Iris woke up in her new bed and sat up, moving heavy comforters out of the way; she was still in the house Arylos bought and decorated her room with various paintings and a collection of various stuffed animals she thought were cute. The peace and quiet had begun to get to her; this was all starting to feel like a fever dream to her.

She got up from her bed, wearing the blue satin sleepwear Arylos had bought her in Kajisho; apparently it wasn’t all a dream. Everything seemed so unreal since Nageki was destroyed that now that reality has set in for Iris, she couldn’t believe any of it happened.

She went to the bathroom down the hall and peered into Arylos’s room to see if he was there. She kind of admired his simplicity; a simple bed that was always perfectly made, a small bookcase with a few titles Iris had never heard of, and a wine rack next to a desk in front of the window to the back of the room. However, no Arylos in sight.

Iris decided to go to the bathroom and started brushing her teeth as she contemplated it all. They had been staying in Sentoraya for a few weeks now, her recent dinner with the Dariki’s now a memory, and Iris had taken to her new life pretty well, although she did contract adventuring for work and often with Garris volunteering her. It was difficult, but it was fun. Arylos on the other hand apparently took to his old work with the Khymr order. It turns out he is also a Khymr Lord but rules no region so while he’s in Sentoraya, he assists Garris with his Kaiyumian tasks.

Iris spat out the minty paste and rinsed her mouth. This all seemed unreal, like some strange dream. She still couldn’t believe just how much her life has changed over the past few weeks.. Iris went down the stairs and went into the living area; a simple sofa and end tables on both ends and a torotsu in front. Iris thought about hanging paintings or other decorations and Arylos gave her free reign to do so, but she never made up her mind.

She walked over to the dining area and sat down at the table and rested her head on it. She could hear noises in the kitchen and could see the back of Arylos’s head from the kitchen bar. Eventually he turned and Iris could see his dark red eyes; yep, it wasn’t a dream, this was all real.

“Well look who’s awake,” Arylos said with a smile in his traditional growling voice. “I assume you need tea?”

“Coffee milk please,” Iris groned, not quite ready to face the day just yet. Sometimes, she wishes something would wake her up; slap her in the face and tell her that all of this is just some strange dream. Roommates with a Titan that she still knew very little about.

Arylos set the bottle of chilled coffee milk down in front of Iris and she decided lazing about like this isn’t good for her health and started to drink the refreshing beverage.

“I was beginning to wonder how late you were going to sleep in,” Arylos chuckled.

“What are you, my mom?” Iris teased after drinking.

“Isn’t it my job to watch over you now?” Arylos returned and took a seat at the table across from Iris.

“You’ve been saying that,” Iris responded while laying her head back onto the table. “Part of me is still trying to sort out that none of this is a dream.”

“What do you mean?” Arylos asked while tilting his head.

Iris sighed, trying to find a way to explain this to Arylos. “A few weeks ago, I lived in my own village, kind of like how we live here now. And then it’s all gone one day and now I’m travelling with the most inhuman person I could have imagined. And now we’re here in the capital city, living life like I used to with that same inhuman person as my roommate. I feel like this is some made up story.”

“How do you think I feel?” Arylos returned. “This is the most peaceful my life has been for a while. It’s still an adjustment period for me; I keep thinking something will happen and throw all of this out of balance.”

Iris thought about it for a moment; Arylos’s life must have been chaotic for a long time. Arylos got up from the table and Iris had a question come to her.

“Why did my ancestors fight you?” she asked.

Arylos stopped and turned back towards Iris. “Fear drives men to do strange things, like rejecting an outstretched hand offering help because they fear the person offering it.”

Iris had heard all of this before from Arylos. It seemed like people have this habit of being terrified of him and trying to kill him.

The tapestry.

She remembered the tapestry she bought and kept hidden from Arylos; the one that depicted him as a monster atop a mountain of corpses. She had seen Arylos kill and destroy but she couldn’t bring herself to truly fear him at this point. She had seen his other face and it was far less threatening than what people believe.

“Come now,” Arylos instructed. “We have shopping to do today.”

Iris reluctantly put on some casual clothes and her and Arylos left the house and walked towards the markets as the midday sun shone down on the city, partly blacked out by the giant mountain. She looked to Arylos and a part of her thought it was funny. She saw this man rip wings off of a valkyrie and tear apart men that were going to kill her with his bare hands.

Yet that man is walking next to her wearing simple black casual clothes with a jacket to cover his tattoos and a few bags on his arm. He looked like a retired soldier turned househusband. It was hard to imagine the same man that did all of that as the one next to her. Maybe she was beginning to see him less of a monster and more of a man. Is that a good thing?

The two arrive at the markets and Arylos set out on a plan of attack; striking deals with various merchants and bargain hunting like his life depended on it. He negotiated for cheaper cuts of meat, got extra fillets of mackerel, and even found a deal on a bag of cream bread.

Iris separated from Arylos for a bit, looking through the other merchants. She looked through various wares of clothes and decorations for the house and maybe even more for her room. Settling into Sentoraya is still very strange but at the end of the day, it wasn’t out of the ordinary. In fact, being a newcomer felt refreshing; it meant she was less stressed overall and could live a normal life and walk through a market like this without people pestering her.

“Are you kidding me?!” a very familiar growling voice howled through the air.

Oh no, thought Iris; she still had one source of stress. She ran to where the voice came from, concerned that she let her guard down too much. She finally got to Arylos, her heart expecting the worst. Yet he was standing in front of a greengrocer with a head of cabbage in his hand.

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“Spring cabbage for a hundred Marks a head?” he continued shouting. “I’ll take the whole damn shipment!”

Iris sighed in relief. She wants to have more faith in him but she really can’t take him anywhere. Iris came up beside Arylos as he was purchasing some of the cabbage.

“Can you not give me grey hairs please?” she told Arylos in a soft voice. “I could hear you from across the alley.”

“But it’s such a good deal; they really know how to rob a guy,” Arylos replied with a smile. “I have just one more stop to make.”

The two continued down to another shop in the market and Arylos gathered teas and various goods like honey and sauces.

“This store is a lot bigger than I was expecting,” Arylos said aloud. “They really do have–”

He was stopped as Iris placed a glass bottle of sparkling pineapple juice in his bag. He stared at the drink in his bag for a moment.

“We already have some of that back at the house,” Arylos said in protest.

“No harm in stocking up,” Iris responded with a big smile.

Arylos took the bottle out of his bag and returned it to its place. “Uh-uh. If we do, you won’t stop drinking that crap.”

“Awwww boo!” Iris responded in protest.

Arylos wasn’t about to let Iris drain him. Sure, he would like to let her get what she wants, but he’s still recovering from how much he spent on her in Kajisho; he learned a hard and valuable lesson that day.

Iris presented a big box of assorted sweets.

“Uh-uh.”

Iris presented boxes of various board games.

“Uh-uh.”

Iris presented an intricate and delicate wood carving of a dragon.

“Uh-uh.”

“Ugh, can I get anything I want?” Iris asked, fuming in frustration.

“You realise I’m the one buying, right?” Arylos returned in a neutral voice.

Iris crossed her arms and grumbled. “You could still be nice every now and then, you vampire looking ass!”

Arylos growled while gritting his teeth. He’s learning yet another lesson; he spoiled Iris too much. He can’t retort because realistically it’s his fault she’s like this in a way.

His fanged frown faded. Realistically, it’s his fault she’s with him now.

“That poor woman,” a woman’s voice whispered amongst the nearby crowd. Iris caught the voice and looked to see two elderly ladies whispering to each other.

“Is it a home problem? Or is he a gang member?” one of the women suggested.

“He must be from a gang; she looks like such an upstanding citizen,” the other suggested.

“What has this world come to?” the first woman responded.

Iris became visibly flustered, embarrassed by the whole situation.

Arylos understood how this looked to passersby. “I’m sorry,” he told her, bowing his head. “This is just difficult for me. Humans are strange and rely on their emotions for their judgement while I use facts and math. It’s bizarre for me to now consider emotions with that and I don’t really understand it at all.”

“To be fair, you were last here almost three thousand years ago,” Iris responded and taking Arylos’s hand. “Things were different then; we were at war, close to death. And when you wake up, things are peaceful and we’ve changed a lot since then and you were only exposed to this within the last few weeks, almost a month. It’s a bit jarring, like how I woke up one day not thinking my village would be destroyed and yet it was and I’m now living with you. Things and people change.”

People change, Arylos nodded as he told himself. Iris was right; the last time he was here, Kaiyumi was at war. Their whole world was ravaged and they were facing extinction. People were afraid of him, but they had the Reig to fear more. They have changed, but that was the problem. The war was so long ago and one thing bugged Arylos.

The Kaiyumae haven’t changed at all since the war.

Later on, night came and Iris spent that night in the living room on the sofa, enjoying some of her pineapple juice and enjoying the raging flames in the fireplace while wrapped up in blankets. She thought about how people fear Arylos and wondered if she should as well. He’s an unknown in her life, the biggest unknown she could have imagined. He is so many things and yet far beyond inhuman.

She looked over and in the study, she could see Arylos tidying up papers on his desk and putting away books. He looked…normal. Iris was reminded that she is starting to forget what he is and starting to see him as human.

Arylos put out the candles in the study and came up next to the sofa with a glass of a dark red liquor in his hand.

“You’re going to bed before I am?” Iris asked with a chuckle.

“I’ve been getting a taste for it,” Arylos replied. “It’s a good way to clear my mind. Especially since I don’t have to keep one eye open.”

The two laughed at the idea for a moment, a nervous chuckle of understanding of Arylos’s situation. “I’m sorry I acted the way I did,” Iris told Arylos with a fading smile.

Arylos stood in silence, thinking about what to say. He then came up behind Iris and rested his hand on her scalp, petting her head. “It’s alright,” he told her with a warm smile. “I need to be better at understanding you as well. If anything, we’re still learning about each other.”

“Right, a human and an inhuman,” Iris replied, appreciative for Arylos’s kind gesture. “There is a lot more we need to know about each other.” Iris felt a nerve strike in her; she had one question to ask. She jumped up to face Arylos.

“What actually happened to the Titans?” she asked him.

Arylos froze in place, like an arrow had been shot right through him. Iris felt bad as she watched his warm smile fade and be replaced by wide sorrowful eyes and a sour expression. He was frozen in place like a statue, unwilling or unable to move or answer.

“I’m sorry,” Iris said after seeing Arylos like this and took the hand that was on her scalp and cupped it in her own. “I want to know, but I understand if that’s too painful for you.”

Arylos shook his head. “If it satisfies your curiosity, I can keep it simple,” he told her, still trying to form a proper explanation. “A lot happened, at the end of it all, we destroyed ourselves.”

“You destroyed yourselves? Like a war?” Iris clarified.

“It was less of a war and more of a massacre,” Arylos sighed and repeated his promise to her. “One day, I’ll tell you everything. That day may not be for a while, but you will know everything.”

Iris nodded, satisfied with that answer and unwilling to press further. Arylos smiled and made his way upstairs to his room and all Iris could do was sit back down in her place on the sofa. She took out the tapestry she bought out from under one of her blankets, showing Arylos as a killer, a monster. She bought it, but she couldn’t understand why; she just needed it. But this isn’t how she sees Arylos, even if he is capable of this destruction. Why get it?

She thought about today and how Arylos was intimidating to people, but she didn’t feel that. Was it some acceptance of him? Now that she has seen that he’s not entirely a monster, she can’t see him as a monster in his entirety? This made little sense, but maybe it didn’t need to.

She looked into the fires of the fireplace and admired how the flames danced and churned, the sound of the wood crackling, the flickering light and the waves of heat. It was comforting in this time of unease. In fact, he was a lot like fire; destructive and dangerous, but comforting and beneficial as well. Maybe that’s the thing; people fear fire but many also see it as a source of warmth and comfort. Maybe you just need to be careful with Arylos like you would a fire.

She realised why she felt compelled to buy the tapestry now.

She rolled it up and threw it into the flames and watched as the flames consumed it. The threads snapped and burned, the fire hissed and crackled with the offering, the tapestry popped and smoked as the flames destroyed the tapestry. This is it; he’s a monster, a demon, a creature. But he also has a heart and deep down, he’s all alone and sad. She saw him destroy and kill with no remorse, but she won’t forget the remorse he showed when her friends and family were cremated after Nageki was destroyed; how he learned each of their names and wouldn’t forget it.

She wouldn’t forget how sad he was when he told her that he is the last of his kind.