Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A grand ball was never on the list of things that Python might like to do someday.

In fact, it was probably on something quite the opposite—the list of things that he would absolutely rather die before ever thinking of doing.

Fancy outfits and formal manners and rigid dances—none of that was in the least appealing to Python, it all made him want to gag, yet here he is, standing dumbly in the entrance to the ballroom in the stiff and formal military uniform of the Knights of Zofia, an honorary member since he had been a part of the original Deliverance.

There’s loud music from a royal orchestra playing, people dancing and chatting among themselves, the clinking of champagne filled glasses, and Python knows then that he will never be surrounded by so much nobility ever again in his life—at least, he hopes he won’t.

They had even announced his name when he had first walked into the ballroom, and he’s never wanted to shrink into a hole or hit a guard more in his life than now. He stands there in shock for a short and awkward moment until he feels someone wrap their arm around his, pulling him away to the outer edges of the room, and everything seems to fall back into place, the surprise wearing off—that is, until he notices who had saved him.

“Quite a long time since we’ve seen one another,” she says, and Python doesn’t hold back the annoyed groan as he pulls his arm from hers. “An entire year!”

“Clair,” he says flatly, and her face lights up as if she wasn’t sure he would remember who she is.

“That’s some way to greet a lady...and one who just saved you from embarrassment too. Social suicide before you can even form your social life? That’s the biggest mistake you can make!

“Don’t need a social life among you folk,” he tells her, frowning as she makes a small circle around him, looking him over. “Never been interested in this kind of thing.”

“It doesn’t matter whether you want to be a part of it or not. As soon as you walked through those doors, you became all that much more important to the nobility here.”

She stops back in front of him.

“And why is that?” he asks.

“It proves that you’re worthy enough to even be here. You fought alongside the new king,” she says, as if it were obvious. “And you survived the war. Your tutelage to Tobin in his practice—who is also a lord himself now—also adds to your desirability. It’s just the way things work. Do not be surprised if some noblemen come by to offer you jobs.”

His frown deepens, not liking such a thought at all. He was done working for lords who probably couldn’t care less about him.

“The fact that you are not the worst looking thing also helps a little.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were being nice to me,” he says, and she laughs, taking a step forward to fix the blue sash across his chest.

“It’s nice of them to have given you such a fine uniform. I never thought I’d see you so dressed up.”

“Neither did I,” he laments, but she laughs again, this time at his misfortune, and she takes a step back, crossing her arms over her own brilliant dress.

“Someone forced you to come, I’m sure.”

“Forsyth.”

“Is that the only reason you came?”

Her devilish smile works like a charm in annoying him. He should’ve known she would play like this.

“It is,” he says, but she raises a brow.

“You’re sure you’re not looking for someone specific?”

He lets out a sigh.

“I’m looking for Forsyth.”

Silence lingers between them for a short moment before she rolls her eyes, letting out a huff as she realizes that he won’t play her games, only then stepping forward to wrap her arm around his once again.

“Then I guess I will take you to him,” she says, leading the way around the back of the ballroom. “But just know that you cannot fool me.”

“You sure about that?”

“Absolutely positive,” she replies in a sing song voice, and as they make their way to the green haired knight, she chats endlessly about what she and Gray have been doing in the short year since the end of the war.

“Forsyth,” he nearly calls out in relief when that green hair finally comes into view, sitting by himself at a table as he watches the nobility dance.

Forsyth’s head snaps towards the sound of his name quickly though, and as he stands and realizes who it is, Python practically rips his arm out of Clair’s as she continues speaking, only stopping once Forsyth bows to address her.

“Lady Clair,” he says before turning to his friend with a wide smile. “Python! I’ve never seen you look so handsome in my life!”

“I suppose he does clean up nicely,” Clair replies, a thoughtful finger to her chin as she looks him over once again. “If only he would put these looks to good use.”

Forsyth shares a knowing look with her.

“I’ll just leave now,” Python complains, turning to move, but Forsyth pulls him back by the stiff collar of his shirt as he tries to walk away.

“I don’t think so,” he says, and Python has to resist the urge to hit him too. “It’s about time you finally leave that rundown place and reconnect with your friends.”

“You sound like you don’t like my new job,” Python teases, but Forsyth gives him a flaccid look.

“New job?” Clair asks, moving forward to smooth out their uniforms again. “What have you been up to, Python?”

“None of your business. I don’t need you coming around to annoy me.”

“You think that lowly of me?” she asks, dramatically placing a hand over her heart. “You wound me!”

“Do not feel bad, Lady Clair. It’s a miracle that I even got any type of information out of him. He hasn’t told a soul about what he does now.”

Clair looks him over once again, and then shares another look with Forsyth, and Python makes a mental note right then and there to kill Forsyth if he indulges her in what she would like to know.

She smirks, folding her arms across her chest. “Who knew Python was such a secretive man? He usually can never keep his mouth shut.”

“Only when it’s not my secrets to tell,” he replies with a sigh, and she gives a look that doesn’t bode well for him.

“Never mind that. I will get what I want though, Python, do not doubt that,” she says then, turning to look away at the rest of the ballroom. “I suppose I will leave now. I do have other people to entertain.”

Forsyth bows once again, and for the first time, Python watches her curtsy, the skirts of that fancy dress brushing against the floor.

“Sir Forsyth. Python,” she says, though he refuses to bow. “Do not get too comfortable. I will make you dance with me tonight.”

“Clair,” he warns again, but she’s already trotted off somewhere else before he can even finish the threat. He plops down into a chair at the table Forsyth was sitting at, and he waits for his friend to do the same.

He looks him over and thinks that Forsyth looks very regal in his own uniform, like he was made for it and not the other way around, and Python has a fleeting thought of how this was what he has always wanted. Forsyth has always dreamed about fighting gallantly and bravely on the battlefield, but he is sure that his friend has also thought about dancing with nobility, conversing with royalty. Forsyth had proven Python wrong in every way possible—a scholar’s son from a tiny town becoming a knight?—yet he couldn’t be more proud.

He wasn’t so sure that Forsyth felt the same about Python’s situation though.

“So she gives you a title now?” Python asks, watching all the pretty girls and handsome men swing by in their dances.

“It’s almost laughable, isn’t it?” Forsyth asks in return, and he chuckles wholeheartedly, picking up a glass from the table and taking a sip.

Python begins to wonder where to find the drinks.

“I always thought that if she ever showed that kind of respect towards you then the sky must be close to falling.”

“Yet here we are. And to think that you never once thought it was possible.”

“I don’t think I said it like that.”

“It sure felt like it.”

“Well I’m sure you feel completely fine about it now that your dream came true.”

“I suppose I can forgive you for every slight that you’ve made.”

“Such a noble man indeed, Sir Forsyth,” he teases, and when Forsyth lamely bats at his arm, the embarrassment and uncomfortable feelings from earlier finally begin to slip away.

They grow quiet for a long moment as they both begin to watch the crowded ballroom. Python recognizes not even half of the faces here, but he doesn’t mind not seeing everyone he once fought side by side with.

He does sees that swordsman with the sharp eyes, the archer with hair the color of lavender in the same formal uniform, the blond mercenary that never seemed to stop smiling, none of which he had ever bothered to learn the names of. He spies Tobin and Faye and Kliff, and if those three were here, along with Clair, then Gray was surely not far behind. Delthea is present as well, with her bother close by, and from the looks of it, it seems that she is a little noblewoman in the making, thoroughly entertaining those around her—but he is sure there are plenty more of his comrades hiding among the faces in the crowd.

“Where’s Lukas?”

Forsyth chuckles into his glass.

“You mean you don’t see that mob of ladies?” he jokingly asks, pointing towards the far side of the room. “He’s been busy all evening trying to fend them off.”

Python rolls his eyes—the opposite of a problem, he thinks—leaning back into his chair as he wishes even more to have a glass of something in his hands; it was hardly a surprise that Lukas was so favored by them.

“And Alm?”

“The king is a busy man. He’s got to meet with practically everyone here. I’m sure we’ll see him later.”

“And good ol’ Clive?”

“He and Mathilda are somewhere around here as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if they left early though. They got married recently.”

Python’s nose scrunches up at that thought.

“Things are good here?” Python asks instead though, knowing very well what Forsyth might try to ask first. “Having fun?”

“You already know the answer to that. Though I think I should be asking you instead.”

“Whatever for? I’m behaving myself just fine.”

“So you say, but I have yet to meet these men that you now command! I worry. You always did favor the unsavory type...”

“I guess that makes you unsavory.”

Forsyth gives him a look that tells him he isn’t funny, but Python smiles widely anyways. His friend looks away, folding his arms across his chest as he does, and Python knows what’s coming next.

“You haven’t asked about her.”

Python plays dumb.

“And who would that be?”

“You know damn well who I’m talking about.”

Placing his elbow on the table and his head in his hand, he sighs.

“Why should I?” he asks, and he hears Forsyth’s scoff get lost in the air with the laughter of party guests.

“You are an absolute fool. You’ve always been like this, running from things, ignoring—“

“You talk too much,” he complains.

“You’re only making things worse for yourself, and who knows what she must think of you now—“

“You’d make a good wife. You’re good at nagging me to my wit’s end.”

“You never take things seriously! I’m trying to help you.”

“And how is scolding me supposed to help?” Python asks then, and Forsyth looks taken aback for a short moment. “When have you ever been yelled at by your mother and thought ‘Hmm, maybe I should listen?’”

Forsyth frowns, slouches down into his chair, and Python momentarily feels bad for having turned the mood into a sour one. He knows he just wanted to spend the night in joy, together with his most favored comrades, and Python just had to go and open his mouth to ruin it.

He sighs; he must give in.

“Where is she?” he reluctantly asks, rolling his eyes as the twirling of colorful skirts all seem to blend together into one ugly mess.

Forsyth peeks at him from the side of his eye.

“She was With Lukas earlier. She came a week early to catch up with everyone.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Forsyth asks, his energy revving up again. “That’s all you have to say? She asks about you every time I see her, Python, I told you not to—“

“If she wants to see me that badly then I’m sure she’ll come find me,” he interrupts, and before Forsyth can even think to reply, he looks beyond Python, eyes growing wide, a bewildered smile crossing his face, and Python knows then what speaking of devils does.

Forsyth stands quickly, bows stiffly, and he looks absolutely giddy as he flashes Python a devious grin.

“Sir Forsyth,” he hears her say, and a whole sea of unfamiliar emotions washes over him as the melodious tone of her voice reaches his ears, like his body’s been dunked into icy waters—he had started to forget what it sounded like.

“Lady Silque,” Forsyth says proudly, as if he’s just proven something. “You look beautiful!”

Python doesn’t stand, doesn’t turn around to see if Forsyth’s statement is correct; instead he focuses on the dancers and how they laugh as they spin. He keeps his mouth shut, and he knows that both of them must hate him for it—bough he can’t find it in him to care.

He watches from the corner of his eye as Forsyth slowly sits back down, glaring at him, but she hasn’t moved from her spot behind his tall wooden chair.

“Sir Forsyth, who is your friend with the rude manners?” she asks, and he scoffs, raising a brow as he waits for Forsyth to answer for him.

“Don’t mind him, he’s never had manners.”

“Really?” She feigns surprise. “How sad.”

“Truly! His mother must be ashamed.”

He hears her giggle, and for some reason, it makes him mad. So mad that he snaps around to look at her, but she’s turned away before he can catch a glimpse of her face.

All he sees it that short blue hair held back with a ribbon, the puffy sleeves of her dress, the bare skin of her neck. He stands, steps around the chair and towards her, but she hides her face as she takes a step back. 

“It’s unlike you to act so coy,” he says, unamused. “You’ve changed.”

“People change when there is no longer anything familiar around,” she replies, taking another step back when he steps forward. “It forces them to.”

“Are you mad?”

“Are you happy?”

An ugly feeling begins to follow him as he looks at her now, face still turned away, but he sees that the tips of her ears are red.

“I thought you Mila folk were kind and forgiving.” He takes a step. “What happened to that?”

“You’ve had a lot of misconceptions of Mila and her followers in the time that I’ve known you,” she responds, taking another step back. “But if it is forgiveness you seek, then all you have to do is ask for it.”

“It’s that easy?” he questions, and as he takes his final step forward, the back of her legs hit the edge of the table, and she looks up at him in surprise.

She looks the same since he had last seen her; youthful, nervous, hints of the repression of a smile that desperately wishes to escape. She’s just like she’s always been, but so very different all the same.

She’s pretty, to say the least, looking ever so regal in such a fancy and elegant dress, a royal blue, but her dress is the last thing that he would even think to focus on when it’s been so long since he’s seen her.

He finds words lost now, whatever was at the tip of his tongue having fallen off and back down his throat. It gets harder for her to hold back the smile as she looks him over.

“It is,” she says, and it’s nice to finally see the words come from her mouth. “Though what could you possibly be begging forgiveness for, Sir Python?”

He holds back the urge to scoff at the formality.

“Why do any of us repent, my lady?” he returns, and he can see his own look of bemusement and annoyance reflected on her face. “Surely you have an answer.”

“If I did, I’d—“

The sound of Forsyth awkwardly clearing his throat breaks the sudden tension, and Python turns to see his friend with a look on his face that absolutely begs him to do something about the situation. To take it somewhere else or to end it now—he’s not quite sure what to do.

But she’s quicker than he is—always has been—and he feels her small hand around his wrist, her gentle tug as she looks up at him and pulls him towards the colorful sea of spinning skirts, and Forsyth has no time to speak or reject the idea as Python is whisked away, being pulled through the ever moving crowd.

He panics as he realizes where she is leading him; he thinks to shake his head but his lips move faster than his mind.

“I do not dance.”

“Neither do I,” she laughs without turning around, and though he feels like he’d rather face down a god once again than dance at something like this, he follows her anyways as she weaves in and out of the nobility of that sea.

He likes the sea—the dark and tumultuous one that could easily kill him—but he thinks he’ll die in this one by suffocating on the fabric of petticoats and dresses, expectations and formalities sooner than drowning in the smell of salt and brine.

She stops on the other side of the ballroom, near the edge of the dance floor where hardly anyone would want to dance, and she turns to face him as he stands there dumbly.

With a sigh and a slight smile, she grabs his hands when he still doesn’t move, placing one against her hip and the other against her palm, and she gives him a reassuring look as she rests her own hand against his shoulder.

He tries to remember what Forsyth and Clair had tried to teach him about dancing some time before. There were ones, twos, threes, a step on Clair’s toes, a punch to the arm. Python’s not sure he ever learned four.

“You’re too tense,” she says, squeezing his shoulder, and he can’t help but let out a bewildered laugh, too overwhelmed by the simple thought of such a thing like this.

Dancing at a ball, with a girl like her?

He looks down at her for only a moment before he averts his eyes elsewhere, watching others to see if he is doing it right.

Such things were not supposed to happen.

“I suppose you’re mad at me,” he suddenly says without thinking, trying to look down at his feet, but the skirts of her dress hang in the way.

“Mad?” she practically laughs, deciding it better to lead him through the dance. Her brow furrows. “I guess—well, you could say—in a way—“

She shakes her head, what little hair of hers that isn’t held back by the ribbon swaying with the movement.

“A whole year?” she asks instead, staring intensely at his chest. “When I asked that you stay in touch, I expected...something. I didn’t think you were the type to make such promises and not bother to keep them.”

“You’re a smart girl. You should know that it’s never a good idea to have such high expectations.”

“I suppose with you it is not,” she says almost bitterly, but Python stepping on her toes quickly wipes that tone from her voice. “Apparently only Forsyth knows of where you live now. Is that true?”

“It is.”

“Then when I give him my letters meant for you, does he deliver them?”

He guiltily looks away.

“He does...”

Her chin lifts up as she turns her gaze towards the crowd.

Ones, twos, threes.

“Do you read them?”

A bump into another pair of dancers—surely that wasn’t four.

“I do.”

He hears her let out a disheartening sigh so quiet that he knows it is not meant for him to hear.

“Then you know everything of me and I know nothing of you.”

She takes him through the four small motions once again, and he wonders how long this is going to take, how much longer she will make him suffer, and where exactly she learned a noble man’s waltz.

She squeezes his hand a little too tightly.

“I’m the same as I’ve always been. Lazy, unambitious, a bastard and a half. Nothing’s changed.”

He knew it was a mistake coming to such an event with so many that he would rather not see again in attendance.

“You truly don’t think so?” she asks, almost sounding disappointed, and he’s not quite sure how to answer, and when he doesn’t, she lets out another small breath. “I kept my promise.”

Like the good girl she’s always been, he thinks, and he loathes the dance and her words more than anything else.

He had read all of her letters, laughed and reveled in the stories she would share about her travels—about the old woman with the seven grandchildren, the young man with several cats, the short time she had stayed at the general and Tatiana’s house.

Everywhere she went, it seemed that she was welcomed with open arms, she had written to him once. People were happy to see her, happy to receive her help, take her blessings, even if she was in service to the goddess Mila. 

Except for the very few who had no room in their hearts for an almost heretic like her, most of the Rigelians treated her as if she had always been one of their own, and in a way, she sort of was—she was just simply returning home after a very long journey.

“Python,” she says, and his name sounds just as natural as it always had coming from her.

He only realizes that they had long stopped moving when there is applause for the orchestra, the music stopping as one dance ends and another begins.

“I’ve missed you,” she says, simple as that, and his eyebrows furrow as he looks down to see her with a heartbreaking expression. “I am mad.”

How could someone like her miss someone like him?

“Ah, but forgiveness seems to be easily earned. All I have to do is ask for it.”

A holy woman, the purest of pure, missing a vulgar and used man like him?

“Well...will you?”

Friends or not, such things did not happen.

“I won’t.”

She gives him a look of confusion, but it quickly softens into something else—a bitter smile.

Her gaze drifts away from his, to the crowd of nobles, the tiled floor, the sash across his chest.

“I see.”

He loathes seeing her so—but he knows exactly why she’s like this.

Without thinking, he drops his hand from her hip, and he doesn’t miss the dissatisfied look on her face.

The music picks up again; he spies a head of green moving across the floor.

“Forsyth’s coming,” he dumbly says, and she breaks the eye contact to try and look behind her.

“I—“ she begins, but he releases her hand to turn her towards the door, giving her a gentle push.

“It seems we have some catching up to do, don’t you think?” he asks, and it takes nothing more for her to start walking towards the exit.

He follows her, watches that ribbon in her hair bounce with each step, watches the way the soft lighting of the ballroom touches the skin of her bare neck, and he tries to push out any and all thoughts and suggestions that Forsyth so often has for him.

“Python!”

He walks past as Clair tries to call his attention, only sharing a flat look with her, her own expression turning into one of excitement as her eyes dart from Python’s to the girl walking in front of him.

Her loud voice reaches above the others as she turns to call out, “Oh, Sir Forsyth! You simply must dance with me!”

Silque doesn’t turn to see that he is following, doesn’t question why they must leave Forsyth and the others behind in a ballroom. She asks no questions because she believes she knows it all, what exactly he might say.

He doesn’t mind that about her—never has.

So he follows, and she leads, and as they pass by table after table, he finally decides to pick up a glass of champagne, not caring whose it is as he downs it as fast as he can before walking out the doors and past the guards.

Silque thinks the castle is just a little too fancy for her taste; she preferred the simple stone of the priory in Novis, or the old wood of homes in the smaller villages.

She’s not thinking too much of it though as she sits on the red carpeted stairs in the grand hall, her hands in the lap of her poofy blue skirts, her eyes focused on the man’s laughing next to her.

Such sharp eyes suit such a sharp tongue, she thinks, watching as he recounts a story of him and Forsyth shortly after the war, and she realizes then just how much she misses this, misses him.

Leaving the island, she never expected to be where she was now; sitting on the steps in a castle, talking to a man she might never have even known existed had the war never happened—though she is reluctant to call it a blessing. 

She watches as he leans back against the steps, pushing his cheek against his closed fist as he watches the few party goers still lingering around the hall.

“Forsyth hasn’t come out here yet. It’s been a while.”

His voice pulls her from such thoughts as she tears her eyes away from him, looking down the steps towards the entrance to the grand party. 

“Why did we leave the ballroom? He seemed perfectly agreeable when we talked to him earlier.”

She hears him let out a tsk, and she turns to see him shaking his head.

“I know him. He was coming over to dance with you.”

She frowns.

“And? What is so wrong with that?”

She watches then as he rolls his eyes. 

“Why does Forsyth ever interrupt us? He’s always been so uptight about it,” he explains, though she isn’t quite sure what it is.

He pauses.

“And I didn’t want him to.”

Her heart skips a beat.

She wasn’t used to feeling such a way around him, wasn’t sure what it meant when he would say such things and her face would heat up. It wasn’t that bad during the war, didn’t happen that often, but she’s felt more conflicted in one single night than she ever has in her entire life, and she wishes to scold him for it.

“You get to see him all the time,” he says, peeking at her playfully from the side of his eye. “It’s just simply not fair.”

It’s a very confusing feeling, to say the least, as she averts her gaze, his far too intense and strong for her liking.

“It wouldn’t be unfair if you made an effort to keep such a promise,” she says then, and he turns his head to fully look at her. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you.”

He gives her a once over.

“It’s okay if you hate me.”

She stiffens up.

Hate him?

She sighs.

“You know I could never hate you.”

A small smile crosses his face then, and she can’t fight the contagiousness of it.

“I’m sure I’ve told you before, but—“ he pauses again, eyes dropping from hers as if to search for the right words. “You’re too agreeable.”

“Too agreeable?” she asks, giving him a skeptical look. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

He chuckles, letting his head drop back against the step behind him, and she watches once more as he closes his eyes.

“Silque—” he says then, stopping himself as if he thinks better of it, and she feels the pulse of heat from her chest run to the rest of her limbs. “You’ll know one day what I mean.”

“What makes you think that you’re wisdom is so wise? Or that it is wanted?”

He chuckles for her, reaches out one hand to lightly hit against her arm, and it’s hard to decipher what exactly she feels in such a moment as this.

“I’m sure my advice is never wanted—Clair’s told me so—but your kindness is only going to hurt you.”

She raises a brow. “Hurt me? I’ve never known kindness to hurt someone.”

The sad look that crosses his face is unsettling as he looks her over again.

“Your forgiveness is so easily given when it’s not deserved,” he tells her, pulling his head off the step to sit up straight. “You don’t hate and you always find it in you to forgive. I made you mad but you refuse to think lowly of me.”

She lets out a small breath.

“Python—“

“You said it’s easy to change when nothing familiar is around, but I think it’s hard whether there is or isn’t.”

Her words fail her for once and she can only sit there and stare, not quite sure when Python became so open with his own thoughts.

“I’m afraid I’ll always be like this,” he flatly states, and it is then that she impulsively reaches out and grabs his hand, holding it in her own as she wishes to relieve him of worries like he had so many times for her.

“I forgive because I know that you seek it,” she says softly, looking down at the hand clasped between her fingers, feeling his calloused palm against her own. “Just as I cannot stand the thought that you forgot me, you cannot bear the thought of me hating you for it.”

He raises a brow. “What makes you so sure of that?”

“I may not know you as well as Sir Forsyth, but I believe I know you well enough.” She squeezes his hand. “I like to think that we are kindred spirits.”

He smiles at her and her heart pounds once more. “You can think what you want, but I wouldn’t count on it being true.”

Sometimes she wishes that he wasn’t so honest with his words. The blue sash across his chest suddenly becomes more interesting than his honesty as her own thoughts beginning to tangle with confusing feelings once again.

In the year that they’ve been apart, she’s traveled back and forth from Rigelian coast to Rigelian coast, from the northern capital to the southern villages, helping all of those that she can, but her time with the Deliverance never quite left her.

They’re always there in the back of her mind; Gray and Tobin’s fighting, Faye’s silly obsession, Tatiana and the general’s nearly scandalous romance, Sir Lukas’s reprimands and warnings, Sir Forsyth’s worries and antics.

And then there is Python, the man she’s sure she may never understand. His snide remarks, his lazy behavior, and his drunken habits, the sound of retching and the peculiarity of his loose tongue being familiar within her mind.

His silence to her letters that she writes was a blow to her pride, and she did have some resentful feelings because of it—a kind she’s never felt before—and she loathed the thought of having to see him tonight.

But then she had seen Sir Forsyth, and then above the back of the tall and wooden chair, that blue hair of his, and all feelings of hurt pride and childish resentment had faded into feelings of excitement and nervousness—giddy at the thought of seeing him after so long. Would he comment on her hair, or maybe her borrowed dress, say that he missed her? Would he be as happy to see her as she was to see him, or would he snub her here just as he did all of her letters, and finally reveal that he had never once cared for her?

A thousand and one thoughts like that played through her mind ever since she had received the invitation.

“You still use magic?”

Her hand tenses up as he brings her back down to earth; she releases his palm.

“Why?” she asks, trying her best to calm her thoughts. “Have you cut yourself again?”

It’s comforting to see him laugh so easily with her just like he had before, and she begins to desperately wish that the morning never comes, that she can enjoy his company and the moment together for as long as she can, because she knows that he will not keep such a promise, no matter how simple it may have seemed.

“Just asking—hope the wounds out there aren’t too bad.”

“It’s nothing I cannot handle.”

“You think you can handle everything.”

“What makes you think that I can’t?”

He shrugs. “Don’t push yourself too hard.”

“And who is going to stop me if I do?”

It’s then that she sees him raise a brow, and she loathes the feeling it gives her; she lamely tries to bat his arm, but she knows that pushing down her troubles will only do her more harm than good.

“You worry too much, Python.”

She watches as he doesn’t say anything; instead he reaches out slowly, almost hesitantly as he grasps one of her hands once more, and her entire body tenses up at the contact.

He’s drunk, she thinks, her heart beating far too hard. He must’ve had something to drink before I found him. He has to be.

Python stays silent for another moment, looking her over, his eyes lingering on their fingers intertwined; it’s far too unlike him to act like this while sober. She should’ve known better; that was probably the only reason why he hadn’t put up a fight when she had pulled him out to dance.

“Someone’s gotta look out for you,” he says, scooting the smallest bit closer to her on their step. “I’m sorry...”

She shakes her head, gently pulling her hand out from his. She was wrong to assume he was anything but drunk. Python was open with his words, but not quite with his thoughts.

“Don’t apologize until you mean it,” she tells him, quickly standing from her step, only to have him stand as well. “I think it’d be better if you did it while you had a sober mind.”

He gives her a bewildered look. “I’m not—“

She takes a step up the stairs, glancing up towards the hallways above where she knows her guest room is waiting for her.

“We can speak in the morning. I think it’d be best if you retire for the night as well.”

She watches as his bewildered look turns to one of annoyance; he curses under his breath.

“Good night, Python,” she quickly tells him, wondering why he won’t say anything when she does. She hesitates, then stops to take a step back down.

If he’s drunk, then surely he won’t remember this—or at least that’s what she hopes as she grabs his hand once more, quickly bringing his fingers up to her lips before releasing them again. His eyes grow wide as she steps away.

“When morning comes, I’ll find you again.”

He stands there and stares at her, only dumbly nodding when she takes another step up the stairs.

She’s too embarrassed, doesn’t want him to say anything now that she’s done it, and though it wasn’t even for a second, her lips feel as though they are tingling from the warmth of his fingers, her own excitement buzzing throughout her body as she turns and runs up the rest of the stairs, too scared to look back. Her face feels hot.

Drunk! she thinks, throat feeling tight as she searches for her room. What a fool I am!

But when morning comes, and she searches for him, asks whoever might know where he might be, she finds herself disappointed, but not surprised.

Not surprised—but that doesn’t stop her heart from dropping from its place within her ribs, all the way down to the pit of her stomach, when Forsyth cannot look her in the eyes as he tells her that Python had ridden off before the sun had even peaked past the eastern mountains, and she knows then that simple promises and quick kisses would never have tamed him.

Chapter Text

Silque’s always thought that stained glass windows were beautiful.

The priory back on Novis had a large one behind the statue of the Mother, painting the bleak gray marble in hues of pinks and reds and oranges, and it’s always been comforting, always felt like home.

But it’s when she finds herself standing in front of what looks like an abandoned church does she question why she’s here and not back on Novis. Churches all across Zofia—and some southern parts of Rigel—were too similar in the way that they looked and felt. The pews, the windows, the masonry, the Mother; all were things she knew very well, and yet she can’t seem to understand why this is the place that Python would supposedly be.

And so it feels foreign, for the very first time in her life, as she gazes up at the church, at the splintered steps, the cracking stone, the broken stained glass window high above the entrance of large wooden doors, one side propped open, a man who didn’t believe in being devout hidden somewhere inside.

She feels a lump in her throat, a sickly feeling in her stomach, as she momentarily thinks of turning back and returning to Rigel. Maybe she was wrong in coming here.

It takes a moment, but she convinces herself to move forward with her plan—though only after thinking of how it will be to see him again.

Of how nice it would feel to chew him out for ignoring her for another six months.

It takes only that thought for her to move up the steps and walk through the open door, anxiety taking on a new meaning as she steps into the main room to see the space almost completely devoid of pews and half a dozen men looking up from their tasks and at her instead. She can feel the heat rise to her face.

“Er, is Sir Python here?”

There is no response for a few solid seconds, and then there is too much as the men all rush her at once.

“Python?” one asks, rolling up his sleeves.

“Yes,” she squeaks out, not liking the attention.

“Miss, who are you?”

“I’m a friend of his.”

“Friend? Python doesn’t got friends. How do you know him?”

“We were in the Deliverance together.”

“Deliverance!? You mean you fought too?”

She hesitates, not quite sure who to focus on. Most of them look to be pretty young—just like it was during the war.

“I didn’t really fight, I was more of a healer.”

“Are you a Sister?”

“I was in service to Mila for a long time, yes.”

“Where did you come from?”

“I was just in Rigel—“

“Rigelian!? I didn’t know Python liked foreign ladies.”

A mortifying feeling washes over her as she feels her face heat up even more.

“I-Is he here or not?” she asks, beginning to wring her hands.

One of the younger ones announces that he’ll retrieve him, but Silque barely hears him as the rest inquire about her even more.

“What’s a sister of Mila doing in Rigel?”

“Well, I was—“

“Who else do you know from the Deliverance?”

“Almost everyone I would think.”

“Do you know the king? Like personally?”

“His Majesty saved me once when I had reached Southern Zofia.”

“Wow! So you’re friends with Alm!?”

“I would like to think so.”

“Has Python ever done anything cool like that?”

She frowns. “Like what?”

“You know, like saved anyone?”

She laughs nervously. “Well—“

“Python never talks about his time in the Deliverance,” one says with what sounds like disappointment. “Even though it’s the most exciting thing about him. He’s boring otherwise.”

“He doesn’t?” she asks, and a part of her feels almost as disappointed as the men do when they nod their heads. She lets out a small breath.

The feeling doesn’t last long though. For the short moment that they are silent, the sound of boots against the old stone floor echoes throughout the room, and she looks up to see an all too familiar face coming towards them with the younger man whispering to him fervently, excitedly. She knows now it is far too late to back out.

“Python!” she calls without thinking, unable to help the smile that crosses her face, and Python stops short of the group when he hears his name.

The men all turn to look at him, but he’s too busy looking at her with wide eyes, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. The young man next to him stops talking as he realizes that she’s spoken and Silque feels her heart pound, wondering what else to say, whether or not she should move towards him or wait. Oh, how she’s missed—

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he dumbly says, and her soaring heart immediately comes crashing back down to earth. She nearly cries out in shock, and she feels embarrassed more than anything as all men turn to look back at her with giddy expressions on their faces.

She scoffs.

He looks her over.

She frowns.

“How’d you—“

“Forsyth told me,” she says, not bothering to hide her cold tone. She watches as he frowns again, cursing under his breath about how he should’ve known.

The young man standing next to him begins to try and speak, but Python takes a step forward, ignoring him as he gives her a once over again. He crosses his arms as he considers her, and she no longer thinks that he has the right to examine her in such a way—she’s hurt.

“Follow me,” is all he says before turning around, and though she desperately wishes she could say ‘no’, her heart’s nonsense outweighs her pride, and she dumbly moves to follow him as she wishes she wouldn’t.

She politely excuses herself from the rest of the men, giving them a shallow bow before moving to catch up with him, no longer quite sure how to feel after such a cold reception. She follows him through the main room of the church, past what she thinks used to be an altar, and down a small hallway towards what she would have to guess used to be a priest’s office.

When he opens the door, there’s already several men there, sitting around a large wooden table with maps and papers sprawled across its surface; she is surprised to see that these men all look somewhat older than Python rather than younger like the ones outside.

“Everyone out,” he says, and she watches as one man raises a brow, another clears his throat, another rubbing his chin as he glances at her and she drops her gaze to the floor out of a diffident feeling.

It is silent for a tense moment—not a single muscle moves—but the men reluctantly stand and Python steps in front of her as they begin to file out the room. He closes the door shut behind them, and she watches on in confusion as he drags a chair from the table to prop up against the door, blocking it from being opened.

“What are you—“

He holds a finger up to his lips, giving her a very serious look as he carefully steps away from the door and towards her, gently grabbing her wrist to lead her to the far corner of the room. She holds her breath for fear of breaking the sudden silence, and it’s only when he lets go of her wrist does she even realize what she was even doing.

He looks her over again. She suddenly doesn’t like his scrutiny.

“They’re all on the other side of that door,” he says, voice just above a whisper. “Such nosy little brats—always trying to be in my business.”

“I guess a gossip like you only attracts others that are the same,” she replies, inexplicably following his hushed tone. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard him try to be so quiet.

“You’ve always liked to gossip as well, haven’t you?” he asks, raising a brow, and she finds herself tilting her chin upwards in contempt. “Or at least, that’s what I remember.”

She finds herself fighting against her heart’s wishes to indulge in his presence.

Forgiveness, she thinks, over and over in her head, knowing full well that her hurt feelings wouldn’t mean much to him. She thinks her heart will not know peace until she finds the reason to forgive him—if there was ever a reason to resent him in the first place.

“Why’re you here?” he bluntly asks, taking quick glances towards the clear windows behind her. 

“I’ve brought news,” she says simply.

“News? Good or bad?”

“I imagine it isn’t very good.”

“It isn’t about...Forsyth, is it?”

She shakes her head.

“Then come out with it.”

Straight to the point, is what she thinks, and she can’t help but wonder just how much Python has changed. Was there truly no part of him that was simply happy to see her?

“General Ezekiel has gone missing,” she tells him, and he slowly begins to frown as his gaze returns from the window to her.

“Missing? A man like that doesn’t just go missing.”

“He left Tatiana,” she says, feeling her shoulders sink, wondering how the older woman was able to handle such a heartache—or could it be a heartbreak at this point?

“Guess there was trouble in paradise. Poor Tatiana,” he says flatly, and something tells her that he’s not as surprised as he should be. Had he expected something like this?

“He left her nothing more than a short note,” she explains further, not quite sure why. “She is beside herself with grief. I told her I would ask around, to see if anyone had seen him.”

He gives her a sideways look. “And you came all the way back to Zofia to ask? A letter would’ve worked.”

“You never answer them,” she says, that ugly feeling creeping back in, and Python raises a brow.

“Can’t say that I’ve seen him,” he tells her, moving to take a step closer. She stiffens up at the movement. “Maybe he went back to where he came from.”

“You think that he finally remembered?”

“There’s a possibility, don’t you think?”

“I suppose...”

“Well, what does Tatiana think?”

“I haven’t the courage to ask her too much about it.”

He clicks his tongue, shakes his head, and an overwhelming feeling of something unknown washes over her.

There is silence for a long moment, she turns her attention towards the world outside the window as well, at the dirt road leading into the main part of town, the few people walking up and down it, the smoke rising from a distant building that she can only guess is the smithy, outside noises muffled by the thick glass.

“You’re not going to ask how I got Forsyth to tell me where you were?” she suddenly asks, unable to stop herself. Python snorts.

“You probably just had to bat those pretty little eyes of yours at him,” he says without looking back. “He was probably just waiting for you to ask. Can’t keep his mouth shut.”

“And you can?”

“Of course,” he says, as if it were obvious. “Secrets never leave my lips.”

“Truly?”

He nods in affirmation. “Truly.”

She rolls her eyes, but frantically searches for anything to say to keep from being flung into the throes of silence again, effectively being cut off from him once more.

“Did you know this is a church?” she asks, tongue feeling dry.

“It’s kinda obvious,” he says flatly, eyes drifting back to the window.

She frowns. “I didn’t know you had a taste for them.”

“I don’t.”

“Ah, then there must be another reason as to why you picked it.”

“Is there?” he asks, brow raised.

“Tell me,” she says, moving away from him to stand closer to the window; she looks out, pretends to search, and feels her face heat up slightly at her own thoughts. “A-Are there any brothels nearby?”

“One,” he says, close enough to her ear to make her nearly jump out of her skin, realizing then that he had moved to follow her. He looks down at her. “Why? Looking for a new line of work?”

He laughs as her entire face must turn completely red.

She crosses her arms, turns away.

“I just liked it cause it was vacant,” he says, taking a step away. “Old man said we could have it for free and it gets the job done—but I’m disappointed that that’s why you think we’re here.”

“Do you all live here?”

“No,” he replies. “A lot of the younger ones live in town. Very few actually sleep here overnight.”

“What about you?” she asks, still staring out the window, watching a young man jog down the path towards a small girl, picking her up once he reaches her to twirl her around, and she suddenly recognizes him as one of the men from the front of the church.

“Depends on whether I feel like sleeping in a real bed or not. It’s kinda creepy here, don’t you think?”

She can see why he might think so. She’s never seen a church look so sad and desolate, so in need of repair to the point where it doesn’t quite resemble a church anymore.

“You never really liked anything like this, did you?” she questions, watching the man place the girl on the ground, only to then grab her by the hand, leading her back up the road towards the main part of town. “Shrines and such.”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“And yet here you are...”

“Here I am. We always seemed to end up in them.”

She lets her gaze move from the window to the floor, slowly following the patterns in the cracks of the stone to the tips of his boots—those old, muddied, leather boots.

She doesn’t have the courage to look up; she is scared to find that he is looking back at her—or maybe she’s scared that he won’t bother to at all.

“Why are you really here?” he suddenly asks, and she feels herself go rigid.

“The news—“ she tries, but he scoffs and it stops her thoughts from properly forming, causing her to finally look up to meet his eyes.

His gaze is strong, and she wants to look away, but she can’t.

What was she to do with such unfamiliar feelings—she surely could not come out right and share them with him. She isn’t quite sure when they started, and wasn’t quite sure when they had started to grow stronger, but all she knew was that it was painful to reach out with open arms to a man that only ever responded with his back.

“Is it really so wrong that I want to see you?” she quietly asks, finding the short lived nerve to voice such a thought. “Do you hate me so much that you cannot stand the sight of me?”

His smug look turns to one of shock so fast that she might’ve laughed had the conversation been different. His crossed arms drop to his sides, he makes a strangled noise as he blinks in confusion.

Confusion quickly changes into a frown though.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, though she can tell that her question has shaken him. “You’re an idiot if you think I hate you.”

Then I must be an idiot, she thinks, gripping the sides of the skirts of her dress with fingers desperate for some sort of understanding.

“Then why don’t you answer letters?” she asks again, surprising even herself when her voice comes out steady and calm. “Why do you act as if we are strangers? Why do you refuse to see me?”

Her chest feels as if it’s starting to constrict around her heart, her ribcage caving in, and she feels like she’s suffocating on her own words as her feelings start to invade her thoughts and her thoughts start to invade her mouth.

“Is it wrong that I care about how you are? If you’re well?”

That confused look makes its way back to his face again, and the hold around her heart grows tighter.

“You only keep in touch with Forsyth,” she says without thinking now, letting words flow loosely when she knows that she should never let her heart dictate what her lips say. “If we are not even friends then—“

She shuts her mouth when she hears her own voice crack, and she suddenly feels awful for being so selfish. He owed her nothing, and yet it felt as if she was asking the world of him.

“Silque,” he says quietly, and her heart pounds, finding it unfair that it betray her in such a way.

I’ve given my heart to you so freely, she holds back, pushing down such an ugly feeling that she’ll only admit to herself. She wonders why he cannot give anything back.

She isn’t sure why she bothered coming—what was she expecting from him? An apology? Little handwritten notes in reply to hers?

Oh no, she wanted much more than simple letters now. If absence made the heart grow fonder, then his made her nearly completely enamored by the thought of seeing him, even for just a moment.

It’s a feeling of holding her breath until she sees him again. A year, six months—who knows when the next time he’ll allow her to see him will even be? He may just let her asphyxiate on what he would call a fool’s feeling.

And it’s a dreadful feeling being the fool that knows he will never once feel the same, never truly tell her just what he thinks of her; she knows she will suffer in it alone.

She’s never felt so full of hope and despair, admiration and desperation all rolled into one jumbled mess that sits in the back of her throat and at the bottom of her stomach. If it’s a fool’s feeling then she would have to guess that she is playing the part of the fool once more.

I’m an awful person, she thinks, taking a step back, dropping her gaze to the floor once again, and she thinks she knows why he won’t answer her now.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, finding her throat suddenly tight, so painfully dry. She lets out a hollow laugh. “I’m acting like a child.”

It’s silent, again; she doesn’t like the silence, doesn’t imagine anyone would enjoy this kind.

But then there is the sudden soft sound of him shifting his weight, clothes rustling as he turns away from her and lets out a long sigh.

He walks towards the opposite side of the room, stops in front of a large chest and props it open, pushing aside papers and clothes and whatever else is in the way, digging in deep until he must find what he is looking for. He turns back towards her as he pulls out a small wooden box, carefully holding it with both hands as he sets it down on the table in the center of the room, nodding his head to signal her to come over. 

She reluctantly does.

The box is plain, nothing more than the wood and the simple golden latch holding it closed, but she can tell by how carefully he opens it that it is important.

He pulls out a stack of papers held together by string and holds them out to her.

“I keep all of them,” he says, and she reaches out with shaking hands to take them.

She recognizes her handwriting sprawled out across the one on top, his name and her words staining the paper just as she had remembered writing them. She carefully looks it over, then pulls out the second, and the third, and she lets out a small breath of air as she realizes that he really did read them all, that he really did know everything about her and she still knew nothing about him.

When he places his hand down on the table to rest, her gaze follows, noticing then another item pressed down tightly into the box.

“The book,” she breathes, moving to run her fingers along the letters pressed into the leather of the cover. “You kept that as well.”

“Of course.”

“Do you...read it?”

He looks away with an amused smile.

“Only the first few pages.”

A small breath escapes her lips.

She realizes then just how much of a child she really was. If he had truly hated her, surely he would not keep such little things—and so she also realizes just exactly how much of the fool she was.

Growing up in the priory, devoting herself to gods first before Man, she finds herself feeling lost and alone, unable to properly find her footing in such unfamiliar territory.  She thinks she may start to drown if she is left to flounder here for much longer.

Her thumbs absently run over the parchments in her hands, the ink long dried, though she still drops her head to check them for the smudged stains.

“Give me...” he starts, pausing to watch her look the stack of letters over again. “Just give me a little more time.”

For what? she wants to ask, but she keeps quiet, only nodding her head after a moment more. She holds the letters out to him, but she is surprised to feel his hand placed atop her head instead.

It’s agonizingly slow as he runs his palm over the back of her hair, pulling his fingers down through it to grab at the ends as he gently tugs, making her look up at him, and her heart does more than skip a beat.

Her breath gets caught in her throat almost a little too easily, and though she’s never felt quite like this, she can’t gather enough coherent thoughts to even think of what such a feeling might be.

Her thoughts are flooded with things that shouldn’t be there, visions of him slowly moving his hand from her hair to her chin, rough fingers running along the edges of her smooth skin, only the softest looks from him as he only looks at her—

“Python!”

Someone pounds at the door, and she backs away from him so quickly that his fingers get caught in her hair, causing her to yelp as she has to pull his hand away.

“What is it?” he calls out, hurriedly taking the letters and placing them back in the box, once again moving across the room to place it into the chest, pushing all of the papers and clothes and whatever else over his prize before letting the top slam shut.

Whoever is on the other side tries to push the door open, but the chair moves not even an inch as he does.

“How’d you lock the door?”

“Gods damn it all,” she hears Python curse under his breath, and she watches as he moves to stand in front of the door.

She quickly runs her fingers through her hair, trying to smooth out whatever tangles he had caused, her face feeling hot.

“It’s important! The scouts have come back, things are not good!”

It’s then that Python shares a look with her, finally deciding to pull the chair away from the door. He swings it open, one of his men standing before him with wide eyes as he looks past to see her standing there; he quickly bows in greeting.

Python hits him in the shoulder, and the young man is surprised, as if he’s suddenly remembered what he came for. He leads Python out back into the main room of the church, and Silque decides its best to follow.

“They were attacked by one of the thieves’ lookouts,” the man begins to explain, boots once again echoing loudly throughout the hall. “They know we’re looking into them now.”

“Who got injured?” Python asks, but Silque isn’t sure how he knows any have been hurt as they enter the main part of the church once again, less men than before sitting around.

“They’ve all already gone up to the elder’s house,” the man answers, and Python simply nods his head, moving across the room towards a large chest.

She watches him in blissful confusion—she’s never seen him so serious, so willing to be involved in something so challenging. She would have to guess if he was a leader of a small militia like this that he would have to fit well into the role of commander, but Python, of all people, filling that role? She begins to wonder if there’s something more to it than the pay for him.

“Where’s Reigh?” he asks, and she notices then that he’s pulling leather armor out of the chest.

“He left earlier, his sister—“

“Someone needs to go get him. I want him to take her back home.”

She’s startled out of the small stupor as she realizes that he’s talking about her while he’s putting the armor on, the rest of the men that were sitting around before doing the same.

“Python,” she says, but he throws her a look that asks her to comply, and it’s then that she realizes he doesn’t want her to speak in front of his men.

A frown crosses her face as she drops her gaze to the floor, and Python asks once again where Reigh is, though the answer gets shut out by the sound of swords and lances and shields being pulled out of piles and off the walls; she winces at the awful and familiar sound.

Was he embarrassed of her?

No, that couldn’t be it; Python wasn’t one to get so easily embarrassed. But she isn’t quite sure what else it might be.

“Hey,” she hears, and she looks up to see him standing before her.

It’s startling to see him with a quiver full of arrows strapped to his back once again; she had thought she’d seen the last of him with leather armor and archer’s gloves on, a bow in his hand.

“Reigh will take you back to where you need to go,” he tells her quietly, shifting a glance towards the door. “Anywhere you need to be.”

Where she needs to be was a lot different from where she wants to be, but such a thought voiced out loud might actually ruin her.

“Even back into Rigel?” she asks instead, eyebrows furrowing at the thought of him riding into a war where there was no healer—a guaranteed death wish.

“If you wanted to go all the way back to the capital even,” he says. “I’d trust Reigh with my life, so I’ll trust him with yours.”

“What a thought,” she says in a bewildered breath, not meaning to say it out loud.

He sighs—she hates it—and he looks back towards the door once again, his men beginning to spill out.

He suddenly grabs her by the shoulders, she stiffens up at the touch.

“Silque,” he starts, and she hates that she feels light and fluttery when he calls her name, when he touches her like this. “I’m sorry—“

She holds up a hand and places it against his chest to gently push him away.

“Do not apologize until you mean it.”

He frowns down at her, but she doesn’t really mind. He takes a step back, hands dropping to his sides.

“Python!” Someone calls from the door, bursting into the room out of breath. “You—you sent for me?”

“I need you to take her,” he tells him, turning away from her now to leave out the door, and the man—Reigh, she would guess—makes a face that tells her he is annoyed, though she’s too busy chasing after Python to take much joy in the silliness of it all.

She stops at the top of the steps leading into the church to watch him as he approaches one of his men holding onto a horse for him. In one solid movement, he is steady on top of it; and once again, he has surprised her.

The horse shifts uneasily beneath him, she feels as nervous as the horse. He looks up at her standing on the steps of his church and he calls out to her once more.

“Soon,” is all he says, and her brows furrow in confusion. Some of his men begin to ride out.

It’s an awful feeling to watch him leave without her, and it’s an awful feeling as she realizes that it will always be like this, she will always be left behind.

“Python,” she says without thinking, and the few men who have stuck around to see such drama look at her precariously, giddy, excited.

She takes a step down, images of the war being dug up from the recesses of her mind, of blood, arrows, broken bones and drunken minds. She looks at him and she can smell the stench of blood, remember the feeling of it caked between her teeth, the feeling of white hot, searing pain. She hopes desperately, prays wholeheartedly, that the Mother will be with him as he finds himself in a kind of trouble they haven’t seen for a while.

“Be careful,” she warns him, remembering the sound of muffled words, the feeling of being knocked around in someone’s arms. “If you die, I’ll kill you.”

He raises a brow, then gives her a devilish smile, one she hasn’t seen in such a long time. Her heart aches at the sight of it.

“It’s a promise then,” he says, that smile still on his face as he turns his horse to ride away, the rest of his men following, but she thinks that he’s never really been good at keeping promises.

“Miss?” she hears from behind, and she turns to see Reigh standing there awkwardly. “Where would you like me to take you?”

She pauses to consider, thoughts too jumbled up and far away with someone else to even really care.

News, she thinks, I’ve got news to deliver...

She smiles at him slightly as he shuts the church door tight behind him, keeping an abandoned place safe for its abandoned inhabitants.

“There’s a seaside village near the border in Rigel...”

Chapter Text

It’s raining and it’s cold the day Python finally reaches the small village Forsyth had told him about, and he can’t help but wonder if he should take it as an omen. Early spring was supposed to be a time of growth, but was growth supposed to come from something so dreary?

Forsyth had mentioned that she was finally beginning to stay in one place, only occasionally leaving to travel to those that she heard might need help. He said that she lives near the outer edge of a village in western Rigel, on the crest of a small hill, and Python had pretended not to care, going about whatever he was doing at the time.

Though he reluctantly gave in to his curiosity.

“By herself?” Python had asked.

“By herself,” Forsyth had confirmed, an awful smile crossing his face as he knew Python was finally about to break.

He never thought he’d end up back in Rigel.

But he finds himself staring hard at the long path towards what is supposed to be her house on the hill, the wet dirt beneath his feet almost impassable mud. The rain isn’t pouring, but it won’t let up either, so he’s stuck with pulling the hood of his cloak down lower as he ascends higher up her hill.

When he’s near the top, he can finally begin to see it. It’s a humble home, made entirely of wood; he’s not sure it’s even big enough to be considered a house. But if it gets the job done, then he sees no problem with it.

There’s two figures standing on the porch, one pulling a coat on, the other waving them goodbye; he recognizes the latter, figures he might with such familiar blue hair. As the first figure leaves to walk down the other side of the hill, and the second turn to go back inside, he makes an effort to jog the rest of the way, slipping on some loose gravel as he finally breaches the crest.

He calls out her name, and he can see her freeze in the doorway, hand gripping the frame before she slowly turns to look over her shoulder at who it is. He stops at the bottom of her wooden steps.

When she fully turns to look at him with those wide, innocent eyes, he can’t help but think of what an idiot he is, how dumb he must look as he simply stares at her, expecting something . She takes a step forward, but he speaks to stop her.

“Hey,” he lamely says, half out of breath, and he watches as she opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

He had let another six months slip by and she had finally stopped sending letters; for some reason, he felt restless waiting for the next to come, but of course, it never did.

So he left to find out why.

He can hear the rain hitting lazily against the shingles of her wooden roof, dripping off the ends of it and into the puddles below.

“Python...” she starts slowly, looking him over very carefully. “How did you—“

“Forsyth told me.”

He swears that her features soften up at that; truthfully, he wants to see a soft smile more than anything else.

“I guess I should have known,” she says, and he feels some relief in the amused tone of her voice. “I’m surprised he did not say anything sooner.”

“Big mouth,” Python agrees with a laugh, and that smile he was hoping for finally comes forth.

The rain drips, and she smiles. It’s quite infectious—quite dangerous. Smiles like that start wars.

She looks him over, then as if she remembers the weather, she beckons him up the steps.

“Come in,” she says, and Python has no need to be told twice as he jogs up them to meet with her.

He stops before her, the awning of the wooden porch now protecting him from the rain, and he watches as she hesitantly looks up at him before turning back inside. He follows.

“I was not expecting you—ever.” He shuts the door behind him. There’s a small pause as she must be thinking of some way to busy herself, some way to keep an awkwardness from spreading.

The inside of the house seems even smaller than the outside; a small table with three chairs and a wood stove in one corner, two fancy and out of place armchairs sitting in front of a bare fireplace in the other, and the shortest hallway he’s ever seen leading to a closed door at the end of it. It’s cramped, but cozy.

“Well, I’m here,” he says, trying his best to fake a friendly smile, but she knows him better than that. He looks over the room again. “Fancy chairs you got.”

“They’re a gift from Alm,” she says, shuffling her way into what he would guess counts as a sad excuse for a kitchen. “Since I refused any sort of monetary reward for the war, they gave me those instead. They have been in the castle since forever apparently.”

“Ah, so you get the king’s hand-me-downs.”

A smile crosses her face as she pulls a cup from a cupboard. It’s a small smile, but it’s there nonetheless.

“If that is what you want to think. I don’t really have a need for them, but they are nice to look at I suppose.” She shrugs, stares down at the cup. “Do you want something to drink? I imagine it was a long journey here.”

“I doubt you have any alcohol in this house.”

“It’s a little early to be doing that kind of drinking, don’t you think?”

He chuckles, then sighs, shaking his head. Small talk didn’t mean much.

“You’re not gonna ask why I’m here?”

She raises a brow. “It’s because I stopped sending letters, is it not?”

He holds back a curse. He was much too predictable.

“Sly dog,” he says, watching her unamused face flicker with that slight smile again.

“If that is all it took to see you, maybe I should have stopped sending them long ago.”

“Miss me that much?”

She turns away with a blush. Even if it had been a plan to see him, he imagines she’d get tired and stop writing them eventually anyway.

“How long are you staying?” she asks instead, voice suddenly much quieter than before.

“I don’t know. A few days?”

She nods, let’s her gaze drift towards the window beside her. He wonders what she’s thinking, how she feels. He wants to tell her something, but he hasn’t figured out the words to say it yet, so he joins her at the window and he watches.Outside, it starts to pour.

The rain doesn’t let up and part of him hopes that it never does.






He wakes up the next morning in one of her royal chairs with a stiff neck and a soft blanket draped over him. It takes him a moment to realize where he is, but once the fogginess of his mind clears and he finally remembers, he notices then the sound of clanking dishes.

He sits up to turn his head towards her table, watching as she lays out a plate of bread and butter. She stops when she realizes that he’s watching, hands frozen above the food.

“You’re awake,” she says dumbly. He stays silent. It isn’t until he rises from the chair does she seem to find how to move again.

She stands up straight as he approaches the table.

“This is for you,” she says, vaguely gesturing to the food. “It’s not much but I have to leave right now and—“

“Where you goin’?” he asks, unable to clear the sleepy hoarseness from his voice. He watches as she moves away from the table to grab a cloak from the chair he hadn’t been sleeping in.

“There’s an older woman I help out sometimes,” she explains as she fastens the cloak around her shoulders. “I would invite you to come along, but—well, you just woke up and—“

She stops herself, shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts.

“Maybe next time,” he says, pulling out a chair from her table to sit in.

She stops to look him over before picking a bag up from off the floor. Her features soften as she does.

“Yes, maybe next time,” she repeats, her hand lingering on the door a moment more before she turns to leave. She stops once more to peek her head back into the house. “If you need anything, the neighbor at the bottom of the hill will help you.”

She closes the door and Python is left all alone.

He drops his gaze down to the bread and butter set on the table, wonders why he is here, why she’s let him stay. He rubs hard at his eyes and thinks maybe he’s just simply dreaming, and soon he will wake up to see that forgiveness was actually not as free as she had made it seem.

She takes him into town when she returns in the evening, shows him what little there is to see.

There’s the bar and the smithy and the inn, the elder and his family’s surrounding houses, a shop here and there, but not much more. He thinks it’s rather dull, but then again, his own village is not much grander.

He kinda likes the simple life anyway, doesn’t mind the mundane; in a way, he understands why she is here.  

“Where are your men?” she asks as they walk down the dirt path, exiting what was supposed to be a bakery.

“In Zofia,” he answers.

“What are they doing without you there?” she tries again, and Python sneaks a glance at her from the side of his eye.

“Whatever they like, I guess,” he says, and he watches in delight as she rolls her eyes. “They don’t need me there.”

“But you’re their leader, are you not?”

“In a way,” he replies. “Some would rather I not be.”

“Causing trouble?”

“Me? Never.”

She laughs softly then, leads him back out of town and towards her hill. Though silence soon fills the space between them, their footsteps just something to fill the air.

“When are you leaving?” she asks quietly, watching the ground as she walks. He sighs.

“Tomorrow morning. Can’t stay gone for too long.”

He feels sick for wanting to see some sort of disappointment in her. It takes her a moment to answer with an even tone.

“No, I suppose you cannot.”

A stronger wave of silence. The distant sound of birds chirping in the trees doesn’t seem real.

“But,” he continues, her head lifting. “I’ll come back soon—if you’ll have me.”

She looks away before he can see her gentle smile. In truth, he doesn’t mind such a quaint little town.

She clasps her hands behind her back.

“Of course,” she says. “You are welcome whenever.”

It takes another month for him to return, but when he approaches the old, little wooden house, he finds her on her knees next to her house in the dirt.

Her sleeves are rolled up and she has a tool in one hand and before Python can even call out her name, she turns and sees him, smiling widely as she stands and brushes her hands against the front of her dress. He feels some unusual excitement as she approaches, his shoulders feel light.

“What’re you doing?” he asks, not really caring as she stops in front of him, eyes bright.

“The woman at the bottom of the hill suggested that I start a garden,” she explains. “So I’m trying.”

“Gardening, huh?” He peaks around her. It really only looks like dug up dirt to him.

“It’s a work in progress,” she says, glancing over at her work too. “One day it might actually look like something.”

“Guess we’ll have to see if you’ve got a green thumb or not.”

She turns away as she smiles.

“I guess so.”





She takes him to visit the old woman to help out around her house.

The old woman is small and frail and has a voice that is so soft he is afraid she might cough out dust if she laughs too hard, but she smiles sweetly at Silque when she enters the small house.

And she takes one of Python’s hands when Silque introduces him, pats the back of it softly and offers him something to eat. For once, he politely declines, tries to stay out of Silque’s way.  

He attentively watches as she works, as she does the old woman’s laundry, as she helps clean the house, as she gives the woman company. Python only interferes when she asks him too, holding this, moving that; he doesn’t really mind.

She eventually pulls all of the books off of a shelf in the woman’s front room and places them in a pile before him. He frowns up at her from his spot on the floor.

“Flip through the pages and throw out those which have mold or are illegible,” she says, wiping her hands on her skirts. She doesn’t say anything else before she turns and leaves to finish her own work in a different room.

So Python obliges because he doesn’t want to become a problem, and he flips through book after book looking for a reason to throw it out. Dust flies up into the air with every page turn, and he wonders if he’ll ever get the smell out of his nose.

The old woman eventually appears, sits down in a chair and just stares at him for a good long moment. He tries his best to pretend she is not there, but he can feel her eyes burrow into him as he flips through her books.

“Young man,” she calls him, but Python is not sure just how young he feels anymore. “How do you know Miss Silque?”

He tosses a book into the pile.

“We fought in a war together.”

“Ah, so you’re one of those young men.”

Python scowls, but doesn’t say anything.

“You’ve known her for quite some time then,” the old woman continues.

“Just a while.”

“Do you like her?”

He scoffs.

“Everyone does. What’s not to like?”

The old woman laughs and then sighs, placing her cheek against her palm as she looks at him with a longing expression. Maybe she’s remembering the good old days, he thinks, or maybe she is just going senile.

“Very true.”

Python flips through another book.

“She doesn’t talk a lot about those days.”

“Really?” He feigns interest. He flips pages.

“No...just a lot about before. Silly little things.”

“She’s a silly girl,” he replies, and the old woman chuckles again, nodding her head in agreement. He imagines she’s seen a lot of silly things in her life.

“Either way, I know which one you are,” she says.

Python’s frown grows deeper. He turns to ask what she’s talking about but she’s already stood from her chair and begun to hobble away. He doesn’t feel like chasing after an answer, even if it is moving at a snail’s pace.

He can only imagine what it means though. He wonders just what Silque could’ve possibly said about him; did the old woman think that he was a drunk? That he never did anything? Silque can’t lie so he wonders what truths she’s told.

It begins to pick at the back of his mind as he tosses a book. Just what could she have said?

He flips through page after page, but in the end, it’s all illegible to him.








His visits get more frequent.

He comes every few weeks, stays for two or three days, then leaves to take care of his other duties that he leaves behind in Zofia.

But when he comes to see her, he can’t help but feel something is different. Everything about her is different, of course.

Sometimes they walk through town, and other times he helps her around the house. Often he helps her with the laundry.

“Rigelian air is good for linens,” she jokingly tells him once. He doubts that is true but he doesn’t mind.

His favorite afternoons with her are the ones where they hang laundry on the lines outside after all. The grass is always green and the sky is usually blue and she is there pinning her sheets and her clothes to the line.

“What’s your family like?” she asks him one day.

He feels himself stiffen up at the question. He stalls, lets it hangs in the air for a moment, secretly hoping that it will get carried away with the breeze and lost someplace within the linens.

“My family,” he repeats, staring intensely at the sheet in his hands. “They’re...something.”

“Something?” she implores, but not even Python really knows.

He’s not sure if he wants to explain it, if he even should.

“I haven’t seen them in a long time,” he tells her instead, clipping the sheet to the line. “Not since way before the start of the war.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he hears her say, but he frowns.

“Don’t be. We didn’t get along much anyway.”

“Have you ever thought of making amends?” she asks, and he think its a silly thought, one befitting that of a saint.

“Even if I tried, I doubt they would hear it. I made sure to make a scene when I left.”

“A scene?”

“I yelled at my folks,” he explains, recalling the day he had finally had enough of his drunk of a father and his apologetic mother.  “Said a lot of things I probably shouldn’t have.”

Like most things, it hadn’t always been like that. At one time he was happy to be home, but the memories of then are hazy. They were a distant memory, a distant past, but he’s not sure he would be any better than they were.

“Do you...regret what you said to them?” she asks timidly, sounding close to him, hiding somewhere in the linens.

He thinks about it, about how he ran off with Forsyth out of frustration and a need for freedom, not caring about how it would make his parents feel.

He shakes his head. “No. I don’t think so.”

Silence falls then as he clips his final sheet up on the line. He feels himself crack a small smile; he seemed to never be able to escape the laundry.

“Have you ever thought about forgiving them?”

He turns then to see her peeking out from around the sheet behind him. He pulls it up to let her through.

“I don’t really want to,” he tells her as she steps forward. “That’s the problem.”

She seems to think for a moment, eyes lingering on the now empty basket beside him.

“That’s okay,” she tells him. “We do not have to forgive everyone that has ever wronged us. It’s important to learn who to forgive and who to not.”

“What about your forgiveness?” he asks, remembering his first few attempts to apologize. “You give it away so freely.”

“Because I want to,” she says. “You don’t have to forgive everyone, but holding on to hatred will ruin you.”

“Well, I don’t think I hate them.”

“I didn’t think you did. It’s hard to hate people you love.”

He frowns, thinks for a moment before opening his mouth when he knows he should not.

“Did you love your mom?”

The question throws her off guard. Her eyes widen, she looks taken aback, but like the soldier she has become, she quickly schools her emotions.

“Yes,” she quietly says. “Very much.”

Python feels bad for asking it, but doesn’t want to apologize, doesn’t want her to forgive him. So he stays silent.

“Thank you for helping,” she says, bending to pick up the empty basket at his feet. She gives him a tight smile. “It’s like old times, isn’t it?”

“A little,” he says with a shrug, but he’s not sure if he would rather go back to those old times or stay here with her now.

To him, it is an old wound, but she still fusses when she sees it, claiming that he did not treat it right.

She makes him sit on the floor in front of her as she inspects it; Python has to hold back a shiver as her cold fingers gently brush over it.

“How?” she only asks, and Python grits his teeth, trying to think up some story that would not worry her.

But he can’t, so he simply shrugs.

“You do not remember?”

“No.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

He chuckles, but shrugs again, resisting the urge to turn around and see the unamused face she most likely has. “I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.”

“Oh, I’m sure we have and more than once. You never seem to remember…”

Her voice trails off as she runs her fingers over it again, causing him to sit up ramrod straight. He wonders why her fingers are so damn cold.

“Let me heal it.”

“No,” he says, but when she presses harder onto the wound and he just barely lets out a noise, she sighs.

“I would ask who tried to treat this, but knowing you, you probably just took a vulnerary and thought it was good.”

“It is good,” he tries to say, but those cold fingers graze his skin again.

“Please let me heal it,” she begs, those cold hands coming up to grip his shoulders instead. He cannot see it, but he can imagine the pleading look on her face. “I hardly ever get to use magic anymore.”

He sighs and rubs at his eyes. Her hand is already making its way back to the wound before he can even think to say okay .

She covers it and her hand is freezing—he hisses at the touch—but before he knows it, those oh so familiar words of healing are leaving her mouth, that sweet warmth and dull glow emanating from her hand as she heals his wounds once more.

In a weird way, he kind of misses it, and he knows that she somehow does too.

“It’s an easy fix,” she says soon enough, pulling her hand away and taking the warmth with it. “I do not know why you always fuss so much about it.”

You know why, he wants to say, but he holds his tongue and lets her enjoy a nostalgic feeling.

“Add that to the list of things you’ve had to fix for me,” he says, rubbing at his back where her hand had been. “I’m sure it’s endless.”

“It is not that large of a list,” she says with a small laugh. “Even if it was, I remember every wound I have ever healed.”

He raises a brow, though she cannot see it.

“Every wound?”

Scars tell a story, but her magic does not leave scars.

“Maybe not every wound. But most.”

He feels her press a finger into his shoulder blade.

“The very first I had ever healed for you was here,” she says. “An arrow to the back.”

He feels her finger glide across his back to the other side.

“And another arrow here.”

Her fingers open to a palm that rests on his hip.

“A magical burn here.”

She reaches and grabs his arm.

“And your broken bone.”

He winces at the memory as she drops his arm to point at his leg.

“The slash on your leg that you somehow could not remember how you got.”

She goes silent for a moment behind him, and just as he is about to turn, he feels the back of her cold fingers gently graze against his cheek. His breath gets caught in his throat, and for some reason, his face heats up.

“You once came back drunk after a bar fight,” she tells him, and her voice is as soft as her touch. “I still wonder if you really did meet up with Lukas and Forsyth.”

“I can’t remember,” he says, and this time he really means it.

She sighs, drops her hand from his face and instead grabs his shoulder.

“Of course you don’t.”

He guiltily looks down at the palms of his hands, at the one seems to have forgotten.

“I do not miss war but…I do miss being there for each other,” she says. She moves out from behind him, and scoots to sit next to him instead, gathering her knees to her chest before setting her chin on top.

It’s endearing to see her head tilt to the side, waiting for some type of reaction or reply. He can’t help but let a small smile slip, causing her own to grow wide, making his chest feel unusually tight.

“I know you still go around doing that sort of thing, so it’s only natural you get hurt sometimes,” she begins, and he can see her toes wiggling beneath her long skirts. “But all I ask is that you take better care of yourself.”

“What’re you talking about?” he jokes, raising an eyebrow. “I’m the epitome of health.”

She rolls her eyes, but they land right back on him.

“Please, Python.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll drink more vulneraries.”

“ Python .”

Her expression turns patronizing, her tone chiding.

“It’s hard to find healers in that part of Zofia,” he complains without thinking. “And it takes a while to get here. I can’t always come running to you.”

“Then let me know when you can,” she sighs, unwrapping her arms from her legs to grab his hand. She looks down at the palm, and he knows she has not forgotten. “It is my job to help those in need, you know.”

His fingers curl in on hers, and he hopes that somehow his Zofian blood will warm up her cold skin. It couldn’t hurt to try.

“I know.”

He’s sitting on the firewood stacked next to her house when she returns home one day. Her head hangs low as she trudges up the hill and she doesn’t even seem to notice him sitting there in her sad little garden where nothing has bloomed.

“Silque,” he calls out, and her head lifts immediately before she walks to him instead.

There’s a rolled up piece of paper in her hand as she rubs at the back of her eyes, but she is able to fake a smile, just for him.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, seeing right through her facade, and the smile falls immediately.

She looks him over, probably considering if she should be tell him or not. She sighs as she stands before him.

“I think I must go see Tatiana,” she says.

He frowns and scratches at his head.

“Tatiana? Why?”

She hesitates before shrugging, sitting down next to him on the wood.

“I want to see her. It’s been awhile since I have.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with that letter?” he asks, nodding towards the paper in her hand.

She hesitates again, longer this time before she lets out a sad sigh, dropping her head.

“She is still having a hard time. General Ezekiel still has not come home.”

“Still missing,” he muses, and she nods her head.

“Tatiana has been through too much, I cannot even imagine what—”

She stops to shake her head again, and he notices then that she looks like she might cry.

“When are you leaving?” he asks, but he really means when do you want me to leave?

“The day after tomorrow. I think it’d be best.”

He slowly nods, letting his gaze wander over to her garden where nothing grows.

He leaves in the morning before she wakes up, but he makes sure to leave her a note on that small wooden table when he does.

He doesn't return for a while, deciding it’d be better if he gave her and Tatiana the space they most likely needed. He doesn’t ask her about it when he returns and she doesn’t bother to bring it up. And he is fine with that.

But she is not as excited as she normally is, and he can tell that the visit has taken its toll on her.

“What are we doing tomorrow?” he asks her as they sit on the steps of her porch, the end of spring’s cool nights creeping closer.

“I have nothing planned,” she says with a shrug. She’s busy playing with the hem of her skirts, her chin resting on her knees. “If someone needs our help, they will come.”

He resists the urge to ask what’s wrong , even when he knows that something is. He does not want to wait for someone to need their help if she is unfit to give it.

She only ever thinks of other people, never of herself; that is something he had learned from the very beginning. That’s a dangerous quality, he knows, but he also knows that he will never be able to change that about her.

He gives in; he asks why she’s so moody.

She looks taken aback, almost insulted at the question. She tries to pass it off with a laugh, but it’s hollow and she knows it.

“Am I so transparent?” she asks. “I am sorry if I’ve worried you.”

“I’m not worried. I’m just wondering."

She gives him a disbelieving look, but her gaze falters.

“I am just...confused. And worried.”

“About?”

She hesitates, just like she always does now, her small hands smoothing her skirts out over her thighs.

“You left without saying goodbye,” she says, and he feels an unusual pang in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he tries, but she shakes her head, that short hair swishing wildly against her cheeks.

“Do not apologize.”

Her voice is cool and even; she never lets him say sorry, never lets him admit he’s wrong.

“You are here now, but where do we go from here?” she suddenly asks. “It feels like I can only ever bring up memories of the war even when I am trying to run away from them.”

She lets out a bitter laugh. Python doesn’t say anything.

“Does that not seem silly? I am sure you do not come all the way out here just to relive memories from the war.”

He stays silent to let her thoughts run free, hoping one day she will slip up and tell him something he’s been waiting to hear.

But she doesn’t. Instead she says, “I try so hard to move on but—but sometimes I feel as if I will always be stuck in the past.”

For her, it was always back on Novis or remember when? and he understands why she seems so much more reserved now, why her visit with Tatiana has killed her. He turns his head to look at her before heaving a big and dramatic sigh, leaning his head back against the step above.

“How are you going to get unstuck then?”

She makes a confused noise, her eyebrows furrow.

“Well, I…”

Her voice trails off before her shoulders slump and she lets out her own defeated sigh.

“The way I would solve many problems doesn’t make much sense anymore,” she tells him. She covers her eyes with her hands. “I don’t know. I just feel so lost.”

“Then I’ll find you.”

Her head snaps up. “Huh?”

“Things that are lost can always be found,” he tells her, feeling silly just for saying it. “At least, that’s something you would say, isn’t it?”

She looks at him with wide eyes, and he can only ever wonder just what could she be thinking. After a long moment, she laughs, quick and awkward, but her smile is real this time; she looks relieved, more relaxed.

“You are more eloquent than you seem,” she says, and he can only shrug.

“Think what you like.”

She shifts awkwardly next to him, but he pretends to not notice that she has moved closer on their step to him. He knows something heavier weighs on her mind.

“Sometimes I would pray that we would cross paths—but then I remembered that our gods are locked away.” She pauses, rests her chin on her knees before quietly carrying on. “Magic and shrines are just residual blessings, leftover gifts from them. Prayers won’t work anymore.”

“You can’t mean that,” he says outloud, surprising even himself when he does. She of all people was the one that was supposed to keep the faith even if the gods were gone.

“But what if I do? You’ve never believed in Mila like I do…”

The way her eyebrows furrow together and twitch makes him think she might cry.

But she takes in a slow, deep breath, and carefully exhales, and once she does, she once again looks fine.

It’s all an act, he thinks, it’s only ever been an act .

She’s too good at keeping her emotions at bay.  

“I’m just happy you’re here,” she says quietly, studying the pattern of the skirt splayed out over her knees. He doesn’t think he’s supposed to hear her when she says, “I wish you could stay forever.”

Even if he was, he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know how to—he’s not sure if he wants to stay that long.

“When are you leaving?” she asks then, picking at the hem of that damn skirt.

“Day after tomorrow,” he replies, even though she knows that will always be the answer when she asks.

But she nods her head, and pulls a stray thread, standing when she lets his answer register.

“Do not leave without saying goodbye again,” she says, and the pang in Python’s chest is becoming all too familiar.

Python remembers the days when he would wake up half drunk in a tent, a cool breeze blowing through as she hummed and rolled bandages. As awful as the headaches were, the memories are pleasant.

His time with her has almost always been pleasant; he has usually enjoyed it. But he can’t help but wonder if she has always felt the same.

She’s more careful around him, and even he feels as if he is walking on eggshells sometimes when he comes around.

She sighs and her shoulders droop and Python can’t help but feel as if maybe it is all his fault.

So one day, he gathers up the courage to do things he knows he ought not do. He corners her in the kitchen, surprised her when she turns around to see him standing so close. Her eyes grow wide and she chokes on the air, but Python really only wants to know one thing.

“Are you scared I’m gonna leave you like Zeke did to Tatiana?”

It takes her a moment to process the question, but when she does, she laughs. Her laugh almost sounds bitter, her expression looks pained.

“We are nothing like General Ezekiel and Tatiana,” she answers, and he can hear it in her voice. “We are not even—“

She stops when he steps forward, hesitantly reaching to grasp her face. Her skin is soft beneath his fingers—it feels untouched—and he can’t help it when he runs his thumbs over her cheeks, reveling in the way she almost leans in to it.

Nowadays, he wants nothing more than to feel that softness beneath his own rough palms, but he wonders if she even wants to be touched.

“If I left, would you chase me?”

“No,” she replies, and he can’t help but think that she answered rather quickly.

“No?”

“No,” she repeats, shaking her head for emphasis. “Because I tried once and you sent me away.”

He falls silent, suddenly unsure of what to say.

“If you do not want me, then what is the point of a chase?” she asks softly, gently reaching up to grab his wrists, pulling his hands away from her face. “I’m sure you have your reasons.”

“They’re not very good ones.”

She smiles at that, lets out a soft laugh before dropping her gaze.

“Even so, I have mine as well.”

“Then tell me.”

“I cannot. I...I do not even know if they—“

She cuts herself off again. She lets her hands slide down from his wrists to his palms, gently and slowly intertwining their fingers together.

“You are free to go wherever you like, and do whatever you want. Just please...do not forget about me.”

“Silque—“

She shakes her head and lets go of his hands before letting her forehead hit his chest. He is stunned for a long moment, but he soon finds himself hesitantly wrapping his arms around her back. He’s not sure if she’s crying or not, but he doesn’t want to know.

His lips brush against the top of her head, her hair just as soft as he has always imagined it. With her body pressed against his like this, he wonders why he would ever leave her in the first place.

This feeling is gross, but he can’t find it in him to fight them off this time.

They were nothing like Zeke and Tatiana—they never could be.

Because those two were in love, even if Zeke had finally left, and Python and Silque were only in each other’s arms for the moment, love a distant thing that neither really wanted to reach.  





She often leaves him alone in her house, her trust in him to not snoop around far too strong.

He resists the sudden urges to open the always closed door to the back room— her room—and instead slinks down into one of her royal chairs or just leaves the house entirely to find something else to do.

But one night when he returns home— her home, that is—he finds only a single candle lit on the small table, the door at the end of the hall half open.

Curiosity gets the better of him, as it always does, so he kicks off his boots and quietly makes his way towards it, holding his breath as he peeks in.

He sees her lying on the bed facing towards the window, the moonlight from the outside making her and her room look pale. It’s sparse and it’s scarce; just a bed and a single dresser, her shoes and a rumpled dress lying in the corner. He wonders if it’s the familiarity of Mila’s teachings that prevent her from the temptation of material things, or if it’s something else all together.

The floorboards creak beneath him as he shifts his weight, and he stands there frozen as her head moves, her eyes locking on to his.

There is silence for a tense and heavy moment—and then the tension is broken as she moves her head back to look out the window once more.

“You can come in,” she says softly, and Python hesitates a moment more before giving in.

He awkwardly approaches her bed, his figure blocking the moonlight from reaching her. She looks up at him, unbothered, then slightly shifts over so that he can sit on the edge of it. He obliges.

“What did you do today?” she asks, pretending yesterday never happened. So he shrugs, and decides to pretend as well.

“Nothing of note. Walked around town. Went down to the inn.”

Her gaze shifts from his to the sheets.

“I’m sorry I’m not here much,” she says suddenly.

“Why’re you sorry about that?”

“You come all the way out here for me, and then you’re left alone half the time.”

“Who says I come out here for you? Maybe I come for me.”

She laughs, a bright smile crosses her face. “Is that so?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead he shifts a little further onto the bed so that the moonlight can catch her hands resting against the sheets.

Sheets. White and stiff and dirty then clean. A bucket full of linens. He’s not sure how he feels when he looks at her and he thinks of laundry and rivers and linens. He’s not sure why he likes seeing her lying in them, peeking around them.

“Python,” she says suddenly, quietly again. “Do you...ever have nightmares? About the war?”

She speaks as if she is afraid of waking up sleeping ghosts in her home.

He thinks for a moment, about how he used to get so drunk in hopes that the alcohol would ward off such dreams, but it only ever seemed to work half the time. He doubts he should tell her that.

“Sometimes,” he says instead, glancing towards the open door. “Is that why you’re still up?”

She shakes her head against the sheets. “No, I was waiting for you.”

“I’m not worth waiting up for.”

She doesn’t say anything, she simply gazes idly at the fibers.

So Python takes a chance—something he finds himself doing quite a bit lately—and he slowly shifts to lie down on the bed next to her, practically hanging off the edge of it. He’s too scared of what she’ll think if he comes any closer.

Her eyes simply widen for a moment before she quickly averts her gaze again, the moonlight finally able to capture her fully once more.

“How often do you have them?” Python asks, trying his best to act normal and not think about how he is in bed with a saint.

“Not often,” she hesitantly answers. “I think they only come when I think too much about it.”

“You think too much then.”

She falters for a moment, thinks hard before answering in a small voice: “I always do.”

“Am I ever in your dreams?” he asks then, and she looks at him curiously.

“Occasionally you are there. They’re not all bad.”

He lets out a soft chuckle. “So you have good dreams about me too then.”

“You probably think any dream with you in it is a good one.”

“Well? What are the good ones of me like?”

She thinks for a moment, places a finger against her cheek as if to mockingly mull it over.

“I don’t think I should share them with you.”

“Oh,” he says, raising a brow. “So they’re those kinds of dreams.”

“They are not!” she protests, blushing, but she’s laughing as she is.

He smiles when she does, but her smile and laughter quickly fade and unfamiliar tension fills the space between them again.

The awful part of his mind begins to wonder: Are Tatiana and Zeke ever like this?

“Tell me truthfully though,” she says. “Why do you come out all this way?”

“It gets stuffy in that church with all those people. The air in Rigel is nice.”

“I doubt you come for the air. You do not even like the cold.”

“Maybe not,” he says, placing an arm beneath his head. “But maybe I’ve taken a liking to it. Who’s to say?”

She heaves a heavy sigh, but there is no emotion to it. She lets the air grow still and the silence fall and she lets Python lay there in her bed when she might’ve never even imagined a man in her room the year before. Python wonders what’s changed.

“I’m not who I used to be,” she says suddenly, as if she’s read his mind. “Sometimes I wonder why I am even here.”

“Why you’re in Rigel?” he asks.

“That, but also just why I am—“ she stops herself, shakes the thought from her head, just like she always does. “No. I don’t know. I guess sometimes I wish I could go back to before the war.”

It was always sometimes with her. Sometimes she was sad, sometimes she had nightmares, sometimes she didn’t like him, sometimes she wonders.

“Why is that?”

She drags her gaze from the sheets, tries to meet his own, but she gets stuck somewhere along the way and ends up staring at his chin.

“I think it was just simpler then. Day in and day out, it was the same thing. There was a sort of security that came with the priory that I haven’t felt since I first joined the Deliverance.”

“Then why didn’t you go back?”

“I am Rigelian. I have a duty to the people here. If I do not help them, then who will?”

She lets out a hollow laugh.

“At least, that is what I tell myself. Maybe I am just trying to forget everything...”

“Everything?”

She risks a glance up at him, but quickly looks away.

“Maybe not everything. There are some things I never want to forget.”

He feels himself smile at that, let’s him think that maybe she is talking about him. He wants her to; he want her to indulge him, to give him a reason to keep coming back—even if that reason is simply her.

“I think we were blessed to have met each other at that time in our lives,” she says. “Had it been any other time, I don’t think I’d like you very much.”

He laughs then, full and hearty, and it doesn’t take much for her to follow suit, giggling into her hand. He likes seeing her eyes almost closed in laughter.

“Gods, you sure are something.”

“A good something?” she asks, brow raised.

“The best something,” he says without thinking, and he knows he’s an idiot when he sees her start to blush madly.

And he hates how much he likes it, how she looks when she does. He shouldn’t have said it.

He shouldn’t have done a lot of things around her, but he finds himself doing them anyways.

Just like how he finds himself reaching out towards her, for no reason other than he simply wants to touch her. Having felt her in his arms for the first time the day before, he can’t help but want to. She doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until his fingers graze her cheek.

He’s not sure if he should say something, he only knows he should stop. But his heart overtakes his mind and for some reason his face feels hot at he gently brushes her hair back behind her ear, his touch feather-soft.

He can hear her breath hitch, he can see her eyes widen, but her skin is cool beneath his fingertips as he lets his hand rest there.

Those wide eyes glance up at his, and all too soon she is ripping herself away from it and sitting up to face the wall away from him. He can hear her let out a shaking breath as she—what he hopes—tries to calm a speeding heart.

“Good night, Python,” she says coldly to the wall. He sits up from the bed.

He isn’t sure what to say as the only word that crosses his mind then is idiot , and all he can do is hold back a curse.

“Good night,” he says in turn, awkwardly moving towards the door. He doesn’t bother to look back because he knows she won’t be looking at him.

Instead he simply closes it behind him and makes his way over to one of her royal chairs, slumping down into it. He’s not sure what he was expecting, he doesn’t blame her for being repulsed, but he wonders then if yesterday was actually just a dream.

But when morning comes and she leaves her room, he pretends to be asleep as she pulls out something for him to eat. The wood floorboards shift beneath her feet as she must hesitate behind the chair, but she quickly leaves, going off to help someone, somewhere in town.

Idiot, is all he thinks, but his heart thumps a little harder against his chest as he thinks about doing it again.






It’s night out when he sees her coming up the dirt path to her house, a bag in one hand, something foreign in the other. He watches as she strolls up with a small smile on her face, a light skip in her step, but she quickly puts those emotions away when she sees him standing there, waiting for her.

She slows down a little, looks at him for only a few seconds before forcing her attention away and turning her back to him to sit on the wooden steps once she reaches them, dropping the bag next to her.

He can see now that this foreign object is hard candy—he feels his nose scrunch up in disgust at the thought of something so sweet.

“Have fun?” he asks her, but she simply shrugs her shoulders, deciding to enjoy the candy instead.

He lets out a long sigh before moving across the porch to sit beside her on the steps. She looks at him with a challenging stare.

“Where’d you get that?” he asks, pointing to the hard candy. She pulls it from her mouth to look at it.

“The woman at the bottom of the hill gave it to me,” she says, and he is relieved to finally hear her voice. “She makes it herself. She gave me more to bring home to you, but I know you don’t like sweets all that much.”

“Can’t say that I do,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair. He can’t help but think of how the neighbors know about him now—he wonders what kind of rumors they may be whispering among themselves.

“Maybe you can bring them to Forsyth or Lukas next time you see one of them,” she suggests. “I’m sure they’d like them.”

“You’d probably see both of them sooner than I,” he replies, and he notices then the summer crickets chirping in the grass.

He hears her bite into the candy, the sound gross enough to make his teeth ache, but he figures there are worse things to complain about.

“Forsyth told me that they were never his cookies,” she says suddenly, and he’s surprised she even remembers that lie—he had forgotten it himself. “He says that he’s never had that strong of a preference for sweets before.”

“Bastard,” he curses under his breath, but for once she laughs at the word, the sound of it light and airy.

He looks over at her then, the soft light from the lamp he had set out earlier casting her in a warm and orangey glow, and he thinks of how lucky he is to be in her presence at such a time as this.

A time of peace, where the worst thing they had to worry about was sending letters to one another, trying to keep promises they hadn’t meant to make. He had met her during a time of war, seen her covered in blood that was his and was hers, seen the tired look she always seemed to carry with her throughout the entirety of it. He’s seen her red ringed eyes, heard her hoarse and grief stricken voice, and even though he had known from the beginning that her morals were too high and mighty for him, he had fallen for such an act anyways.

War had brought them together, and he was beginning to wonder why he had let peace keep them apart.

“Silque,” he says lowly, seriously as he turns on the step to face her fully. She looks at him curiously, suspiciously.

“Yes?”

It’s now or never, he thinks, letting his feelings of shallow endearment get the better of him.

“What do you think of me?”

Her eyebrows slowly begin to furrow, she pulls the candy away from her mouth.

“I—“

She stops herself, looking him over once before letting her gaze drift out into the darkness before them.

“Would you like the truth?”

“I still don’t think you’re allowed to lie.”

He sees a small smile cross her face.

“I think you are intelligent and kind, though you would rather people not know that,” she says, her smile growing a little wider. “You act cynical to draw people away, but I think you actually care about those around you. Your words hide what your heart wants to say.”

He scoffs, not sure how to respond.

“You helped me in many ways during the war,” she continues, that smile turning shy. “It may have started with laundry, but in the end...it meant so much more to me. I think it is fate that we met.”

“Fate, you say?” he asks, brow raised.

He’s never really believed in fate.

But she finally brings her gaze back around to him, and he feels himself begin to smile as well when she looks up at him now.

“I think you’re very important to me,” she says quietly, the nighttime sounds fading away. “I hope you know that.”

Now or never, his head reminds him, and he has the horrible thought of someone else coming to take her before he has the chance to.  

He reaches out, gently brushes the hair away from her face, and he can hear her breath hitch and see her back straighten, that smile slowly slipping away to reveal something much more innocent.

“What do you think of me?” she asks with a tight voice, unable to tear her gaze away from his.

“I’m sure I’ve told you before.”

He lets his fingers run down her cheek and along the side of her neck, stopping at the base of it. His thumb rests against her jaw.

“You should tell me again,” she says, expression deadly serious. Her skin is warm beneath his palm; he wants to savor such a feeling. “Please, remind me.”

He wonders if he’ll regret never saying anything, never doing anything. Everyone wanted to preserve that special innocence that she carried with her, no one wanted that kind of pureness tainted, and he was beginning to wonder if it was fair for him to take that away from her.

“I think...” he begins, and she looks at him expectantly, anticipating something great, and it makes him feel like an idiot.

To defile something so holy, he wonders how he should be punished. Did the Mother strike people down for that? Could she strike him down from wherever she’s at now?

“I’ve been thinking about something for awhile now.”

“And what would that be?” she asks, voice airy.

“You know I’m not one to tell secrets.”

“Oh? And what about this must be so secret?”

He presses his fingers into the back of her neck and he finds himself close to her face, every little detail suddenly clear—the grey eyes, the dark lashes, the divots and lines of her lips and the roundness of her cheeks. Had she always been this pretty? Surely she has.

If he were to end up in some type of hell for kissing what is practically a saint, he doesn’t think he would care all that much.

When his lips touch hers, he can hear the candy from her hand hit the bottom step, can feel her stiffen up beneath his hand again, and he can only imagine how fast her heart must be beating—how fast his own is. He doesn’t think she’s ever been kissed before.

There’s a light skip within his own chest as he finally does what Forsyth and Lukas were always afraid he would do, what he’s kind of always wanted to do. But things had changed, just like they always did, and now he was kissing the girl that was never supposed to be kissed.

It’s light and it’s gentle, and it lasts not even a few seconds before he pulls away to see her face very red, her eyes very wide. He licks his own lips, tasting the sticky sweetness from her candy there, and he thinks of how he’s never given something so chaste, so tender before—he’s afraid he’s lost his mind.

He pulls his hand from her neck and drags it down his face instead, letting out a sharp laugh as he realizes that he’s just confirmed how much of an idiot he truly is. When she doesn’t speak, he thinks that maybe the others were truly right in trying to stop him, maybe he had read her all wrong.

He watches her warily as she brings slim fingers up to touch her lips—what could she possibly be thinking—and drops her gaze down to her lap. Maybe he’s ruined her, he begins to think.

But after another long moment, she lets out a small and bewildered laugh, hesitantly looking up to meet his eyes once again.

“You—“ She stops herself, let’s her hand rest against her cheek, and then she smiles shyly and he is unsure of what to say.

So instead of saying anything, he simply leans in and kisses her again, quick but gentle, and when he pulls away again he can’t imagine that her face could get any redder.

She looks like a mix of happy and scared, nervous but excited. Even Python feels a little giddy when he kisses her yet again, so hyped up from it that he nearly misses and catches the corner of her mouth instead.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and for once he really means it. He wants her forgiveness now.

She looks at him with a smile that makes his heart skip a little beat. Somehow, her hands find his, and for once he is happy to feel their fingers intertwine.

“You already had my forgiveness,” she says. “You’ve had it since forever.”

He laughs, letting it get lost in the night air as he thinks that maybe Forsyth was right in telling him to speak up so long ago.

They are nothing like Tatiana and Zeke, he knows that very well, but he wonders what it might be like if they were. Would she even want him like that? Would he be able to give her that kind of affection?

No, what a silly thought. They were not Tatiana and Zeke, and they never could be—but he doesn’t really mind, and doesn’t think he ever will.






A breeze blows by as he steps up onto her porch and knocks on her door, summer long past.

After a short moment, she opens it, greets him with a wide smile, and steps aside to let him in.

He takes off his travel cloak and drops it off next to the door before he turns to face her. She looks up at him expectantly.

He only raises a brow, doesn’t say anything in order to egg her on. He wants to see what she does.

So she takes his hands, pulls herself up to him and stands on her tiptoes, giving him the sweetest smile he’s ever seen.

“Python,” she greets, and he breaks into his own smile at his name.

She squeezes his hands and he figures he must give her what she wants.

So he leans down and kisses the corner of her mouth, and she lets out a dreamy sigh before releasing his hands and turning away.

He locks his fingers with hers, pulls them away to run up her arms, along her neck, his thumbs resting against her cheeks. He wants nothing more than to kiss her again and again. So he does since he can.

She’s always blushing, always looking as if it’s her very first kiss when she pulls away. Python doesn’t mind that though and he doesn’t think he ever will.

“Miss me?” he asks with a cheeky smile.

She turns away with her own lopsided smile and shrugs.

“No.”

He laughs then, collapses into one of the royal chairs. “What’re we doing today then?”

“Nothing of note. If someone needs our help, they will come for us.”

He sighs, but it’s content and it makes him feel full. Of what, he isn’t quite sure, but he knows that it is a good feeling.

He looks over as she pulls a cup from the cupboard, offering him something to drink. It’s no wine, but he can’t find it in him to decline this time.

She looks up and smiles, he can’t fight off his own that grows across his face, and he knows then that peace has always been here, he just had to look a little harder.