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Summers are different in Terncliff.
In the honored capital of the Imperium, the northeasterly wind never seems to stop blowing. It comes down from the mountains of Ilsabard, cutting through fog and mist like a reaper; and it makes the winters full of bitter frost, the springs full of cold light. Things do not grow good and green in Garlemald—the land itself fights its people.
But here, further to the south, the air is sweet and briny, and even the spray of the sea carried in the air does nothing to chill Zenos. It is… comfortable.
After wandering through the quiet streets of the town for the better part of an hour, Zenos comes upon the Warrior of Light.
They are forever fated to cross paths, no matter how far apart they remain, or how long they stay separate. The threads of destiny drawn taut between them see to that.
He takes the stairs up the side of the building that lead to the veranda, two by two, until he’s at the top. His first indication that something is different is that she doesn’t notice his approach—she’s seated on a long, high-backed divan positively overflowing with embroidered pillows, looking out at the horizon. The sun has only just started to set, but the balcony is awash with color.
On the low table beside her are some empty glasses and a half-filled pitcher containing a dark red liquid; it’s stuffed with ice and slices of fruit, oranges and lemons and thick wedges of apple, tinted scarlet. There is cinnamon, too, a stick of it, at the top. The tall glass she’s holding under her chin has the same drink in it. He had not guessed she liked to imbibe—she left her wine during their dinner untouched—but then again, he does not know as much about her as he would like. And he wishes to know everything.
A breeze stirs her dark hair—it is purple, like the expensive dyed silks favored by nobles in Garlemald and Hingashi alike, and pleasingly soft. Just long enough for him to twist around his palm once.
She doesn’t startle when she finally becomes aware of him. Her eyes widen, her pupils swallowing up the silver of her irises almost wholly, and she smiles a little, showing him her pointed eyeteeth.
“Zenos,” she greets. Her grey skin is flushed, all the way down to the delicate circlet of black scales around her neck. “Hello.”
He needn’t wait for an invitation to sit. He simply does, lowering himself right next to her on the divan: he can feel the heat radiating off of her at this distance, nearly feverish, certainly addictive.
She looks him over, her gaze lingering at the open collar of his tunic shirt. “Azim’s teeth,” she murmurs, “you’re tall even when you’re sitting, aren’t you?”
Ah. Definitely inebriated.
She wiggles the glass at him, making her drink swirl dangerously. “Look. A very generous lady named Brida made this for me. Made it! Can you believe that? She said it was… thanks. For my deeds.”
Zenos does not care one whit for Brida, whoever she is, but he likes this version of Enkhtuya.
“They call it sangria,” she continues, and then takes another sip. “It’s wonderful.”
“Hm,” he says, not quite agreeing or disagreeing.
She jolts up like she’s been struck. “Oh—I am awful,” she exclaims. “I haven’t offered you any!”
He could protest. Alcohol is not especially diverting for him; it does nothing, physically, and seeing as it is not primarily consumed for its flavor (the bulk of which he finds rather abhorrent, regardless), that makes the whole of it patently useless to him, save a handful of wines. But he says nothing as the Warrior of Light sets her glass down, grabs a spare for him, and pours him a serving.
“Here,” she says, presenting it to him. “For you.”
He takes it from her, making sure to brush his fingers across hers, across the warm leather of the scales on her wrist and knuckles. She feels it—the glass trembles before it passes into his hand. It was large in her palm. In his, it is engulfed.
To her right, trapped between the arm of the divan and her thigh, her tail twitches.
“I cannot taste the spirits Brida used to make this,” Enkhtuya tells him, as if in warning, like it would make a difference to him. “I think that must be why I like it so much.”
Zenos drinks, not because he particularly wishes to, but because she is watching, expectant. He swallows. Considers.
The concoction—sangria—is like a mulled fruit wine. It does not burn his mouth or throat. If it were any sweeter, he would detest it. As it stands, it’s not altogether unbearable.
“It’s summer in a cup,” Enkhtuya goes on, leaning back into her original seat and taking her own glass up once more. “It reminds me of the Steppe. Is that not odd? We have no apples or oranges there—just small, hard berries. And I love them. I love our teas and our oils and salves. I miss them, too. I miss the wind and the food and our music, though I was such an unhappy child. Do you ever feel that way? Missing something that you’re not entirely sure exists at all?”
This is the most he has ever heard her say, at any time. He’s not particularly inclined to interrupt her, and to sacrifice the experience of listening to her—but she asked something of him, and he will answer.
“Yes,” he admits. He stares at her. “But I found what I sought.”
She catches his meaning immediately, despite the hazy influence of the sangria. Her flush deepens—and spreads. The sleeveless wrapped top she’s wearing does not hide much. A feast for the eyes.
“That… that is good,” she mumbles, her voice trailing off into silence.
He hums his acquiescence. It is, indeed, a masterpiece of serendipity that he came upon her, that she led him on the greatest chase of his life. Sometimes he wonders if he is sleeping, and this is some fabrication, an elaborate fantasy of unparalleled detail and believability brought forth by a starving mind. He does not dream often, if ever—but despite that, Zenos can tell that the least exciting part of dreaming is waking up.
Or, more accurately, it was.
He is content. There is nothing he would change. He would do everything the same, were he given the chance.
She startles a little when he reaches out and curls a lock of her hair about his fingers, but relaxes soon thereafter. The drink has dulled her senses. This is where she would usually bat him away with a wrist, or furrow her brow at him, like disapproving looks have ever deterred him from doing what he wants. Instead, she sighs.
“You’re warm,” she says.
“And you are drunk,” he replies.
She doesn’t move when his hand drops to her shoulder. “Not enough to be blind to the fact, I assure you.” She sighs again. “Just enough to not mind.”
“Perhaps a bout would clear your head,” he suggests, his thumb brushing at the hollow of her throat.
She laughs at that, loudly, very uncharacteristically. Her pulse flutters under his touch. “I am also categorically not drunk enough to agree to that. I am not aiming to cough up a lung tonight.”
Yes, the last time they dueled in earnest, it ended quite spectacularly for them both—he could not have asked for more, stranded at the very end of all things, at the absolute horizon of the universe, beside the woman that has taught him more about himself than the poor, distorted reflections he’s gleaned from the shattered glass of the world.
He remembers falling first, laid low by the monstrous power of her aetherically-augmented punch, the fantastic thundering of his heart; and then her collapsing atop him, the closest they’d ever been, skin-to-skin, and the exhausted, wheezing draw of her breath. She’d bled him, and bled on him. He had rested there, listening to the evidence of her fatigue—of how far she had pushed herself for him. And he had been, oddly, at peace.
The unity of battle is an intimacy that cannot be replicated. A fervor that cannot be imitated.
The Warrior of Light has always returned whatever punishment he has visited upon her, though, unusual creature that she is, the act of it does not involve any spite on her part. It is not impossible to anger her, for he has seen the spark of her righteous temper before—he just seems personally incapable of bringing it forth from her.
It’d been a strange revelation for him. He has been enraging those around him since birth.
“No matter,” he says, dispensing with her rejection. “I will ask again tomorrow.”
If he feels like it, that is. Sometimes he must issue his challenges without giving her a choice—she would avoid him eternally otherwise.
She squints at him, suspicion writ clear on her face. “Of course you will,” she says slowly. “Zenos, ever considerate.”
He is, as far as she is concerned. Mostly.
The barely-there brush of his fingers inspires her to finish her serving of sangria in a single, magnificent, protracted gulp—she slams the glass down on the table in a show of force that, surprisingly, does not shatter it.
“That’s better,” she croaks.
And with whatever courage she must have dredged from that final draught, she lets her weight settle against his side.
She is a bundling of warmth under his arm. He catches the scent of her—the salt and sun-baked stone of Terncliff, the slight tang of her scales, and the underlying note that is just Enkhtuya.
As the minutes drag on, her eyes droop, and her head comes to rest on his chest, the rope of his necklace pressing on her cheek.
“I wonder if it truly would be all right,” she says to no one in particular, her words nearly stolen away by the distant rush of waves. “All right to care again… for you.”
He traces the silhouette of one of her curving horns with a finger, stopping at the wicked sharpness of its tip—if he pressed any harder, it would surely pierce him.
“My mirror,” he murmurs, “when have you ever required permission for aught that you do?”
She smiles ruefully. Sleepily. “I am frightened. You are not invincible. I could lose you, too.”
This is an old pain of hers. Who and what caused it are not so much of an interest to him; it is how it shaped her that makes him curious—and if she will allow it to deny them both.
He runs his free hand through her hair. “There is no place extant, be it on this star or beyond, that would see you free of me.”
She gives a watery laugh. “How comforting.”
They speak no more on it—she dozes off within moments, surrendering to the bliss of slumber.
Zenos sips at the sangria. She said it was summer; to him, it is her, now. Her foolish faith. The arch of her grin. The guileless gift of a drink to a man she should revile.
It is not perfect. He would prefer to be sparring. Zenos spares her a glance.
No, it is not perfect. But it could be far worse.