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The village elder had kind eyes, the sort that crinkled at the corners from decades of smiling. She pressed a small pouch of coins into Heiter's hands despite his protests, insisting they'd done far more than clear out a few monsters from the nearby woods.
"It's good to see a group that's been together so long," she said, her gaze moving across each of them with warm approval. "You can tell. The way you move together, anticipate each other. That kind of trust takes years to build."
Eisen grunted something that might have been agreement. Heiter smiled and pocketed the coins, surely thinking of what kind of ale he could buy with it. Himmel felt a small flush of pride at the observation because it was true. They did work well together. Had learned each other's rhythms and habits, strengths and weaknesses. They were a party in the truest sense.
"We haven't been traveling that long," Frieren said.
Her tone was not dismissive. It wasn’t cold. Just factual, the way she might correct someone who'd mistaken north for south. A simple statement of truth.
The elder laughed, a warm sound that held no offense. "Well, it feels like you have! You work like people who've known each other for ages."
"Nine years," Frieren clarified. "We met nine years ago."
"Nine years!" The elder's eyes widened. "My dear, that is a long time. Why, you've been together nearly as long as I've been running this inn."
Frieren's head tilted slightly, confused. "It's not really."
Heiter laughed, breaking the awkward moment. "Elven time, right? What's a decade to someone who'll live for thousands of years?"
The elder smiled knowingly. Eisen made another noncommittal sound. The conversation moved on to other things, to the payment and gratitude and directions to the next town.
Himmel stood very still.
Nine years.
The number sat in his mind, heavy and specific. He'd known it, of course. Could count it if asked. But hearing it spoken aloud like that, stated that way by Frieren, made it somehow more real.
Nine years.
He was twenty-five now. Had been sixteen when they’d first became a party, when he'd convinced her to join them on this mad quest to defeat the Demon King. He had been sixteen and stupid with the arrogance of youth, certain he could charm anyone into anything.
Nine years out of twenty-five.
The math was simple. Brutal and simple.
This moment right now, this age he sat at, could possibly be more than a third of his entire life.
We haven't been traveling that long.
The words echoed in his head as they left the village, as they made camp that evening, as Eisen built the fire and Heiter sorted through their supplies and Frieren sat at the edge of the firelight, reading one of her grimoires with that intense focus she always had.
Not that long.
Himmel tried to imagine his life before. Tried to remember what had mattered to him at sixteen, before their party. The memories were there but many of them felt thin and insubstantial. Like something that had happened to someone else.
These nine years contained everything. Every moment that had shaped him into who he was now. Every fear he'd overcome, every battle he'd survived, every quiet evening around a campfire talking about absolutely nothing and yet everything.
Every time he'd looked at Frieren and felt his chest tighten with something he could name but didn't dare speak aloud.
Nine years was most of his youth. Would be, when this was over and they'd defeated the Demon King he'd measure the rest of his life against. The peak from which everything else would be a gentle decline.
He didn't think she'd meant to be cruel. Cruelty required intent, and understanding that your words could wound. Frieren hadn’t meant them that way.
Nine years was not, objectively speaking, a long time. Not for her.
But the knowing didn't make it hurt less.
"You're quiet tonight."
Himmel looked up. Heiter had settled beside him, wineskin in hand, his expression holding that particular knowing look that meant he'd noticed something and was pretending he hadn't.
"Just tired," Himmel said.
"Mm." Heiter took a drink, offered the skin to Himmel who waved it away. "That villager really got to you, didn't she? The comment about how long we've been together?"
Himmel hesitated. There was no point in lying to Heiter. The priest was too perceptive, and had known him for too long.
"It's stupid," Himmel said finally.
"Probably," Heiter agreed easily. "But that's never stopped a man's feelings before."
Across the fire, Frieren turned another page. The firelight caught in her hair, turned the white strands almost warm. One of her twintails had come slightly loose during the fight with the monsters, a few strands escaping to frame her face. She hadn't cared enough to fix it.
"She didn't mean anything by it," Himmel said, and hated how defensive he sounded. "When she said nine years wasn't that long."
"Of course she didn't." Heiter's voice held no judgment. "Frieren never means anything by it. That's almost worse, isn't it?"
Himmel didn't answer. He didn't need to.
"She's not wrong, you know," Heiter continued after a moment. "Nine years really isn't that long for an elf. I read once that they don't really start considering someone a friend until they've known them for at least two hundred years. Something about needing that amount of time to really understand a person."
"Two hundred years." Himmel's voice came out flat. "I'll be long dead in two hundred years."
"Well." Heiter took another drink. "You and me both, friend."
The fire crackled. Eisen was already asleep, his breathing deep and noisy. Frieren continued reading, oblivious to their quiet conversation.
"If we're lucky," Heiter said quietly, "we'll have another year together. Maybe two. We defeat the Demon King, we go home as heroes." He paused. "Or we go our separate ways. Hard to say what comes after something like that."
Himmel didn't answer because he didn't want to imagine what came after. He couldn't picture his life beyond this, beyond these people.
Beyond Frieren.
"Strange, isn't it?" Heiter continued, his voice thoughtful. "How some things feel so significant while they're happening. And then you wonder if they'll matter at all once they're over."
"They do. They matter," Himmel said, certainty in his voice
Heiter didn't argue, he just sat there, wineskin dangling from his fingers, staring into the fire.
Himmel wanted to be angry. Wanted to feel something sharp and clean that he could direct outward instead of this hollow ache in his chest. But there was nothing to be angry at. Frieren hadn't done anything wrong. She'd just existed, had just been herself, had just perceived time in the way her people had always perceived it.
And Himmel was foolish enough to love her anyway.
He didn't say it. He couldn’t and wouldn’t give voice to the thing that sat in his chest. It made his breath catch when she smiled at something that amused her, made him want to memorize every small detail of her because some part of him already knew how this would end.
But Heiter knew without him saying a word. He had probably known for years.
"For what it's worth," Heiter said, pushing himself to his feet with a soft groan, "I think these nine years will matter to her eventually. Maybe not now. Maybe not for a long time. But eventually." He paused and looked at Himmel with an expression that might have been pity. "The question is whether that's enough for you."
He walked away before Himmel could answer. Not that he had any answer to give.
The fire burned lower. Eisen snored louder. Frieren read her book, completely absorbed.
Himmel watched her and did the painful math again in his head.
Nine years. The best years, the ones he'd remember when he was old and gray and looking back on a life that suddenly seemed very short.
He wondered, sitting there in the firelight, if she'd remember him at all in a hundred years. Two hundred. Five hundred. If these nine years would blur into the countless other years she'd lived, become indistinguishable from all the other brief moments with humans who'd aged and died while she remained exactly as she was.
He wondered if that should change how he felt. If knowing that she could forget him should make him want to hold back, protect himself, and to stop this foolish thing growing inside his chest.
It didn't.
Goddess help him, it didn't.
"Himmel."
He looked up. Frieren was watching him now, her book closed in her lap, her expression holding that particular quality of distant curiosity that meant she'd noticed something but didn't quite understand what.
"You should sleep," she said softly. "We have a long walk tomorrow."
"Right," he said. "Of course."
She studied him for a moment longer, head tilted in that considering way. Then she opened her book again, apparently satisfied.
Himmel lay down, pulled his cloak around himself, and stared up at the stars.
Sometime in the future, he knew, this journey would end. They'd defeat the Demon King. They'd celebrate. And then Frieren would leave, she would go back to her solitary wandering, and would carry on with the infinite expanse of her life while his own wound down toward its inevitable conclusion.
And maybe, if Heiter was right, she'd remember him eventually. In a hundred years or two hundred or five hundred. Maybe she would think back on these nine years and feel... something. Recognition, nostalgia. A faint warmth for the hero boy who'd insisted she join his party.
Or maybe she'd forget entirely. Maybe he’d become one more face in an endless parade of faces. One more brief moment in a life measured in millennia.
Both possibilities hurt.
But lying there under the stars, listening to his companions breathe, Himmel understood with clarity that it didn't matter. It wouldn't change anything.
He'd still love her and treasure these nine years that were nothing to her but everything to him. Still watch her read her books and collect her spells and fail to understand why humans celebrated birthdays or got sentimental about anniversaries.
He would still break his own heart over and over again on the immovable fact of who and what she was.
The stars turned overhead. The fire burned low. Frieren read her book.
And Himmel lay awake, loving someone who couldn't understand the weight of time passing because for her, time didn't pass the same way.
It just was.
Infinite and unchanging.