As night descended the sound of voices faded away, leaving only the crackle of flame to accompany him. Gren closed his eyes, inhaling the mixed smells of smoke and a strong, bitter drink of indeterminate age.

“Do you want to be alone?”

He opened his eyes to see Dorothea crouching in front of him. She’d been off chatting with everyone else for at least a half hour each but had broken off and talked with Rhys for two hours before everyone had broken apart. “I’d appreciate your company,” he said quietly, “if you’re willing to give it.” Could he hold a conversation for two hours? Not with most people. With her? Definitely. She wouldn’t mind having to wait for him to think sometimes.

“Of course.” She sat next to him, inching closer with a blush on her cheeks.

“I wanted to show this to you. Do you understand now, how…” And here came his slow piecing together of words. “How our whole lives are spent in the shadow of war.”

“I’ll never understand that feeling fully.” She put her head on his shoulder. “But I can see what you wanted me to see. I appreciate you taking the time to show me.”

“Thank you too.” Two people could never fully understand each other. There was something to be said for the effort, though.

“Pearlie and Johanna left the barracks,” Dorothea said thoughtfully. “Wonder where they went…”

“Privacy.” That was the most delicate way he could think to put it.

“Oh?”

“Privacy.”

“Ohhh.”

“You know, sometimes it seems like you’re dense and other times it doesn’t.”

“Wha…? I just—well that’s just—”

He put his arm around her shoulders. “That wasn’t a criticism or an accusation. Sorry.”

“I always tried hard not to ever think about it. Because then I’d sort of…want someone to be with,” she said, voice getting progressively softer.

“Sorry.”

She laughed. “It’s fine. You know, I could have probably found a more tactful way to admit I was lonely and horny.”

Gren sputtered out a laugh. “Geez. I don’t know why it’s so shocking to hear you say that.”

“Well, you had a point. I shouldn’t act dense. I need to be mature enough to say these things now that I’m…in a relationship. And all.” She frowned. “Or is it inherently more immature to think that I need to be more mature in the first place? Oh, and it’s not like I’ve been pretending not to understand things. There are things I get and things I don’t. Like just recently when Sharkie was leaving Cerid’s room and they were walking down the hallway and seemed hurt somehow, but I’d just healed them? Was that actually because of…privacy?”

“Hurt how?” Gren was failing to grasp the conversation fully but enjoying himself anyhow.

“They were walking all weird. Like a duck, kind of.”

“Mm.”

“Yes?”

“I believe that they, too, had…privacy.”

Dorothea opened her mouth, closed it, then hid behind her hands. “Honestly? My original theory was that they fell out of bed and hit their tailbone.”

“That is the more unlikely version of events here.”

She laughed, shoulders shaking. “Yeah, I get that now.”

Gren felt unsettled despite the easy mirth of the conversation. Something was moving inside him. Something greedy and too warm and a little bit lonely as well. “You didn’t drink at all,” he noted, not knowing why he said it.

“Well the rest of you were and I figured someone still needed to be on night watch, so I quietly volunteered myself,” she laughed.

“It’ll be Wes. He never sleeps on nights like this. Trust me, we’ve tried to convince him otherwise, but that’s the way he is.”

“Huh.” She eyed the drink in his free hand. “You know, the last time I was at an event like this, it was very different. Rhys and I were talking about it, and… We didn’t feel safe that day, but we feel safe now. Rhys looks more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him. You know, the other day I saw him just sitting in a sunspot with his eyes closed. I don’t think he’d have ever been able to do that in Sacer.”

“I’m glad you both feel safe here. I really am.”

She smiled and cuddled up to him a bit more. “If I’m a bad drinker, will that upset you?”

“Of course not.”

“So… Can I have a sip? Though I’ll probably stop there, I think.”

He thought about it. He really thought about it. The normal thing would be to hand the bottle over to her.

As if he’d ever been normal.

His arm drew closer around her shoulders, hand lifting her face towards his. His thumb brushed across her lower lip, then pushed between them before she had even processed that touch. She said something, or tried to, but then he was pushing at her bottom row of teeth, opening her mouth.

He tilted his head. “Can I?” The hypocrisy of asking only after he was this far hit him, and he started to pull back, apology perching on his lips.

But Dorothea bit down lightly, then shivered and closed her eyes, leaning into him.

Gren took a few tiny sips and held a slight pool on his tongue, letting the flavor coat and swirl. It always had such a pleasant burn on the way down his throat. He wondered how it would feel down hers.

He angled his body towards hers and put the bottle down, tilting her head back with his hand pressing her cheek and the underside of her jaw. She gasped and seized his back when he edged his tongue past her lips after kissing her. He worked the liquid into her mouth with each movement of his tongue against and around hers. Her breaths came light and fast, her fingers pressing, then clawing. His mouth was empty, but he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, winding his tongue with hers and exploring her mouth.

She gasped for air, and Gren pulled back. “Are you—” He cut off when Dorothea hugged him, burying her face in his neck. He nearly fell over on top of her but steadied them both with one hand on Dorothea’s back and the other on the ground parallel to it. “Are you okay?” he finished.

“Don’t look at me, please,” she requested breathlessly.

“I won’t.” She didn’t sound upset, only embarrassed.

“Was that too much?”

She squeezed him closer. “No. And I’m processing that.”

“Okay.” He closed his eyes. “I’m not as gentle or as patient as I wanted to be.”

“You can be gentle and still want me.”

He was glad she voiced it, because he wouldn’t have been able to. “I don’t want to let you go even for a moment. I’m quite greedy, I’ve realized,” he laughed lightly.

“I am too.” Dorothea sounded completely serious. She took a deep, shaky breath and pushed against his hand on her back until she was laying flat on the ground. “I.” She stopped, meeting his eyes, looking away, then facing him squarely. “I am too.”

He fought to keep his voice, everything about himself, steady. “Is that so.” Uncertainty flashed across her face, so he cupped her cheek. “I’m going insane,” he announced, “in the way that…that many people might if in my position.”

She tried and failed not to laugh. “Is that so?”

He had to laugh too. Of course they were also bound to be awkward and clumsy at some points. “It’s so.” He started to say something else, but Dorothea interrupted him with a smile.

“You can,” she said.

“Ah, so I’ve already become predictable.”

She was laughing, but then her eyes got wide. “Wait, are you drunk? Then you can’t, you definitely can’t. We can’t. I can’t do that to you.”

He petted her hair before she could get too agitated. “Relax. I had one drink, a very slow one. I’m not even tipsy.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”

“Thank you for thinking about me.” He paused to take in the sight of her face. “I’ll treat you well, okay? Always. So just tell me when you want to stop,” he requested.

“I will. You too.”

She didn’t tell him to stop when he put his tongue in her mouth again. She didn’t protest when his hands roved and pressed into her flesh over her clothes, finding her sides, her back and stomach and chest. Not when he undid the ribbon at her throat and the first few buttons of her dress to kiss her neck. And a few buttons more, kisses to every inch of exposed skin.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Then he slid his hands beneath the smooth fabric of her skirts to run along her thighs. Her body gave a jerk, uneven breaths cutting into a sudden sharp silence.

Gren held up his hands and caught his breath, lifting himself up on his knees. “Sorry, I…” He faltered to properly assess her reaction. She was blushing furiously, a hand pressed to her warm cheek as she looked off to the side, knees pressed together and body quivering like she was melting.

Wordlessly, she pointed towards their room.

“Ah.” He pulled her to her feet, looping his arm with hers and keeping ahold of her hand.

They both walked on unsteady legs, and then the door was shut behind them. Dorothea unlaced her boots and put them in the corner of the room, nice and neat. She sat on the bed and tucked her skirts primly beneath her. Gren shrugged out of his boots and jacket and knelt in front of her.

“This is all new to me,” she said in a small voice. “Feeling it with someone, together, is different.”

“It is,” Gren agreed. “Are you scared?” He was pretty sure he’d read that feeling in her correctly back there, and it nagged at him.

She nodded. “I like being touched by you. It all felt good. But when you touched my legs I just…” She waved her hands around as she rummaged for words. “It became real. What it means to be someone’s lover.” Her hands went to her hair and started braiding. “I want to. But what’s too soon? No one ever taught me, or you either I guess, about any of this. And how do you know if you’re doing a good job, I mean, and my body, I’ve never really lacked confidence over it before but I worry, of course I worry about things like that, it’s a big deal to unveil myself to someone I should think. And I see you trying not to laugh!”

“It’s because you’re cute. Unveiling yourself,” he said, then laughed his heart out. She pushed at his chest playfully, and he caught her hand, pressing it over his heart. “And you kind of said a lot of what I was thinking too.”

“Oh.” She grinned. “I should have guessed. We’re pretty much in the same boat, huh?”

“Yeah.” He looked down at her hand and grasped its warmth more firmly. “I’m too thin. Way too bony. I don’t know about taking my clothes off in front of you either. And I have no idea how I’m supposed to move or make you feel good. Also, I’m uneducated. I’m scared to read outside because I worry that someone might ask me to read aloud and figure out how slow I have to go to unjumble the words. Numbers and letters confuse me a lot. I don’t have a home or any assets to speak of. Nothing to offer but myself. But since you seem to like me anyways, I guess…”

He trailed off because she swooped in to kiss him. “Yes,” she said. “I like you a lot.”

He ran his hand over the large braid she’d made and went about gently unwinding it. “Don’t underestimate how much it means that I can say these things to you.”

“Likewise.” Her hand ran down from his chest to his stomach. “I…” She cleared her throat and licked her lips nervously. “I want to see you. May I?”

“Mm.” He stripped out of his shirt with the same rushed precision he’d used several times before to sew his own wounds closed. Resisting the urge to cross his arms over himself, he raised his eyebrows and looked at her. “See? There.”

That furious blush was back. “I think you’re pretty, you know. I think you’re beautiful.” She reached out, tentative. “Can I touch your hair?”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t really refuse given how much he had taken to messing with hers. “It’s not like yours though. It’s rough.” She’d clearly experienced better cosmetics in Sirpo and Sacer than they had hope of making in Ghuria. Her hair was softer, her skin more smooth and clear than any of theirs. What they used was good enough to get the job done, but the day they’d met and Gren had offered her that knife it had struck him while doing so that she smelled like flowers and looked just as beautiful as an illustration.

She untied his hair and smoothed it with a soothing smile, gently running her fingers through. After a small contented sound, she edged in closer to press her chest to his and her cheek to his hair. Gren stretched his legs on either side of her to make room.

Her hands were moving on his back. Over his shoulder blades, up and down his spine. It gave him shivers; he understood why she shivered now too. Every place she touched felt electrified, alive. His blood was rushing.

To get her skirt off, all he needed to do was undo the ribbon at her back that tightened it beneath her chest and then pull the suspenders down to just slide it off her. The ribbon was undone with a few quick tugs. Dorothea’s hands stilled, then she leaned back and put them in her lap.

Gren pushed the straps down her shoulders and guided the skirt down to her waist. Her undershirt fit her perfectly, the buttons not stretching at her chest but still fitting well on her sides. He fumbled a bit in haste to get all those buttons undone.

“I think shirts like this are so cute, but if I don’t make my own clothes sometimes then what fits my chest doesn’t fit my waist,” she rambled as he did so. “But in a way it’s good since I can make it as frilly as I want…”

“I can sew too. Sort of. I’d like to use it for something useful like you do.” He tossed that carefully-made shirt to the side and eased her onto her back so she could kick her skirt off.

“Y-Yeah?” She studied his forearms and torso, where the quick patches he’d done on himself showed in puckered scars, all mixed in among the rest. “I’ll teach you. We can make you a new jacket.”

“Mm.” Yeah, some stains just wouldn’t wash out.

“And a new scarf.”

“Don’t want one. The one I wear was my dad’s.”

“I see..” She put her hand to one of his cheeks and kissed the other. “Then I’ll patch it up. Carefully, with your permission.”

“Thank you.” Unhooking her bra was easy, but she held it fast to herself. “Not comfortable?”

“It’s just, well, we’re really doing this, huh?”

“If you want to.” He layed on his back at her side in an attempt to take some of the pressure off. “Or we can just lay here and talk.”

“You really mean that, don’t you?” She smiled at him with adoration.

“Of course I do. I wouldn’t say it if not.”

Dorothea pulled the blankets over herself and rolled over on her side, facing him. "There are so many things I want to do with you."

Contextually, that was just… Gren could sense it though. The mood was waning.

Dorothea continued. "I want to cook your favorite foods, go see flowers together, drink tea and watch the sky and cuddle… I want to have that sort of mundane life with you." She chuckled. "Maybe that just sounds boring."

"It sounds perfect." He'd bring her flowers every day if that would make her even the slightest bit happier.

She smiled, blushing, and hugged his arm. "Thank you." Then she frowned and hid it by putting her forehead on his shoulder. “I can’t…do any more than this. I can’t.”

“Are you scared?” Gren asked again.

“Yeah. I’m trying not to be, but…”

“We’ll wait for the day when your answer to that question becomes no. That’s all. And until then…” He hugged her over the blankets. “This is good. This is perfect too.”

Her body relaxed; his attempt at comforting her worked. After several minutes she mumbled, “I want my clothes back on, please.”

“Mm.” And they needed to take a trip to the bathrooms to clean up anyways.

When they were both comfortable and snuggled back up in a curve together, Dorothea commented, “I just realized it’s been one day for us. This is only the first day, and we almost… Goodness.”

“Pent up,” Gren said with a yawn.

She laughed. “I suppose.”

They chatted for a while, mostly about the future. Soon Gren was listening to the sound of her breathing as she slept.

Today, he thought, had been amazing. It was the way he wanted every day from now on to be. Packed to the brim with experiences for better or worse as long as it was all with her. Of course, part of his role now was to fight so that happiness outweighed everything else.

Oh, Dorothea. His ethereal, ephemeral girl. “I’ll make you the most joyful person,” he whispered to bring it into the world and make it true. “I’ll fight for that, no matter what.” Soon his time of fighting for everyone would be over. This country would be reshaped, and then he could release his role in it and think about living a selfish existence.

With more thoughts of what that future might look like, he drifted off to sleep himself. Still, after such a peaceful night, he was once again woken by someone calling his name, shaking him.

“Pwah!” he cried out as he jerked out of another nightmare to meet a gently blooming sunrise. “What is it, what is it?”

In the time he finished speaking, Dorothea had raced across the room and stripped, hurling herself into her day clothes. Once Gren heard shouting from outside, he did the same. Whatever Wes had found on his watch, he apparently didn’t find it agreeable.

Dorothea was barely finished doing her buttons before she rushed outside. Gren threw his scarf around his neck and followed on her heels, grabbing his hair tie at the last second.

Dorothea sucked in a breath and then sprinted away from him. “Shark!” she yelled. “Wesley, back off, back off!”

Ariana Kingfisher and Dorothea's friend stood on the outskirts of the settlement, the former dripping blood from her hand and the latter engaged in a shouting match with Wesley. If they’d come, then something had gone very wrong in Sacer.

“Wes,” Gren said in the mild, unemotional tone that others seemed to find dangerous, and everyone went silent. “I know you have no personal reason to trust them, but we’re going to hear them out.”

“Fine, but if either of them makes a wrong move…”

“Understood.”

Before Gren could address the Sacerians, Pearlie shot outside from her and Johanna’s room, nearly tripping over herself on her way to throw her arms around her sister’s neck. “Ana! I’m sorry, I…! You’re back!”

Ariana held her back and awkwardly tried not to get blood on her while looking at Dorothea. “Things didn’t go to plan.”

“Sharkie!” Dorothea caught them as they lurched towards her on weak legs.

“Cerid… Cerid, he’s been…” They looked scared and breakable as they clung to her. “Thea, we’ve gotta help him. Please.”

Gren thought as fast as he could in the time it took for him to put his hair up. His magic was no help in a sneak attack, and that was the best was to go about it. None of the Ghurians’ magics were suitable. Dorothea could maybe get them there the same way she had with just the two of them before, but could she handle it? Alternatives…

He met Shark’s panicked, weary eyes. “You’ll get us into the city. Pearlie, send scouts and give us the current movements of the army so we can know how to split up. Have them find Cerid Creed as well, and be sure to keep communicating with them throughout everything. Direct your other friends as you see fit.”

“They’ll put their lives on the line for us if I ask… So I will, but only because I have to.” Pearlie let out a sharp whistle and was soon surrounded by birds she chattered with quickly.

“Johanna. Bring every weapon type you have. I’ll need some nullifying power myself.”

“Got it.” Johanna jogged back to her room and came back with her usual blowguns along with a bow and a full quiver, her own knives to strap to her thighs and waist, and as many vials of the ace she crafted with her magic as she could carry.

“Wes.”

He was already grinning and cracking his knuckles. “It’s time. It’s finally time, isn’t it?”

Gren shared a glance with Dorothea, and she nodded. “Once we show ourselves, we’ll be up against every soldier left in Sacer. The others from different locations will rush to our location to try to cut us down while they can. That said…” He met that bright, starved gaze of Wesley’s. “Be reasonable with the innocents. But now isn’t a time to hold back. The odds are against us.”

Wesley’s voice was soft; he was almost shaking with excitement. “Oh yes.”

“Rhys.”

“I know.” His hands were loose at his sides, and his eyes were clear. “Whatever it takes. I’m with you both.” He dipped his head to Gren and Dorothea.

“Thank you, friends.” Gren got his respect and gratefulness across as quickly as he could. “Dorothea?”

“Ready for anything.” She reflected the same sense of careful calm Rhys held.

Gren leaned over to give her a quick kiss on impulse. “Take care of yourself out there.”

Cheeks red, she ignored the varying reactions all present had to the exchange. “You too.”

“Shark, Ariana, explain your side on the way. Pearlie’s scouts will report, and we’ll have a plan of attack by the time we get there.” He paused. His gut feeling… Somehow he felt as if they were heading into terrible, terrible danger. “Let’s go, everyone. Give it your all.”

The ragtag Ghurian army all rushed to face the inciting incident that would lead to the final battle of the War of Wither, that very day.