Work Text:
Shadows sprawled across the training grounds, stretching long and uneven as the torchlight flickered against the stone floor.
Seren adjusted her stance, rolling her shoulders as she tightened her grip on the hilts of her daggers. The weapons had grown warm from use, slick against her sweat-dampened palms, but she wasn't done yet. Across from her, Ridoc stood loose-limbed and easy, his sword resting casually on his shoulder. The golden glow of the torches caught on the polished blade as he spun it lazily, his ever-present smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"Keep up, Ren." His voice was thick with amusement, head tilting as he studied her.
The training grounds were nearly empty, the last remnants of the evening light casting long shadows across the stone floor. The distant hum of the city had faded, leaving only the occasional gust of wind and the rhythmic clang of steel against steel.
Seren rolled her shoulders, adjusting her grip on her daggers. The hilts were warm from use, her palms slick with sweat, but she wasn't done yet. Across from her, Ridoc twirled his sword with practiced ease, the torchlight catching on the polished metal as he grinned.
"Getting tired already?" he teased, cocking his head. "That's disappointing. Might have to start sparring with the first-years if this keeps up."
Seren exhaled through her nose, unimpressed. "You talk too much."
She moved, lunging forward in a blur of motion, aiming low.
Ridoc dodged easily, twisting just out of reach, his laughter slipping past his lips in a breathless chuckle. "You wound me, sweetheart. My charm is my greatest asset."
Seren pivoted sharply, swinging her blade in a precise upward arc, forcing him back a step.
"Your charm is the only reason you're still alive."
Ridoc ducked under her next strike, rolling his shoulders as if this were too easy. "You saying I can't hold my own?"
Seren smirked, feinting left before shifting right, her dagger slicing close enough that she could see his eyes flicker in split-second calculation.
"I'm saying," she murmured, voice edged with challenge, "that if you didn't keep people distracted with that mouth of yours, you'd be dead twice over."
Ridoc scoffed, knocking her next attack aside with a swift parry, their blades clashing in a burst of sparks. "Flattering. Really."
Their movements were fluid, practiced—half fight, half performance, a routine they had honed into something effortless. The kind of dance they'd been perfecting for months, maybe longer.
Always just a little too close.
Always just barely keeping the line intact.
Seren struck again, driving him back another step. His smirk widened.
"You're trying to impress me," he said, voice edged with amusement, the low timbre curling through the cool night air.
Seren flicked her blade upward, knocking his sword slightly off balance. "You'd know if I was trying to impress you."
Ridoc feigned a wounded look, one hand resting against his chest as if she had truly struck him. "You don't have to pretend, Ren. I get it. I'm devastatingly handsome, a natural talent, a master of—"
She swept his legs out from under him.
Ridoc hit the ground hard, a grunt escaping his lips as he landed flat on his back.
For a second, he just lay there, staring up at the darkening sky, as if reconsidering all of his life choices.
Seren crouched beside him, resting her elbow on her knee, watching him with pure satisfaction. "You were saying?"
Ridoc groaned, tilting his head toward her, lips tugging into something resembling a pout. "You live to humiliate me."
She grinned. "It's the highlight of my day."
Ridoc propped himself up on his elbows, eyes lingering on her face. And for a moment—just a moment—the teasing between them flickered into something else.
Something quieter.
Something more intentional.
Seren felt her breath hitch, a sharp awareness settling in her chest.
Not this.
Not again.
That look—the one he got when they strayed too close to something real, when the space between them started feeling dangerously small.
The moment stretched, fragile.
Then—because he was Ridoc, and he never let things breathe for too long—he smirked and waggled his eyebrows.
"You know, if you wanted me flat on my back, you could've just asked."
Seren huffed, standing quickly. "You always ruin perfectly good opportunities to shut up."
She turned away before he could see the way her fingers curled a little too tightly around the hilt of her blade.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The training session had long since ended, the clang of steel replaced by the distant murmur of the wind through the trees and the soft rustling of the banners hanging from the stone archways surrounding the ring. The other cadets had already drifted back to the barracks, their laughter fading into the night, their departure leaving behind only the slow-burning torches casting flickering light across the worn training mats.
And yet, Seren and Ridoc remained.
They always did.
Neither of them ever said it outright—why they lingered when everyone else had gone, why they never quite left at the same time.
Maybe it was habit. Maybe it was something else.
Seren sat on the edge of the bench, stretching her sore limbs as she exhaled slowly, rolling her shoulders to loosen the tightness still coiled there. The exhaustion of the night's training pressed at the edges of her muscles, but it was a satisfying ache, the kind that made her feel sharp and alive.
Ridoc, sprawled out beside her, seemed significantly less inclined to move. He leaned back on his elbows, head tilted toward the night sky, his hair still damp from sweat, his breathing even but not quite steady.
"I swear something popped just now," he muttered, rolling out his shoulder with an exaggerated wince.
Seren smirked, bending to adjust the straps of her boots. "Finally catching up to your old age?"
Ridoc scoffed, turning his head just enough to glance at her, eyes half-lidded with exhaustion but still bright with mischief. "I'm one year older than you."
"And yet, somehow, lightyears behind me."
His low hum was thoughtful, though there was a quiet amusement beneath it. "You like bruising my ego, huh?"
She shrugged, reaching for her water flask, lifting it to her lips. "It's so easy."
Ridoc let out a soft chuckle, but when she looked back at him, his expression was different.
Still familiar, still Ridoc, but not quite the same.
The smirk was there, but the usual sharpness behind it had dulled. His posture had shifted, no longer quite so lazy, his weight subtly shifting as he watched her—not in the way he usually did, with a smirk and a joke waiting at the ready, but with something else. Something steadier.
Something she wasn't sure she wanted to name.
Seren held his gaze for a second longer than she meant to, then tilted her head slightly, raising a brow. "What?"
Ridoc blinked as if he'd been caught lingering too long. Then, after the briefest pause, his smirk sharpened again, sliding easily into place.
"Just wondering how you manage to look so terrifying and so smug at the same time."
Seren scoffed, rolling her eyes. "It's a talent."
She stood, stretching her arms above her head, expecting the moment to pass, for Ridoc to stay where he was and let it fade into nothing.
But he didn't.
Instead, he moved too, rising to his feet with the same effortless grace he carried in battle.
And then, somehow, they were standing too close.
The night air was cool, but the warmth of the day still clung to their skin. The torchlight cast flickering gold against the contours of Ridoc's face, catching the sweat at his temple, the curve of his jaw, the slight twitch in his fingers at his side.
Seren knew better than to read into things—especially with him.
But still, his shadow overlapped hers, stretching long across the stone beneath them, and he didn't step back.
"Terrifying, sure," Ridoc murmured, voice lower now, softer, like he wasn't entirely sure he wanted her to hear it. "But the smug part? That's gotta be for show."
Seren arched a brow, tilting her chin up just slightly. "And what makes you think that?"
Ridoc studied her for a second, his gaze flickering across her face, searching for something she wasn't sure he'd find.
Then, lips curling, he said simply, "Because I know you, Ren."
Something shifted.
Not a sharp, sudden thing—nothing so easy to pinpoint.
Just a slow, creeping awareness settling in the space between them, something that had been waiting, something neither of them had let themselves look at too closely.
Seren felt it but refused to acknowledge it.
Because if she ignored it, then it didn't exist.
If she kept her expression neutral, if she refused to react, then nothing had changed.
Right?
So she forced a lazy smile, the kind that meant nothing, the kind that didn't make her pulse jump the way his words did. "That so?"
Ridoc shrugged, but something in his face wasn't as cocky anymore. "Mmhmm."
The silence that followed should have been easy.
It never was.
The air felt heavier, humming with something unspoken, something unnamed, something neither of them ever let last too long.
Seren should have walked away.
But she didn't.
She noticed the way his fingers twitched at his side, like he wanted to reach out but wasn't sure if he should.
And then—because he was an idiot—he did.
Slow. Hesitant.
Fingers brushing along the sharp angle of her jaw, barely there.
Seren froze.
She hadn't realized she had leaned closer—not until she felt his breath, not until the warmth of his touch sank into her skin.
Her heart slammed against her ribs, loud enough she was sure he could hear it, but she didn't move, didn't breathe, didn't let herself think—
His thumb grazed the corner of her mouth.
Something tightened in her chest, something that felt like a pull, a dare, a moment tipping on the edge of something else entirely—
And then he laughed.
A short, nervous chuckle, barely more than an exhale, but it shattered everything.
Seren blinked.
The moment broke.
Ridoc was already pulling away, rubbing the back of his neck, his grin sliding back into place as if nothing had happened.
"Well," he said, too casual, too easy, flashing that same smirk. "That was—"
Seren turned away before he could finish.
She didn't want to hear it.
Didn't want to see him pretend it wasn't real, pretend that she hadn't felt it too.
So she grabbed her water flask, her voice calm and even as she said, "We should call it a night."
Ridoc hesitated. "Ren—"
But she was already walking away.
Because she felt it.
She knew he had too.
And if he was too much of a coward to admit it, then she was done playing this game.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mornings at their usual table had always been easy.
A ritual, familiar and unchanging—Ridoc leaning back in his chair, feet kicked up against another, balancing precariously on the back two legs as if daring gravity to challenge him. Sawyer, already exasperated, would nudge the chair whenever he got too close to falling, while Rhiannon would roll her eyes and tell them both to grow up.
Seren would sit across from Ridoc, pretending not to be entertained by his antics, arms crossed as she made an unimpressed remark. He would grin, cocky as ever, throwing back something equally irritating, and they would go back and forth like that, sharp words traded as easily as breath.
It was comfortable, that balance between them. A game neither of them acknowledged playing but never once abandoned.
But this morning, everything shifts.
Seren is already seated when Ridoc walks in, but something feels off the second he spots her.
Her posture is stiff, too controlled, her expression carefully neutral in a way that immediately puts him on edge.
She doesn't look at him when he sits beside her.
Doesn't shift when he slouches closer, his shoulder just brushing against hers—something that normally would have earned him a scoff or an eyeroll.
Instead, she does nothing.
Ridoc pretends not to notice.
Pretends nothing happened last night.
He can do this. He can slip back into their usual rhythm, smooth over whatever this is, make her smirk, make her roll her eyes, make things normal again.
So he clears his throat, grabs a hunk of bread, and flashes his most irritatingly confident grin.
"So," he drawls, tearing off a piece of bread like he hasn't a care in the world. "Anyone else wake up feeling particularly good-looking today, or is that just me?"
Sawyer snorts. "You're the only one who ever wakes up thinking that."
Rhiannon hums. "Not just wakes up. Lives his entire life thinking that."
Ridoc grins. "It's hard, carrying the burden of this much charm."
Normally, Seren would have rolled her eyes by now.
Would have muttered something dry, maybe even leaned across the table just to shove his shoulder—one of those small, familiar gestures that didn't mean anything but felt like something anyway.
But today—nothing.
No reaction.
She just reaches for her water flask, taking a slow sip, before pushing back from the table with a quiet scrape of her chair against stone.
"I don't want to be late for sparring," she says, her voice perfectly even, perfectly cool.
Ridoc's stomach twists.
Rhiannon, already mid-bite into her breakfast, pauses, eyes flicking between them. "You're never worried about being late."
Seren shrugs, slinging her weapons belt over her shoulder. "There's a first time for everything."
And then—she leaves.
No teasing remark. No parting glance. Not even a fleeting smirk in his direction.
Ridoc watches her go, feeling something he refuses to name tighten in his chest.
The silence she leaves in her wake lingers, stretching taut across the table like a drawn bowstring.
Sawyer, who had been halfway through reaching for another piece of fruit, stops and sets it down instead.
Rhiannon simply arches a brow.
Neither of them say anything for a moment.
Ridoc pretends he doesn't feel both of their eyes on him.
He reaches for his bread again, chews deliberately, swallows, forces himself to look unbothered.
"You did something," Sawyer says finally, his voice light but too knowing for Ridoc's liking.
Ridoc scoffs. "I do a lot of things."
Sawyer smirks. "Yeah, but this time it actually matters."
Ridoc doesn't flinch, doesn't shift, just tears off another piece of bread and shoves it into his mouth as if that might somehow prevent him from having to acknowledge this conversation.
Rhiannon, ever perceptive, leans forward, propping her chin on her hand. "You don't usually look like that after Ren leaves."
"Like what?" Ridoc asks, far too defensive, which is probably what does him in.
Rhiannon hums. "Like someone who just got left behind."
Ridoc forces out a laugh, light and careless. "Relax, nothing's wrong. Ren's just in a mood."
He shrugs, tearing into the bread again.
A mood.
That's all this was.
Nothing to do with the way she had looked at him last night.
Nothing to do with the way she had almost kissed him.
Nothing to do with the way he had laughed like an idiot because, for one terrifying second, it had felt too real.
Nope.
Just a mood.
Sawyer watches him for a beat longer, then leans back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head. "You know," he muses, "it's kind of impressive how bad you are at lying to yourself."
Ridoc scowls. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Sawyer just smirks. "Sure you don't."
Ridoc throws a chunk of bread at him.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The morning air was crisp, the early light filtering through the training yard, casting long shadows across the stone floor. The familiar hum of swords clashing, boots scuffing against the dirt, and quiet murmurs of conversation filled the space. The scent of sweat, steel, and earth clung to the cool air, mingling with the distant warmth of the rising sun.
Ridoc arrived late, but he had known she would already be there. Seren was always early.
He spotted her immediately, moving through a sequence of dagger drills with a sharp efficiency that felt different today. There was no unnecessary motion, no wasted energy—just pure, unrelenting focus. Her strikes were faster than usual, her stance tighter, every flick of her wrist carrying an edge of purpose that hadn't been there yesterday.
Ridoc wasn't sure why he had expected the tension from last night to have evaporated overnight, to have simply lifted like fog burned away by the morning sun. Maybe he had hoped that by the time they faced each other again, she would have let it go, pretended it never happened—just like he had convinced himself to do.
But the set of her shoulders told him otherwise.
The tension hadn't faded.
It had only settled deeper.
Ridoc swung his sword onto his shoulder as he stepped onto the training mat, forcing his usual grin into place. "Hope you weren't too eager to start without me," he said, his voice carrying that easy charm, the kind that usually got a reaction out of her.
But Seren didn't even glance his way. Didn't acknowledge his arrival beyond the slightest shift in her stance.
"I wasn't."
Cold. Detached. Uninterested.
Ridoc felt that one.
The other cadets were already paired off, weapons clashing, shouts of exertion echoing through the courtyard. He should have been used to this—being left with her as his sparring partner, the two of them matched by skill, by familiarity, by some unspoken agreement that had existed for months.
But today, it didn't feel like habit.
It felt like punishment.
The second they began, Seren attacked first.
She moved fast, faster than usual, each strike sharper, more aggressive, more calculated. There was no hesitation in her movements, no teasing remarks to break the tension, nothing to soften the relentless rhythm of her attacks.
Ridoc barely had time to adjust.
He dodged the first set of strikes, twisting away just in time to avoid the edge of her dagger, but she didn't give him room to breathe.
There was no dance today, no playful rhythm of push and pull. She wasn't giving him the chance to joke, to slip into their usual banter, to make this feel like every other fight they'd had before.
Ridoc exhaled sharply, shifting his stance, his muscles tensing in preparation for another attack. "Damn, sweetheart," he muttered, trying to keep his voice light. "Wake up pissed off or something?"
She didn't answer.
Didn't even hesitate.
She just came at him again.
A few feet away, Sawyer watched the match with a growing sense of concern. "Okay, is it just me, or is she actually trying to kill him?"
Rhiannon, arms crossed, didn't look away from the fight as she murmured, "Not just you."
Violet, standing beside them with an air of amused detachment, tilted her head slightly. "They're either fighting, or they're fighting."
Sawyer frowned. "Isn't that the same thing?"
Rhiannon sighed, elbowing him. "No. One involves actual weapons. The other involves—" She waved a vague hand between Ridoc and Seren, her expression dry. "Feelings."
Sawyer looked unconvinced. "They don't have feelings."
Violet smirked. "They think they don't have feelings."
Sawyer squinted. "But they don't."
Rhiannon exhaled, clearly losing patience. "Look at them, idiot. Ridoc's not talking—"
"Which means he's losing," Violet finished smoothly.
Sawyer turned his attention back to the ring just in time to see Seren's dagger slice clean through Ridoc's sleeve, close enough that if he had moved just a fraction of a second later, she would have drawn blood.
He let out a low whistle. "Okay. That's bad."
Rhiannon shook her head. "This is worse than I thought."
Sawyer rubbed his jaw, frowning. "Because if Ren really didn't care, she'd just roll her eyes and move on. But this?" He gestured toward the sparring ring, where Seren was still refusing to look at Ridoc, where Ridoc's usual smirk was now completely gone. "This is bad."
"On the bright side," Violet mused, watching Ridoc barely dodge another strike, "if they do murder each other, we won't have to deal with their agonizingly slow realization of whatever this is."
Sawyer snorted. "Small blessings."
Rhiannon exhaled, shaking her head. "They are so stupid."
Ridoc shifted his weight, trying to regain control of the fight, but she wasn't letting him.
Every step, every attack, every flick of her wrist was pushing him back, demanding his full attention. There was something behind her strikes, something coiled in her muscles, something he should have seen coming but didn't want to acknowledge.
And then, in a moment of desperation, he caught her wrist mid-strike.
His grip was too tight, too firm, his fingers pressing into her skin, holding her there.
Seren stilled.
For the first time since the fight started, she looked at him.
Not a glance. Not a passing flicker of irritation.
She really looked at him.
And it wasn't the look he wanted.
It wasn't fire or frustration or that exasperated fondness she sometimes let slip when she thought he wasn't paying attention.
It was cold. Detached.
"You mad at me, sweetheart?" he asked, forcing his usual grin, hoping—praying—that she would roll her eyes, that she would call him an idiot and move on like she always did.
She didn't.
She just stared at him, her expression unreadable, before finally saying, "I don't have the energy to be mad at people who don't matter."
The words hit him harder than any blow she had landed.
Ridoc faltered.
Only for a second.
But Seren saw it.
And in that second, she yanked her wrist free and stepped back, resetting her stance as if nothing had happened.
Training ended, but Seren didn't linger.
She was the first to leave, grabbing her weapons and heading toward the exit before Ridoc even had a chance to say anything.
She didn't look back.
Ridoc stayed behind, rolling his shoulders like he was trying to shake something off, like it wasn't sitting heavy in his chest.
Sawyer leaned against the weapons rack, exhaling. "Sooo."
Ridoc ignored him.
Sawyer continued anyway. "Are we calling that a successful training session or...?"
Rhiannon hummed. "I'd say it was productive."
Violet smirked. "For someone."
Ridoc scowled. "Why do I feel like I'm being discussed?"
Sawyer clapped him on the shoulder. "You're always being discussed."
Ridoc sighed. "Listen, Ren's just being Ren. She's fine. I'm fine. We're all fine."
Sawyer, Rhiannon, and Violet exchanged a glance.
Then—at the exact same time—all three of them said nothing.
Ridoc scowled.
And when they left him alone in the empty ring, he finally let himself think about it.
And for once, he didn't like his own thoughts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seren spends the night telling herself she's done.
Done waiting.
Done hoping.
Done pretending that the space between them is anything other than an illusion she's been desperate to hold onto.
She won't be that person—the fool who lingers in the wake of something that will never happen, who clings to scraps and misread moments, convincing herself they mean more than they do. If Ridoc wants to keep hiding behind his smirks and banter, if he's too much of a coward to be serious about this—about her—then she's done giving him the power to keep her waiting.
She tells herself that as she changes into her nightclothes, fingers moving with practiced efficiency as she unlaces her boots, brushing dirt from the worn leather. She tells herself she won't dwell on the way he looked at her today, the way his grip lingered on her wrist, warm and hesitant, as if for just a breath of a second, he had wanted to hold on.
She won't think about the way she had wanted him to.
She won't think about how that second had been enough to unravel her completely.
She stretches out on her bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the quiet hum of the barracks beyond her door. She exhales. Tries to settle. Tries to let go.
Then comes the knock.
It's late. Too late for anything but trouble.
For a long moment, she considers ignoring it.
But something in her gut twists—a quiet certainty, deep and instinctive. She doesn't have to check. She already knows who it is.
And when she opens the door, she's right.
Ridoc stands in the dim torchlight, his usual cocky mask nowhere to be found.
He isn't grinning. He isn't leaning casually against the doorframe, armed with some smug remark. There's no performance tonight.
He just looks at her. Really looks at her.
And it's the way he does it—not just with hesitation, but with something heavier, something that makes her chest tighten and her breath catch, because this time he isn't pretending.
For once, he isn't trying to charm his way out of this.
He's just here.
And for the first time, he doesn't know what to say.
Seren grips the edge of the doorframe, fingers pressing into the wood, studying him carefully, searching for any sign that this is just another game. But there's nothing playful in the way his chest rises and falls, nothing amused in the way his lips part like he's about to speak—but doesn't.
Just hesitation.
Just wanting.
Just fear.
She swallows hard. "What are you doing here?"
Ridoc exhales, rubs a hand across the back of his neck, as if trying to ease the tension coiled there. "I don't know."
A flicker of frustration burns through her. "That's a terrible answer."
His lips twitch, just barely, and for a second, she almost believes he'll turn this into a joke, turn them back into what they've always been—just barely on the edge of something real, but never stepping over the line.
But he doesn't.
His hands flex at his sides before he finally looks at her again, his voice quieter this time. "I couldn't stop thinking about you."
The words send something sharp and dangerous through her.
She should tell him to leave.
Tell him it's too late for this—too late to show up like this, too late to expect her to let him in after everything, after months of games and near-misses and almosts.
But she doesn't.
Because he's never looked at her like this before.
Like he's terrified of losing her.
Like he's only just now realizing that he might already have.
Slowly, carefully, he lifts a hand and cups her face.
His palm is warm, rough with callouses, and the weight of it is grounding, steadying, even as something inside her starts to unravel.
His thumb brushes over her cheek, soft, hesitant, like he's afraid she'll pull away.
And gods, she should.
She should say something sharp, something that would remind him that he was the one who hesitated first, that he was the one who let her walk away.
But she doesn't.
She doesn't move.
Doesn't breathe.
She just stands there, feeling every inch of him, every ounce of his uncertainty, every word he doesn't know how to say.
"Ren," he murmurs, and that's what undoes her.
Not the way he touches her. Not even the way he looks at her like he's memorizing every inch of her face.
But the way he says her name—soft, like a confession, like a prayer, like something he's only just admitting to himself now.
And then, finally, he kisses her.
It's not playful. It's not teasing. It's not a mistake.
His lips meet hers in a way that is slow, deep, and terrifyingly real.
There's no bravado, no arrogance, no lazy ease. Just him, raw and unguarded, as his hands slip into her hair, his fingers tightening at the nape of her neck, holding her like he's afraid to let go.
And maybe he is.
Maybe he should be.
Because Seren fists her hands in his shirt, gripping too tight, pulling him closer, needing him closer, needing to feel this, to know this is real. She presses into him, kisses him harder, deeper, as if she can drag the truth from his body—from the way he touches her, from the way he holds her, from the way he kisses her like he's afraid she'll vanish the second he lets go.
She's waited too long for this.
Waited too damn long.
When they finally break apart, when her breath stumbles and she meets his gaze, she searches for doubt.
For hesitation.
For the Ridoc she's known—the one who would brush this off, the one who would flash that reckless grin and turn this into another game.
But that Ridoc isn't here.
There is no cocky smirk, no easy deflection.
Just this, just him, standing in the doorway of her room, looking at her like he doesn't know how to exist anywhere else.
He swallows hard, his breathing uneven, his hands still resting on her as if he's afraid that if he moves, she'll disappear.
And that's enough.
Seren grabs his shirt again, dragging him back to her, pressing against him with a force that's almost bruising. No longer willing to let either of them hide.
Ridoc exhales a sharp breath, startled, wrecked, wanting, before he's kissing her again, harder this time, rougher, like he's trying to make up for every second he's wasted.
His hands slide down her back, firm and urgent, before gripping her hips and pulling her flush against him.
She steps back, pulling him with her, her fingers still tangled in his shirt as she tugs him inside.
The door swings shut behind them.
And this time—he follows without hesitation.