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The City was surprisingly quiet at night, Taion noted, as he shifted in bed yet again. Like the rest of the party, he was exhausted, but the new revelations of the City kept tumbling through his mind.
They had been going nearly nonstop since Keves Castle, not stopping for longer than necessary before heading to Swordmarch — and then, of course, meeting the people of the City.
The City.
It was still almost unbelievable that there was a place with people so similar, yet so different, who had wildly different lives.
And lifespans.
There were so many concepts that had been introduced today — normal for everyone else but strikingly new for the party.
One unexpected piece of information in particular was keeping him up, wracking his brain as he laid in one of the City’s military bunks.
This newfound concept of “romance”.
He wasn’t blind, their dynamic was a fairly unique one for the team. It wasn’t like Noah and Mio’s, who had been the obvious recipients of some pointed stares after some explanation about what the pair on the bench had been doing.
But, it was their thing. A thing they certainly didn’t talk about, not with how nearly every conversation ended in trying to say the teasing barb or drawing their Blades at the newest approaching threat.
But after today—
Today was a far closer call than they had ever had before. If Taion thought about it too hard, his hands would surely start to shake slightly again, uncharacteristic and hard to hide behind his stance.
(For a moment, he was convinced they were going to die Interlinked together. He tried to push the thought of if he’d feel Eunie’s mind fizzle out before his own far, far out of his mind.)
If he’d learned anything from this journey so far, it was that he shouldn’t take things for granted. They at least had tonight inside the City, he was still awake, and Eunie hadn’t returned from outside, having chosen to stay by the firepit earlier, presumably needing the time alone in one of the few places they were safe enough to do so.
Time was of the essence, and he couldn’t blow his shot by hesitating once again.
Maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe it was the record-breaking near death experiences (even by their standards), maybe it was both or neither—
Regardless, for once he didn’t give a single flying spark about making a plan.
He was going to find Eunie and—
And—
…Perhaps another reason why he shouldn’t make a plan is because if his brain shorts out in the process, he won’t get anything done at all.
He tiptoed out of bed as quietly as possible, carefully avoiding the creak of the front door as he stepped outside. As he thought, Eunie was still out by the communal firepit as she had been earlier, beside the glowing embers of their earlier fire.
She appeared lost in thought, fingers tangled in her wings — nervous fiddling she didn’t often do. (He was very glad his Mondo weren’t currently summoned; otherwise, surely at least one of them would be poking him in concern.)
“What are you doing up? Thought you’d be getting your beauty rest by this hour.”
The familiar jab lacked its usual emphasis, and he was suddenly struck by the urge to—
To—
“Uh… Aionios to Taion? Hello?”
He jolted, realizing Eunie was expectantly staring at him. “Ah, yes— just… unable to sleep for the moment.”
She nodded, no retort for once — a sign of how exhausted they all were. She continued to pull at her feathers, hissing intermittently as a few crookedly held on. After one particularly colorful set of mumbled swears — he was pretty sure referring to any of the Queen’s body parts like that counted as sacrilege — he cleared his throat, wordlessly gesturing towards her wings.
An offer to preen them.
This was usually Mio or Sena’s job, or even occasionally Noah’s — a remnant of their time traveling for Keves. She had never offered, and he had never asked, but she had certainly made it clear before how much of a pain preening herself was.
She didn’t respond, instead turning back around. He froze for a moment, hands still half-raised. This really wasn’t the time to fumble things, and now she wasn’t even looking in his direction—
“Well?”
Her voice snapped him out of his quickly spiraling thoughts, blinking rapidly before realizing she was gesturing towards her wings.
Ah.
He hadn’t misread that, he had… misread misreading it.
Pushing his glasses up, he quickly stepped forward — no time to be two steps behind Eunie’s quips, especially now.
…Unfortunately, that meant the rare event of his mouth running faster than his brain, spitting out the first thing that came to mind:
“Today has certainly been a long day. Or days? Time’s a bit blurry after fleeing from the castle.”
He grimaced as he realized what he had just brought up. Good going, Taion. Remind her about what we’re all trying to forget about right now.
Luckily, she didn’t seem to mind. “I still can’t believe we were in the castle, let alone the throne room.”
She paused for a moment, staring out to the City until—
A peal of nervous yet boisterous laughter suddenly shook her shoulders. “Flying sparks, we’ve met a Queen. We’ve fought a Queen, and she isn’t even real!
Before he knew it, he was laughing as well, the stress of the last day (or days? they’d all lost track) finally bubbling to the surface. It truly was an egregious chain of events, far more than he would have believed even a month ago.
Part of him worried they’d wake up anyone nearby with how loud they were being — he really didn’t want to set that bad of a reputation on their first night as guests — but frankly, he thought, they needed this.
As their laughter slowly died out, Taion breathed a sigh of relief he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding for who knows how long. He hadn’t felt this light in… longer than he could remember, really, and Eunie—
Eunie was—
Breathtaking.
She didn’t even look different than normal ( and isn’t that the kicker, he thought), with her hair more askew than normal and still in the battle-stained clothes.
That didn’t matter. (Or more accurately, it did: it meant she looked like the Eunie he spent every day with, and wasn’t that special on its own.)
As she looked up at him, wings softly lit by the streetlamps above and eyes twinkling in a way they hadn’t in the lead up to Keves Castle, he realized how well and truly doomed he was.
Forget dying to Moebius or a rampant robot queen, he wasn’t going to survive Eunie being so stunning.
(And sparks , it was a good thing he hadn’t let himself think freely about this before, or he would have gotten himself killed already by how Aionios-shattering these types of thoughts were now, let alone at some inopportune time.)
They sat in silence for a while more, the only sounds being the background noise of the city and the quiet rustles of Taion carefully preening Eunie’s wings.
“There’s so much that’s different here.”
Ah. The City.
“There’s so much… so much that we’re never gonna get to have.”
Her wings dropped as she finished her thought, it hanging above them both as Taion braced to continue.
“…Unfortunately, you are mostly correct.”
She grimaced, shaking her wings in annoyance. “Wow, thanks for being a real cheer there, arsehole.”
He interjected quickly, “I wasn’t finished. Yes, you are mostly correct; there is no guarantee we will get to have any of that. However…”
He prayed to the Queen he hadn’t been horribly misreading things.
“…We still have time. A little bit, at least. And…
And I don’t want to waste the time we have left.”
He let out a shaky breath after that declaration, the weight of his words settling across both of them. For a moment, they were both completely still, without even a twitch of Eunie’s wings. And then, finally, as Taion began to worry that he had misspoken—
His hand was jolted as Eunie spun around, now staring intensely at him with a fire usually only reserved for combat and mischief.
“So, no big plan this time? Just… a want?”
“Yes.”
“You really sure? Don’t wanna go be Mr. Tactician and think things through?”
Eunie was giving him an out. In the same way that he wasn’t going to charge in and just assume he knew what she wanted, no matter how much they subconsciously shared through the Interlink. But also because, unlike her usual, infuriating but wonderful, headstrong decisions… there was doubt.
And after the hell of the last few weeks they had been through, he didn’t want to be the cause of any more of that. Not because of this.
“While I might not have all the fine details ironed out… I do know that I want you in my life. For whatever that means, even if we don’t have all of the same words that the City people have to describe that just yet.”
He was going purely on instinct, something buried but hopefully not snuffed out like the rest of their potential by Moebius and the cycle. And as such, he realized that despite seeing those people on the bench, he had no idea of how to finish his statement himself.
Thank the sparks for Eunie, as always.
“Get down here already, you sparkin’ charmer.”
Before he could respond, he found himself being tugged down by the front of his scarf.
(In that fleeting moment, an inappropriately timed thought flashed across his brain:
That “deeply uncool scarf” does, in fact, have its uses.)
He was sure they weren’t the most coordinated or stellar at this. It was certainly more awkward than what the pair on the bench had looked like. His glasses were bumping against her brow. Their noses were definitely in the way of each other. He wasn’t sure of where to put his hands, and hers were getting squished at an odd angle the closer they got.
It was fantastic.
Finally, they had to pull apart, staring at each other, eyes wide and neither moving, until–
Eunie broke out into soft giggles, her wings rustling and brushing against his face as she leaned forward against his chest.
Taion was glad she couldn’t see how much he was grinning as he quietly carded his fingers through her hair.
After a few moments, Eunie broke the silence with a small sigh. “We’ve gotta be up early tomorrow to talk to Monica.”
“You? On top of schedules? The world really is ending.”
“You snuffing prick.” She laughed, shoving him away (though, he noticed, not nearly as far as usual). “I don’t want to hear you bitching tomorrow about being tired.”
“I don’t do that.”
“Not directly, but you do grumble about it until mid-afternoon. And even your Mondo get all prickly.”
…He went silent at that, only provoking a satisfactory huff from her.
He knew of them were dancing around the real topic at hand: that once they broke away, returning inside, there was no guarantee if or when they’d be able to fully relax and enjoy each other’s company again.
“You’re correct that we can’t spend the whole night awake out here. However, I don’t think a few more minutes would be detrimental to us.” Ignoring the flustered flurry of thoughts entering his brain once again, he continued, “In fact, I think it would be beneficial overall to spend a few more moments together.”
He placed a soft kiss on the top of her head, quickly as to not let him second-guess himself.
(…And maybe to not let Eunie be the only one to initiate things. She couldn’t win their back-and-forth all the time, after all.)
“You sap,” she muttered under her breath, leaning forward against him once more as the embers beside them finally died out.
He hid a smile in Eunie’s hair as he looked out to the City beyond them.
(She would never let him live it down if he admitted it, but spontaneity had its advantages if it meant moments together like this.)