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“Ugh. Fine,” spat Caroline, pivoting to look at Quanyii. “Witch, what compromise did you have in mind?” Quanyii couldn’t help the smile curling the corners of her mouth as she scratched her chin and feigned pondering. She found that Caroline was awfully cute when she was huffy, which, when brought up in arguments, tended to only make her knight even huffier. She couldn’t do that here, of course.
“Hmm, how about…” Ah-- perfect. Quanyii gasped theatrically: “Oh! That’s it!”
“What’s it?” Caroline’s arms were crossed.
“Our compromise will be this:” Quanyii began, gesticulating wildly. “Rilla will go in there first, and you’ll have your talk with the lizard and learn everything you can--”
“How is that a compro--” Caroline attempted to interject, but Quanyii had learned a long time ago that she couldn’t share an idea with Caroline if she let herself get cut off.
“But, we’ll all decide on a time limit together first. And once that’s up, you’ll just scurry right back here and then cranky and I will go in and take what we like from your scaly friend! Does that seem fair?”
“No.” She turned to Caroline with her most convincing pout, ready to turn on the waterworks at a moment’s notice. Rilla, the pretty-girl-who-was-possibly-fucking-the-lizard, also turned to the knight. Caroline seemed to weigh her options briefly, then sighed, looking up at the ceiling, conciliatory. “But I’m willing to tolerate it.” Quanyii grinned, turning back to pretty-girl-who-was-possiblyprobably-fucking-the-lizard.
“Rilla?” The woman in question had her brow knit, obviously doing whatever sciencey thinking she did to try and figure out her choices here.
“I… ugh--”
“And I’d suggest you take the compromise, or we might have to go to a vote,” Quanyii added, as she could feel her patience waning. “And I think you know which side I’m voting for.” She slipped a haphazard smirk to Caroline, who only quirked an eyebrow in return.
“Fine,” she snapped.
“Good.” Caroline’s posture straightened ever so, the weight of the decision gone from her shoulders. “Now how long do we think is fair?”
“An hour,” insisted Rilla. Caroline gave her a look.
“Two minutes.”
“And I vote for negative two minutes, so when you average that all together, you get…. twenty minutes!” Quanyii beamed.
“That’s all?” cried Rilla, the same time as Caroline shouted “For that long?”
“That’s compromise for you! Twenty minutes to ask your questions, then come right back here.”
“But I--” Oh, absolutely not. Quanyii was running quite low on patience.
“And we’re agreed, so your time starts… now!” The healer looked fearful.
“Have fun, Rilla,” said Caroline, the controlled expression on her face looking increasingly strained. “Don’t make me come looking for you.”
“I won’t,” said girl-who-was-possiblyprobablyabsolutely-fucking-the-lizard, matching Caroline’s look with a withering glare. She then turned on her heel and stalked off down the dimly-lit tunnels, footsteps echoing behind her. Quanyii waited until the last of her steps were barely even audible, then turned to see Caroline, who was pointedly not looking the witch.
“Oh, come on, babe,” Quanyii whined, pouting at full force. Caroline turned to look at her, but didn’t say anything. Her expression wasn’t full-on mad, but it was decidedly displeased. Quanyii stepped forward and snaked her arms around Caroline’s waist, a little disappointed to realize her wife was wearing chainmail beneath her chestplate.
“I’m sorry I followed you to work,” she said, voice saccharine, batting her eyelashes up at the much taller woman.
“Mm-hmm,” said Caroline, still managing to look unimpressed, though Quanyii had earned an eyebrow quirk.
“But you had been gone for so long! I was worried! And look, you got yourself caught up in this whole world-eating monster thing at Fort Terminus of all places. I had to bust you out of jail, sweets! So it’s a good thing I came, right?” She pouted again, giving that lower lip a full workout.
“We have a rule,” Caroline said plainly. “Just the one. You currently are in direct violation of that one rule.”
“Ugh! You want a violation, sweetie?” Quanyii shouted, dropping the act. “How about when you nearly let me get smushed by the brainless bunch back there? Or when you threatened to impale me, huh? I broke my pocket watch for you, babe!”
“None of which would have happened had you not followed me here. Am I wrong?” Quanyii opened her mouth to protest. “I said, am I wrong?” The pair glared at each other for a moment, then Quanyii folded her arms, let out a hmph!, and made herself disappear from sight. Instantly, Caroline groaned, rolling her eyes.
“This is childish, Quanyii. Don’t cloak yourself when I’m speaking to you. We’ve talked about this.”
“Hmph!” was all Quanyii said.
“Ugh,” groaned Caroline. She leaned against the wall behind her, plate metal scraping against damp stone. “Are you really going to act like this?”
Silence.
“I know you’re still here.”
More silence.
“Alright, listen. You’re perfectly aware I don’t appreciate you following me here. I have made that extremely clear. I do, however, appreciate you keeping the nature of our relationship a secret. I’m not inclined to share my life’s story with the herbalist. I… also appreciate you saving my life, back when I was nearly killed by that trap.” Caroline paused. Every word sounded like she was painfully extracting it from her throat. “I… I’m glad that you’re here. You are still here, right?” After a brief doubtful moment, Quanyii reappeared, arms still crossed, but a satisfied expression on her face.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it, sweets?” Caroline just rolled her eyes in exasperation, and Quanyii broke again, dropping all smug pretenses and leaping at her knight, flinging her arms around her neck.
“Oh, my Caroline!” she gushed. “I could never stay mad at you, babe!”
“Really still haven’t figured out why you were mad at me in the first place, but I suppose that’s a moot point,” Caroline muttered.
“Oh, shut it, Sir Crankypants.” Quanyii stood up on her tip-toes and kissed Caroline, sighing contentedly when her knight leaned into the embrace and wrapped an oh-so-strong arm around her middle. She was nearly dizzy when Caroline broke the kiss off.
“Although, you have been a little heavy-handed with all of this date business.” She looked at Quanyii with a raised brow. “Not exactly subtle.”
“Ugh, I know, but I’ve been flirting with Rilla, too!” the witch argued brightly. “Speaking of which, can we puh-lease keep making out until she’s finished whatever she’s doing with the lizard thing?”
“What? Oh, damn it all!” snapped Caroline, letting go of Quanyii (much to the latter’s audible annoyance). “How much time does she have left? Let me see your watch.”
“Come on, babe,” Quanyii groaned, pulling her cracked pocket watch out of nowhere. “Oh…”
“What? Has it been twenty minutes already?” Caroline made to grab at the watch, but Quanyii held it out of her reach.
“Just about,” she said, pouting as she returned the watch to wherever she had retrieved it from. She remembered what that meant, brightened, and jumped up to smack a kiss on Caroline’s cheek. “Come on, babe, let’s go get us some lizard appendages!”
“Alright, let’s,” Caroline huffed, adjusting her armor just slightly. The witch and the knight took off together to go slay a monster, and whether they were hand in hand or not was a secret the knight would never reveal.
(But the witch would, and they definitely were.)