t worth doing that to someone, especially when they don’t get a say in their participation on the matter. And that’s only if things went well and the kid and I got along. I’ve literally cried over spilt milk before, I can’t imagine how it would tear out my heart to hear my child say they hated me. I had enough of that from my ex.”

“Jeeze, she told you she hated you?”

“She was pissed off,” I shrugged. “She didn’t mean it.”

“She’s also not around anymore. Don’t make excuses for her. I mean, why the hell did you stay with this lady for five years!?” Tanis’ face looked like an upside-down bucket, with the handle her impressive, disgusted frown.

“I fell into the same trap a lot of my friends from school did; she was interested in me, and represented the stability I so desperately wanted, even if she didn’t actually provide it. It was easier to stay with her, suffer, and assume I was the human garbage she said I was if it meant keeping this tattered mockery of a concept teenage me was so dedicated to in reach.”

“That… really sucks, Glenn. I’m so sorry.” She laid a comforting hand on my knee and I shifted uncomfortably a bit on the bed to keep things in platonic places, but not enough as to brush off her efforts at consoling me; I wanted the comfort her hand provided, and maybe even a little bit the tingles of excitement. “What finally ended things between you guys?

“It wasn’t just one thing, really. It built up for a long time before it finally exploded. There was a lot she didn’t like about me, and I wasn’t my best self back then. But she lied to me, stole from me… cheated on me. That one was the last straw. Even then, for a little while I considered forgiving her because I was so averse to going back out into the dating pool. Honestly, the more I look back on it, the more I realize I should’ve read the signs and gotten out sooner… but I fell in love with her before all that happened, so I was willing to stick my head in the sand and ignore things, and have patience when stuff popped up too obvious for me to ignore.”

“Oh,” Tanis voice was sympathetic with concern at first, but after a moment of thought she repeated herself, louder and more surprised. “Oh. So… I really rooted around in your old baggage with the whole grimoire thing, huh?”

“It’s… not like that,” I shook my head and waved her off. “We fought a lot, like I said. Especially toward the end. She took every crumb of opportunity to loudly disagree with me, or challenge me, or however you wanna put it. She wore me out… nevermind that I spent most of my early twenties arguing on the internet with other nerds about—” I remembered where I was and who I was talking to. “Uh… the internet is like… what if everyone could open a book and use it to talk to each other. Like… everyone. No matter how far apart they are.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“That sounds amazing and also terrible.”

“You hit the nail on the head. For years I used it to get into dick-measuring contests about stuff I was interested in. Between that, and her, and just… life… I’m tired of arguing, at this point. Tired of fighting. So, yeah, while you snooping around in my stuff might’ve been adjacent to the kinds of things my ex would do, it’s not the same. You had your reasons and you were honest about it when everything came out. She kept doing it, even after I’d caught her in the act. She was like that about everything.” I sighed and shook my head. Bitching about past relationships wasn’t my goal in talking to Tanis about dating, as cathartic as it was. Reliving it trudged up old memories that made me feel uncomfortable, both about the way she treated me and the way I treated myself at the time. The way I treated others. Focusing on the present felt like a healthier option. “Besides, I like to think I’ve learned how to better see when people are worth my time, and I see that in you. Even if you make mistakes, y’know. I can forgive that. Especially when I made my own mistakes, and there really wasn’t any harm done in the end.”

“Well… thank you, Glenn.” She leaned against me, putting her head to my shoulder, the point of her ear tickling my neck a bit. “I’ll try to live up to what you see in me.”

“Do your best. That’s all I ask. That’s all any of us can do.” Silence flowed around us for a moment, but I didn’t want silence, or the company of my own thoughts that came along with it, so I broke it. “What about you? Have you done a lot of dating?”

“Not really. I spent a lot of time surrounded by people twice or three times my age, and despite what they might like to think, I was not interested.”

“Gross.”

“It is what it is. At least the people under Sid were cool enough to take ‘no’ for an answer. I’ve heard stories—” she stopped herself and held up a hand to shift gears away from that particular thread of conversation. “Anyhow, there was this guy about… jeeze, ten years ago at this point. Miquello. He was human, like you. Skinny as a rail, good with his hands. He used to write poetry. I don’t know if it was very good, but you know how I am about music and stories; it just enraptured me that he could put thoughts like that together into words, and that they’d evoke feelings...” She tapered off lest out of wistful remembrance and more from struggling to put into words herself how much the craft meant to her.

“I get it,” I nodded. “My friend, Mike, who I talked about before? He usually ran the roleplaying games we played. He’s not the kind of guy who would write a story or a song, but putting it in the context of a game like that, he just becomes this fountainhead of creative energy. It’s like you step into this fully realized world of his creation, a pastiche of all his favorite stuff woven together with his own ideas and… it’s just good. It’s really, really good. Seeing something like that and knowing your friend created it is really extra magical. Like your own private rockstar.”

“Exactly! It was so cool, and he was so sweet. Sid hired him as a juggler-slash-second story man and a week later he was my boyfriend. We were only together for a few months, but I was smitten. Then we were in a little town in Mirismiza pulling a job for the circus, and… it just… all went wrong.” Her enthusiasm dwindled as the tone of the tale became more somber. “We had to run and split up. He ran into the woods to escape, I ran back toward town…” She trailed off again, this time because her emotions were getting to her.

“Did he not come back?”

“I keep forgetting you’re not from around here, even when you just got done telling me about your internet books. I don’t know how, but I do,” she chuckled, sitting up straight. “Mirismiza is a stretch of woods in Northwest Teren Balt, a little further East than where we went into Astonia. The husk termites are bad there, so most of the trees are hollowed out with barely enough structural integrity to stay standing. Add that to the mist rolling in from the North, and visibility is garbage. So, people don’t go there… so there’s more monsters living obscured in the mist and amongst the shells of dead trees than you’d find in your average forest wilderness. It’s a great place to lose yourself in a panic and get eaten by who-knows-what. We found the bag of loot and what was left of Miquello two days later. He didn’t make it very far in before he ran into… something. I don’t know. I try not to think about it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s… it’s okay. It is what it is. These things happen.”

“Not as much where I come from. I’ve lost a relationship for a lot of reasons, but none so tragic as that. I had a friend in high school who took her own life, but she was just a friend and a distant one at that. It still messed me up for a long time after.” I put my arm around Tanis’ shoulder and hugged her toward me. We still weren’t really face-to-face, and with her otherwise buried in my robes I couldn’t tell if she was shedding tears, but her body felt tense and cold. I just wanted to ease some warmth back into it.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “It was a long time ago, and I’ve been with other people since then… but it’s just been little flings, y’know?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Flings aren’t really my style, personally. Even when things only lasted a couple of months, I was trying for something more long-term, or at least that was my intention.”

“I think I could say the same. You think someone is more trustworthy than they really are, or maybe you’re just not as compatible as you first thought, and you jumped into things too fast…” She wiped her eyes and sniffled, returning her hand to my knee when she’d finished. “So… why did you ask me about dating? Did this Argenti girl from last night seem interested in you, or something?”

“No, but I’ve been having… feelings, lately. Urges. I finally adjusted to being in Barbavia and not back home, and now this craving has kicked in. Sex always used to be a side benefit for me, y’know? So it’s not quite that, but… returned affection. Closeness. Intimacy, in whatever form that might take. My mind keeps playing fantasies of being tangled all up in somebody, holding someone, being held…”

“… like you and I are right now?” Tanis used a very careful, neutral tone with her question. She might not be directly encouraging or discouraging of the situation, but she was making a point. I looked down at her looking up at me and caught her eyes for a few seconds. My arm was still around her, and she was nestled into my ample curves, one hand curled behind me and the other having moved slowly from my knee to my thigh. It felt natural in a way I hadn’t expected, like the familiar routine of sharing personal space with someone had kicked in without me thinking about it. Of course, now that it was brought to my attention it shattered the illusion and I was suddenly hyper-conscious of every point of contact between us.

“Well.” My mouth was suddenly bone dry, and I swallowed audibly. “I mean, yeah. Like this. But we’re not… together. We still have boundaries. I couldn’t just settle next to you like this on any random day. It’s not like we’re in love or something.”

“Have you only ever been intimate with someone you were in love with?”

“I…” Infatuation and lust absolutely fueled several encounters in my younger days. Even if I called them ‘love’ then, I’d be a fool to do the same now. “… no. I suppose not.”

“Is my closeness not good enough, then?” She grinned to accentuate the light teasing in her voice.

“No, it’s… great, actually.” An exhale of relief came with that admission. “I wasn’t even thinking about it, but I feel a lot calmer right now than I have in a while.”

“Me too. I haven’t felt this at peace since… well, that first night in Brum.”

“So, wait, was… when we went to see Indomitable, was that a date?”

“I mean, we got dressed up and watched a fancy play, then giggled and held hands while cavorting in the snow. Is that not romantic as hell?” Somehow, she managed to simultaneously play up being faux-insulted while sounding very proud of her awesome date-building skills.

“Did you mean for it to be a date?”

“I dunno, Glenn, I don’t really think that hard about what I’m doing. I wanted to do something nice for you, so I did. I like talking with you and spending time with you, so I do. Being close to you right now feels amazing, so… I’m doing it. Does there have to be… intent?”

“I’m used to there being intent, I guess. I’m big into monogamy, personally.”

“I am too,” she laughed. “I’m just saying, there doesn’t have to be anything, like… official between us. Especially if we’re only being cozy with each other. I’ve sat like this with friends before, and it’s not like some kind of label-worthy feelings bloomed between me and them.”

“All right, but I’m afraid if we made a habit of this, I’d start feeling something.”

“Would that be so bad?”

I didn’t know how to answer that question. Of course I found her attractive, and our mutual embrace felt like a breath of fresh, clean air after a year stuck in the smog. I’d long since progressed from finding her quirks and idiosyncrasies annoying to finding them endearing, and overall the vibe between us had matured into something more than the relationship between a bodyguard and her employer. But I would be foolish to take things to a higher level, even as an experiment. It had only been a few weeks since leaving Brum and all the drama that came with it. Things were better between us, but there were certain bridges of trust we hadn’t quite mended completely, and that wasn’t the kind of foundation I’d want to start something on. My brain started rapid-firing reasons not to give in to the comfortable-sounding safety of being more open with my feelings, providing ample support for any idea that put ready access to dopamine and serotonin further from my grasp as it was wont to do. What if things ended poorly? I’d lose a friend, a bodyguard, and might even make an enemy of someone who knew my only secrets in this world. Of course, that could happen without us trying to pursue something deeper, and really didn’t seem like Tanis’ modus opernadi at this point. Even stealing the grimoire on her exit would be foolish, since we’d know exactly who to blame and precisely where she was headed with it.

“No… it wouldn’t,” I finally answered. “But… there’s this anxiety I just can’t shake, and I promised myself a year ago that the next time I thought about getting involved with someone, that I would make sure I was completely comfortable before jumping in with both feet. A lot of me really wants to give it a try, especially right now, in this moment… but I’m not sure I can be there, yet. For you, or for myself. I don’t wanna start something unless I feel like I can see it through. I don’t wanna have to deal with the heartbreak if I screw things up like I have in the past, and I especially wouldn’t want to lose a friend on top of that. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I’m not gonna pretend I’m not disappointed, but I get it.”

“Thank you. If it’s any consolation, I’m sure you could do a hell of a lot better than pudgy, frumpy old Glenn.”

“Stop being mean to my friend,” she said sternly, pinching my thigh. “You’re more than your physical appearance, which I happen to find both comely and cuddly. Besides, I like you because I like you, who you are on the inside. The packaging is nice, but it’s not as important as everyone makes it out to be.”

“Yeah… I would probably say the same thing, myself, if the shoe were on the other foot.”

I moved my hand from her shoulder to the back of her freshly-shorn head, rubbing softly at the short, white hairs and losing myself in a gyre of thoughts. Following my own advice was never something I took to easily, and ironically a part of that advice was to stop judging people today for their actions from years ago. I hated the ghost of my past mistakes, and yet here I was with a fresh start to everything, still allowing myself to be haunted by them. There was no harm in being more careful, certainly, but I’d always been envious of people who were able to be more open with their physical affection. I used to be a hugger, but I lost that somewhere in my mid-twenties along with so many other vestiges of someone whose positive aspects I missed dearly. Friends can cuddle, right? Tanis said so. Some friends even kiss, and it means absolutely nothing. Ravers and furries even descend into ‘cuddle puddles’, or so I’d heard, just snuggling together in a group and enjoying the vibe… or whatever drugs they might be on. Did something about who I was disallow me from even trying? Did it have to?

“Y’know… on second thought… let’s… uh… can we try this for a while?”

“… wait, really?” Tanis shifted to lock eyes with me again, leaning her back against my knee and hanging her own legs off the foot of the bed. Her pupils searched my face for something, confused disbelief written in her scrunched-up nose as though she’d reasonably expected the matter to be closed with my refusal.

“Yeah. Maybe it’s a bad idea and everything I’m scared will happen will happen, but… maybe it won’t. Maybe we can keep it platonic, or if we become an item somewhere down the line, maybe it’d be a good thing.”

“And if we can’t? If it doesn’t?”

“I dunno. I’m not the same person I was five years ago… or, hell, one year ago. I doubt I’d make the same mistakes I did back then, and I might make all brand-new ones, but I can’t know that unless I try. Maybe I’d be missing something really special by denying such an intrinsic craving, something you seem to want, as well. How can we know unless we find out for ourselves? And is avoiding of consequences that might never come to pass worth never knowing we tried?”

“I’m not in love with you, Glenn.” That had to be the most considerate and encouraging way someone could speak those words. “I mean, I love you, I think. Like I love Sid, or a lot of the other people in the carnival. Like I love Red, and Wysteria, and Grajo. But I’m not trying to sneak my way into your heart, or your pants. Not yet, anyway. Not right now. I don’t know how else to put it, but you just feel… safe. Ever since that night in Brum, but for the misunderstanding before we left, every time I felt nervous or scared, or unsure… I just wanted to be close to you again. Watching you play music for us around the fire every night… it felt like the home I’ve never had. Like my own version of the Tanner Clan books. I feel like I belong with you guys, and I just wanna wrap myself up in it all and never let go.”

Unshed tears shined like glass over her bright red eyes. She sniffled again and wiped them clean with a frustrated sigh. I dabbed at my own damp cheeks with a bit of my robe, swimming in complicated emotions. There was no pining feeling in my chest that typically signaled a crush. Being touched by someone whose shapes caught my eye was certainly titillating, but I wasn’t so much lusting after her as I was after anything that satisfied my preferences. More than either of the feelings that had lead me down the path of courtship before, I felt a resonance with her words; an echo of that desire to feel like a welcome part of something bigger than myself. Everything became so much more clear in that instant, and the answers felt more easy to grasp.

“I love you too, Tanis.” I held up a finger, reciting her same clarifications. “Like Red, and Wysteria, and Grajo. Like a very dear friend. And I think we could both benefit from a little touch now and then, living on the road and not staying anywhere for long. Moments like this, or around the fire. If you’re feeling lonely or sad, or anything where you could use a little comfort.”

“I’d like that,” she nodded. “And the same goes for you, obviously. I’d feel super weird if I was just coming to you all the time. And… if it starts to make you uncomfortable or you think you’re catching feelings you don’t want, just say the word and we can cool things off.”

“I appreciate that.”

“We should probably finish getting packed, though, so we’re ready to hit the road when Red gets back.” Tanis cleared her throat and sat up from my lap before leaning down to embrace me in a tight hug. She was so much stronger than her form implied, and I hugged back as firmly as I could. “Thanks, Glenn. For everything. For… being you.”

“I don’t know how to be anyone else.”