Author's Note

Edited and proofread by Illua. Give her some love!

Hey hey hey, folks! Been a hot minute, huh? Sorry the wait's have been so long, but worry not, the chapters are finally arriving! Come sometime next week I'll even be cranking out a chapter for Shadow of Rage, so keep your peepers peeled, a'ight?

Hope you all enjoy this chapter, and thanks in advance for taking time to read it! I wish you all a good day and a peaceful night!

Ciao!

-Timeless

29.04 - Week Of The Intimate: Day 4

A Queen of Marble, standing tall and proud.

A King of Plaster, cracked and dried.

Rain poured, hard and loud.

The King crumbled, but he'd already died.

The Queen stood tall, but her marble lied.

The Rain poured, hard and loud.

I blearily opened my eyes at the feeling of arms wrapped firmly around me. Looking over myself, I noted that Hamin was apparently a snuggler, as he was curled up against me, arms wrapped around my waist. With a bit of a blush, I looked up just in time for a flash to briefly blind me, and growled as I spied Ventus hovering above us cheekily.

“That’s definitely going in the archive~” she purred.

I growled as I wrenched myself from the man, sitting up and swatting her.

“Worth it!” she cried as she was hit.

Huffing, I got out of the bedroll and started to pull on my regular clothes. As I did, I thought back to how he’d reacted when we’d had to go to bed earlier. He’d blushed, stuttered, and been adorable overall...and absolutely refused to strip down himself. As such, he was still sleeping in his tunic and pants.

I knew it was because he didn't bring any clothes with him - he'd said as much - but it was still a weird move. Granted, I didn't really strip down myself, and had instead changed into a set of pajamas, but still. I sighed as I looked down at him while pulling my own pants up.

“You’re gonna have to wash those clothes, idiot…” I told his sleeping form. Naturally, he didn’t hear me, and simply flopped onto my bedroll, curling up even more. I sighed. “Weirdo.”

Ventus floated over. “But a cute one.”

I snorted, but didn’t deny it. I got dressed mostly in silence after that, Ventus not bothering to retort to my choice of keeping quiet, thankfully. After pulling my clothes on along with my armor, I glanced back at Hamin’s still sleeping form.

“...” I couldn’t help the small smile I gained as I looked upon his face. A lot of people looked peaceful when asleep, but him? He looked like he’d gone to Elysium. Considering how close he was to a psychotic breakdown yesterday, it was really surprising.

The fact that he kept up such a facade of happiness despite all that… I won’t deny I admired it a little bit. That kind of strength was rare.

Removing my gaze from him, I walked out of the tent. I could feel the beginnings of my Darksign eating away at my soul itself, now that my Light was almost completely used up. Looking at my HUD’s radar, I searched for the first bit of wildlife I could find.

I could continue my day with him later. Right now, my Undead nature called to me.

I groaned as I woke up to the smell of fresh, unknown meat cooking. Blearily opening my eyes, I looked towards the flap of the tent where the glow of the fire was coming from. Groaning again, I slowly pulled myself up and grabbed my glasses from the side where I’d left them. Putting them on, I got up, yawned and stretched, then walked out of the tent.

“Bonjour,” Lucette greeted, hefting a leg of some kind of animal in one hand and biting into it.

I nodded to her. “Good morning to you too.” I looked to the cut up meat that was to the side, already cooked and neatly placed on a makeshift rack. “I take it you didn’t want to waste the new meat you got?” I asked as I looked her way.

She nodded. “Correct.”

An awkward lull filled the air between us, so I decided to join her by the main fire. She didn’t say anything as she continued to eat, so I simply stared into the sea-green flames for a while longer.

“...Sorry I kept you up all of yesterday. I know you really needed to get some souls, it just...slipped my mind, ya know?” I eventually began.

Lucette shrugged. “I would’ve been fine, but I appreciate the sentiment.” Another pause. “...Hey, um…”

“Hm?” I hummed curiously, turning my head back to her.

“...” I noticed a subtle blush on her cheeks, and I couldn’t deny how adorable it was as she squirmed a bit. “...Thanks for following through.”

I blinked, tilting my head at her. Oddly, her blush grew. “Following through on what?” Her blush intensified yet again as she looked away.

“For helping me, and improving things, and, um...for caring for me, even after all I did,” she replied.

I blinked a few more times, then gained a smile as I looked back to the fire. “You’re welcome.” I chuckled. “Gotta say though, you’re pretty damn cute when you’re admitting these kinds of things.”

“Wh-! Sh-Shut up, asshole!” she squeaked, punching me in the arm.

I laughed at this, rubbing my arm. “And that just makes you more cute!”

Ventus giggled as she appeared between us. “He’s got a point, L. Even I can’t deny how cute you are.”

“I am not cute! I’m hot and sexy!” Lucette huffed as she crossed her arms and looked away from us. I shared a knowing look with Ventus, before we both laughed. “S-Stop laughing! This isn’t funny! I was trying to be serious!”

After a bit more laughing, we both calmed down as I smiled at Lucette. “Sorry, sorry. Teasing is one of my habits, too.”

The Awoken woman simply grumbled to herself, garnering another chuckle from me. Eventually, though, she sighed and shook her head.

“Well, whatever. I guess I deserve it after teasing you so much last night about not strippin’ down,” she conceded.

I shrugged. “Perhaps.” I looked up into the dark, stormy skies. “...I still find it amazing you can tell the time around here. Or that any of the inhabitants of this Isle can.”

Ventus shot me a look. “Didn’t you write about that?”

I rolled my eyes, but shook my head nonetheless. “If I ever explained why the inhabitants still can, I don’t recall. I can guess the reason you two can; you’ve got HUD and stuff, but the only explanation I can think of based on pure guesswork is that Skili are just...attuned, to it all after all these years.”

Lucette nodded. “That’s about right, yeah.” She smirked. “For someone who claims to not remember, you seem to have figured it out just fine.”

I shrugged. “Lucky guess. That, or my intuition.” I looked back down to Lucette. “So, since you don’t seem keen on packing up and heading back yet, and I don’t particularly either, what say we chat about the ideas I had when I was translating those tomes, along with what I found in ‘em?”

Lucette turned herself to face me fully, gesturing for me to go on. “I’m all ears.”

I nodded, smiling. “Well, from what I could translate, there were at least four Miracles. Might be more still, but that’s what I managed to get through in one night.”

Lucette blinked. “Really? Only four?”

“Seems kinda shocking considering the twenty or so pages that were on your desk,” Ventus added in.

“Well, if you recall, Miracles are performed not only with Faith, but by memorizing tales of the gods. Most of those twenty pages were those tales, in their entirety. Reading just one of them was like reading a poem from Homer’s Odyssey all over again,” I replied, laying back on my hands.

Lucette nodded slowly, brow furrowing. “Yeah, think I recall something like that.” She licked her lips a bit. “So...what do these four Miracles do, then?”

“Right, well,” I took off my glasses, rubbing the rain drops off of the lenses carefully as I spoke. “The first one I told you about in your study/lab; Golden Sleeping. That one essentially is a total cure-all. It heals your body and your mind but, the takeaway is that it takes a lot of time and puts you under a healing coma, essentially, even if the injury is only physical. If the injury is mental and physical, or if there’s significant trauma, it can take years for the Miracle to finish. So it’s basically a Miracle you should only use when your safety is already guaranteed.”

Lucette frowned, stroking her chin. “Huh...that could be useful, even with that kind of drawback…”

“It’d be especially useful if we could teach it to our troops. It’d make it so that we wouldn’t need to spend money and resources on medicines or doctors,” Ventus pointed out.

I nodded. “Exactly. Now, the second Miracle was called, uh…” I paused a moment, trying to recall the name, before snapping my fingers as I finally did so. “...right, Saint’s Bastion. That one basically lets you create a tower shield that you can wield for as long as you pour power into the Miracle. It can deflect any spell.”

Lucette whistled. “That could also be good, especially if you need a quick defense.”

I snapped a finger in her direction. “My thoughts exactly." I lowered my finger. "Third Miracle was Heaven’s Gaze.”

“Sounds pretty epic. What’s that one do?” Ventus queried, shell shifting.

“Gives the caster a birds eye view of their location. So it’s literally the ability to see things from the heavens,” I explained.

Lucette hummed. “That’d be pretty good for any scouting…”

“That’s what I thought too,” I said, nodding again.

“And what about the fourth Miracle?” Ventus asked, blinking her optic at me.

“Sun’s Wroth. It channels and condenses the energy from the sun itself and calls down a ray of sunlight on whoever or whatever you’re aiming at.”

“...Fuck. That’s just...insane,” Lucette cursed.

I chuckled. “It’s likely to help lessen any heat you get from the other nations about the whole Soul Arts thing, too,” I pointed out.

Ventus hummed. “That’s a good point. With the Sun being Celestia’s whole thing, it could score us some brownie points.”

Lucette snorted. “As if I’d want brownie points.” She waved it off. “Call it appeasement, ‘cause that’s what it actually would be.”

I chuckled again. “Gotta admire that confidence of yours.”

The Awoken smirked. “Well duh, I’m that amazing.”

I rolled my eyes, but a smile was still firmly on my face. “I won’t deny that.”

She giggled. “Glad you agree.”

There was a bit of a pause in our conversation after that. Yet, despite my personal fears that she found it awkward, to me it felt...comfortable. It was a very welcome feeling.

More than that, though, I felt...warm. Even with the rain pouring down on us, I felt...warm. The fire was heating me up, sure, but...this warmth felt different. It was like some warm blanket had wrapped around my heart.

I’d never felt anything like it before. Not since…

...since her.

I couldn’t help how I started to shake, so to hide it, I stood up, dusting myself off. “We should probably head back now. No doubt Tempest is in need of a rescue.”

Lucette grunted. “Yeah, probably.” She sighed, but got up nonetheless. We packed up camp in relative silence, which I was thankful for.

I wasn’t sure I could handle a conversation without my voice dying in my throat.