The elite warriors held their morning practice at the break of dawn. Ruyi thought this was a most heinous practice, since she usually woke up around noon, or possibly later depending on how much she’d drunk.

“Lula.”

She groaned. “Stop…”

“Lula.”

She held on tighter. A sigh. “Lula, we must go.” Strong hands pried off her arms and she found herself hugging air. Blearily she cracked an eye open.

She was in Darius’s tent again. Why was she…? Oh.

Last night at the feast she remembered seeing Darius laughing with some common warrior girl a few tables away, and feeling sicker and sicker. She felt a strong urge to go up to them and drag him away she barely managed to resist.

She remembered feeling ridiculous. She didn’t even like him, but seeing him with someone else just felt wrong when he’d been with her. She knew this kind of thing meant nothing to him—he’d probably slept with half the camp—but it meant something to her.

Late at night, after flopping around so lonely she couldn’t sleep, she’d made her way to his tent and threw herself at him. After they were done they settled down for sleep, and she complained a bit about how un-cuddle-able he was—too big and muscley—but he was warm, and it was much better than being alone.

She flopped onto her face. “Leave me ‘lone.”

Then the covers came off. She found herself ten feet off the ground, blinking at the snow.

“I’ll carry you out like this if I must,” said Darius, holding her aloft. “Or would you like to dress first?”

“I hate you,” said Ruyi. But when he set her down, she got dressed. It took her a little to find where everything had gone.

“What was bothering you last night?” he said.

“What’d you mean?”

Her top had somehow gone under a trunk. She tried yanking it out, but it wouldn’t budge.

“When you arrived. You seemed…ill at ease.”

It was a nice way of saying she was in tears. “Oh, that’s just how I normally am after midnight,” said Ruyi, which was true, so she supposed it wasn’t a total lie. Then, as casually as she could, “Who was that girl?”

“What girl?”

“The one you were talking to at the feast.”

“Lula,” he said with an amused sigh. “You’ll need to be more specific.”

She was feeling sick again. She managed to yank out the top. “You don’t need them,” she told him. “You should get rid of them. I can come to you every day if you want.”

“Uhh.”

She pulled on her top. “Really,” she said, turning to face him.

Darius blinked at her; then he laughed, and a lazy smile crept across his face. “Are you getting jealous?”

“No,” said Ruyi quickly. Then she thought about it. “…maybe a little.”

She knew it was dumb—they weren’t even together, and she didn’t even like him like that. But she was; she couldn’t help it.

His smile softened. “Oh, Lula. You make a lovely friend, truly—but we’ve spoken about this! If it is to be this way, perhaps you should search elsewhere. Someone else can give you what you want.”

“No!” cried Ruyi, grabbing onto his arm. “I mean—um. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. We can still be friends, right?”

“Of course we can still be friends, you silly little buffoon,” sighed Darius. He ran a hand through his hair. “Are you always like this with lovers?”

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“Like what?” said Ruyi, wrapping herself around his arm. It was one long slab of corded muscle; it felt solid, comforting. She could hold onto him forever.

“This,” he said, gesturing to her.

“I don’t get it.”

“You are very…how shall I say… attached?”

“Heh?” Ruyi thought about it. Then she thought about how she was with Tingting and Sen. “I guess so…”

“Do you think,” said Darius, subtly trying to wiggle out the arm—Ruyi wouldn’t let him—“Do you think this is perhaps… not the most healthy thing?”

Ruyi frowned at him.

“Why?”

Darius managed to get an elbow free of her. He smiled awkwardly at her. “Perhaps it is like this. My uncle Varus—he liked his wine, especially of drakesblood vintage. He would have a dozen bottles a day at his worst. Perhaps certain kinds of touch, for you, are like that. Or rather, shall we call it—physical intimacy? Varus knew he could not be trusted around wine, so he made certain to keep away from it, and eventually come to have it, but only on special occasions. And in this way, he has come to manage his habit.”

Ruyi stared blankly at him.

“I am saying,” he said patiently. “If you know you are prone to alcoholism, perhaps it is best to stay away from wine.”

“It is?”

“Oh, Heavens,” sighed Darius.

“Are you saying you don’t want me?” Tears stung at her eyes. “Is it because I’m too chubby? Am I not pretty enough for you, is that—eeee!”

Suddenly Ruyi found herself upside down. Darius held her by her ankles, and she was bobbing up and down, her nose dipping the snow.

“What are you doing?!” she cried. She shoved off him and stumbled to her feet.

“Shaking some sense into you,” he said with a playful smile. “Has it worked?”

“You—!” She flushed, then punched him in the chest, then she took a deep breath, then another, and sighed. “Yeah… I guess…”

She supposed she was being stupid again.

“Listen to me,” he said, holding her gaze, cupping her cheeks in his hands. “You are a wonderful, beautiful girl. It is no easy thing for me to say this, because you are, as I have mentioned, an incredibly attractive girl. But despite the astonishing degree to which I desire you, perhaps it is best for the both of us if we do not do this anymore. Not everyone is made for empty loving.”

She knew he was making fun of her neediness, but hearing him call her all those things still made her feel better. “I hate you,” she said anyways.

“Come with me,” he said, taking her by the shoulder, not like a lover—kind of like Jin used to do. “You are no longer permitted to be silly this morning. I forbid it.”

“Okay…”

They went off to dawn practice together.

“I suppose it is my own fault. Alas, I am simply too handsome. You can’t help but fall for me.” He smirked, and she aimed a kick at him, and he laughed, and the weirdness between them melted away. She realized now when he said half his boasts, he didn’t mean them. They were there to make her feel better.

***

Ruyi found a few things out about Darius that morning—the first was he was a prick, but he wasn’t as much of a prick as she’d thought. The second, at practice, was that he was surprisingly good at fighting. His demonform was a gryphon, and he was giving Rufus quite the beating. As it turned out Rufus was one of the weakest of the praetorianus; Darius, to her surprise, might even be stronger than her!

She also found out she couldn’t be trusted to be a good second. When Darius was called for his second duel, she insisted on being his second. Then when Aelia landed two good shots on him she forfeited for him, stomped onto the field, and almost fought Aelia herself she was so mad. As it turned out Darius was perfectly fine, and actually rather mad at Ruyi for calling it off so early. Ruyi didn’t understand why he had to fight at all. Wasn’t he just asking to get hurt? She thought he should be an instructor or something, or maybe one of those lute-players who stayed behind during the battles. When she told him this, heard herself aloud, even she realized she sounded a little nuts.

After that she realized he had a point. It was kind of silly how quickly she grew close to him—she hardly even knew him. It’d been three days! Maybe he was right; maybe she ought to get ahold of herself a little more, maybe stay away from getting too close to people for a bit, at least physically. This didn’t seem normal.

She told him as much afterwards, and he seemed relieved.

“See, you are already better than me,” he said. “You not only know you have a problem, you are already doing something about it! I have not gotten to the second part.”

He put a finger to his lips. “Perhaps you are too attached with these things, and perhaps I am too detached. I imagine there is some middle ground for us. Perhaps we can learn from each other.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” scoffed Ruyi. “I don’t even like you.”

“Oh, I believe that. Yet you also threatened to maim poor Aelia for lightly grazing me.”

“And?” She didn’t see the contradiction.

“Lula, if I asked you to throw yourself off of the peak of Mt. Olympus for me, would you?”

“Of course,” said Ruyi, baffled.

“There is the issue!” said Darius. He touched her head with his pointer finger. “You cannot simply mold yourself to what others desire of you, silly Lula. You must have some sense of self-respect. Self-reliance, perhaps. I am an immensely patient and understanding man, of course—” He winked. “But a lesser man might find you cloying. An even lesser man might take advantage of you.”

Ruyi’s heart sank. Did he just call her cloying? Was that how she came off to him? How could she be so stupid? He was pretty much her only real friend here; she was terrified he’d leave her.

“You want me to be more self-reliant? If that’s what you want I can do it,” she said earnestly. “Whatever you want—”

She blinked. Then she buried her face in her hands.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “I’ll work on it…”