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"You've been training with Maelle," Lune says suddenly, one night at camp, in the very adorably demanding way Lune usually says things.
Sciel, who had up until this moment been monitoring the sleeping teenager, blinks. It's not unlike Lune to just walk up to someone and tell something straight to their face, but Sciel has not been the recipient of such an interrogation in quite some time. "Well. Yes."
Lune shifts from foot to foot. "Train with me, too."
"Sorry?" The request shocks her, not because it was Lune requesting to train— because that is absolutely a Lune thing to do— but because it was Lune requesting to train with her. Sciel had her cards and her scythe, and Lune had her magic. "I mean— I'm happy to, but I think our fighting styles might be a bit different."
"Not like that," she amends, crossing her arms. "No weapons, no magic. Just us."
It wasn't like Lune was bad at physical, hand-to-hand combat. In fact, it was the exact opposite. She was very, very good.
"I don't know why you find the need to train when you're already more than capable," Sciel grunts, pushing herself up from the ground, picking twigs out of her hair, wincing when she stretches out a particularly large bruise along the length of her forearm. "Besides, it's late. I thought sleep was important for survival?"
Lune relaxes her fists for a moment, and Sciel notes with a rush of almost illicit exhilaration that her own blood— from her nose, she thinks, which is sore and beginning to numb— shines across Lune's knuckles. "I've already rested."
Sciel thinks she's lying; she had only seen Lune rest for a grand total of a few sparse hours here and there, and she had admittedly been watching for her specifically. But it was difficult to confront her in times like these, when her intense stubbornness seemed to surpass everything else about her. So instead Sciel stands, and she fights.
It feels familiar, in a way, this back-and-forth. Like a dance, a duet. In a funny way it reminds Sciel of the few times she'd hidden away, listening to the beautiful music of Lune's guitar, back in the streets of Lumiere. She was as helpless against Lune's rhythm back then as she is now, hostage to her melody as she is to her jabs and her punches. It feels almost like a devotion in its gentle violence.
It's almost two hours before Lune finally holds up a hand in surrender, looking no more winded than she had when they begun, unlike Sciel, who can already feel an ache building in most of the major bones in her body.
"Thank you," Lune says, a touch softer than usual, before she stalks back towards her spot by the campfire. Sciel watches her leave, and wonders.
It starts to happen more often. Lune will approach her in the night, unwavering in her determination. "Come," she commands, and Sciel is uselessly caught in her orbit.
Neither of them have ever been any good at holding back— Lune has known nothing but ruthless and vigorous training her entire life, and Sciel has always given her best whenever possible— and always emerge with more injuries than either would care to admit. Lune is too proud and Sciel does not want her to worry.
It's cathartic, and it hurts. It is grief itself, the way Lune tackles her to the ground, the way Sciel allows it to happen. It feels like intimacy, being so close to her, relearning her again. It feels wonderful.
Her hands are bruised and her ribs are bruised and above her is the Moon, glowing in the night, a breath away from breaking her open, but while Lune is fierce in battle, she is still merciful. She releases her, swiftly standing despite the blood crusting on her arms and face, and brushing dust and dirt from herself. Sciel pretends not to mourn the loss of her warmth, and doesn't need to, after a while, when Lune offers her a hand and pulls her to her feet.
Lune returns every night. Sciel spends more time wrestling with her on the ground than sleeping, and wakes with leaves woven into her hair.
She probably should have guessed that this new arrangement would impact other things, to be perfectly honest.
"You're almost getting slow," Maelle teases one day, during their own training, as she relaxes from her perfect battle stance, loosening her grip on her rapier and sheathing it as she skips towards her. Sciel smiles; it had become a rare commodity to see Maelle happy, and it made her happy, even if it was at her own expense. "What's gotten into you?"
Sciel sighs, and places down her own weapon. "It's nothing, really. Don't worry about it. Just getting less sleep."
"Hmmm...does it maybe have anything to do with the fact that Lune also isn't getting much sleep?"
Of course this was going to come back to bite her in the ass.
See, the thing is, Sciel is not a liar. "Uhh…no." Well, she isn't most of the time.
Maelle is grinning in the pesky, mischievously juvenile way when a child doesn't quite believe something, and recognises it as an opportunity to wreak havoc. "Uh huh, okay, if you're sure. You know, earlier I saw she had a massive bruise on her neck, I just thought it might have been from you—"
"Maelle, that's enough!"
The little rascal has the audacity to laugh, and Sciel shoves her as Lune, across the camp, stares at them inquisitively, and she returns a reassuring smile. She's going to destroy Maelle in their next spar.
("Did I see Maelle laughing, earlier?" Lune asks that night, as they're both sprawled on the ground. A brief respite from their activity— Sciel's blood is almost humming in anticipation for its continuation.
Sciel sighs. "Don't worry about it," she repeats, not entirely eager to share how a sixteen year old somehow managed to clock her weakness.
Lune frowns, staring at her in scrutiny, before— thank goodness— she decides to drop the subject. "I suppose it's good that she's more comfortable, now.")
After a long day of fighting, one of many, Lune grabs her roughly by the arm with a look in her eye that leans more towards danger than anything else, and doesn't even wait before shifting into her battle stance.
"Lune—" Sciel begins to protest, but then it begins and she is swept up within the storm.
Her attacks are more vigorous today, more unpredictable, rougher and dirtier than her usual style, and Sciel, so used to her gentleness, is taken aback with it.
Lune has always been strong, has always been powerful like the waves on a beach, but today she is more of a relentless current, sweeping her off her feet. Sciel feels herself growing weary and tired and hurt after barely half an hour of this.
And yet, she continues.
"Again," says Lune, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Lune," Sciel tries.
"Again."
Sciel does not argue. Sciel knows to pick her arguments, if she has any at all: Lune's eyes are fierce and her stance unwavering. She will not give up, as she never has before.
But this is becoming worrying.
Sciel relaxes, holds her hands up in surrender, noting the fire still burning in Lune's eyes. "Lune, please. I think you just need to calm—"
Lune's fist swings violently towards her, charged with magic, and she almost screams. "We're not done!"
And as Sciel catches it in one hand— feeling her magic, feeling it burn her skin, uncaring in the face of it— she cups Lune's cheek with the other, feeling split skin, feeling blood trickling down her face like tears. "Lune. Stop."
Miraculously, it works; her body slumps almost on impulse, like in its exhaustion it defaults to following orders, and Lune almost sobs as she buries her face into the palm of Sciel's hand.
"For those who come after," whispers Sciel, like an elegy. "Lune. We need you, okay? We can't keep going— you can't keep going— if you're not going to rest."
Lune, chest heaving, looks to her without the usual steely resolve behind her eyes. She looks almost broken, afraid, so unlike the woman Sciel knows. She looks so…so young.
"I'm not supposed to get attached," whispers Lune. "The mission is everything. The Expedition is everything. All I need to care about, to survive."
Sciel knows this, is the thing. It was one of the things that defined her past her parents' Gommage, and it was the thing that had led to their estrangement, begun almost as quickly as their connection had been. Sometimes in the later nights after their sparring sessions, in Sciel's more indulgent fantasies, she'd imagined worlds where Lune had stayed by her. Thought about what might have happened.
She remains quiet. They had never happened, not when they were young. Lune embarked on her journey and Sciel never departed on hers, until eventually they met again in the middle.
"I've only ever used my emotions to fight," Lune confesses, with a breathy laugh, more out of desperation than amusement. "I have only ever used them as a weapon. I don't know how to feel them anymore. I don't remember. Your heart is on your sleeve, and mine hasn't seen the light of day since I showed it to you all those years ago."
She remembers, of course. How beautiful it had been then, and how beautiful it is now.
"Lune," Sciel murmurs, taking one of her hands in her own, feeling the rush of Lune's elemental magic as it washes through her. With the other, she gently guides Lune to lean on her shoulder, and is immediately awash in the comfort of it all.
Lune looks at her from her new position, sincerity shining in her eyes. "I want to learn how to do this better. I want to know how to do this better, Sciel. How to live. Will you help me?"
In lieu of an answer, Sciel lightly brushes away the stray strands of hair clinging to Lune's forehead, gently with the pads of her fingers, and presses a kiss to the space left behind. Underneath the moonlight, Lune falls asleep tucked into her, and for the first time in so long, Sciel feels at peace.
Sciel is already awake when Lune blinks her eyes open against the dawn's first dregs of sunlight, gently carding a hand through raven locks.
"Are we ready to head out?" Lune murmurs, half-heartedly attempting to hide her yawn with a hand, and Sciel is so entirely consumed by a feeling she doesn't want to name quite yet.
The others are all beginning to wake up, too: she can see Maelle shifting in her sleep by the dying fire, Verso is already up and talking quietly with Esquie, and Monoco is polishing his Nevron feet. The morning is young, but the Expedition is on borrowed time. The reality is that they have to move, in order to live.
But, selfishly—
"Just a moment," Sciel smiles. "I'd like to stay here just for a moment longer, if that's alright with you."
Lune grumbles in a lackluster attempt at protest, and Sciel grins wider when she nestles herself comfortably into the space between Sciel's neck and shoulder. "…I suppose that's fine." A beat, a moment, before she speaks up again. "Maelle is watching us, isn't she?"
She is, and is also doing a spectacularly awful job of hiding it. Sciel laughs as the teenager ducks behind Esquie a moment too late to avoid her.
"Yep."
"She's going to make fun of us."
"Yeah, she is," she sighs, and Lune huffs in amusement. "Get some more sleep, Lune. You're probably going to need it. I'll shield you from Maelle."
"How valiant," laughs Lune, and Sciel can feel the joy splitting her open from the inside. Despite everything, they were okay. Despite everything, they would continue to live.