more than yesterday; less than tomorrow - Chapter 1 - arsonide - 原神 (2024)

Chapter Text

Clorinde wipes her tears away from her eyes.

The sweat that beads her forehead is icy against her skin. The wind is biting, drying her eyes and causing tears to spring.

Training up on Mont Automnequi has been a favored choice of hers for nearly the good span of a week now. The wind up here cools her body, but it blows strongly and unpredictably throughout the afternoon, honing her senses to where her bullets can accurately guide. It’s green and lush, though the mountains provide a wonderful gray contrast should her eyes need the rest. Prey is common, while predators are not.

It is the perfect place to sharpen skills of all kinds, away from the prying eyes of nosy Fontanians.

After all, it’s difficult to explain to passerbyers why a child of nine years such as herself voluntarily chooses to be alone in the woods.

She jabs forward with her sharpened stick once more, shifting her weight onto her foot forward, just as Petronilla had taught her. It cramps a place in her forearm, but she grits her teeth and follows through with three quick slashes. Her stick makes a wonderful whoosh noise in the wind as she resets herself. She takes a deep breath, in and out.

A stick is not the best choice of a weapon, but it will make do for today’s afternoon practice. Her sword still needs to be whet, and it would be good for her not to be too accustomed to its feel. Relying on the same thing each time will only distract her, and the feeling of a different weight in her hands may take her out of her long stupor that—

“Wow!” someone exclaims from behind. “How’d you do that?!”

Startled, Clorinde pivots on a heel. How had she not heard someone sneaking up on her? She admonishes herself silently. What if it was a bandit, a wolf, or an odd combination of both?

The girl who stands in front of her is no bandit, nor wolf. At least, she doesn’t appear to be.

She wears a bright, sunny smile, covered partially by the large, fancy hat that rests on top of her bright curls. She’s looking at Clorinde with wide eyes that remind her of the does that she sees on these trails.

She’s seen this girl before.

She was just thinking about her, moments before.

She’s always surrounded by so many children, clamoring for her attention and asking to play with her, day in and out. And this girl never seems to turn down such requests. She’s seen her up close during a picnic near a man who looked nothing like her, but laughed like her. Her master had her introduce herself to them, but it’s all now a faint memory of rushed names and a dart between the trees to get away. She had wanted to ask her to play, or talk, but— well, it looks like this girl had beat her to it now.

Clorinde looks at her, mouth slightly agape, a loss for words.

The girl picks up on her reproach. “Oh, sorry,” she says with a light giggle. She holds onto her gigantic hat when a breeze blows by, and she sticks out her hand for Clorinde to take.

Clorinde takes it and they shake, just as she says, “I’m Navia! Navia Caspar!”

It’s a name that’s hard to forget. Of course she knows her name. Maybe she’s known all along.

“You might remember me from that picnic a while back, with my papa,” Navia continues. “And I think your stick is cool.”

Clorinde idly notes, almost with a frown, that Navia is also a little taller than her.

“Clorinde,” she offers in case Navia has forgotten, her voice still dotting with hesitation. “And… thank you.”

Navia gives her another toothy grin. She wonders if this girl has ever not smiled in her entire life. She tries to think about how Navia would look with a frown on her face, and she finds that she can’t.

“Do you wanna play?” Navia asks her. “I’ve been wanting to ask you for a while now.”

Clorinde already likes how forward she is. How confident she is. Selfishly, she finds herself wanting to ask just how long Navia had been wanting to ask— if Navia had sought her out today just for that.

“What do you want to play?” she asks in lieu of an answer.

Navia shrugs. “Well, what would you like to play?” Navia inquires, tilting her head innocently. “It would be rude of me to ask and choose what we play. That’s what Papa taught me.”

That stumps Clorinde.

She hadn’t played in a long while— at least, not in the sense that she assumes Navia would be used to. She’s only ever played with herself or with the breaks her master had given her during their time together. Sometimes, she would look off into the distance and watch the kids her age run around and giggle, wondering what kind of game and set of rules she was missing out on.

Again, Navia is intuitive to what she’s thinking. It makes Clorinde wonder if she can read minds. “We can play what you were just playing,” Navia suggests, miming motions with her hand that somewhat resembles Clorinde’s stick attacks.

Clorinde raises her eyebrows. She’s aware of the weight in her hand at her side, the stick that nearly digs into the ground.

“I don’t think you’d like to play the game I was playing,” Clorinde cautiously starts. “It’s… boring.”

Navia raises her eyebrows, mirroring her. “If it’s boring, then why were you playing it?”

Clorinde has no answer for her. At least, not one that comes to mind and out of her mouth.

Navia giggles, seemingly amused by getting her stumped. She takes a step forward towards Clorinde, and Clorinde doesn’t feel the need to step away. “I can go ahead and find another stick really quick, then you can teach me how you were doing all that cool stuff lately,” Navia says. “Unless you don’t want to. We can always play something else,” she adds quickly.

“I’m—” Clorinde blinks. “I can do that.”

Navia beams, and Clorinde likes her smile.

As promised, Navia runs off. It gives Clorinde enough time to breathe in the wind and take in her surroundings, looking around twice to make sure that it’s only Navia who had been able to sneak up on her. By the time she picks up her stick to judge its weight once more, Navia is already back at her side, albeit breathing a little hard.

Her stick is much bigger than Clorinde’s. It drags on the ground as she runs. Clorinde schools her face lest she laughs in front of Navia.

“Okay!” Navia exclaims. “What do I do?”

Clorinde gives her a small smile, then holds up her stick in the way one holds up a rapier. She instructs Navia to copy her, and just as she had expected, she sees flaws in the way Navia stands.

She walks over to Navia’s side to correct her, and Navia takes it all in stride. She’s surprised when Navia continues to ask for more instructions, nodding eagerly to all of Clorinde’s rambles about good form and the importance of where she consciously brings her weight. They spar, slow and steady, so that Clorinde doesn’t accidentally hit her for real. Not once does she complain.

Surely Navia isn’t having fun doing all of this?

Navia, once again, seems to read her mind. “My papa doesn’t want to teach me how to fight until I’m a little older,” she says with a small pout. “I got really excited when I saw you fighting with your stick. Means I can finally play with someone who can teach me.” She puffs out her chest with pride.

Clorinde nearly laughs at that, then pushes her hair out of her forehead. She’s starting to sweat again, her bones exhilarated like they haven’t before.

“So you want me to teach you for free?” she asks, mostly to jest. It still astounds her to be next to someone as so self-assured as Navia.

“Not at all!” Navia argues. “I was gonna come back here tomorrow with a plate of cookies.”

It surprises her. But it’s to her delight and curiosity, if anything.

“You’ll come back here tomorrow?” Clorinde asks, almost cautiously.

“If you want me to,” Navia just says. She says it more quietly this time. More shyly.

It makes Clorinde’s heart feel all fluttery. Of all the things to happen today, she hadn’t expected for a girl around her age to come up and ask her to spar. She isn’t even awful at it, for someone who had never seemingly picked up a weapon in her life. She hadn’t expected for Navia to want to come back, either.

It renders her silent for a moment, then she learns her lesson from before and gathers the courage to speak. “I’m here every afternoon,” she offers up.

Navia’s eyes crinkle at the corners with the force of her smile. Clorinde really, really likes it when she smiles.

She also likes how Navia only agrees, nodding her head and bringing her stick back up to her chest to initiate another spar, and she doesn’t question anything else about Clorinde. It gives her relief to know that she isn’t face to face with another nosy kid, always asking her questions about what she’s doing with every breath she takes.

They play for a little while longer. Clorinde takes it easy on her, but she still wins by touching her stick lightly to Navia’s chest to signal her victory. Navia takes each loss with a smile on her face, praising Clorinde for her aptitude at the little game they’re playing. She’ll pout and sulk whenever she thinks she was close to winning, but she’ll always smile at Clorinde again, asking if she’d like to spar some more.

By the time they’re done playing, they’re on a heap in the ground, shoulder to shoulder, their little chests breathing in and out in small, shallow movements. Their sticks are abandoned, and instead their hands are preoccupied with one another. To keep each other from rolling down the hill, of course.

They’re silent for a long while to catch their breaths, but eventually, Clorinde’s curiosity wins out.

“What were you doing up on this hill?” she asks, taking her eyes off the moving clouds from above to turn her head to look at Navia next to her.

When Navia turns her head to meet her eyes, her curls tickle the side of Clorinde’s neck. “I could ask you the same thing,” she exclaims.

Clorinde lets out a breathless laugh. “I go here everyday, to do this. What’s your excuse?”

“I got bored of playing tag,” Navia explains. Her flushed face makes her cheeks all rosy. “I’ve explored everywhere but here, so I thought, why not. Why do you fight with a stick everyday?”

So that’s what they’re doing now, Clorinde muses. Navia asks a question, she answers, and she asks one in turn.

“It’s not always a stick,” she says vaguely. “And my master told me to. So I can get stronger and become one of Fontaine’s duelists.”

She waits for a “Why?”

It’s the same question everyone asks her when she says that. That, or a variation of it: why be a duelist, why have a master, why not live a normal Fontanian life?

Instead, Navia earnestly says, “I think you’d be a great duelist, Clorinde. The best one we have.”

Clorinde huffs. “You saw me do a single strike with a stick. I don’t think that counts for much.”

“I just know what I know,” Navia defends herself. She sticks her tongue out at Clorinde, and Clorinde wrinkles her nose in response. “My papa always says I have a really good intuition for that.”

“For knowing when people are going to be great duelists?” she asks, confused.

“No, silly.” Navia giggles like Clorinde had said the funniest thing in the world. “When someone’s good. Or when someone’s good at what they do, and if maybe they’re good in general. I think that’s you.”

Clorinde finds herself softening at that. They’ve only known each other for the greater part of a single afternoon, so she couldn’t possibly know that. But she doesn’t say it out loud.

Instead, she says, “I think you’re great too.”

Navia beams, once more. Then, just as all children, she flip-flops to another topic at hand. “How old are you?” she asks.

“I didn’t get to ask my question first,” Clorinde firmly states. The rules of their conversation may not be written in a law book, but she’s adamant about keeping justice and keeping score.

Navia merely laughs, gesturing vaguely for her to ask away. Clorinde turns the gears in her head for a question to ask.

“Were you serious about bringing me cookies?” she settles on saying.

“Of course I am!” Navia replies hotly, as if greatly insulted. Clorinde’s eyebrows jump up in surprise, but she’s content and a little giddy. Then Navia asks again, “So, how old are you?”

“I turn ten in a few months,” she says, chin raised high. “In September.”

Then Navia suddenly gasps, and she sits up from where she had laid on the grass. She lets go of Clorinde’s hand in the process, and Clorinde looks up at her questioningly.

“I’m older than you!” Navia exclaims with a proud twinkle in her eyes, and Clorinde bristles.

Navia being taller had been a slight jab to her ego, but her being older as well felt underhanded. But she collects herself in time before she can bite back a sarcastic reply, heeding her master’s words about keeping a level head, especially at her tender age.

Oh, who is she kidding?

She’s nine. She can be a little snarky.

“By what, two months?” Clorinde replies quickly, sitting up to face Navia.

Navia seems a little sheepish now. It doesn’t last long. “Actually, by a year and… a month!” she says, after doing the math in her head (and fingers) for a few seconds. She wags her finger at Clorinde.

“I’m way older. Which means you have to listen to me more,” she nags.

Clorinde restrains herself from biting Navia’s finger in her face. “You were asking me to teach you all afternoon,” she points out.

“Doesn’t count,” Navia says simply.

“What? Why not?”

“‘Cause I said so.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Yes it does.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Yes it does!”

“No it doesn’t!”

“I’m older so I’m right!”

“But I know more than you!”

“Nuh-uh, you know more about sticks!”

Clorinde scowls. “I’m not gonna teach you how to defend yourself if you keep—”

“I’m not bringing you cookies then,” Navia says puerilely. She even folds her arms over her chest, like she had said something definitive.

Clorinde opens her mouth to respond, something between a cross of okay don’t bring me some then and no please I still want some. But then the wind blows yet again, loud and roaring, rustling the trees nearby and disturbing the birds enough for them to fly away in a panic.

It causes Navia’s hat to nearly blow away, and she slaps her hand on top of her head to keep it from being lost to the wind. She’s giggling as the wind continues to put hair in her mouth and have her hat flopping uselessly against her forehead.

Her hat is so distinctly large on her face, nearly consuming her whole. But Clorinde likes it on her.

She even likes Navia’s blonde hair and Navia’s big smile.

“I think you’re pretty,” Clorinde says quickly, still in the same haughty tone of their bickering.

It’s what her mind has conjured and shoved into her mouth, even though she had been hoping for a witty reply to Navia’s cookie comment.

Navia blinks, shaking her head to rid it of any wayward twigs or dirt in her hair. She looks at Clorinde, and everything feels like it’s in horrified slow motion.

“Did you say something?” Navia asks politely. “I couldn’t hear you over the wind.”

Clorinde opens her mouth.

Nothing comes out.

Navia is still looking at her expectantly, but now she raises her eyebrows and tilts her chin down slowly in suspicion.

“I said— your hat,” Clorinde says, her mouth dry as she speaks. “I think your hat is pretty.”

“Oh. Thank you!” Navia coos, and she brings her head down to remove her hat to admire it herself.

Navia looks up at Clorinde, seemingly to say something, but then the wind returns with a voice. It sounds deep— a man’s voice.

It calls Navia’s name, letting it echo through the trees and bounce off the mountains above. It’s joined by other voices as well, other deep voices that belong to adults.

Navia squints down the hill, and her eyes brighten with recognition. She looks at Clorinde again, a mix between guilt and a happy demeanor. Clorinde already knows what’s coming next, and for the first time today, she notices that the sun is already dipping close to the horizon.

She stands up first, offering her hand to Navia to help her get up.

Their bickering lost to the wind, they’re smiling at each other again. Their sticks are still on the ground next to them.

“I have to go. My papa and his friends are calling me for dinner,” she says sadly, and Clorinde had already figured it out five seconds beforehand.

“I should go home too then,” Clorinde only replies. Petronilla may try to squeeze in another exercise with her before dinner.

Navia gives her a shy smile. “Can we hang out some more tomorrow? I can even bring you home and show you this cool tabletop game I found in Papa’s attic!”

Clorinde, well… Clorinde really likes the sound of that.

So she says as much.

“I’d love to,” Clorinde says, looking down, shy.

Navia smiles brightly at her. She thinks it’s just as blinding as the force of the sun in the morning. Clorinde doesn’t look away from it, though.

Then Navia, slowly but self-assured, brings out her hand in front of them. Her pinkie is stuck out.

“Promise?” she asks.

Clorinde exhales a short laugh. She hooks her pinkie with Navia to satiate her.

“I promise,” she vows. A Marechaussee Hunter does not break such promises.

Navia seems to be buzzing with joy. “Let’s hang out the day after too,” she says, emboldened by Clorinde’s reciprocation. “And the day after that, and the day after!”

Clorinde shares in her joy, albeit on the inside. She hopes that Navia can read her expression anyway, just as she’s done before.

Navia’s father, she assumes, calls her name once more from below the hill. It’s louder this time.

Navia looks down briefly, then looks back at Clorinde. She chews on the inside of her cheek, then seems to bite the bullet. Their pinkies are still securely hooked together. Neither of them make a move to pull away first.

“Wanna be friends?” she asks, excited and practically bouncing on her heels from nerves and excitement.

The answer is quick on her lips.

“Sure,” she says, cool and collected.

But inside, she wants to jump up and down and pull a tree out of the ground.

She cracks her knuckles and wrings out her hand quickly behind her back to keep Navia from seeing.

When Navia smiles at her one last time and finally runs down the hill to find her father, Clorinde can’t wipe the grin from her face watching her go.

She knows it won’t be the last time she’ll see her. They promised.

The light that shines on the table from above makes the sweat that beads her forehead feel warm and viscous.

It smells like beer and bulle fruit where they are, creating a concoction that’s somewhat sweet in the nose. There are players working through their own campaigns and scripts around her, the sounds of groans and arguments and cheers permeating the air like a choir at church. It’s wonderful, in all the ways that count.

But today, they’re not here to play through a script.

Instead, they sit across from one another along the side of the club with the other wallflowers, two drinks on their dingy table. Clorinde is circling the rim of her cup with a gloved finger. Navia watches her do so.

They’re quiet, like a jury watching a trial.

It hasn’t been like this the last time they were here. It had been loud, their table so full of players that both of Navia’s shoulders were jostled around each time someone had made a joke or called for a new play. Clorinde had even smiled then, a far cry from what she looked like now.

She hates that they’ve circled back here, after they’ve spent so long rebuilding what they’ve had. She wonders if they’re cursed to be stuck in this cycle forever, like how a child would reassemble a sand castle fallen by the tide, over and over.

It’s not like Clorinde is faulted in this matter, either. Nor is she.

There is nothing that either of them can do than remember that today is her father’s birthday, their circ*mstances today such a stark contrast to when they had celebrated so boisterously every year in their youth.

They even spent their morning together at Callas’ grave. Clorinde had placed flowers in front of his headstone, then silently passed a few along to Navia: lumidouce bells. Navia placed a slice of cake on top of his headstone, only for a seagull to come and snatch it up. They laughed then, and Navia had so ignorantly thought they could move past their morning’s endeavors just by coming here.

Navia licks her lips. She lifts her head slightly to say, “So, did you get into a duel today?”

She says it at the same time as Clorinde says, “How is the Spina?”

Such surface level conversations. Typical of them to try that first. It makes Navia smile a little, and Clorinde’s shoulders shrug down enough to be noticeable.

Clorinde makes a small motion with her hand to let her speak first. Behind them, a Game Master says something that brings his party up in arms with surprised shouts.

It’s a miracle that Navia hears herself even say, “How’ve you been today? How was work? Minus all the craziness from this morning’s boutique scandal.”

It makes Clorinde crack a little smile. She sips at her drink (non-alcoholic, as she prefers on evenings before another work day) and replies, “The new circ*mstances of our nation has led me to putting down the sword and taking the pen momentarily. My hand still cramps from all the writing and signing I’ve done today.”

“Not even a single duel to get your mind off of all the writing?” Navia teases.

Clorinde huffs. “Just one with another man who believes his self-righteousness will grant him pardon in court.”

“A quick one then,” Navia says, and Clorinde nods almost unhappily. It nearly makes her giggle. The drink she’s having probably doesn’t help. Navia takes a sip of her drink before continuing, “It’s honestly been the same for me, too. I prepared myself for needing to man the cannons, but day in, day out— it’s all just… paperwork, really. A file to chase down sometimes, if I’m lucky.”

Clorinde only hums sympathetically.

“I’m glad though,” Navia says again, her finger tapping against the side of her cup. “That our lives are more mellow, I mean. It means more time getting to hang out like this again.” She forces out a small laugh at the end, so it doesn’t sound as pathetic as she feels.

“Good,” Clorinde says softly. Her eyes are trained on Navia. “You deserve it. After everything you’ve been through.”

Silence disperses between them again. Clorinde looks away to avoid looking her straight in the eyes.

Ugh, they really need a better system for this.

Navia kicks her shin gently under the table.

It’s been months since they’ve reconciled, and they have been getting better at this. Sure, today has been a setback of some kind, but it makes her happy knowing that they’re trying anyway. She smiles encouragingly at Clorinde to show her that it’s okay. That her awkwardness hasn’t ever deterred her in the past, and it still won’t now.

When Clorinde glances at her just for a moment, she tries to quell the urge to say something that’s been plaguing the side of her mind, but then she thinks, screw it.

“I missed you,” she blurts out.

Clorinde’s neck snaps up to meet her eyes so quickly that it’s nearly comical. She almost laughs, too, until she sees the surprise on Clorinde’s face. Like she hadn’t expected Navia to say that to her.

She supposes that she deserves the reaction. It’s been a conversation they’ve been putting off for months now.

“It wasn’t easy, you know,” Navia admits, her voice hushed to prevent anyone else but Clorinde from hearing, “not having you next to me.”

Clorinde’s facial features soften considerably at that. “There are dozens out there who would be willing to surround you,” she says, almost embittered, but entirely sincere. “My presence is easily replaceable. But no one can replace you, Navia.”

You’d be surprised, Navia thinks.

There hadn’t been a day that passed when she hadn’t missed Clorinde, and everything that came with being close to her. After all, how can she spend the majority of her life next to this person, and to have her be taken away for so long? Years, in fact. But she chooses not to think about that gap in their friendship, or the cold shoulder she had given Clorinde, or how Clorinde had left her behind without consideration for what she had wanted for their friendship.

They’re here now, and that’s all that matters.

But she also knows that Clorinde would fight tooth and nail to be right about anything, so she shifts the conversation slightly enough that they could avoid another bicker.

“Do you remember when I found you near that mountain when we were nine and ten?” Navia muses. The cup is warm in her hands.

Clorinde gives her a wry smile. It’s the only answer she needs.

“You were so cute,” she coos, and Clorinde predictably squirms in her seat and pretends to find something interesting next to her ear. Navia giggles at both the memory and the way Clorinde is acting now. “What was it that you said? ‘I think your hat is pretty,’ wasn’t it?”

“I just never saw a hat like yours before,” Clorinde argues, but it’s weak.

It makes Navia laugh even harder, and even Clorinde finds it hard to keep the little smile off of her face.

“Archons, I wish I could say the same about yours now,” Navia says with a fake wince.

Clorinde clamors to argue with that immediately, her back straightening as she reprimands Navia even as Navia laughs and laughs, her laughter lost to the laughter around them.

She also remembers spending so much of her time sitting on a rock or laying on the grass, watching Clorinde practice with various weapons that had tickled her fancy that day and even joining her in her sparring whenever she felt the want to. She remembers teaching Clorinde how to play tabletop games for the first time and seeing her eyes glitter so bright at being shown something so wonderful that she had missed until that point. She remembers Papa always knocking at her door to remind them to sleep soon, when they’d be under her covers in her room during their sleepovers whispering about nothing and everything into the night.

She misses how simple life was, back then.

They continue to talk until the cup in her hand is light and her head feels positively rich with something a little warm.

As soon as she sees Clorinde drink the rest of her fill, she says, “Let’s pay our tabs and get out of here. If we stay for any longer, one of us is bound to get tempted to play something. And you work extra early tomorrow, don’t you?”

Clorinde’s smile slowly drops away. Her shoulders square once more, like they had when she’d first sat down across from her.

“I do,” she says, clipped. “And… I understand.”

It takes a moment for Navia to grasp the reason for Clorinde’s behavior. “We’re not parting just yet, silly,” she says with a huffed laugh.

The way Clorinde eyes her suspiciously is a little funny, but Navia keeps her mouth shut to prevent any more mishaps.

“I just think it would be nice to do something else,” she explains, tapping the side of her cup to the beat of the jolly song that the quartet is playing in the corner. “Y’know, other than moping around here and pretending we aren’t hung up about it.”

Clorinde goes to argue, but Navia stops her with her hand.

“We’re okay. I mean it,” she assures. She softens at the way Clorinde loosens a breath in her strong chest. She clears her throat before she adds, “We can’t get through a script today without risking staying out too long, but I know exactly what we can do that can knock out a few hours without stepping on midnight territory.”

Clorinde’s brow furrows. “And that would be…?”

“Come spar with me,” she says happily, steepling her hands. “It’ll keep us in tip-top shape while we’re both chained to our desks for the near future. You never know what might happen.”

In truth, she wants to know of Clorinde’s skills now and how they can compare to before. It’s probably still as sharp, but she can’t be blameless in wanting to see a Champion Duelist in action.

That, and she misses the exhilaration. Only Clorinde is able to catch up with her in that regard.

Clorinde considers it only for a second. She acquiesces with an exhale and a short nod.

Navia rubs her hands together and gets up from her seat. The chair scrapes against the floor, though it’s nearly mute in the bustle of the club.

“You gotta have a fancy training place that you go to, right? Lead the way,” she chirps, motioning for Clorinde to get up.

Clorinde rises, although hesitantly. “We haven’t paid yet,” she says.

“Oh, I did,” Navia replies. At Clorinde’s stare, she explains, “I paid for our things in advance. I knew you’d try to pay for mine, so I took matters into my own hands.”

Clorinde stares at her proud smile and blinks. She looks away, almost huffing. “I do have a facility we can visit,” she says, pointedly ignoring Navia’s expectant smile. It makes Navia positively grin.

The night is still young when they emerge outside. Clorinde still sticks close to her like an obedient guard poodle, her eyes sweeping back and forth around the streets that they walk to make sure that there’s nothing dangerous for them to stumble on. It makes Navia roll her eyes fondly in the near dark, a motion that Clorinde is blissfully obvious to.

Clorinde’s training space is a mere ten minute walk. They spend those ten minutes taking in the streets, speaking only to comment on new gardemeks that roam or a seemingly new fashion trend amongst Fontanians. It’s comfortable and light, and Navia likes it much better than the radio silence that they’ve grown far too accustomed to.

When they find it, Navia is surprised to see that it’s rather small. Before Clorinde had become a Champion Duelist, she had visited her in the shared space with other Fontanian duelists in training. That one had towered over her, ceilings so high that it nearly touched clouds and racks and racks of weapons.

This one is quaint, filled only with the things Clorinde may need and enough space to practice comfortably without bumping into things. This is truly Clorinde’s private area for her dueling routines.

“I let other young duelists or gardes come here to train in the morning,” she explains when Navia stares at the pile of bullets haphazardly put on a nearby table. Clorinde closes the door after Navia enters. It smells like gunpowder and the stinging scent of cleaner fluid in here.

“I thought you liked training alone?” Navia asks, her fingertips coming to touch the walls in mere curiosity. It’s cold.

She knows how much Clorinde likes her solace. Even when they’re together, Clorinde would grow quiet sometimes to do her own thing. Navia never minded— she liked sticking next to Clorinde no matter what they’re doing.

“Their schedules don’t conflict with mine. It’s why the arrangement is easy,” Clorinde says with a light smile. “I like to train at night. My head is clearer when the moon is with me. In any case, I felt it would have been selfish to have this area just for me, when I could easily be sharing it with those who have the drive and ambition to better protect Fontaine.”

“That, or you’re just a softie,” Navia teases. She looks over her shoulder to see Clorinde pursing her lips at her disapprovingly, but it just makes Navia smile. She walks over the small rack of weapons while Clorinde pulls out her chosen weapons on her body on a clean table.

There are only the basics here. A polearm, a bow, a pistol, a knife, a few swords— it’s clear that Clorinde has no wish for the theatrics for her training. All of them shine, clearly handled with care and polished for its next use. She wonders idly if Clorinde still wipes down the wooden handles too.

“What would you like to spar with?” Clorinde asks her as she comes up close with her pistol and a handcloth. “I will say that I’m curious about your swordsmanship. Archons know that there’s no helping in guiding your pistol to hit a target.”

“Not everyone can hit a leaf rustling in the wind for fun, you know!” she complains, but Clorinde just lifts her eyebrows in amusem*nt.

Chuckling, Clorinde replies, “My guns are under maintenance for tonight, so you’re safe in the meantime.”

Navia hums at that. She really wasn’t looking to hit targets with Clorinde today anyway— she needed something more personal, more exhilarating than staring down the barrel of a gun and lining up a shot.

“Do you have any claymores?” she asks. “Any one would do. Maybe even an axe, if you have it.”

“I don’t, unfortunately,” Clorinde says with a small frown. She regards Navia first before she adds, “Claymores and axes lack the litheness of other weapons, and not quite as efficient in pliant predicaments such as duels. I will never understand your affinity for them.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Navia says with her chin held high. “I think you’re just scared to get beat with my own game.” That’s obviously not true, and she only had to witness Clorinde throw her claymore around once when they were sixteen to prove that.

Still, Clorinde humors her with, “Yes, you’d be right.”

It makes her crack a smile at Clorinde’s good-natured disposition. “Alright, how about swords?” she requests, tapping her chin in thought.

Clorinde hums agreeably. She walks over to her rack of weapons to pull out two identical swords. Knowing Clorinde, she probably already made sure they had the same sharpness and weight to them to keep it fair.

Clorinde gives her one, hilt first. Navia tests the weight of it in her hands. It’s definitely lighter than any weapon that she’s used to, but she supposes that it’s what they’re after. Using a claymore now will only tire her out, and she wants to be here sparring for a little longer than that.

She walks to the middle of the room with Clorinde, where a makeshift duelist ring lies. The lines on the floor provide the boundaries, and the materials on the floor are firm but cushiony enough to provide ample support for anyone falling to the floor during training.

All it takes is a stance and an “En garde!” from Navia for Clorinde to fly towards her, like lightning zapped close to the bark of a tree.

Navia is surprised at her speed, but not enough to keep from reacting. She parries Clorinde’s attack and tries to twist the sword out of her hand.

When it doesn’t work, they enter into an easy dance.

A step forward, a step backward.

A jab then a parry.

A slash then a strike, a thrust blocked then moved to a deflect. She’s conscious of the way her feet move against the ground, maneuvering her away from Clorinde’s attempts to knock her off balance and aggressively trying to pressure Clorinde to back away.

In other words, she’s having the time of her life.

They’re much better than when they were children, that’s for sure. Though they were both taught by a master and a father to learn to defend and attack, it’s not quite all there with lanky teenaged limbs and childish motor skills. And sticks were definitely not the best contender for motivating her to win a fight.

Still, she’s surprised to see that she’s nearly on par with Clorinde.

She knows from the way that Clorinde waits for her to attack and the easy, relaxed posture she has when she parries that Clorinde is merely taking it easy on her. It’s not surprising, nor does she take offense to it.

All she cares about is the way that Clorinde’s eyes glint when Navia nearly gains the upper hand at some point in their duel, and the way her smile turns a little twisted in sharp delight.

All she cares about is that Clorinde is having fun with her, like they always had.

She lets their dance go on for a little while longer until she starts to feel her bones start to get tired. Her strikes are beginning to become more and more sluggish, and Clorinde doesn’t say a word in the way her limbs react half a second too late to her already slow thrusts. She knows that Clorinde is waiting for her to raise her hand and ask for a time out.

But that wouldn’t be fun, would it?

“Stop taking it easy on me,” she pretends to complain. She aggressively shoves her sword near Clorinde’s side, which Clorinde parries easily like batting away her hand from her plate of food.

She sees the corners of Clorinde’s lips turn down slightly in the half second it takes before she strikes near Navia’s armpit. Navia parries and tries to counter with a smooth strike, though that too is prevented from hitting the mark. Clorinde doesn’t say anything that her sword doesn't speak for her.

“C’mon,” she groans. She strikes again. She gets parried away again. “Aren’t you getting a little bored? Don’t you wanna show me what you can actually do?”

Clorinde doesn’t respond to her goading. She’s still on the defense with their sparring, and somehow that fuels Navia’s fire even more.

“Oh, don’t tell me,” she says with a gasp. “Are you getting soft on me, Clorinde?”

She strikes hard, a vigor that catches even Clorinde slightly off guard. Clorinde parries her away a little longer than it usually takes her to. It excites Navia. Maybe she’s not Champion Duelist level, but she can definitely hold out. Maybe she can even catch Clorinde off guard if she wears her down enough tonight.

“What happened to upholding Fontanian justice?” she teases, her voice lofty and firm to imitate Clorinde. She’s parried away again, but she’s relentless in her attacks. She feels giddy at the thought of Clorinde being worn down. “Am I going to be the reason you lose for the first time?”

Clorinde visibly grits her teeth. Out of preservation to continue parrying or to keep from responding to Navia, she couldn't tell.

Navia laughs freely and wildly. She hasn’t had this much fun in ages.

“Hey, what happens when you beat a Champion Duelist, anyway? Do you inherit the title from them? Do you get an honorary title?” she muses.

She strikes. She’s parried away.

“Am I your weak spot, Clorinde?” she asks.

When Clorinde blocks her again, this time it’s more hesitant.

Gotcha, Navia thinks.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a weak spot,” Navia goads, striking through. “I think it’s sweet that you do. Not sure what other people would say about it though. I just wish you told me that you were so—”

Her sword is twisted out of her hand, the metal clatter echoing along the walls, the point of Clorinde’s weapon an inch away from a pulse point on her throat. Her wrists are bound together by Clorinde’s vice-like grip. Her exhale is sharp, and she’s thoroughly disarmed.

Navia taps a finger on the back of Clorinde’s hand.

She’s released immediately, the sword pointed at her face now pointed to the ground.

Clorinde had come up to her so fast that it looked almost like the blink of a gracious dance. Her heart is beating fast, thrumming against the rattles of her ribs— from the adrenaline, she’s sure.

Clorinde chuckles at the dumbfounded expression on her face.

“It’s important to remember that combat is an art. An instinct to be developed and honed over time,” Clorinde tells her. “You should always keep yourself on your toes, remembering that at any given moment, an opportunity may strike for or against you.”

Navia blinks, and she finally recovers. “Huh.”

And then she claps a few times and whistles lowly for Clorinde’s performance, and Clorinde just gives her a wry smile. “You sound just like your master!” she exclaims. She’d only met Petronilla a handful of times, but she would definitely bet on Petronilla being the reason for Clorinde’s little lesson.

“You may think of her as a bore, but she had very good points,” Clorinde says, almost defensively. Navia rolls her lower lip into her mouth to keep from laughing.

She ends up snorting instead. “Do you remember when Papa tried to teach us?” she asks. He was wholly convinced that he would be as good of a teacher as Petronilla after learning of Clorinde’s day-time lessons. At one point, he was trying to teach them a lesson about bad people lurking in the shadows, but because of their young age, he fumbled through his words and had said that attackers may tickle them instead of pointing a knife.

Clorinde laughs under her breath. She’s not as out of breath as Navia as from their spar, but she’s still winded. Not being even slightly agitated from their duel would have made Navia wonder if her friend was a gardemek.

“You’re proficient with a sword,” Clorinde starts, and Navia already knows it’s going to end, “but it’s clear that you’re unused to swift attacks. May I?”

Navia glances out of a window. The moon twinkles at them, urging them on. She can’t discern the time from here, nor does she have the energy to find a clock to check. So she says, “Well, I’m guessing it’s still early out. Why not?”

Clorinde rewards her with a smile at that.

For the next little while, Clorinde shows her some sword forms. She doesn’t berate Navia for her choice in weaponry, but it’s clear that her intention is getting Navia to warm up to the idea of having more… accessible things on hand than something so large and hard to drag around.

It works somewhat. Navia likes how light it is, even if she’s still a little clumsy. She’s used swords and rapiers before like this, but it’s been so long since she’s had to handle one for this long. Meanwhile, Clorinde stands next to her with her sword like it’s an extension of her body, a mesh between her flesh and the weapon that she holds.

It makes Clorinde terrifying just as much as it makes her beautiful in the moonlight as she shows Navia these forms.

When they exhaust themselves of the sword’s captivity, Navia shows her how to use her gunbrella. It’s funny watching Clorinde try to hold it and power it up, but she likes how attentive Clorinde is to her instructions and her fun facts about how she perfected its use.

By the end of the night, they’re collapsed on the floor, staring up at the ceiling where the moon shines down on them. They’re exhausted down to the bone, and Navia already knows that she’ll wake in the morning with sore muscles all over.

The ice between them is melting.

This was a good idea to break the ice indeed.

Navia droops her head to the side to stare at Clorinde next to her. Clorinde is still looking above, her chest coming up and down in slow, deliberate intakes of breath. The clenched curve of her jaw is a far cry from when they were children, when all they had ever known of stress in life is knowing when to run home for dinner.

Clorinde breathes in. Her inhale is longer than her last.

“After your father’s death,” Clorinde says quietly, her eyes still focused above, “I polished my sword for so long that my hands bled all over it. I… felt it was a fitting punishment, at the time.”

Navia’s mouth parts slightly at that.

She doesn’t speak, but neither does Clorinde.

She inspects Clorinde’s face instead. She looks guarded, but she can see the sadness that rounds her purple eyes. She wonders if they’re mirrored in her own eyes.

Finally, Clorinde closes her eyes. A confession like that is nothing to be taken lightly, even if it seems so mundane and unconcerned in nature, and they both know it.

“I don’t hate you for it,” Navia says softly. “I never have.”

Clorinde’s smile is rueful. “Sometimes I wish you did.”

“And miss out on being with you like this again?”

Clorinde finally opens her eyes. It’s a slow movement, like it hurts her to try and wrench them open. She lolls her head to the side to look at Navia, finally meeting her eyes.

Navia smiles encouragingly. “Promise you won’t shut me out again?” she asks.

Clorinde is quiet for a moment. Navia can see her thinking hard, the cogs and gears in her head turning for a solution to the predicament that’s in front of her. Sometimes she wishes that Clorinde focused more on the affairs of her heart rather than the logic in her head, but she knows it wouldn’t make Clorinde, well, Clorinde.

So she lets Clorinde think.

And then Clorinde lifts her hand. She sticks out her pinky towards Navia.

“If you’ll be my friend again,” she says. It’s a tad quiet in the way she speaks it to existence, but there’s resilience that enforces it with mighty steel.

Navia breathes out a happy laugh.

“Sure,” she says, in the same airish, casual tone Clorinde had said that day.

She hooks their pinkies together with another giggle, and Clorinde smiles at her enough to make the corners of her eyes crinkle.

After meeting Navia, seasons turn much faster than she’s used to.

Her days, which used to be filled with hunting fish for dinner, training, rinsing, and repeating, now have wonderful additions: on Mondays and Tuesdays, Navia teaches her how to play her tabletop game, on Wednesdays, Clorinde shows her how to spear hunt for fish, on Thursdays and Fridays, they roam the hills and pretend to roleplay, and on the weekends, her quiet favorite, she sleeps over at Navia’s and eats their non-fish meals (Navia had whispered to her one night that her father loves seafood, but he liked seeing Clorinde stuff her face with food that she enjoyed much more).

Once, when she was merely eleven, Callas had taken her on a solo fishing trip to get to know her better; there, he told her about Clementine, his late wife and Navia's very much look-a-like mother. He had told her that Clementine wanted nothing more than to know that Navia would live a good, loving life. Clorinde had vowed silently she would help make it come true.

Meanwhile, her master had merely tolerated the addition to her schedule. She’s grateful for it.

“As long as you’re focused when I need you to be, then I don’t mind your… dawdling,” Petronilla had drawled, right before she left on her tenth birthday. Clorinde made sure to nod her head about half a dozen times to ensure that her master knew she was serious. Even after her disappearance, she tries to honor what her master had asked— she still dedicates most of her day to practicing, while her leisure time is for her weapons and Navia.

By now, they’ve been friends for a good portion of nearly half a decade, and they’re almost at their coming of age (but with the lack of experience of adulthood, Callas constantly reminds them) at this point. A pair of (somewhat) well-adjusted teenagers, rebellious and energetic and everything that comes with this part in their lifespan.

Now thirteen and fourteen, Clorinde and Navia have never been closer.

She notices the difference on Navia first; how her dear friend’s voice has become less squeaky, how her limbs are longer and more nimble, how her lips are fuller when she pouts. Navia’s soft, blonde curls are longer, her taste in clothes changing from simple fabrics to trek the woods to flowy, fancy dresses that Clorinde thinks quite suits her.

She gets more beautiful by the day. Clorinde would have never thought it possible, had she not seen the development for herself day by day.

It’s Navia who points out and teases her for the differences in herself as well. Navia loves to make fun of her for her sinewy muscles poking through her button-down shirts. Once, Navia had to pull her into her closet to help her sew the armpit portion of her shirt. There are also the less embarrassing things: the more commanding tone of voice, how she’s able to train harder and longer, and, Clorinde’s personal favorite, the height.

Navia abhors when their new height difference is brought up by anyone. Clorinde is now nearly half a head taller than her, a bruise at Navia’s side to be reminded of.

Navia’s hat has grown with her, however. It fits her perfectly now, adorning her with a strong, wonderful presence.

Their differences are things she’s used to now. They’re reminders of how far they’ve come along as friends, as well as promises of more in the future. Waking up to a new day makes her a little giddy, knowing that there may be something new to experience with Navia by her side, or something new to notice and note away about her closest friend.

Even so, she’s still not used to the way that Navia always brightens, waves, and smiles wide at her when she spots her. Like she is now, as Clorinde descends down the curve of the hill to join her at her side.

It still makes her heart come up into her throat.

“Hey, you,” Navia greets happily.

She pulls Clorinde closer to her side by Clorinde’s belt, nearly causing Clorinde to topple over. Navia giggles, bumping her with her hip as they walk side by side towards the woods. She’s holding a picnic basket, a blanket, and her umbrella. She immediately swats at Clorinde for holding her hand out to relieve her of holding some of it.

“I honestly thought you were flaking on me,” she adds with a small but practiced pout.

“I wanted to make sure I perfected my forms today,” Clorinde says placatingly. She tilts her head down at Navia. “I’m sorry if I made you wait too long.”

Navia waves away her worry. “I passed the time by skipping some rocks in the water,” she replies, twirling the handle of her parasol. “I’m about to beat your high score, by the way. I skipped a rock six times,” she adds proudly.

Clorinde chuckles at that. “I’m sure you’ll beat my six- teen rock skips in no time,” she drawls.

Navia wrinkles her nose and shoots her a look. Clorinde tries not to laugh at it. “It’s like you have a canon for an arm, you know that?” she exclaims, then she shakes her head almost fondly. “At least we know if we ever get kidnapped and the only way out is beating the kidnapper’s rock skipping, we have you.”

“We wouldn’t get kidnapped in the first place,” Clorinde states firmly. She holds out her hand silently for Navia to take to help her step over a small puddle.

As Navia is helped over it, she grunts, “You’re that confident already?”

“Why, yes,” Clorinde says with a sniff. “I would use you as a shield to get away.”

Navia rounds her head on her, insulted. At that, Clorinde affords herself to laugh. It’s nearly lost to the whistle of the winds.

They continue walking as Clorinde tries to appease her friend by saying, “I meant using you and your vision— you can create shields with it now, no?”

“Don’t try to twist the narrative now,” Navia warns, narrowing her eyes at Clorinde. The slight, sharp curve in the corner of her lips gives away her amusem*nt. “But yeah, I can. Kinda. Not super well, but you can do whatever you put your mind to,” she chirps.

Clorinde only hums at that. The sun that beats down at them is beginning to become filtered through the shade of the trees. They’re coming deeper into the woods now, and Clorinde wonders if they’ll run into some good game here. Perhaps she can show Navia how to use a bow one of these days.

It’s getting quieter in these parts now. She can hear the sounds of a frog croaking in the distance, as well as the familiar rush of water nearby. Besides that, it’s only their footsteps that makes the most noise out here.

Their silence together is welcome. She knows Navia is trying her best not to break it, if her eyes scanning the trees and her thrumming fingers on the handle of her parasol has anything to say about it. Navia knows how much she likes her quiet time, even if it’s for a few stolen minutes as they walk down the woods to find somewhere to loiter. She’s grateful to be understood with that.

The trees are beginning to thin. They’re near the bank of a shore now, starfishes glittering close to the water. The pushing and pulling of the waves are mesmerizing to watch and listen to.

Navia takes her by the wrist and Clorinde obediently follows. She takes them to the shade of a nearby abandoned shack, setting down her picnic blanket to give them somewhere to rest. Clorinde watches her set down her basket, taking off the small cloth on top to reveal about a dozen treats for them. She licks her lips subconsciously, and Navia flicks her eyes over to her briefly in amusem*nt as she takes them out for plating.

There are grapes, baguettes, ham, sandwiches, cold cuts, cooked chicken, macarons, madeleines, and even brie with sausages. Clorinde wonders how such a small basket could fit so much. Is Navia a magician as well?

At her open-mouthed stare, Navia giggles. “I tried to pack as many proteins and carbs as I can,” she explains, pointing out the various meats. “I asked papa what I should bring so you recover from training better and he listed all of these out.”

Clorinde manages to momentarily bring herself out of her stupor. “I believe he listed suggestions for you, not suggesting that you bring all of it,” Clorinde says slowly. Still, she sits down obediently when Navia motions for her to take a seat on the blanket.

Navia just shrugs. “I wanted to make sure you were well-fed,” she just says.

“I’m not sure I can even eat through half of this,” Clorinde admits feebly.

Navia, again, just shrugs. “Then take it home with you and eat it throughout the week. Most of these are meant to last long in a pantry anyway.”

Clorinde knows what she’s doing. If there exists a sixth love language, Navia would spearhead the one about keeping her loved ones full and happy.

It doesn’t help that they both know Clorinde can’t cook for the life of her. Or the fact that she’d bite into a raw chicken if needed. Feathers and all.

“I don’t know how to repay you,” Clorinde says, rubbing the blanket between her forefinger and thumb. It’s soft. “When you suggested we go on a picnic today, I expected maybe a few sandwiches and something for dessert.”

Navia laughs, gentle and forgiving. She hands Clorinde a plate full of food, then works on filling up a second plate for herself. “We were just getting worried about you,” she admits, her voice edging towards soft. “Melus said you wouldn’t stop staring at the chicken we made for dinner last week, even after you kept telling us you were full. And Silver thinks you’re getting too pale. I’m inclined to agree.”

Clorinde gratefully swallows some ham before responding. Talking with her mouth full would be rude, that much she knows. “I am to trial as a duelist at the end of the year,” she says, as if she hadn’t told Navia many times before. “I can’t afford to be lenient with myself. But I really am sorry that I’ve been worrying you.”

“Not just me,” Navia says. The way she’s looking at Clorinde reminds her of the sea: gentle, yet unyielding. “The Spina’s got your back too, y’know. And I don’t think any of us have a shadow of a doubt that you wouldn’t make it.”

Clorinde exhales evenly. She chews deliberately slow to give herself some time to think. Navia seems to read her mind, from the way she emulates Clorinde’s eating pace. She tries not to look at her. At least the scenery here is nice to look at.

“I think it’s less of a fear of failing and more like that I can’t help but want it to go perfectly. To be flawless,” she finally says. “I want to be an extension of this nation’s system. The hand that deals with the law, dispassionately and equitably. I can’t do that if I mishandle even a single thing.”

Navia’s eyes go softer. Clorinde didn’t even think that was possible. She’s so used to Navia’s impish smiles and wicked grins that it’s almost like whiplash to remember that at her core, Navia Caspar embodies love and care. It’s, after all, the reason why they became friends in the first place. Navia just can’t seem to pull away from her heart.

“If there’s anyone that deserves to go after her dreams, it’s you,” Navia tells her. “Anyone who knows you for longer than five minutes knows how serious you are about being a Fontanian defender. Archons, I have to remind you to wash that cape every single time,” she says with a roll of her eyes, and Clorinde clamors to argue.

With a laugh, Navia criss-crosses her legs together and continues, “And really, who knows? Ten years from now, you could be walking down the street as a famous Champion Duelist.”

Now it’s Clorinde’s turn to roll her eyes. “The odds of that happening are as slim as our Archon dying in our lifetime.”

“You can do whatever you put your mind to,” Navia reminds her, very seriously.

Clorinde takes another bite of the cooked chicken. It’s deliciously seasoned, and she recognizes the slight bite as seasonings from overseas. She takes a few more bites, and Navia’s eyes twinkle at her reaction.

“That good?” Navia teases.

Clorinde finally remembers her manners. “My diet consists of fish and two loaves of bread per day,” she admits, a little embarrassed. “My tongue isn’t used to things this delicious.” When she realizes that there’s a crumb on the corner of her mouth, Clorinde frowns and wipes at her face messily.

Navia’s eyebrows jump up suddenly, and she purses her lips. Her chest shakes a little, and Clorinde realizes that she’s trying not to laugh. There’s a wonderful bloom of pink on Navia’s face.

“What’s so funny?” she asks suspiciously.

“Nothing. Just that you looked— nevermind,” Navia rambles, too fast and voice too high. She changes the topic before Clorinde can swipe up the chance to rattle it out of her.

“Anyway. Tell me about that guy you’ve been eyeing.”

Clorinde nearly chokes on a mouthful of cheese. She swallows it down, and it goes down hard and sharp like a rock.

“Who?” she asks.

Navia gives her a pointed look like they’re sharing an inside joke. She picks a grape to eat, then says, “You know. The guy you kept looking at all of this week. The one who works part-time at the boutique you make us go to. That guy.”

Clorinde is at a loss for words. She didn’t think Navia, of all people, would even notice something like that.

“Uh,” is the only thing that manages to come out of her throat.

Navia giggles at her dumbfounded expression. From the way she’s smiling and how her lips are curved into something mischievous, Clorinde takes a gander at guessing that Navia is mistaking her reaction for something akin to child-like fluster.

“You don’t have to be so embarrassed, Clo,” she teases lightly. She places more ham on Clorinde’s plate without looking down, her eyes level with Clorinde’s. “Crushes are normal. Sharing and talking about your crushes with your best friend is even normal-er.”

“Ah. Well,” Clorinde says, her mouth suddenly very, very dry. What is she even talking about? She doesn’t have a crush on anyone except on the girl in front of her.

“He’s just a friend,” she settles on saying again.

Navia waggles her eyebrows. “Oh, so you’re at friend territory already?”

“An acquaintance,” Clorinde corrects.

She tries to rake at her mind to explain to Navia that no, she doesn’t have a crush on some random boy, they just nod at each other when they see each other out of some silent respect, and no, she doesn’t have a crush on some random boy, it’s pretty much, kinda, mostly, most definitely on her!

But clearly those aren’t things that she’s able to say. So she has nothing left to say.

Navia takes the upperhand in the conversation thanks to it. “You can always be more than friends slash acquaintances,” she points out, as if it’s such a brilliant idea.

“I would rather not,” Clorinde says dryly.

Navia pouts at that. Clorinde thinks she looks cute. Gods, what is she saying? What is she thinking?

“Clorinde,” Navia groans. “I’m trying to help you here! You don’t find the idea of trying to get to know the guy better even just a little bit appealing?”

When Clorinde doesn’t respond and only gives her an unamused look, Navia adds, “Okay fine. I’ll drop it. But be honest, you don’t think he’s even a little bit cute? He’s obviously not my type— at all. Obviously. But what do you think?”

Honestly, Clorinde does find him a little attractive— but he most certainly isn’t as attractive or full of life or kind as Navia is, nor could he stand to make her heart skip like Navia can. But she couldn’t say that out loud, especially so early into their friendship.

And neither would she ever risk or daring herself to say something so hopeless out loud and risk what they already have together.

This. This is enough.

But Navia looks so hopelessly hopeful, and Clorinde can’t find it in herself to disappoint her. So she slowly says, “I think he’s… pleasant to look at.”

Navia grins, then grips Clorinde’s arm and shakes her like she had just said she wanted to marry the poor guy. “That’s Clorinde talk for ‘he’s cute’!” she exclaims proudly.

Clorinde feels her face getting hot. She clears her throat and moves a few grapes around on her plate, trying to avoid Navia’s eyes. She needs an out in this conversation before Navia starts formulating plans to matchmake them, which is something that she’s certain Navia wouldn’t hesitate to do (and god forbid it’s something she’s already planning).

“How about that girl whose father works with the Spina?” Clorinde challenges.

“Huh?” Navia looks positively confused. Then her eyes widen slightly in recognition. “Oh.”

Clorinde feels vindicated as much as she feels… well, something.

It burns something in her stomach, a feeling that she knows deep down is ugly and unwarranted, but something she knows she can’t quell. It grows a little bigger when Navia flushes and begins to stammer, confirming her suspicions. The pink on Navia’s face no longer pleases her to see.

“S— she just likes hanging around sometimes, and we, you know, we—” She coughs into her balled fist, clearing her throat and fanning her face with her hand. She’s looking up to the sky, away from Clorinde, who just arches an eyebrow at her.

It’s like a dozen rose thorns to the side.

But still— if Navia is happy, she can’t really complain. So she squashes down her silly little crush, as she had for every day of her life since meeting Navia, and tries not to let it control her.

In a few years, her feelings will withdraw itself anyway. Those with honor know when it’s a losing fight.

But then again, it’s no loss if Navia manages to stay in her life, in any form. It’s something that comforts her thoroughly.

“Oh, you should eat some of the meat before it gets cold,” Navia chastises suddenly, the conversation diverted. Clorinde releases a slow breath in both relief and triumph.

“Those are cold cuts,” Clorinde points out.

Navia rescinds her pointed finger. She thinks for a moment, then points again, this time at the cooked chicken victoriously.

Clorinde laughs. She spears some meat with her fork and takes a generous amount onto her plate, something that makes Navia beam at her with pride. Frankly, she’s already getting full, but she’ll stuff down a little more than what she’s used to if it’ll make Navia happy.

“Say,” Navia declares after a mouthful of bread. “How do you feel about running away with me?”

Her heart pounds just a little harder at that, involuntarily.

“What for?” Clorinde asks evenly.

“Just for a little while,” Navia clarifies, and it’s that important piece of information that makes Clorinde loosen a slight breath. “We can take a trip out of Fontaine! I heard Sumeru is wonderful this time of year. Papa wouldn’t mind if it was with you.”

“Sumeru would be too hot for the dresses you wear,” Clorinde reminds her. She curls her lip in thought as she thinks of the last part. “And I doubt Mr. Caspar would let you just because I’m there.”

Navia just hums noncommittally. “You’d be surprised,” she says cryptically.

“And we’re too young,” Clorinde continues as if she hasn’t heard her. “I don’t think people will take two nomadic teenagers too kindly.”

“If you didn’t want to go, just say that,” Navia says in jest. Her eyes still twinkle with joy, and Clorinde only hopes that the relaxed features of her face reflect her delight in being here too.

“I do want to ru— go somewhere with you,” Clorinde replies, stumbling only momentarily to correct the wording. Navia notices, her eyebrows jumping up for a second with amusem*nt. “I would just prefer somewhere more, hmm… familiar, maybe.”

“Familiar, huh?” Navia muses. She thinks while she chews on some macarons. Clorinde’s plate is picked clean and replaced by a few pieces of macarons by the time Navia speaks again.

“How about my place?” she suggests, taking another macaron and placing it gently on Clorinde’s already macaron-filled plate.

Clorinde shoots her an odd look. “I sleep over every weekend,” she says, like Navia had hit her head.

“I mean today,” Navia replies with a roll of her eyes. “The middle of the week and everything. Throw off your schedule and relax with us.”

Clorinde hesitates. “Whatever for?” she asks, still puzzled.

“Because your hair is gonna turn gray if you keep acting like you need twenty hours of training everyday!” Navia exclaims, affronted that Clorinde had felt the need to ask. “Isn’t the idea of putting on some mud masks and trying my new nail polish a lot better than staying out ‘till five in the morning making your hands all callused from swiping your sword?”

“But—” she goes to object.

“No buts,” Navia interjects.

Clorinde, bless her, tries her best to stand her ground. “What if I’m needed while I’m at your place? No one will know where to find me. It wouldn’t bode well, especially with Monsieur Neuvillette.” She’s just starting to earn his favor too.

“C’mon, Clorinde, please?” Navia begs. She shimmies closer to Clorinde, putting a hand on her knee and squeezing gently. She’s even using her puppy eyes, pulling out all the ammo she can against Clorinde’s poor, weak heart for her.

“What if I need you tonight?” she asks softly.

See, the thing is that Navia has an incredible way with words.

Especially when it comes to getting Clorinde to cave in.

“Alright. Fine,” Clorinde says, clipped because she can’t trust herself to say much more.

Navia whoops, pumping her fist in the air and then falling over backwards to lay on her back on the blanket. Clorinde watches her in amusem*nt, taking her time with her fourth macaron. She’s certain that Navia has put some godly nectar into its filling.

Navia sits back up, and there’s a twinkle in her eyes.

She takes Clorinde’s hands. “You know what we should do tonight?”

“Put on mud masks and try your nail polish?” Clorinde guesses, amused.

“Close,” Navia says with a grin. She squeezes Clorinde’s hands. “Papa brought home a new tabletop game for us this morning. He says it’s a script from Inazuma with only half a thousand copies. I could make us some tea, and we can stay up—”

Clorinde holds up her hand. It hushes everything around them.

Her face hardens.

Navia understands immediately.

She closes her mouth, rescinding her hands from Clorinde’s. Between them, there is silence— but this silence is terse, hanging in the air between them with deadly pause.

And then Clorinde stands, drawing the pistol that she keeps at her belt. She points it into the heart of the woods, right where they came.

There’s a rifthound staring at her between the bushes. Its yellow eyes are sharp and pale, its claws shifting the dirt beneath its feet. The mechanical growl that emits from its throat is guttural and inhumane. It’s much larger than they depict it in her books.

Clorinde can’t say she’s fond of wolves.

She reprimands herself for not checking for predators.

She pulls the trigger, a bullet aiming true into an eye socket. It yelps, high-pitched and shrilly.

Navia stands at her side, a fork held tightly in her hand and her vision glowing with promise. Clorinde refuses to keep her here.

“Run east! There’s a fisherman’s hut near the shore,” Clorinde barks, her pistol growing warm in her hands.

Navia makes a frustrated noise when Clorinde tries to shove her. “I’m not leaving you here!” she argues.

Clorinde can’t afford to give her another look. She doesn’t even try to risk it. The rifthound lunges towards them at full speed, enraged by the bullet that’s frying its eye with black smoke. She shoots again, and this time it hits against the dead middle of its head. It doesn’t budge.

Clorinde and Navia are forced to roll away. It lifts a large paw and brings it down towards Clorinde in seemingly slow motion, and Clorinde barely makes it by rolling away on her shoulder.

When she rises, her heart lodges in her throat. The beast is making its way to Navia, cornering her with a sad*stic flare of its nose and raised hackles.

Her pistol is almost unbearably warm when she shoots twice, thrice, then four times in quick succession. Her fifth shot is empty, denoted by the agonizing click of the trigger.

Navia’s heels lap at the water of the shore. Her eyes are wild as she looks around, her fork still clenched tightly in her hand. Clorinde knows they’re both thinking the same thing: they really shouldn’t have left their damn weapons at home during a trek through the woods. It’s a lesson she knows she won’t ever forget, if she can ensure they both live to practice the lesson after this day forth.

The rifthound is still walking towards Navia, circling her like how a wolf may surround a hurt deer. It seems to like to play with its food.

Clorinde doesn’t have her sword. Her pistol is empty and there are no bullets for her to load.

So, with her heart still stuck and frozen between her ribs, she runs forward and bludgeons the beast with the heavy grip of her pistol.

It does its job in stunning the rifthound. It’s knocked over almost completely to its side, but Clorinde doesn’t give it another chance to recover.

She tackles it.

The feeling of the rifthound’s body in her arms is… odd, to say the least. It’s not light, but it doesn’t carry the same weight of flesh and blood of a beast in the woods. There’s a coldness to it, biting through the tips of her fingers.

It’s mighty, too. It roars in outrage and tries to buck Clorinde off of it. Clorinde hooks her arms tighter around it, refusing to let go. She can feel the tears in her muscles.

She looks desperately at Navia, who looks terrified at the scene in front of her.

“Go!” she pleads, firm but desperate.

Her heart is beating so fast in her chest that she doesn’t know how it doesn’t manage to rip out of her skin.

Navia never does what she asks of her. She likes to subvert whatever Clorinde asks, no matter the cost in their little games. She had wrongly assumed that Navia wouldn’t do it outside of their tabletop fantasies.

Navia charges straight for them, her vision glowing brightly at her shoulder. There’s a desperate scream, but Clorinde can’t tell if it comes from Navia or herself.

Then there’s a flash of light and the back of Clorinde’s eyes feel as if they’ve been beaten with drumsticks. It stuns her, and she lets go of the beast in her arms.

Her limbs feel sluggish. She blinks rapidly to get the white light out of her eyes. Her heart thrums alive in her chest.

Navia is beating the rifthound with her fork, stabbing at it and kicking crystals that appear by her ankles. It would have been funny, had it not been for the dread that shackles her to the sand. And most frighteningly, the rifthound is not defenseless— it cries when it’s beaten, but it claws and strikes back.

Clorinde is horrified to see so much red blossom in Navia’s dress. They look almost like roses.

Clorinde grabs listlessly for her empty pistol on the floor. Though her legs ache and lock at the knees, she forces as much power as she can into her arm and whips it into the rifthound’s already hurt eye socket.

It screams, more human than not, more horrifying than it is pitiful, and it collapses with black dust.

Navia stands there holding her arm. She’s breathing heavy.

But when she sees Clorinde, mostly unharmed, she gives a weak smile.

Her eyes roll back to the back of her head right then, and Clorinde is already at her side to catch her. Navia’s weight is unnatural in her arms.

“Don’t,” Clorinde breathes, and her lungs fill with fire. She struggles to even breathe while holding Navia in her arms. “Don’t fall asleep. Keep your eyes open.”

“But I’m s’tired,” Navia whispers. It’s so faint that Clorinde can barely hear it above the gentle lap of the sea.

Clorinde curses, the noise pathetic on her lips. Her lips quiver as she looks around, desperately. She jostles Navia in her arms, exhaling hard and nearly buckling when she manages to bring Navia on her back. She almost collapses taking her first few steps forward.

She’s piggy-backed Navia before. This is child’s play, she convinces herself.

Her chest burns with fatigue. It’s almost like fighting through the smell of smoke, but all that surrounds her is Navia’s quick, short breaths close to her ear and the sounds of her feet thumping the ground with the weight of two.

She navigates through the woods as fast as she can. She’s babbling to Navia now, repeating the words, “Keep your eyes open,” until she sounds like a broken record. It burns her lungs and drains her faster to be speaking, but she needs Navia awake. She needs Navia here with her.

They descend down the hill. It’s the most difficult part. By this point, her legs feel like gelatine. They ache so bad that she can hardly feel anything below her waist any more. She has such a tight grip on Navia’s legs around her that her hands are cramping. Her chest hurts. She doesn’t know if it’s her heart or lungs that hurt more.

And then Clorinde yells.

She remembers when Melus had called her a little mouse when they were eleven. He teased that she was too quiet for a place that congregates the likes of the Spina di Rosula.

But this is not the time for her to be quiet. She yells and yells until there’s nothing in her lungs left and every single one of Navia’s father’s confidants are rushing towards them.

Navia is handed off to two men who rush her inside a tent. Clorinde’s body doesn’t feel any lighter.

Callas watches as his daughter slips inside. Clorinde feels another lump in her throat and she screws her eyes shut until her eyelids shake. She can’t look at Callas. She knows how he must feel. How he must hate her for failing to protect his only child. Her only friend.

It feels like hours before Clorinde moves. People bustle around her, and many try to speak to her to no avail. She’s steered by two strong hands to sit down on a box near the tent. She’s even given a cup of tea, and a blanket to put on her shoulders. A woman helps tend to her cuts and bruises, but they don't even hurt.

The shadows around her are cast longer now. The pale orange of the tiles are turning a light blue.

There are footsteps, and two large boots are standing right where she’s been staring.

She blinks, then screws her eyes shut again.

“Clorinde,” says a gravelly voice.

The hand that clutches her blanket around her shoulder shakes. She untenses her grip to open her eyes and look up, even if every atom in her body screams at her not to do so.

Callas kneels down to meet Clorinde’s eyes.

She’s always known Callas to be more apathetic than his daughter. When she first met him, she even found herself a little scared of the way he seemed to carry himself, the way he looked at everyone but Navia.

She sees Navia in him, now.

The gentleness.

It puts her at ease. At least enough to keep her eyes on him.

“Thank you,” he says gently, putting a large, callused hand on her knee. “You were brave today, Clorinde. And strong.”

Clorinde just shakes her head. Her mouth is so dry. “How is she?” she asks hoarsely. She needs the answer before anything else.

“She’s okay,” Callas says, and he knows that she doesn’t believe him the moment it slips out of his mouth. He chuckles. “I’m not lying. If she wasn’t okay, I would have split hell open right here. But she is. She just needed a little rest and some time to get her bearings.”

Clorinde blinks. Her eyes sting. Why are they stinging?

“But I saw…” she starts. She can’t bring herself to say, I saw the blood. Or how she felt the blood run down her hands as she ran. How Navia’s breaths were so small and faint next to her ear.

“There’s a gash in her leg, but it’s superficial,” Callas explains. “That’s where all the blood was coming from. Some bruises and dinges here and there, but you two have had it worse with that sort of thing.”

Clorinde wants to say, Can I see her?

Instead, she goes silent.

Callas watches her for a moment. He searches her face, then lets go of her knee and exhales slowly.

“You saved her life,” he says matter-of-factly.

“I got her hurt,” Clorinde says curtly.

Callas doesn’t even flinch. “You saved her life,” he says again, like he hadn’t heard her. Clorinde finally knows where Navia had gotten that habit from.

When Clorinde continues to be silent, Callas just pats her on the knee. “I can only pray that there are more people like you out there,” Callas says. “You like to take initiative to protect those who can’t protect themselves. My Navia is the same way. It makes you two perfect for each other.”

Clorinde isn’t even given the chance to mull that over.

The flaps of the tent open and Navia emerges, her wide eyes searching around with her back turned to them. She looks completely unmarred, save for a little white bandage close to her eyebrow.

Callas has a small smile on his face when he sees Clorinde stand.

“Take care of each other, you hear?” he says again. “I know Navia’ll take care of you. So keep the score even.”

“I…” Clorinde lets her eyes drift away from Navia to look at Callas. Her voice is still hoarse and dry, but she manages to quietly say, “Yes. Of course, sir.”

I promise with my life, she wishes she could say out loud.

Callas smiles wider at her. He rises from his kneel. Throwing one last inscrutable look at Clorinde, he calls out Navia’s name.

Navia pivots so fast on her heel that Clorinde is almost afraid she’ll fall. She catches herself at the last moment, and when she regains her balance, her eyes are trained only on Clorinde. Even as her father waves and smiles at her, Navia can’t stop looking at her.

Clorinde feels as if she can’t breathe. But it’s a comfortable feeling this time, so unlike from hours ago.

Navia rushes forward, throwing her arms around Clorinde’s neck. Clorinde catches her around the waist, almost protectively.

When Navia refuses to let go even after a long, stretched moment, Clorinde allows her arms to untense. She still has her limbs hooked around Navia to keep her embraced, but now it snakes around her like the gentle wind. Clorinde closes her eyes and allows herself to be enveloped in the smell of Navia’s faint perfume. It smells like fresh roses and baked sugar.

She nuzzles herself into the crook of Navia’s neck, and everything is okay.

“I was so worried about you,” Navia whispers, voice muffled.

Although it nearly pains her, Clorinde pushes Navia gently to goad her to pull apart. She wants to look at Navia. Just to make sure.

When she confirms that Navia is no longer pale with the flirt of major injury or death, Clorinde inhales as evenly as she can.

“You charged at a rifthound with a fork and you’re worried about me, of all people?” Clorinde asks, incredulous.

Navia laughs. It’s relief and joy wrapped in a single laugh. Clorinde wishes she could join her, but her chest and shoulders still ache.

And then Navia cups her face with both her hands. It’s gentle and warm, and Clorinde suddenly feels a lump in her throat and the odd way her eyes sting.

Before Navia could say a word, Callas clears his throat. Navia removes her hands, but her fingertips linger on Clorinde’s skin, marking its surface with her divinity.

“You should be getting home soon, Clorinde. The sun’s going down,” Callas begins. He has his arms folded over his chest, but he looks neither upset nor concerned. “If you two need a little more time to catch up on your first life-or-death experience, some of my men just got back from fishing. Their boats should still be on the shore.”

Clorinde stares at Callas, mouth agape. He’s not suggesting that they play hooky, is he?

But then Navia wraps her father in a crushing hug, unperturbed by the bandages on some parts of her body, thanks him furiously, and then takes Clorinde’s hand and intertwines it with hers. She tugs Clorinde along, and Clorinde does nothing more than obediently follow.

Callas is a man of his word. There are fishing boats lined up along the shore, and their picnic blanket, miraculously, is left undisturbed. Spina members greet Navia when they appear, and Navia asks the one closest to them if he could so kindly pack up their food for them in her basket.

At Clorinde’s questioning look, Navia says, “I wanna finish our picnic… another time. I don’t feel particularly hungry. Do you?”

It’s a resounding “Absolutely not,” for Clorinde.

Navia giggles at that, then grabs her hand again and takes her to a fishing boat. She asks for permission to take it for a quick spin, which the owner graciously allows. As always, Clorinde marvels at the natural charm that Navia possesses. She’s always wondered if Navia knows just how charming she can be.

They row together out into the sea. They don’t stray too far from the shore, partially due to the soreness in both their shoulders and mostly due to knowing that Callas wouldn’t hesitate to chew them out for going too far. They do, however, put down their oars once they’re just barely out of earshot from emerging fishermen walking on the shoreline.

The sky is painted beautifully with milky colors of purple and yellow. The sun is flirting with the horizon.

They’re not silent for very long. It’s usually that way between them, anyhow.

“Thank you,” Navia starts. She’s the one avoiding Clorinde’s eye this time, looking down at the water below and letting her fingertips soak in it. “I know I say ‘everyday’s an adventure when we’re together’ all the time but I think we’ve had our fill of adventure for the rest of the month, huh?”

Clorinde chuckles. She watches Navia stir her fingertips in the water to create ripples. Even here, Navia chooses to be gentle. “I should be the one thanking you,” Clorinde says gently. “I’m not confident I would have survived that with all my limbs attached, had it not been for you.”

Navia snorts. “You had everything in the bag. I was the one who froze up.”

I did too, Clorinde thinks, the memory of it still seizing her heart, when I saw you in danger for the first time.

She vows herself never to freeze like that ever again, when it comes to Navia. Her safety should always be her first priority. Hesitation will only let Navia get hurt. Evident by today.

“I don’t think either of us would have survived that encounter with surface injuries like we did without being there together,” Clorinde finally says.

Navia hums in agreement. She presses her cheek to the wooden lip of the boat, still staring at the reflective water that dances on her fingers.

“Well, we do make a pretty good team when you’re not complaining all the time,” Navia jokes.

Clorinde exhales amusedly. She closes her eyes and loses herself to the sway of the boat. She’s always loved how gentle the sea can be at times like this.

“I still mean it, Clorinde,” Navia murmurs. Her gentle voice mixes wonderfully with the lapping of the water at the side of the boat. “Thank you.”

Clorinde doesn’t know what to say to it.

Navia rises to sit up to look at her.

“I’ll always be here for you,” Clorinde says to her. She rubs the fabric of her pants, dirt and dried blood caking its surface. “Wherever you need me. Whenever you need me. My duties are to Fontaine as much as they are to you.”

Navia breathes out a gentle laugh. “You’re such a sweetheart, you know that?” she teases. The tease falls flat when the tone of her voice is completely sincere, like the sweet icing of a cake. Clorinde looks away, rubbing the side of her jaw in slight embarrassment.

She sees Navia lean forward out of the corner of her eye.

For a moment, she thinks Navia wishes to tell her a secret, or that Navia is trying to reach for something behind her.

So Clorinde turns her head to look at her.

In the split second it takes for Clorinde to turn her head, Navia goes from having her lips pressed on her cheek, to having her lips pressed right against Clorinde’s own two lips.

When they pull apart, the audible pecking of their lips startles them both.

It’s so quick that Clorinde wonders if it had even happened, but her doubts disappear when she can feel the slight tingle in her lips and the way Navia is staring at her, gobsmacked with her lipstick just slightly, slightly to the point that it’s hard to notice without staring it down, smudged to the right side of her face.

They sit there and stare at each other in shock.

“I’m so sorry!” Navia cries quickly.

Just at the same time as Clorinde says, her voice half an octave higher, “I didn’t mean—”

Then silence.

The boat rocks despite how still they both sit from across each other. The water that laps the wood, which was relaxing ambience to her just moments before, is almost deafening in her ears.

“It was an accident,” Clorinde placates. Her heart has never beaten this fast in her chest— not even during her most rigorous training sessions with her master. It’s like a rabbit is thumping against the inside of her chest, over and over. “I meant to turn my head to look at you, but then you…”

Clorinde clears her throat. “It’s neither of our faults,” she reiterates.

Navia doesn’t say anything.

Which is odd, because Navia is never one to say nothing. Even a word or two would be ordinary for her. Rambling even more so.

Before Clorinde could grow with further concern, Navia nonchalantly says, “I kinda… liked it.”

Clorinde only stares.

“Really?” she says, and she doesn’t understand the hope in her voice. She doesn’t want to have such hope in her voice.

“Yeah,” Navia says smoothly.

There’s a pause. It borders on unnatural, until a slow smile approaches Navia’s face. “Not bad for a first kiss?” she asks, teasingly.

Oh.

Right— that was her first kiss.

Clorinde feels… relieved. Maybe it isn’t in the most conventional circ*mstances, but at least now she knows that it’s been shared with Navia, a friend who wouldn’t judge her for anything, rather than someone who she would likely form an extremely temporary bond with.

Then horror sets in like water that leaks through the floor of a boat.

That was Navia’s first kiss.

Her profuse apologies are already making its way to her mouth, but Navia hushes her with a finger between her lips.

“Slow down, Romeo,” Navia says with a laugh. Huh, they just watched that play last week. “You said it yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

The guilt is still settled like precipice in the pit of her stomach. “But you’ve always wanted a memorable first kiss,” she says sadly. Navia had always raved about romance ever since they met— it feels almost cruel to take something like this from her. It is cruel.

“We’re in the middle of the sea on a boat, there’s a nice sunset, and I kissed my best friend,” Navia says matter-of-factly. “There’s nothing more memorable than that.”

Well. When she puts it that way.

“I… suppose,” Clorinde concedes.

“See? That’s the spirit,” Navia says with a laugh, and she punches Clorinde’s side gently.

Clorinde expects silence to blanket them in the wake of this… interesting day.

Instead, Navia asks, “So, do you think I’m a good kisser?”

When Clorinde shoots her a look, Navia puts up her hands and says, “What? Can’t blame a girl for asking. What if I need practice?”

“Oh. Well, in that case…” Clorinde pretends to think hard, even going as far as to rub her chin and hum. The sample size is too small— you should kiss me again, Clorinde’s mind whispers for her to say.

The more rational side of her admonishes the idea. It would have been blasphemous to let it be spoken anywhere but her head.

So instead, she tells Navia, “You have awful technique.” She tries her best to school her features.

The fishing boat rocks and nearly spills them to the sea when Navia tackles her for the insult. Laughter bubbles out of Clorinde’s mouth, and she can’t find herself wanting to take back what she said, even if their kerfuffle threatens to spill them from the edge of the rocking boat.

Lined up with the rest of the young duelist prospects, a Champion Duelist does a double take when he sees Clorinde next to him. Clorinde stares straight ahead just as she’s been told, pretending not to notice the blatant stare of a respected Champion Duelist.

It’s only when the Champion Duelist’s eyes drift down to her neck does Clorinde finally break form.

She hurriedly wipes off the lipstick mark on the side of her neck.

All it takes is one kiss for Navia to feel emboldened to pepper kisses on her face whenever she feels like it. It makes her want to roll her eyes at the thought.

At least Navia never goes for the lips.

That, Clorinde is sure, would have surely caused bigger trouble.

The Court of Fontaine is one of the safest places in Teyvat. At least, that’s what everyone tells her, and that’s what Papa had always said to her whenever she clung onto his shirt just a little tighter. How could it not be? There are gardes and gardemeks crawling all over the place, and it’s easy to find Champion Duelists spending their leisure time at dive bars or strolling the streets with sharp pistols at their hips.

It’s why Navia is never afraid to walk down the street alone at night. The moon follows her, but it's welcome company compared to the pale, empty streets.

Her umbrella is tucked under her armpit. There is no sun to block out or rain to speak of, so there’s no use for it. At least right now. She’s certain that she could use it as a quick make-shift hiking stick to get back to Poisson.

She passes a busker around the corner. Her violin emits a gentle, almost melancholic tune. Navia recognizes it as the theme song for a play about a knight and his lover. She places a few pieces of mora into the violinist’s open case, and she nods and smiles at Navia when she passes. When her mind isn’t so scattered on another day, Navia wouldn’t mind standing closeby to listen for a little while longer. Regrettably, today is not that day.

She runs through her list of errands in her mind. It wouldn’t be good to head back if she had forgotten to do something.

Have her dress mended after ripping a hole in it? Check.

Grab some icing sugar and eggs for tomorrow’s baking plans? Check.

Check in with that acting troupe? Check.

Feel someone staring into the back of her head while she goes through her list? Well, it’s not on the list, but it’s definitely a check.

Navia whips around quickly, standing still as she peers into the darkness behind her. There is nothing but the violinist still playing her song, and a stray cat who happens to be cleaning itself on the roof of a building. Even the wind here is still.

So she shrugs, gives one last glance-over around her environment, and continues to walk.

The violin that had been accompanying her on her walk begins to fade. The gentle tinkle of the fountains along the stretch of these roads becomes her new companion. There are two wide-eyed children staring at her from the windows of their house, and Navia waves at them.

It’s a few dozen steps before she catches herself at an intersection. To her left, a dark alleyway that leads to a deadend greets her with its dark-mouthed jaw. To her right is an open stretch of pathways, dotted by businesses still open for the night and patrons who laugh and chatter inside them.

She falters and contemplates.

Naturally, she inclines her head to the left. Her body leads her there next, and now Navia is humming the long-lost violin song under her breath as she marches on.

She continues walking deeper and deeper into the maws of the alleyway, unconcerned with the darkness that envelopes her with each step. She continues to hum her song, momentarily getting stuck on the bridge’s lyrics before she remembers and finishes it to perfection. There are trash cans stacked high in the corner of the alleyway, the only splash of color that resides here.

When she reaches the large wall that denotes the end, Navia pivots sharply on her heel.

This time, her company has made themselves known.

A man stands in front of her, holding up a pistol to her face. The pistol is small and rusty around the barrel. Navia wonders if it can even fire right without blowing up in this poor man’s face.

She finally heeds the situation after the man thrusts the pistol closer to her face in an act of intimidation.

“Oh— oh, no! Oh, why!” she cries, bringing her arms up in the arm. Her umbrella leans against her thigh.

“No one has to get hurt,” the man says lowly. Navia is impressed— most muggers have a slight waver to their voice, as if they’re about to cry. This man speaks more evenly, which Navia wishes she could praise. “I’m only here for one thing.”

“Take anything you need, just don’t hurt me!” she cries again, her eyes wide and crazy. It pays to be a seasoned roleplayer, she thinks.

The man lowers the pistol, just slightly. He waves the tip of it at Navia’s chest. “Take off your necklace and give it here,” he orders, voice still unwavering.

“You don’t even want my umbrella?” Navia asks him, her voice devastated as she puts her fingertips on her necklace in shock.

The man only chuckles. It’s condescending, and it makes Navia wince. “I told you, I’m just here for one thing. Now, take it off before this gets more complicated.”

Navia sighs. She’s slightly offended that he didn’t want anything to do with her umbrella. He didn’t even look at it! Didn’t he see the craftsmanship in it? Men and their bad tastes, she supposes.

“Oh, please not my necklace,” she pleads. She takes a step toward him. “This was the last thing my mother left for me before she passed away.”

“Boo-hoo,” the man deadpans. Wow, rude. “I’m sure you can find a replica out there somewhere.”

“Why can’t you?” Navia challenges.

The mugger is momentarily stunned at her sudden change of tone. “Because I’m the one pointing a gun at you and I need your damn necklace?” he says reproachfully, waving his gun as if to remind her.

“Need it? Whatever for?” Navia asks, tilting her head.

“Because—” he sputters. Then his face hardens and he shoves the gun in her face until they’re just a tiny bit over arm’s reach from one another. “Just— do as I say before I shoot you in the goddamn face!”

“Alright, alright,” Navia acquiesces with a slight sigh. Her damsel in distress gig falls away with the roll of her eyes, and her fingers reach behind her neck to find the clasp of her necklace. The man watches her with a glint in his eyes.

Then Navia pauses.

“Say, is this necklace for you or for a friend of yours?” she asks. “I’d feel a lot better knowing that it’s still being worn by someone out there in the world.”

“I don’t need it to wear it,” the man hisses, the grip on his gun going white-knuckled.

“Ah, is it to sell it then?” Navia asks again, amicably. “There is a wonderful pawn shop run by a nice family just down the street. I’m sure you can give it to them for a good price. This thing doesn’t run cheap, y’know. You’d definitely know if you feel just how heavy it feels hanging on your neck.”

The man opens and closes his mouth like a fish. His face is turning red with frustration.

“Hand. It. Over,” he says through gritted teeth. “Now!”

“The necklace?” Navia asks.

“Yes, the—” The poor mugger lowers his gun to stare at her in complete disbelief. “Obviously the goddamn—!”

“Oh, oops! I thought you meant this!”

Navia rounds her umbrella at him, the tip pointed straight at his chest. Before he could utter another word, she loads it with a single slug shot, then fires straight ahead.

It causes the poor guy to jump away in an arch over Navia’s head, the sounds of his yells cut off by the crash of trash cans. The lid of a trash can is still spinning and making noises on the ground when Navia closes her umbrella and tucks it back under her arm. Her mugger is unconscious on a bed of trash, his pistol still gripped in his hand. His wrist is limp with it though.

Navia pats her hands together to rid it of any dirt. She wrinkles her nose at the smell that emits from the opened trash. She sincerely hopes the guy can manage to wash off the smell of rotting fish and soy sauce when he wakes up.

She grins to herself. That was exhilarating.

In a considerably better mood, Navia turns back around to make her way back out.

Her exit is being blocked again.

“Oh, come on,” Navia says with a groan. She slumps her shoulders in exasperation. “Really? Here, too?”

Clorinde sheathes her sword, her head held down. At least she has the grace to look a little guilty.

She stares at Clorinde for a long moment, and then goes to say, “Are you still following me?”

To her credit, Clorinde looks away with a mild grimace. She doesn't apologize though. Both of them know this isn’t something to apologize for, but at least it would have made Clorinde’s actions look less premeditated.

Still, seeing Clorinde makes her feel… relieved. Not in the common sense that people would find relief at seeing the strongest Champion Duelist of Fontaine right behind them when there’s a mugger unconscious (ahem, asleep) in the trash nearby, but in the sense where she’s finally grateful to be talking to someone familiar after wandering alone all day doing such boring tasks.

It’s enough for her to forgive Clorinde, at least. Well, mostly.

She walks up to Clorinde, nearly brushing their upper arms together, and leads them out of the alley. Clorinde obediently follows without a fuss.

“I can take care of myself, you know,” Navia says, even though she knows it would do nothing to dispel Clorinde of her thoughts.

“I know,” Clorinde replies. “But it has never been about that.”

She doesn’t elaborate.

Navia sighs, and she knows that she can’t change Clorinde’s mind. After all, they’re both bull-headed individuals— it would be next to impossible to convince Clorinde of anything else once she sets her eye to the target. But honestly, this doesn’t bother her as much as it did just months ago. At least nowadays Clorinde is willing to speak to her, to interact with her, instead of pretending to be some sort of mute bodyguard.

She just wishes Clorinde would announce her presence to her at times like this. Honestly, she’s like a cat sneaking up somewhere in a house.

“Going home?” Clorinde guesses. Her shoulder is almost a perfect inch away from hers.

Navia hums at that. That was the idea.

“Fowl or crepes?” she asks.

Clorinde glances at her with a small frown. Still, she doesn’t falter in continuing to walk next to Navia. “What for?” she finally says in response.

“Are you craving fowl or crepes?” Navia reiterates calmly. “I’m a little peckish.”

Clorinde looks at her for a moment. A slow smile stretches across her features until it reaches her eyes, and Clorinde lets out a small chuckle. She looks down at the ground briefly, watching their feet kick up pebbles and drag through the stones, then says, “Meat would be nice. Crepes are reserved for breakfast.”

Navia knows there are exceptions to those rules. Clorinde had eaten her crepes and pancakes in broad daylight in a few late afternoons in their youth. She graciously bites down her tongue to keep from reminding her. She feels like being the bigger person tonight, especially after confronting such an immature mugger.

“There’s a restaurant just a few blocks from here. The red-bricked building,” Navia says, excitement coating her words. “I’ve never been, but I hear they serve the best milkshakes.”

Clorinde gives her a slightly odd, enigmatic look, but then the look on her face relinquishes not even a moment later. “Then lead the way,” she responds, convivial.

She has her hands folded behind her lower back while they walk and talk. The night air is chilly, but not so much that Navia needs to grit her teeth. Perhaps Clorinde’s tall posture next to her is blocking the wind for her.

“How did you find me back there, anyway?” Navia asks out of the blue. It’s a fair question to ask— she prides herself in knowing when people have their eyes on her, but she can’t ever seem to sense that with Clorinde.

“I clocked off work just moments before. I saw you and wanted to join you,” Clorinde explains.

“Then you saw him following me?” Navia guesses.

“I saw him following you,” Clorinde confirms. “I was never worried. If I had been, I would have shot him from the distance I was standing in. I just wanted to see what he wanted from you.”

Navia snorts. “He wanted my necklace! Could you believe that? You’d think a mugger in Fontaine would know how to find better things to steal.”

“Your necklace is quite shiny,” Clorinde reminds her with a pointed look. There’s a curl to the edges of her lips.

Navia gasps and shoots Clorinde with an appalled look. “You think it’s gaudy, don’t you?” she whispers harshly, putting her fingertips to the center of her necklace protectively.

Clorinde laughs, loud enough that a nearby stranger with a mustache eyes them out of the corner of his eyes, then does a double take with eyes as large as teacup saucers when he realizes who, exactly, had laughed so merrily in these streets.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Clorinde assures, her voice still thick with amusem*nt. “It’s just… hard not to notice.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Navia grumbles. She thinks of something else that scratches at her mind and voices it out loud. “Why do you think he even wanted it? He didn’t look like a poor thief.”

In fact, she recognized the clothes on him— they were from a reputable fashionista in Fontaine, whose prices definitely do not match someone desperate to wave a gun at a woman in an alleyway.

Clorinde makes a noise of acknowledgement at the question. She mulls it over, then says, “He could have wanted a clearer shot at your heart with his pistol. Or to plunge a knife into. Injuries to the chest cavity are much harder to recover from than most areas. Death can be abrupt, which he could be looking for if he doesn’t want to leave you as a witness.”

Navia makes a face. “Sometimes I forget you do that,” she lightly admonishes. Clorinde is more of a realist than she could ever allow herself to be. With the nature of her work, it’s nothing to write home about. She shifts her umbrella under her arm so it’s more comfortable for their walk.

Clorinde gives her a sideways glance. Then she simply raises her eyebrows. “You asked. I answered,” she says.

“‘You asked, I answered,’” Navia parrots in a high-pitched mockery of Clorinde’s voice. Clorinde narrows her eyes at her. “Well, the good news is that I didn’t even give him a chance to try. Wait— does someone know he’s back there? Should we go back?” she asks in slight concern.

“I informed someone the moment I saw him,” Clorinde appeases. “Now, are you finally going to tell me why you let him corner you in the first place?”

Navia exhales through her nose. “Same reason why you didn’t put a bullet through his head on the spot. I knew I could handle it, and I wanted to see what he wanted,” she says simply. “Maybe he could’ve just wanted to ask me to help him with something.”

Clorinde shakes her head. “You are far too forgiving for your own good sometimes.”

“It’s one of the things you love about me, admit it,” Navia teases, tilting her head and letting it brush against Clorinde’s caped shoulder.

Clorinde only averts her eyes, lips pressed together in what Navia assumes is very mild (but loving!) annoyance.

It makes Navia’s grin grow wider. “Anyway,” she forges on, mostly for Clorinde’s sake. “What have you been up to all day? I usually see you walking around, but today it feels like you just disappeared off the face of Teyvat.”

“Ah, that.” Clorinde’s sharp eyes watch as a pair of dogs run down the street, followed closely by a frazzled young boy holding two leashes. “There was more to do in my office today than out here. Thankfully, the stack on my desk isn’t nearly as high as it had been weeks ago. It seems like everyone in Fontaine is much too tired to call for a duel for their disputes.”

“Well, when you stared death in the eyes half a year ago, it’s kinda hard to want to go back,” Navia says. She runs a thumb over the smoothness of the umbrella handle under her arm.

“You could be right,” Clorinde responds agreeably. “I was at least granted a little bit of sun today. There was a scrimmage by some school boys playing hooky near the fountains at noon. Hardly the most exciting thing to tend to, but it at least gave my eyes a break from staring at a dozen forms.”

“They must have peed their pants when they saw you,” Navia snickers. She couldn’t help but imagine it: teenaged boys looking to tussle over some lunch money, and then looking up and seeing not just a Champion Duelist, but the Champion Duelist with eyes like the barrel of a gun staring back at them. Oh, what she would’ve paid to see that.

Clorinde chuckles at her apparent amusem*nt. “Monsieur Neuvillette took pity on me after that. ‘Champion Duelists shouldn’t be used as errand boys,’ he told me, then granted me the weekend off. Paid, of course.”

“Sometimes I can’t help but think that you’re his favorite,” Navia muses.

“There are no favorites in the eyes of the Iudex,” Clorinde says, but Navia had already guessed she’d say so.

“If you say so,” Navia says, wholly unconvinced. Clorinde just eyes her with a look, but Navia only gives her an innocent smile back. “What are you going to do on your paid mini-vacation then?”

Clorinde purses her lips in thought. “I haven’t thought much about it. But I do like the idea of seeing an old friend,” she replies.

“Oh. Who? Do I know them?” Navia asks curiously. How come she’s never heard of this old friend before?

“You know of them,” Clorinde says, a hint of amusem*nt coloring her tone. She doesn’t know why until Clorinde adds, “It’s the geovishap I’ve told you about.”

“Oh! Oh,” Navia says, then pales ever so slightly. Her eyes are wide as she asks, “She’s still here? In Fontaine?”

Clorinde shakes her head. “It would be cruel to keep her somewhere so far from her natural environment. I helped her get back to Liyue a few years ago. Mating season just passed. It’s possible she could have hatchlings by now.”

“Archons,” Navia marvels, giggling under her breath. “When you said you had a ‘cordial relationship’ I didn’t think you meant you kept in touch.”

“We don’t write letters to each other, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Clorinde says wryly.

“Can I try sending her one if you won’t?” Navia jokes.

Clorinde rolls her eyes, but it’s juxtaposed by the smile on her lips. “Unfortunately, I never had the chance to teach her how to read.”

“Eh, maybe she learned how to out in the wild,” Navia says with a shrug. “What’s her name? I need something to work with and put on the outside of the envelope.”

Clorinde pauses. “Vishap.”

Navia stares at her oddly. “Her name is… Vishap?”

“Yes,” Clorinde says curtly, as if she’s already prepared for this type of reaction from Navia. “I wasn’t a very creative child.”

Navia snorts, then smacks her hand over her mouth before another snort comes out. “Oh, you think?”

“What would you have wanted me to name her?” Clorinde shoots back playfully.

“Oh, I don’t know. Something that isn’t just the literal name of her species?”

“She’s a geovishap. So not quite.”

“Yes, of course, because dropping the prefix is a much better name,” Navia says sardonically.

“Had I named her Navia Junior, would you have taken me more seriously?” Clorinde counters with a sharp look.

“As a matter of fact, yes!” Navia retorts with her chin held high. They continue to walk down the street, and then, just as they pass an intersection, she slowly adds, “Actually… wouldn’t she be Navia Senior? Because she’s older than me?”

Clorinde just shakes her head.

“Just be grateful Master never let me name her the first name I thought of.”

Navia already knows it’s going to be hilariously good. “What was it?”

Clorinde pauses, either for comedic effect or to steel herself from Navia’s judgment. “Geovishap.”

“Ha!”

The restaurant is just up ahead. It smells like barbecue and smoke even from down this street, and Navia’s stomach grumbles. Clorinde eyes her, but Navia stares her down with a look to keep her from making a comment.

Clorinde holds the door open for her. It smells even better inside, and the lights are so dim that it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust. There are a handful of people already eating inside, and the food on each table is accompanied by candles and bright conversations. The waiter that spots them stops and stares until he manages to collect himself.

“Good evening. For two?” he stammers, scurrying over to them with wringing hands. He looks to Clorinde first, then says, “The usual spot tonight, Mademoiselle?”

Clorinde just curtly nods with a small, polite smile. Navia looks at her with an arched eyebrow, though Clorinde pretends not to acknowledge it.

They’re seated against the wall with a window to their sides. It gives a nice view of Fontaine from here, and Navia can spot aquabuses in the distance taking people home. The moon shines down at them from between the heavy gray clouds.

The waiter hands them two menus, then crouches down slightly to Clorinde’s level and informs her that there are new desserts on the menu that may interest her. Clorinde nods, but she says nothing more.

Navia squints at Clorinde across from her. Clorinde being a regular, or at least familiar, with a restaurant in the city is nothing at all suspicious, of course.

It’s the fact that their surroundings are dim, full of warm candles, and full of people giggling with hushed conversations and holding each other’s hands blatantly on top of the table that actually is suspicious.

“Alright. Spill,” Navia commands, her detective lens zeroing in on the way Clorinde is conveniently interested in the paintings on the wall. “Who did you take here?”

Clorinde rubs the fabric of their table between her two fingertips as she responds. “Just a few… encounters. In the past,” she says inconspicuously.

“You mean dates,” Navia deadpans. “You know you say ‘dates,’ right?”

Clorinde winces, and Navia would feel bad had it not been for the odd warm bubbles that feel their way in her stomach. She hadn’t eaten anything bad in the past 24 hours, had she?

“I wouldn’t go further than saying that,” Clorinde explains, still mildly embarrassed. She mildly flips through the menu without looking down at it more than a few times, and Navia doesn’t even bother to look at her own menu. Not yet.

“Was it like an, uh, speed dating thing?” Navia guesses. Trying to get Clorinde to be more clear with her words is like pulling teeth.

“Not at all,” Clorinde says rather quickly. “Most of them were colleagues, or people that I know through connections. They ask me first, usually. I wouldn’t take the same person here twice.”

Navia’s eyebrows jump up nearly to her hairline. Oh, wow. “Since when were you such a—?”

“Not because of that,” Clorinde says, giving her a pointed look. “I don’t intend to play with people’s feelings. We engage here out of misunderstandings, usually. They’ll ask me to grab lunch or dinner with them, and by the time we’re sitting down, it’s already too late and I have to clench my teeth through explaining I’m not interested in the way they want me to be.”

Navia really only hears one word. “‘Usually’?” she questions.

Clorinde sighs. “There’s really nothing that gets past you, is there?”

“Nope,” Navia says with a grin.

Clorinde looks down at the menu, stares, then sighs again and closes it. She looks back up at Navia and says, “Yes, I had actual dates here. Two. But neither of them worked out, evidently. And no, I won’t tell you their names.”

Navia clamps her mouth shut. She changes course with an apologetic grin. “The food has gotta be heavenly levels of good if you keep coming here,” she says.

Clorinde smiles noncommittally. “Yes. It is.”

“Alright, then what do you recommend?” Navia asks.

Clorinde’s smile finally reaches her eyes. “You can leave that to me.”

The waiter finally comes five minutes later, in the middle of their conversation about the best perfumes to layer. Clorinde orders water for herself, then a strawberry milkshake for Navia. She asks for two orders of chicken fricassée next, then asks him to come back to ask if they have room for dessert.

“Wow,” Navia says, impressed. “You didn’t even look at the menu.”

Clorinde exhales a brief laugh. “I’ve tried nearly every combination of food they can throw at me. In another life, I would have been a food critic that frequents this place.”

“You better not be setting my standards too high for this place,” Navia warns.

Clorinde looks amused. “I know for a nearly unequivocal fact that you’ll like it, so there’s no problems there,” she says, bringing her chair closer to the table, “but if you ask me, it’s nothing like the picnic food you used to make for us.”

To say that Navia is surprised to hear that would be an understatement. “You mean the chicken and ham and cheese I’d bring?” she asks, confused. At Clorinde’s short nod, she says, “Those are just basic picnic foods! We’re in a five star restaurant and you’d prefer to eat that?”

She cringes at the thought of fourteen year old Navia’s cooking. She remembers the chicken being too bland, and the cheese choices not pairing too well with the crackers and bread she would bring with it. The only decent thing that she remembers making are her cookies and macarons. Besides that, how could Clorinde look back at that and think, yum?

Clorinde shrugs. “I like this place because it’s the closest thing I can get to the authentic, fresh kind of homemade cooking that you used to make,” she confesses. There’s a gentleness to the way she says it, as well as a smudge of embarrassment. “But this restaurant can’t replace what you make. Or what you do.”

Navia melts under her gaze, like the candle wax that burns at their table.

“You weren’t thinking about me when you were bringing your dates here then, were you?” she teases gently, because she can’t afford to get sappy at a time like this.

At Clorinde’s alarmed, surprised look, Navia just laughs.

“I’m kidding. I know you don’t,” she says with the remnants of her chuckles. “But now we’re back on that train, how’ve you been in the love department? You clearly haven’t brought anyone here in a while.”

It was an almost taboo topic between them, for a while. They used to speak so freely about their crushes and the people that they wanted to pursue when they were more innocent and new to the whole thing.

But they’re adults now; surely, Clorinde has some interesting stories to tell of her adult love life. At least, ones that don’t make her shudder thinking about Clorinde’s teenaged exes. Why Clorinde had ever thought they were good prospects, she will never know. Oh, the things Navia would do to be in the ring with Clorinde’s exes with the things they’ve done, especially on Clorinde’s supposed special day when the idiot—

Clorinde just gives her a mildly amused look. “I could ask you the same thing.”

At that, Navia just shrugs. She says honestly, “I’d rather focus on work than on a relationship. I don’t think I even have the time to.”

The waiter comes by with their drinks first, as they speak. Clorinde chuckles at Navia’s reaction, then picks up her glass of water. “To that, I completely agree,” she says, holding out her glass to Navia.

Navia’s milkshake is much larger than her glass of water. Still, she tries her best to clink glasses. It makes them both crack a smile, and Navia, for whatever reason, feels the little warm bubbles in her stomach dissipate with the clink of their drinks.

But then Navia’s smile slowly fades.

“I’d also, um,” Navia says, slipping into her shyness, “rather just work on this relationship too. Our friendship, I mean.”

Clorinde looks at her, holding her gaze in place as the candlelight flickers on the side of her cheek.

“I’d like that very much,” Clorinde says softly.

Navia feels like her heart is ten times lighter than it had been before.

Their food arrives not long after. They’re deep into a conversation about their last script at the Tabletop Troupe, about the things they should have done instead or parts of the script that they enjoyed to play through. They talk about better pet names too, about how dogs are better than cats (Navia’s argument), and about how cats are simply more tactful on hunts (Clorinde’s passionate counterargument).

It takes them so long to get through their conversations and eat that the candle on their table has been reduced to the size of her thumb. The wax pools in an odd lump on the bottom in its silver tray. Navia blows it out when she chews on her last bite of the delicious chicken.

Clorinde, much to Navia’s chagrin, pays for their dinner.

When they leave the restaurant, Navia immediately hooks an arm around Clorinde’s elbow, like they had done so many times in the past. Clorinde looks over at her in surprise, but she doesn’t shake Navia off. In fact, she steps closer to Navia’s side. Navia is practically giddy in knowing that they still feel like the parts of a puzzle together.

“Will you walk me home?” Navia asks.

It’s a surprising request, to both of them. She doesn’t know why she had blurted it out, but she doesn’t want to take it back either.

Obviously, Clorinde complies.

Their conversation all the way to Poisson is regular and familiar, just as much as it is challenging and electrifying. Only Clorinde seems to bounce back with whatever Navia throws at her, and Navia is grateful for it. She loves watching Clorinde get more and more zealous when she pushes buttons like this. It’s nice seeing her look so spirited. It’s cute just as much as she finds it funny and attractive.

Attractive in the sense that it’s objective and new to see. As in attractive, only a little bit. Yeah.

They arrive at Navia’s door, and Clorinde stands right on the outer edge of the welcome mat like she’s a vampire waiting to be called in.

It makes Navia suppress the urge to roll her eyes.

“Well?” Navia asks, trying to keep the giggle out of her voice. “Aren’t you gonna come in?”

At Clorinde’s mute, stunned silence, Navia continues, “What, haven’t your dates invited you inside before?”

Clorinde’s eyes widen just enough for her to notice. It makes her truly giggle this time.

“We’re not gonna do anything like that,” Navia deadpans. “Plus, you didn’t save me this time, so you aren’t getting any kind of praising cheek kisses from this gal,” she continues, jabbing a thumb at herself.

Despite herself, Clorinde chuckles. “If I remember correctly,” Clorinde says, coming up so close to her that Navia stops breathing momentarily, “you saved us that day. Not me.”

“Humble bragging is worse than bragging, I hope you know that,” Navia mutters, but she opens the door to let Clorinde in anyway.

Clorinde takes off her hat respectfully when she comes inside, her eyes searching the inside of Navia’s place with shunned silence, and Navia teases, “Cat got your tongue?”

Clorinde just shakes her head. “I just didn’t expect everything to look… the same,” she says, demure even in the way she looks around.

Navia’s lips part.

She presses them back together, and her chest aches in that familiar kind of way.

“Would you like to sleep over?” Navia blurts out. “I have a spa appointment in the morning, and I’m pretty sure they offer half-off for any plus-ones.”

Clorinde looks over at her with mild amusem*nt as she replies, “Is it the same one we—?”

“Yes.” Navia laughs. “I think the same lady still works there. I hope you’re ready to grovel about why you’ve been gone so long.”

Clorinde exhales a laugh. She’s silent only momentarily, probably to mull over Navia’s request. “I would love to stay,” she starts, the slow way she delivers it making Navia’s smile go small. “But…”

“The bottom drawer still has your clothes. If hygiene’s the reason you’re hesitating,” Navia says. At Clorinde’s raised eyebrows, she feels a slight triumph in realizing that she was right.

“Your toothbrush is probably hiding somewhere in my cupboards,” she continues before Clorinde can say anything more. “I can look for it right now while you get settled in.”

That was a lie. The first one she’s told Clorinde since their reconcile.

She still keeps Clorinde’s toothbrush next to hers.

Clorinde smiles at her sincerely, and says, “Then I’d love to stay.”

Stay forever, the back of Navia’s mind begs. Let me braid your hair like we used to. Let me take out our favorite tabletop game so we can play, the one I polish every weekend. Come lay next to me and let me swing my leg to hook onto yours while we talk about stupid adult responsibilities— the stupid things we were hoping to have now.

Instead, she says, “Great! I’ll go find your toothbrush.”

Turns out that Clorinde doesn’t need to save her with her sword in hand, after all.

Having her here is saving her enough.

Clorinde dreams of her master.

A dream of a memory, of when her master had dragged her out in the cold, early morning at the ripe age of nine and three quarters and made her thrust her sword into a tree until the calluses on her hands peeled off.

Then her master had tended to her hands, sitting her down on a rock as she lectured, “Be wary of who you let into your heart. The affairs of the heart are a dangerous weakness, and they can leave you tender and raw, deeper than the hilt of a sword can. When you can, you shoot them in the chest first.”

Clorinde didn’t question her master. She didn’t say anything at all that day, besides absentmindedly nodding.

Then Clorinde wakes, alone and cold in her bed.

She washes her face and brushes her teeth. Her hair is combed, new clothes are put on. Today is another day like the rest, even if it’s meant to make her feel different.

She sits alone at her small table and chews on some leftover venison from last night. Noting in the back of her mind to grab some more firewood for tomorrow, Clorinde puts on her hat and leaves the house. Her jacket is draped over her forearm, in case it gets colder during her trek.

Clorinde finds a log that overlooks a small river bank. She yawns, forcing back the sleepiness from staying up so late last night training her eye with her pistol. She puts on her jacket when a mighty breeze rustles the leaves, then bends down at the hip to stretch. It’s painful and relieving all at once on her muscles.

She stretches her wrists and forearms next. She sits on the log and stretches them as slowly as possible, grimacing as the familiar ache overtakes her fingers and forearms.

She balls her fists, and then unballs them. She does it several times, before she opens her palms, face up towards her.

She looks at the old calluses that correspond with her knuckles. They’re white and old, rising against her pale skin, unopened in a very long time. She may need to file them down sometime this week to prevent any scarring or splitting in the middle of her training.

She smells roses and baked vanilla in the wind.

Hands cover her eyes, and Clorinde doesn’t even flinch.

“Guess who, birthday girl?” a voice teases.

Clorinde huffs out a laugh. “You know you still can’t sneak up on me, right?”

Navia removes her hands from her face and sits down on the log next to her, pouting. “I really thought I got you that time!” she argues.

“You got a little closer than last time,” Clorinde says encouragingly. But Navia is still pouting, and she can’t help from having a teasing smile split onto her face.

“How does it feel to finally be a respected member of adult life?” Navia asks her, brightening from the prior conversation. Her eyes absolutely twinkle. “How does your first day as an eighteen year old feel? Feeling the freedom?”

“Like I told you yesterday, it probably won’t feel any different. And I was right,” Clorinde replies drolly, but she’s smiling. “But someone was a little adamant in thinking that a single birthday would change everything about myself.”

“Hey, you’re not a kid anymore, but you still have to respect your elders!” Navia contends with a wag of her finger.

“You’re a single year older,” Clorinde says bluntly.

“And a month!” Navia feels the need to add. “And four days,” she finishes proudly.

Clorinde nods sagely. “Yes. My apologies. How could I ever disrespect someone so old?”

Navia snorts loudly, jabbing her hard in the side with her elbow. Clorinde grunts, but she’s quick to snatch up Navia’s wrist before Navia jabs her again. There’s laughter bubbling in her throat.

“Got any plans for your birthday?” Navia asks her, once the chaos subsides.

Clorinde had already practiced the answer last night. “Besides eating dinner with you and your father, not much,” she admits. “Though I was given the entire day off.”

“That’s really nice of them,” Navia says happily, clasping her hands together like she was given the best news in the entire world.

Clorinde doesn’t tell her the entirety of the truth— that she had begged her superiors to let her have this day, working longer, strenuous hours to prove that while she’d like to dedicate 364 days to the justice of Fontaine, she wanted at least one with Navia.

Navia would have killed her if they didn’t spend her birthday together, like they do every year.

“I didn’t want to plan anything in advance in case you had to shadow someone today,” Navia begins, swinging her feet, “but now that we have the entire day, what do you think about… having a spa day?”

She blinked rapidly. “A spa day?” Clorinde echoes.

“Yeah,” Navia says cheerfully. “There’s one near that boutique you like. We can get our nails done, get face masks, even do our hair— the whole shebang.”

It’s not that the idea is unappealing, per se, to Clorinde. She’d never let herself go to a salon, not because she wanted to actively avoid it, but because there wasn’t really a reason for her to. Sometimes, the thought would cross her mind, but it would pop like a bubble the moment she realizes that she simply didn’t have the time to.

It makes her slightly paranoid; does Navia think she’s not more put together? Why should she even care?

Navia reads the expression on her face. “I just think you deserve to be pampered for once in your life,” Navia says to her. “Answer me honestly: when was the last time you did something for yourself?”

When Clorinde just answers with a blank stare, Navia laughs.

“I’m surprised you don’t have twigs in your hair after your long hunts,” Navia teases.

“That’s because I pick them out,” Clorinde says seriously.

Navia just gives her a pointed look. “So, spa day to welcome your first day as an independent woman. Yay or nay?”

Clorinde doesn’t point out that “independent woman” is something that could have described her for an already good majority of her life.

“Well, if it’s something that you think we’d like, then I have no objections,” she says thoughtfully.

Navia grins in response. She punches Clorinde’s arm lightly. “I knew you’d be on board,” she says, proud and happy.

“But you’re sure they won’t mess up my hair?” Clorinde asks with a light frown. She touches her hair gently, looking up to pull out a strand in front of her face. “I quite like the look. There’s that bleached blonde trend that I just can’t imagine on myself.”

Blonde on Navia is a different story. It’s beautiful and gorgeous and wonderful on her.

Navia giggles. “I’m sure if you tell them you’d rather keep your signature look, they’d be more than happy to oblige,” she says, amusem*nt twinkling in her words. “I like it on you too. Very chic.”

Navia reaches out and touches a strand of Clorinde’s hair— the light blue part. She twirls it around her finger, tugging gently on it and marveling at its softness. Clorinde shivers. She’s always liked it whenever Navia plays with her hair like this. She likes how Navia’s hands are so gentle handling her hair, how her nails scratch her scalp in a way that makes her feel like she could sleep forever.

Not that she’d ever admit that out loud.

Navia lets go of her hair, and a part of Clorinde whines inside at the loss of touch. She was even starting to lean in towards her.

“If we leave about now, we’ll have enough time to catch some breakfast, have our spa day, and eat with the Spina tonight,” Navia lists off happily.

Clorinde wants to say, But I already ate, so we can skip having breakfast together.

Instead, she says, “Alright. Where would you like to eat?”

Navia picks out a nice, small cafe where they serve fluffy pancakes for breakfast. The smell is heavenly when they enter the premises, and Clorinde is glad that she deliberately left some room in her stomach in case of a situation like this.

They sit down in the corner, away from eavesdroppers. With just the two of them here, they almost seem like a couple on a nice morning date.

She banishes the thought like thinking of sin at church.

“You said you didn’t have anything planned for today, right?” Navia asks her.

Clorinde nods, and then Navia immediately says again, “Did your boyfriend at least plan a little something for you guys today then?”

There’s slight venom in her voice. Her eyes look ready to strike.

Clorinde freezes. Ah.

Navia senses her hesitation before she racks up an excuse in her mind. “What? What’d he do?” she asks, already on the defense. She leans in, her eyes narrowed.

Navia had never liked him. Not even from the beginning.

Clorinde is sure that this news would make her start jumping up and down and clap her feet together.

She clears her throat first before she allows herself to speak. “He sat us down last night for a chat,” she begins to say, worded as carefully as possible. “He thinks we’re both splitting off into different paths. So we decided to part from each other from here on. Amicably. And, of course, mutually.”

She expects Navia to whoop and holler like Clorinde had announced she would be coming home with a million mora.

Instead, Navia’s fierce look mitigates into something more gentle, more sorrowful. And dear Celestia, Clorinde would have rather Navia got up on the table and screamed at the top of her lungs in rejoice than look at her like this.

“Oh, Clorinde,” she says, her voice so soft. “I’m so sorry. Right before your birthday too, that’s— Archons, that’s a dick move.”

Clorinde doesn’t really think so. Objectively, yes, yes it is. But subjectively?

It’s the first time she’s actually breathed right around him.

In truth, she didn’t like him very much anyway— he was brash, cold, and come to think of it now, a little too much like her. The guy would only ever charge her cynicism when they were together, and vice versa.

Perhaps there is truth in what people say about opposites attract.

She’s starting to think that she should start preferring to look for someone more sunny, more open, more kind, someone like…

Navia, a gentle smile still on her face, reaches over the table to squeeze her hand.

No, she shouldn’t.

She should never allow herself to look at someone who’s too much like her. It would just end up breaking her heart trying to fit in an imposter.

“At least he was a little nicer to you than your ex-girlfriend from last summer,” she grumbles. “I didn’t like her either.”

At that, Clorinde huffs out an amused laugh. “You say that about everyone I date.”

“And you do the same about every girl I like or date!” Navia argues. She’s pouting again.

Navia’s list of ex-lovers is a relatively short one, as is hers, but it’s still not as impressionable. Clorinde never liked how broody and stoic and aloof they all were. All of them, and she means all of them, were different shades of scowly, overprotective, and reclusive. Most were some sort of law enforcers too, as if that could explain away their egos.

Seriously, what did Navia see in them? She deserves better.

“Because I know how to read people’s intentions,” Clorinde immediately defends, frowning.

The way they look at Navia has always put her at unease. She couldn’t describe the feeling, but it’s never been pleasant to feel.

Navia shakes her head and mutters, “You and Papa would make an unstoppable team.”

She lifts her chin in pride in knowing that Callas, too, shares her opinion about Navia’s choice in crushes and dates.

Their pancakes arrive before Clorinde can argue further about her point. Navia’s stack of pancakes are topped with a selection of fruits, glazed in syrup, and garnished in icing sugar. Clorinde’s three small pancakes pale in comparison, with only a little bit of syrup pooling at its sides and a complimentary biscuit stuck into the top.

Navia immediately puts a few strawberries on her plate. Clorinde gives Navia her biscuit as a fair trade.

They eat in comfortable silence. The bustle of the cafe around them is almost deafening, but it gives Clorinde a reason to keep her eyes glued to her pancakes and let her hands move to keep cutting pieces of it. Out of the corner of her eye, Navia is people-watching as she chews, her eyes twinkling with joy while she watches a man play frisbee with his poodle on the grass.

“Papa’s been thinking about letting me stand in for him as President sometime soon,” Navia says quietly.

Clorinde looks up at her in shock. She lets the news settle between them before she swallows. “Oh,” she says dumbly, and she wants to kick herself for it.

“Is… is that something you want?” Clorinde tries again.

Navia sighs, rubbing her hands over her face. She suddenly looks so tired, and Clorinde wishes desperately that she could do something to light the fire back in her eyes.

“I don’t know,” Navia admits. “I’ve obviously thought about it— for a really, really long time. If you asked me a few years ago if I’d jump the chance at sitting in for Papa, I’d go, ‘Duh!’ But now I’m older, and I’ve sat in meetings, and read through a bunch of case files, and had to be there during the harder times with Papa, it’s— gods, it isn’t all starlight and glitter like I thought it would be.”

Clorinde sits there, listening silently but attentively.

“Sorry,” Navia says, her voice still so uncharacteristically quiet. “I didn’t mean to make your birthday feel all weird and sad.”

“I know how you feel,” Clorinde says carefully. She mulls over her words before filters them out of her mouth. “Being a duelist is tough work— mentally, physically, and everything in between. There’s been times in my life where I just started to think that it would be much easier to quit. To sheathe my sword and never look back.” She hasn’t even been given the title yet, at least officially. It’s a frustrating ordeal, but she marches on.

Navia watches her warily. “Why didn’t you?” she asks softly.

“Well, you,” she admits, growing a little hot under the collar. Even Navia looks away.

Clorinde fidgets with her fork. “I admire how determined you are to see things through, and how you never let things get you down no matter the circ*mstances. It’s commendable. On some days, I wish I had your grit. But having you by my side is the closest thing I can do to having it.”

“Clorinde,” Navia whispers. It sounds so fond.

Clorinde tries not to let her heart ache too much in her chest.

“Let me do that for you too,” Clorinde says. “If he wants you to stand in for him at meetings, then I’ll sit down next to you and give you my quiet support. If he wants you to come up with a solution for one of your aid crises, then I’ll sit on the edge of your bed and let you pace around and bounce ideas off of me. Whatever you need from me for you to realize that you can do this, I am at your call.”

Navia just blinks at her.

She swallows visibly, then a slow smile falls onto her lips. Clorinde sends her a smile of her own.

“You really are something,” Navia says, her voice still thick, “you know that?”

“So I’ve been told once or twice before,” Clorinde teases.

Navia giggles, her shoulders slumping and her lively demeanor coming back to her full force. It makes Clorinde happy to see. She hides her smile behind her glass of water as she sips.

With breakfast done over a nice, heated conversation about the best kind of class to pick in their tabletop game, Navia swiftly shoves mora in the waiter’s face before Clorinde has the time to open her wallet. Clorinde shoots her a nasty look, but Navia can’t seem to wipe the grin off of her face.

She’s still grinning when she grabs Clorinde’s wrist and pulls her up to her feet, dragging her to their beloved spa day.

Her worries double when the bell jingles and signifies their presence. So many people turn to look at them out of curiosity, and Clorinde feels like she’s just been thrown into a den of wolves.

The woman who tends them is warm and inviting, however. She tells Clorinde how Navia often likes to talk about her when she gets her hair done (a fact that makes Navia interject with a flush along the strip of her nose) and ushers Clorinde to a tall chair.

Things are put on her face. Curlers are put in her hair, pulling at her scalp but not enough to make her head feel sore. People file her nails and marvel at the calluses and scars that litter her hands, but the staring is merely out of interest rather than hostility. Navia stares at them with a hard look, warning them with a subtleness, the same way Clorinde would put her hand on the pommel of her sword whenever she catches school boys staring at Navia as they pass.

The woman doing her hair hums as she strokes the light blue in Clorinde’s hair.

“This is a wonderful shade. It suits your features,” she comments happily, and Clorinde gives her a young smile in response. “A staple of yours, I assume?”

“Yes,” she admits. “I haven’t changed it since I was ten. I would rather not change it now.”

“Of course,” her hairstylist says. Her tone of voice reminds her of Navia’s impish smile right before she makes a teasing remark. “Did you know this shade of blue is one of Navia’s favorite colors? She likes to polish her nails this color sometimes. Interesting how these coincidences can line up, no?”

Clorinde clamps her mouth shut. She doesn’t say a word, nor does she let go of her breath.

It makes her hairstylist laugh, loud and full, and Clorinde feels warmth spread across the surface of her face.

She catches Navia looking at her from across the room. She can’t hear what Navia’s hairstylist is saying to her from here, but she knows Navia isn’t really listening. Instead, she’s smiling gently at Clorinde, big and bright. She’s communicating reassurance with her eyes.

It makes Clorinde’s heart feel twice as light.

Clorinde had wrongfully assumed that Navia’s guess of them “spending the majority of the day” here was an exaggeration. By the time they take the cucumbers off of her eyelids and massage some sort of oil onto her face, the sky outside is beginning to turn a bright shade of orange.

When they leave, Clorinde’s body is positively exhausted. It aches as she walks, but in a way that doesn’t burn her muscles or strike her bones. It’s a… good kind of exhaustion.

“You seem relaxed,” Navia comments with a giggle. She’s right next to Clorinde, looking as energetic and bouncy as she had been that morning.

“Is that what I’m feeling?” Clorinde muses. She’s sluggish, but in a pleasant way.

“Uh huh,” Navia says with a curl of her lips. Her eyes are still twinkling with joy. “I’m guessing you liked that then?”

Clorinde chooses her words carefully. The last thing she wants is for Navia to be holding this against her for the rest of their lives. “Yes,” she says slowly, flexing her fingers at her side, “it certainly made me feel…”

“Pampered?” Navia guesses, giddy.

Clorinde exhales through her nose. “Yes.”

“I knew you’d like it!” Navia exclaims with a hearty laugh. “The next time I go back, I’m taking you with me.”

Clorinde’s chuckle is soft. Then she says, “It’s expensive, but you’re right— it’s worth it.”

“Self care is very important for the body and mind,” Navia says as if she’s reciting it, holding up a finger. Her face is sagacious. “Remember when you told me that your training requires complete harmony with your body and soul? I have a theory that letting yourself be pampered once in a while, albeit with treats or a day off or a full day at a spa, would help with that.”

“Huh.” Clorinde thinks about it as they walk. “That’s not… that bad of an idea,” she admits.

Navia puts her hands on her hips, proud. “Of course it’s not. If your little smile has anything to say about it.”

Clorinde wipes her smile off immediately, and it makes Navia giggle. It’s hard not to keep smiling when she does.

“I don’t remember the last time I let myself be at the center of my day like that,” Clorinde confesses. They turn a corner, and she recognizes the aquabus line up ahead. “It’s… different. But nice.” Especially when it’s with you.

Navia exhales an amused laugh. “I wanted you to feel like it’s okay to attend to your wants or needs. Celestia knows you don’t ever take care of yourself nearly enough. Just because you’re an adult now and you’re dedicating yourself to the betterment of Fontaine doesn’t mean you have to exclude yourself from that, you know what I mean?”

Clorinde clicks her tongue. Her chest feels so light, walking close to Navia like this. “I don’t know where I’d be without you,” she admits quietly.

She doesn’t know why she suddenly feels so maudlin— it could be because of the sweet exhaustion of her pampering, or the way Navia is speaking to her like it’s a conviction she so readily believes, or the combination of both.

“Dead in a ditch from overworking yourself maybe,” Navia jokes with a giggle.

Clorinde knows that it’s not the likely scenario. If she had never met Navia, she would still be able to take care of herself. She would still know how to hold a sword, how to fish when she’s hungry, how to fill her days with training and productivity. She still would have been sharp and cunning, an extension of the blade at her side.

But if she had never met Navia, her heart would have never felt this gentle.

She would have been a weapon named Clorinde, rather than be Clorinde and her weapon.

But to Navia’s guess, she simply says, “And I would have become a more well-adjusted young woman who never had to share her brain power with someone as reckless as you.”

“Hey!” Navia argues, but she sounds as if on the cusp of laughing.

When her bubbly demeanor subsides and they cross the street, Navia says, “I almost booked us a massage today too. But I think your body would have broken out in hives from feeling relaxed for the first time in nearly two decades.”

“I’ve been relaxed before,” Clorinde argues.

“Oh, yeah?” Navia challenges.

“Yes, before the age of nine, I was relaxed all the time,” Clorinde says calmly. “And then I met you.”

Navia gasps, turning to look at her, indignant by the way her nose flares and her mouth gapes. “You’re so mean!” she exclaims with a slap to Clorinde’s arm, and Clorinde breaks out into a satisfied grin at her reaction.

“I don’t see it as a bad thing. I just traded my peaceful days with more exciting ones with you,” Clorinde says with a hum, only to mollify Navia, who still looks as if there’s steam coming out of her ears.

It works. Navia raises her chin proudly and smiles in triumph. “You’re darn right,” she says, and Clorinde presses her lips hard together to keep from snorting.

“So,” Navia says again after clearing her throat, “where do you rank this birthday with the rest?”

She asks this every year.

And every year Clorinde responds the same. Surely, Navia knows that.

She reminisces about her past birthdays as they walk out of the Court of Fontaine. How they roleplayed as a knight and a princess in Clorinde’s backyard for her eleventh birthday, how they played Navia’s favorite tabletop game together when she turned thirteen (and they got married in it: it’s a long story, but it was so that they can get away from an orc for plot purposes, and definitely not because they wanted to), and how for Clorinde’s sixteenth birthday, Navia threw her a party that lasted from dusk to dawn.

“I think this is the best birthday yet,” Clorinde says confidently, as she usually says every year after the other since turning ten.

And here Navia would usually smile and nod, happy and pleased with her answer, then they would continue doing whatever they did for the rest of the day.

Instead, Navia asks, curiosity dripping from her voice, “Well, what made it the best this time?”

Clorinde eyes her silently, and Navia shrugs. “I don’t think we really did anything special this year. If anything, I feel kinda guilty,” Navia says sheepishly. “It’s your eighteenth birthday. I wanted to plan something special for you, y’know, so it’s memorable, but I kept assuming you wanted to spend it with your boyfriend, or with someone else, or alone because…” She gestures vaguely in the air.

Clorinde understands what she’s trying to say. “Just because we’re older doesn’t mean I want to drift away from you,” she says gently.

It’s not just Navia who’s been afraid of it— Spina members would always tell them how surprised they are that they’ve been friends for so long, or how near strangers on the street would interject their laughter with their unnecessary anecdotes about how they’ve drifted from friends when they grew up. She notices how hard Navia squeezes her hand sometimes, late into the night. Or how Navia would stare at her when she’d walk home by herself.

Clorinde understands. Of course she does. She squeezes Navia’s hand just as hard, and she stares when Navia leaves for the day just as long.

Navia’s silent. She’s pursing her lips, staring at the ground ahead of them. Clorinde could see her thinking hard, the gears in her head turning and turning.

“And besides,” Clorinde continues, entertained at the way Navia jumps and looks at her, “I don’t care if we didn’t do anything with your idea of extravagance in mind. I got to spend my birthday with you. That’s why it’s the best.”

That makes Navia giggle. “We always spend our birthdays together, you goof,” she says, as if amused that Clorinde would forget that minute detail.

I know, Clorinde thinks, and that makes every new passing year special to me.

She doesn’t say anything.

She just lets Navia take her hand.

When they arrive at Poisson, the sun is already beginning to touch the horizon. Spina members smile and wave when they see her, and many of them shout at her and greet her a wonderful birthday. Clorinde smiles back, albeit with a smaller smile of her own, while Navia helps her by shouting back about how grateful her friend is. Their fingers are still intertwined together while Navia navigates her through the bustle of her place.

As promised, Callas is home early from work, and he’s cooking some sort of turkey in their oven. Navia rushes over to his side and reprimands her father for not waiting for her to cook it. Clorinde sits down at the table, amused by the pair’s antics and how they argue back and forth about how long they should keep the turkey inside the oven.

Eventually, Navia wins her father over and takes it out with oven mitts. She places it on the middle of the table, and Callas walks over with large carving tools. Navia slaps her papa’s wrist and makes a motion for him to hand over the tools. Obediently, Callas hands it over.

Clorinde’s amusem*nt must be apparent on her face, because Callas shoots her a look and gruffs out, “You’d do just the same if you were me. Except she’d just have to look at ya.”

Well, Clorinde doesn’t deny that.

Navia carves up the turkey for them and serves it onto three plates. She gives a bigger, juicier portion to Clorinde. Callas serves Clorinde with some expensive wine that he’d apparently been saving for the occasion. It’s rich and tasty, and Callas laughs when Clorinde nearly drains her entire glass in one go.

Dinner is eaten over small conversations between the three of them. Callas tells them the story about the man that they were investigating today, making them giggle when he describes how the poor guy tripped and had his pants pulled down by a bush. Navia speaks so fast Callas has to remind her to slow down, and she tries her best to talk about the different flavors of macarons she was testing out yesterday night without tripping over her words. Clorinde listens to the Caspars quietly, but with a smile that rests all too easy on her face.

Halfway through when the turkey meat runs low, Callas lectures the two of them about the importance of sticking together at night in case of emergencies. Then he goes on a spiel about how, even though they’re both “walking into the arms of adulthood,” they should never be afraid to turn to him for help.

Clorinde and Navia glance at each other.

Is he serious? Clorinde asks with her eyes.

Navia grimaces and says with her eyes, I think so.

They share a small smile that restrain their laughter and turn to look back at Callas with feigned interest.

After the dishes get put away (and the yearly argument of Clorinde trying to insist on helping with the dishes and having both Caspars restrain her back into her seat), Navia excuses herself to grab something. It doesn’t take long for her to come back with a cake the length and width of her entire arm.

Spina di Rosula members are called into their small abode and they pile in, with some opening the windows to peer inside the house without overfilling the kitchen. They sing Clorinde a happy birthday, all the while Navia sits next to her with the sparkles of the birthday candles reflecting in her eyes. Her smile is so big that Clorinde can’t help but reflect it.

“Make a wish!” Navia calls excitedly after the song concludes.

She closes her eyes, blows the candles out, and smiles coyly at the whoops and cheers that shakes the walls. Attention isn’t something that she seeks— but this kind of attention, where Navia’s warm gaze covers her like a blanket and Callas’ hand on her shoulder feels like a rock tethering her to the ocean floor, is something that makes her chest glow with happiness.

Though she wakes in her bed cold and alone nearly every morning, it’s a good contrast to the way her days are spent, always, with the people that she cares about.

Spina members are given their fair share of cake once Navia serves her the first portion (and Clorinde serves her the second in kind) and there’s about an hour of chatter around Poisson, everyone happy with Navia’s sweet and tasty cake and the atmosphere full of the celebration of life and joy.

Once Clorinde and Navia have their fill of cake and conversation with everyone around them, Navia hooks their pinkies together and pulls her closer to her side. She has a shy smile on her face, one that makes Clorinde’s heart beat just a little faster.

“I have something for you,” she says quietly, just over the noise of laughter and plates clinking. “Can you come with me?”

I would come with you towards the raging fires of a forest, Clorinde thinks.

And she says, “Of course.”

Navia gives her a quick side hug before she tells Clorinde to stay for a moment and dashes upstairs. She emerges only a minute later, a wrapped box in her hand. It’s the same color of the streak in Clorinde’s hair, with a yellow bow that reminds Clorinde of the accents on her dress.

Then Navia takes her hand again, leading them out of the house and just a little ways out of Poisson.

They’re sitting on the hill, overlooking the moon that winks down at them with stars that dust the sky.

Navia puts her present into Clorinde’s lap once they settle in. Clorinde gives her a mild look, and Navia criss-crosses her feet, places her hands to lean on her ankles, and bites her lower lip in excitement, nodding her head for her to go on.

Clorinde unwraps the present with reverence. She slides her nails under the tape and opens the flaps, careful not to ruin the paper. Navia watches her with an amused, fond look.

The small box is plain brown, but it has a lid that she can remove and separate. Clorinde sticks her tongue out and slowly shimmies the lid off with a few fingers.

Sitting inside the box, covered with fluffy white stuffing to keep it centered and safe, is a pair of blue earrings.

They look exactly like Navia’s.

“Now we match,” Navia says proudly, her voice strangely soft against the excitement and pride that covers her face. “You told me you liked my earrings a few years ago, and I kept bugging Papa to tell me where he got them over and over and over until he finally caved. They were… a pretty price, I’ll tell you that. So I saved up over the past year and got it for you the first chance I got.”

Clorinde’s eyes sting. They sting hard.

She blinks, hard and fast.

“Clorinde? Are you okay?” Navia asks, concern lacing her voice when Clorinde doesn’t respond. She bows her head down to look at Clorinde’s face more properly, and she makes a little gasp. “Are you crying?” she asks, a mix of both shock, amusem*nt, and deeper concern.

“No, ” Clorinde says immediately, but it sounds muddled with the wavering of her voice.

She puts down the box on her lap and wipes at her eyes aggressively, curling her lip as if in mild disgust. It makes Navia laugh, but it’s low and gentle.

“Is that why you dared me to pierce my ears last week?” Clorinde asks her, trying to even out her voice as much as possible.

Because it’s her birthday, or because Navia simply wanted to give her grace, Navia doesn’t comment on the moisture collecting in her eyes or the odd twinge of her voice. She just says, with a little giggle, “Of course I did. You were being so competitive you didn’t even stop and think about why I dared you.”

Clorinde shakes her head fondly. “You could have just gotten me a nice towel for my pistol. Or some macarons,” she says quietly. “You didn’t have to go out of your way and do this for me.”

Navia shrugs. “I wanted you to have something nice. What’s a better way to do that and get you matching earrings that just so happen to look good on you?” she teases.

“But these are expensive,” she argues.

“And I saved up,” Navia counters. She narrows her eyes at Clorinde. “If you return those, I will kill you, you know that, right?”

Clorinde laughs wetly. “If I put them on now, will that make you happy?”

Navia nods happily.

Rolling her eyes and pretending to feel peeved, Clorinde shifts her weight on the grass and tucks her hair behind her ears. She concentrates on feeling the hole on her earlobe, piercing one earring through it. The other side is harder to find, and Navia has to intervene and lean over to help her. Navia’s breath is warm against her cheek, her fingers gentle and caressing her skin with some kind of deep, loving veneration.

Both earrings are in, and Clorinde moves her head from side to side to feel the weight of them against her ears. They feel nice. They’re not heavy, but they aren’t so light that Clorinde would forget they’re there. She loves them. She loves knowing Navia got them for her, knowing that whenever she’ll look at herself in the mirror, she’ll see Navia too.

It’s like Navia had gifted her something that just says, it will always be me and you, in everything we have and do.

When she adjusts the feeling of having her earrings in, she turns to look at Navia to thank her. Navia is already looking at her. The way she’s staring is… well, it makes her stomach flip.

“Why are you smiling at me like that?” Clorinde asks her, raising her eyebrows in amusem*nt.

Navia blinks, as if she’s just now realizing that she had been staring.

“Nothing,” Navia says quickly, but her voice is so terribly warm, “just… you look really pretty when you smile like that.”

Poor Clorinde isn’t even given a chance to soak in the compliment completely. Navia jabs her in the side, the atmosphere broken with something more playful.

“Happy birthday, grandma,” Navia teases.

“And what do you think that makes you?” Clorinde quips.

Navia jabs her in the side harder, but it’s worth it.

There’s a silence that blankets them up on this hill, the wind tickling the sides of Clorinde’s face. It makes her earrings sway, and she already knows it’ll help with finding wind direction when she hunts in the morning. It’s the perfect gift, truly.

“Say, what did you wish for this year anyway?” Navia asks her curiously.

“I can’t tell you that,” Clorinde argues. “Telling people what you wish for is bad luck.”

Navia groans. “You used to never believe in that stuff!”

“Last year, I told you that I wished for a less chatty friend and it never came true. Do you remember that?” Clorinde says flatly.

Navia snorts. “You probably just don’t wanna tell me because it’s embarrassing,” she says lightly.

Clorinde hums at that. “Or perhaps it’s just painfully plain.”

Sighing, Navia flops backwards onto the grass. Clorinde joins her. “You’re probably right,” Navia says, turning to look at her with a wolfish grin. “You are a painfully plain person. Maybe you just wished for a new kitchen stove.”

“My stove is incredibly inefficient, a new one would only take half my time in cooking my meat!” Clorinde argues, and Navia laughs so loud that her legs are brought up to her stomach in her joy.

“Well, whatever you wish for,” Navia says, still giggling and trying desperately to stop laughing, “I hope it comes true, Clorinde.”

Clorinde just smiles at her. “Me too,” she answers softly.

Because if her wish of having to spend every birthday like this together, until their last, comes true, then she’d be the happiest woman alive.

It’s just Navia’s luck for her to be cooped up in her office picking up after yesterday’s messy fiasco on her birthday.

She sighs, shaking her hand out, before hunching back over and writing her report. Her lower back is already aching and her legs are sore from sitting down for so long, but she wants to finish this particular page before granting herself any sort of break.

It doesn’t help that she feels alone in this tight office. The window lets a breeze in, but it’s cold and biting rather than cozy and inviting.

Her hand cramps up again, and she twists her face up while she opens and closes her hand in an attempt to get it to stop.

She almost lets herself let out a sigh. What a way to spend a supposed good day like today.

“What are you doing cooped up in here?”

Navia lets out a squeak of surprise. Her chair squeaks even louder when she sits up, whipping her head backwards to check for her intruder.

Clorinde stands in her doorway, leaning against it with a shoulder and her arms crossed over her chest. A corner of her lips is turned up in a half-smile at her antics. Navia nearly wants to throw a stapler at her head.

“How did you get in here?” she asked incredulously. She turns her chair around to face Clorinde, who’s still watching her with amusem*nt twinkling in her eyes. She thinks of the Spina members stationed outside of her door, tasked with ensuring that no one bothers her during her excursion in finishing her report. “Actually, better question— how did you manage to sneak past everyone?”

Clorinde tilts her head at her in mild confusion. “They saw me, and let me through without another word. I assumed you told them I was welcome to come in. Why? Is there a problem?” Her brow pulls together with a frown. “Are you in danger?”

“What? No,” Navia says quickly, shaking her head. Her heart is finally beginning to return to a normal pace. “They were just meant to— nevermind. What are you doing here, Clorinde?”

“I suppose you don’t know what day it is, do you?” Clorinde says evenly.

Of course she does. At the mention of it, Navia brightens and manages to beam at her. “My birthday!” she exclaims, and Clorinde’s half-smile turns into a full, genuine smile.

And then she deflates, looking over her shoulder back at the report wistfully. When she looks back at Clorinde, she says, “I don’t have anything planned, if that’s what you’re here for. We could get some dinner together later if you’d like?”

Clorinde opens her mouth. She closes it momentarily, then finally utters, “Are you busy, then?”

“A little,” Navia admits, almost in shame. “I wanted to get out and do something fun, but…” She sighs hard and slumps back against her chair. “Responsibilities and all that,” she finishes.

“Ah.” Clorinde shifts her weight from foot to foot now, her eyes glued to the ground.

Navia grows a little suspicious when Clorinde doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t move either. “Why?” she asks slowly.

She has a feeling why. But she wants Clorinde to say it.

Clorinde squirms, and she holds back a laugh. “I wanted to ask if you wanted to do something with me today,” Clorinde says casually, but the terse way her jaw sets on her face makes it clear that she’s forcing herself to bite it out. “I… wanted to spend your birthday together.”

Navia’s smile reaches her lips so swift that it nearly aches. Her heart aches in the same manner. “Aw, Clorinde,” she coos.

Clorinde scowls, but it makes her look less intimidating and a lot cuter. She clears her throat, her eyes darting away from Navia’s large grin. “But I understand if you’re busy today. I don’t want to interfere with anything important,” Clorinde says quickly. “I can come another time instead, if you would… like.”

“Nonsense!” Navia cries. “I’m not busy at all.”

Clorinde frowns. “But you just said—”

“I can do it tomorrow,” Navia says quickly, and yeah, sure, it’ll make her life a tiny, teensy bit harder if she puts it off, but hey, that’s just the game of life.

And honestly? She had dreamed of spending today with Clorinde for weeks now.

Clorinde smiles at her in relief. “Alright. That’s— good,” she says, awkward and so cute. Navia just wants to reach over and pinch her cheeks, but she stays seated in case Clorinde scowls at her one more time for being pesky. Clorinde clears her throat one last time and adds, “I have something planned for us to celebrate.”

“You planned something?” Navia asks, her eyebrows shooting upwards. She hadn’t expected that. “Clorinde, that’s so sweet!”

Clorinde shoots her a pointed look and Navia shuts her mouth. “I didn’t even tell you what the plan is,” she says flatly, but she sounds mildly amused.

“Whatever you have planned, trust me, I’ll love it,” Navia says with complete seriousness. She stands up and stretches from side to side, groaning with pleasure at the pops and cracks of her spine. “Where do you want to take us?” she asks breathlessly, still out of breath from the best stretch of her life.

Clorinde rolls her eyes, but there’s still a smile square on her face. “I got us tickets for a play at the Opera Epiclese. Front row seats.”

Navia’s eyes nearly pop out of the sockets. She grabs Clorinde by the shoulders and shakes her, her nails digging into Clorinde’s caped shoulders. Clorinde takes it in stride. “A play? Front row? Is it the play about—?”

“Yes,” Clorinde laughs. “You were talking nonstop about their re-showing for months. I pulled some strings to get us the best seats in the house.”

“Oh Archons,” Navia says, awed and shocked. “I love you. You know that? I love the hell out of you. Oh my—!” She pulls apart from Clorinde to laugh breathlessly, pacing her small room in circles as she bounces up and down on her heels.

She hadn’t seen a play in forever. That usually isn’t a concern, but the one they’re showing this week is a favorite from her childhood, one that hadn’t been played here in Fontaine in nearly two decades. She’d seen it with Papa, and had always wanted to see it with Clorinde. Now’s her chance.

She fans herself with her hand, her other hand on her hip to keep her steady. She looks up at the ceiling and continues to fan herself while she exhales hard, and Clorinde is laughing somewhere closeby. She can’t even find it in herself to shoot her a nasty look. Her excitement is rolling off of her in waves.

And it’s contagious, at least from the way Clorinde can’t stop smiling at her. She likes it when Clorinde smiles at her like that. And it only makes her smile even harder.

“It starts tonight at seven,” Clorinde says, walking over to her desk. She peers down at the report that Navia has partially written and continues, “If you’d like, I can come back around six and let you finish this in the meantime.”

“And not spend the rest of the day with you?” Navia asks, affronted. “I’ll finish that tomorrow. Besides, I probably wouldn’t be able to concentrate knowing that I have a play to get to,” she admits.

Clorinde’s smile reflects her amusem*nt. “I don’t have anything else planned, besides the play. I was half expecting you to say you were too busy, in all honesty,” she says sheepishly.

Navia gives her a dumbfounded look. “So you bought expensive, front row tickets to a play thinking there was a half chance you couldn’t even use them?” she asks plainly.

Clorinde is puzzled by her reaction. “Yes?”

“Oh gods,” Navia groans, her tone practically pained. Oh this sweet, dumb, chivalrous woman. She rubs her hands over her face. “Do you have any idea how much I want to kiss you right now?” she says jokingly.

(Mostly.)

Clorinde chuckles at that. “I’m glad to know that my efforts aren’t in vain then,” she says.

“No kidding,” Navia mutters, still giddy from the news.

Then Clorinde’s smile turns softer at the way she’s still pacing around the office.

“Happy birthday, Navia,” she says again, gentle and warm.

It makes Navia’s chest tighten so hard that she can hardly breathe. Suddenly everything is overwhelming around her, and then Clorinde smiles again, and it’s like she desperately needs to find air and wants to suffocate in the feeling all at once. How can Clorinde say her name like that, a prayer on the tongue, and not expect her to collapse at her feet like an acolyte for a god?

“Do you want to run through a script?” she asks. She needs a change of topic, and quickly. “We can head over to the Tabletop Troupe and finish a quick one right before six, if we’re lucky.”

Clorinde nods her head at that in apparent agreement. “I know a few scripts we can finish in that timeframe,” she says. “Go ahead. I’ll meet you there. I’ll rally a few people who can spare a quick game.”

Navia clasps her hands together in excitement. She grins, thinking about the play once more, and she can’t help it—

She rushes over, her heart beating in her throat, puts a hand on Clorinde’s shoulder and stands on her tip-toes to plant a kiss on her jaw.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she rushes out in a higher voice, and Clorinde is just staring at her, lips slightly parted. “I’ll see you there!”

She pushes Clorinde out of her office, rushing past her to find something quick to throw over her shoulders in case of a chilly night later ahead and walks out the door to find the Tabletop Troupe. She’s practically floating on clouds the entire way. She can’t believe Clorinde got her tickets to her favorite play. She can’t believe Clorinde went out of her way to do something like that, just for her.

Halfway through, with the Tabletop Troupe building in sight ahead, she falters the longer she thinks about it.

It’s not the play that she’s excited about, really. Sure, she can’t wait to relive her favorite story of the two tragic lovers— but it’s the fact that Clorinde will be sitting next to her, that Clorinde will be right there, holding her hand during the second act, that Clorinde will rub her thumb over the skin between her thumb and finger like she had before, that— goodness, that Clorinde will be there. With her.

She pushes open the door, greets the owner, and sits down at a table to wait. And all she can think about is the fact that she can’t stop thinking about Clorinde.

When was the last time Clorinde had left her mind the last few weeks?

The last few months?

Years?

She pushes the thought aside in favor of asking for a drink. It arrives just in time for the bell to jingle once more, and Clorinde gently guides three others in with her: Freminet, Lynette, and Furina.

Apparently Freminet and Lynette had some time to spare before needing to tend to something with Lyney at night, which makes their quick game perfect between the lot of them. Furina just wanted to tag along.

And, much to Navia’s surprise, the trio present her with gifts and ‘happy birthday’s. Furina had remembered on her own, but the siblings’ gazes settle on Clorinde when Navia asks them how they’d manage to remember. Clorinde pretends not to be listening in, but Navia smiles at her and flicks her ear anyway.

They squeeze onto a long table in the corner of the club, served with drinks and appetizers for their day.

Clorinde winces as she sits down, the sharp twitch of her lip giving her away, only to Navia. Navia gives her an odd look. Clorinde just smiles openly at her, pacifying her with the warmth in her eyes.

As promised, Clorinde jumps into the story without too much preamble: adventurers settle into a small village, which is plagued with withering crops and disappearance of livestock. It’s a standard campaign, but the suspense hooks everyone in, and Clorinde’s talent for keeping them on their toes lasts them through the majority of the afternoon.

It surprises Navia, too, how easily Clorinde can get along with people when she wants to. She smiles encouragingly at Freminet whenever he stumps himself in trying to think of a solution. When Lynette asks a worker for more pastries, Clorinde smoothly offers to pay, citing that it wouldn’t be right to let her party go hungry when she was the one to invite them. Furina sits close to Clorinde with a teacup at her side, and it’s clear that Furina is having the most fun out of the five of them.

Sometimes, during her narrations for the next act, Clorinde would look up from her book and search for Navia’s eyes, then smile at her reticently before flickering her eyes back down to what she’s written down. It never fails in making Navia waver.

Maybe Clorinde found that as a new tactic to distract her and keep her from being anything too pestering. The cheater.

It’s five o’clock when they manage to finish up. There was a curse attached to an artifact in an abandoned church in the village, and they had managed to free it with the power of friendship and, well, other things. It was quick, fun, and most of all— Navia got her to roll her eyes and glare at her a few times throughout the story. It’s the best part of any tabletop game.

Freminet and Lynette are the first to leave. They bid Navia another happy birthday, and Freminet even gives her a small hug.

Furina smiles at Navia and tells her to “enjoy the day with Clorinde” with a little sparkle in her eyes.

That leaves only two, and Navia helps Clorinde clean up the table and sort all of their things in the way Clorinde likes it to be organized. The club is getting louder by the minute, filling with night owl players and those clocking off work. Navia quietly hopes they have fun, as a little mini birthday wish.

“I had a dream about you last night,” Navia says nonchalantly.

Clorinde falters in picking up the cards. She doesn’t look up, but her eyes peer from over her eyelashes to look at Navia curiously.

Navia takes her silence as an invitation to continue. “You were pointing your gun at me,” Navia says again, then points at her chest. Just right below her collarbone. “Right here.”

At that, Clorinde startles. She puts down the cards on the table and looks up at her, alarmed and looking so much like a kicked puppy Navia nearly wants to take back what she said.

“Did I hurt you?” Clorinde asks quietly, her eyes imploring for the truth.

Navia laughs a little at that. It’s breathless in nature. “Of course not,” Navia assures, and she watches as Clorinde’s shoulders slump in transparent relief. “It was just a little weird, is all.”

“Did I… shoot?” Clorinde asks, hesitant as if afraid to hear the answer.

“I don’t know,” Navia admits. “I woke up two seconds after you pointed it at me. But even if you did, I mean— it was a dream. So I don’t think it really would have mattered,” she adds with a shrug.

It really didn’t. If Clorinde had shot her in the head in her dream, it would do nothing to tarnish what she thinks of Clorinde now. Screw all those sayings about dreams being glimpses into the future, or talks about how they seep into subconscious thoughts or desires.

Clorinde would never do that to her.

So the dream she had was just exactly that— a very weird dream.

Still, she hates that Clorinde looks so lost, as if it was her fault that Navia had dreamt what she did.

She reaches over and puts her hand over Clorinde’s and squeezes it. “It was just a weird, silly dream,” Navia assures her, hoping that her eyes convey everything that Clorinde needs to see, “and I know for a fact you’d never do that to me. I just thought it could be something we’d laugh about.”

And then she snorts at a thought and adds, “Maybe my dream’s just saying you need to get better with hitting your target.”

Clorinde doesn’t share her laughter. Instead, she searches her eyes. It takes her a few seconds, but she finally flutters her eyes closed briefly and nods.

“Okay. You’re right,” Clorinde says, though if it’s to comfort Navia or herself, she can’t tell.

Then Clorinde clears her throat. “Do you want me to walk you home so you can change?”

Navia smiles at that. “Of course I do!” She even has some clothes ready for Clorinde to wear in her drawers.

They pack up their things and head out. Navia wraps her arm around Clorinde’s elbow, chattering away about yesterday’s endeavors.

There’s something shady going on with a sort of underground trade, and it’s frustrating her to hell and back because she can’t seem to find any leads on the matter. All she knows is that the drug is nearly lethal, and the pictures of black veins in her reports makes her shiver. Clorinde listens with an open ear, nodding along and responding with quick suggestions while Navia bounces ideas off of her.

They’re back home in record time. Navia shoves her into their room and sifts through her closet. She throws a button-down shirt and a waistcoat at Clorinde, as well as a yellow pocket square to complete the look.

Navia finds a nice co*cktail dress, deep in her closet, in a nice, deep blue. She remembers buying it last year and never getting the chance to find a time to wear it. Now seems like a good time to do so.

Clorinde waits for her outside her door, and her sharp eyes never leave Navia’s. She’s openly staring, and Navia soaks up the attention very, very happily.

They take an aquabus to the opera house. A little sleepy from eating all the appetizers at the Tabletop Troupe, she rests her head on Clorinde’s shoulder and closes her eyes. She mumbles to Clorinde about waking her when they get there, and Clorinde just chuckles.

When she opens her eyes, just out of curiosity to see how far along they are, she almost startles when she sees a hand in front of her face. She darts her eyes to look at her side, and she realizes that Clorinde is only holding up her hand to shield her eyes from the setting sun’s rays. It’s sweet, and it makes Navia smile to herself before she closes her eyes and tries to go back to sleep.

Clorinde nudges her gently when they arrive. Navia thanks the Melusine at the front, and she takes Clorinde’s hand and leads them to the Opera Epiclese.

Coming here brings back memories. Some of those memories are with her papa, and some are with Clorinde, and some are with both. It makes her smile despite herself.

They find their seats, and Navia absolutely marvels at how close they seem to be to the stage. She’s never been so close like this before. “You could even see a little bit of backstage!” she whispers to Clorinde, pointing at the side of the stage. There’s a few people milling around the edges of the stage.

Clorinde chuckles at her enthusiasm. “You’ve been up there on trial before and you’re excited about being close to a play?” she asks, slightly nonplussed.

“That’s different,” Navia says with an indignant puff of breath. “Let me enjoy the perks of having an influential best friend for once.”

At that, Clorinde can’t help but laugh.

They, along with everyone else around them, hush down when the lights begin to dim. A single person narrates alone on stage, setting up the exposition for the tone of the play.

It’s just as lovely and tragic as Navia remembers it to be: two lovers falling in love in act one, one of them finding themselves stuck in hell in act two, and the lover failing to save them in act three.

Clorinde holds her hand when Navia buries her face in Clorinde’s shoulder to keep from crying at one part. Plays don’t usually hit her hard like this, not when she’s known tragedy intimately outside of the stage; this one is different. Clorinde’s warm hand in hers is an anchor, assuring her that everything she sees in front of her isn’t a lone burden.

The ending is so much sadder than she remembers it to be as a child.

But then again, she hadn’t known loss when she’d seen it with her father still at her side. Not when she hadn’t known Clorinde yet— hadn’t known what it was like to lose her.

Clorinde seems to be in tune to what she’s thinking.

She runs her thumb over the smooth skin of Navia’s hand, and she brings it up delicately up to her lips. She presses the ghost of a kiss on Navia’s knuckle. Gentle enough to feel like the whisper of lips on skin, initially making her doubt if those lips had truly touched, but firm enough to remind her that they really had.

Clorinde brings their hands back down to her lap, and she looks at Navia instead of the monologuing ending in front of them.

I’m still here, she says with her eyes. I will not make the same mistake as I did before. Their mistake was looking back; mine was not looking at all.

I will look back for you, this time around.

The play ends, and there is a long standing ovation. The actors bow and pay their respects to the rest of their team, and people begin to file out of the opera house.

“I’ll be right back. Just need a quick bathroom break,” Navia explains. She squeezes Clorinde’s hand one last time and slips out of it, a choice she nearly, almost regrets.

She feels Clorinde’s eyes staring at her as she walks away.

As promised, she’s quick. She washes her hands and fixes her hair, then gives herself a bright smile in the mirror. “Looking good!” she tells herself, and her mirror self smiles back.

When she leaves, Clorinde is joined by someone else.

They’re speaking in hushed tones off to the side, unbothered by everyone else. Clorinde has her arms crossed, a hand to her chin in thought. Her eyes are closed, but she’s nodding to whatever her companion is saying to her.

Navia gets closer. She’s in earshot in less than half a minute.

“Thank you, again,” Wriothesley says, stiff. Neither of them see her. “I’ll let you know if there’s another problem.”

“Of course. You know how to reach me,” Clorinde replies. Her tone is cordial at best, rigid at most.

Wriothesley looks as if he wants to leave already. Navia can agree. “Before I forget,” he starts, already putting on the jacket that had been hanging from his arm, “I still have those special… teas you requested for your stomach. If you still need them.”

It sets the pit of Navia’s stomach on fire. She wants to snip that Clorinde isn’t that old and needs tummy ache herbs, unlike him, but she bites down on the tip of her tongue and reminds herself to be gracious.

She joins them with a venomous smile, and Clorinde merely raises her eyebrows at her in surprise. “What a surprise! I haven’t seen you around in a while,” she tells Wriothesley, fangs barely concealed. “Enjoyed the play?”

Wriothesley gives her a chuckle. It’s almost strained in nature. “I’m not a fan of plays,” he says, tugging on a cufflink. “I was just about to get going. It’s nice seeing you, Miss President.” He nods to Navia. “Clorinde.” He nods again, to Clorinde. Clorinde returns it, just as stiffly.

He leaves, leaving nothing in his wake but the odd, twisting worm in Navia’s stomach.

She turns to Clorinde.

She wants to say, How about we go back to my place and pretend that never happened?

Instead, what comes out is a rushed blurt of, “Is there something you want to tell me?”

Clorinde is… startled, to say the least. “What?” she asks, brow pinched.

Navia already knows she’s in too deep. There’s no point in turning back now. “I mean… do you two have something going on?” she asks slowly.

Clorinde still looks lost. She peers into Navia’s eyes for a kind of hint at where their conversation is steering, but Navia puts on her best poker face. “He’s an acquaintance. If you could even call him that,” she says, just as slowly as Navia. “We work together. He came to tell me about the intrusion at his office that I was assisting him with.”

Intrusion. At his office. Right.

Navia mulls that over. She knows that the right thing to do is to drop it, and to take Clorinde’s arm again and bring them back to the aquabus line before it’s too late into the night and it leaves them stranded here.

She’s never been one to stop investigating when reprimanded though.

“He’s exactly like the kind of person you used to date, don’t you think?” Navia asks her. “Broody, weird, etcetera. All the works.” She doesn’t know why she keeps pressing.

Clorinde shrugs. “Well, those relationships didn’t work out for a reason.”

Smooth. But Navia is a relentless individual at heart, even if her chest burns with an uncomfortable kind of tenderness.

“But he said he doesn’t like plays, but he came all the way here just to—?” she argues.

“Navia,” Clorinde starts with a chuckle. She says it with a languid husk, the chuckle in her tone melding with the way she speaks her name. It makes Navia clamp up, just like that. “I don’t like to mix my work life with my personal life. Even then, I am not at all keen at the idea of being near him for anything besides work.”

“But—” Navia says weakly.

“And even if I was, which I’m not,” she reiterates again, the look she gives Navia completely withering, “Wriothesley isn’t interested in people like me.”

Navia’s brow furrows. “Huh? ‘People like—?’”

Oh. Oh!

Well. That makes her like him just a tiny bit more.

Just a tiny bit.

“And if I’m being completely frank,” she says flatly. She tilts her head at Navia. “The Duke is the farthest thing from my mind right now.”

“Oh,” she just says dumbly. “Then what is?”

Clorinde looks at her with a mix of amusem*nt and… fond regard. “You,” she says softly. She smiles then, and it reaches down to the crinkles in her eyes. “It’s your birthday, if you haven’t forgotten.”

Navia makes a psh sound. Her face feels so warm. Why is it warm? Did someone turn up the heater? “What? Of course I haven’t!” she says with a slightly forced laugh.

Clorinde just arches an eyebrow at her.

“Oh, would you look at the time,” she exclaims, pointing at the large clock in the corner. “It’s getting late! We should probably hurry and catch an aquabus before we’re stuck out here, huh?”

Clorinde snorts under her breath, but she nods.

Clorinde holds out her hand, palm up, and gently helps Navia into the aquabus. Navia is grateful for the help. It’s too dark for her to see where she’s stepping. One of these days, she wants to ask if Clorinde has some sort of night vision.

They settle in, and the aquabus begins to move. Navia wastes no time in making conversation.

“Alright, so,” she starts, and Clorinde is already side-eyeing. “If not someone like the Duke, what kind of person do you like then?” Navia challenges.

“No one,” Clorinde deadpans.

Navia presses her knee against Clorinde’s and whines, “Oh, c’mon! You haven’t even thought about it just once? Even in passing?”

Her smile grows mischievous as she clings onto Clorinde’s arm, leaning her head on Clorinde’s shoulder and looking at her through her eyelashes.

“Where do the greatest Champion Duelist’s eyes tend to wander, hmm?” she husks quietly.

Clorinde is quick to look away from her and clear her throat, adamant in continuing not to answer. It makes Navia laugh.

“If you ask me,” she says with a hum, letting go of Clorinde’s arm, “I wouldn’t mind someone tall, dark, and handsome.”

Clorinde looks unamused at her joke. Navia giggles again.

“No, but really,” she says, a little more somberly, “as long as she listens to me, and she makes me happy… I don’t care what they look like or how they act, you know?”

Clorinde makes a hum of agreement. “And I truly hope you find that, Navia,” she says, uncharacteristically gentle. “You deserve it more than anyone else I know.”

It makes Navia blink. She had wanted to tease Clorinde as mini revenge for giving her a heart attack after leaving the bathroom, but it seems like Clorinde is five steps ahead of her. Or at least, Clorinde just didn’t seem at all interested in wanting to talk about lovers again.

Which is fair, really.

Navia doesn’t think she can stand to ponder about love without going into some very old, but very tender, wounds from the past.

“I think the night’s still pretty young,” Clorinde says again, aware of the silence that stretches between them. “Would you like to do something else out here? I know Lyney and Lynette have their magic show tonight.”

“What are we, twelve?” Navia teases, but the idea does sound kinda tempting.

Clorinde just gives her a wry smile. “From how hard you were crying about that play, maybe just one of us.”

Navia goes to jab her in the side, but Clorinde snatches up her wrist and raises her eyebrows at her in ridicule. It makes Navia huff. Darn those reflexes.

“It also isn’t a birthday without a cake,” Clorinde continues. “If you were too busy for the play, I was planning to drop by a bakery for your cake. We could still do that, if you’d like.”

“You know what? I think I have a better idea,” Navia declares.

“And what would that be?” Clorinde asks, intrigued.

Navia clasps her hands together in excitement, turning her body to Clorinde. “Let’s bake a cake in my kitchen!” she says happily, putting a hand lightly on Clorinde’s knee.

“You know my offer to buy you a cake is a mercy, right?” Clorinde says, incredulous. “Don’t you remember the last time you let me help you bake something?”

Of course she does. The black smoke stains are still on her ceiling.

It’s a charming part of her kitchen though.

“I’ll be there to supervise you,” Navia says soothingly, but Clorinde still doesn’t look very impressed. “I’ll be there to supervise you closer,” she corrects.

Clorinde holds her gaze for a moment, then she drops it with a shake of her head and a small laugh. “I had a little feeling you’d say that,” she admits.

It makes Navia hold her head a little higher, proud of herself for the idea.

They return to Navia’s abode before long. Navia changes out of her dress and puts on a nice shirt and pajamas. Clorinde keeps her current clothes on, citing that she didn’t want to change out again if she somehow managed to get flour all over herself (a very big possibility, Navia knows).

Navia puts on her apron and ties it tight. She throws her spare at Clorinde and orders her to put it on. Clorinde takes a little longer to tie it, but she’s at the ready for any of Navia’s orders once she manages it.

Navia has the time of her life bossing Clorinde around her kitchen.

She makes Clorinde grab all of her ingredients and pile them on the counter in order. She claps when Clorinde manages to crack two eggs without getting any of the shell in the bowl. Clorinde looks mildly stressed while she folds in the ingredients, but it’s all part of the fun.

Here, it’s just the two of them. No Spina member to bother her, no one looking over her shoulder, no one but them. It’s a quiet life that they lead nowadays, and while Navia misses the bustle around Poisson whenever Clorinde comes over, she’s glad that they can still do things like yell at each other over the sounds of pans crashing and bicker about the amount of frosting needed.

The cake goes into the oven, and Navia closes the oven door and stands up straight with a proud look on her face.

“I already know it’s going to taste like heaven,” she says happily.

Clorinde makes a face. “Are you sure we measured everything correctly?”

In other words, did you make sure I didn’t measure anything wrong?

Navia laughs and flicks Clorinde’s nose. “I was standing over your shoulder the entire time. It’ll turn out just fine,” she assures.

“And maybe even edible,” she adds.

“Well, don’t blame me if it comes out of the oven looking like a rock,” Clorinde says with a sniff.

“If it does, I’ll make you eat the entire thing,” Navia responds.

“Rude of you not to offer and help,” Clorinde quips back.

“It’s my birthday! All rules of etiquette don’t apply to me for these wonderful twenty-four hours,” Navia says with a finger raised.

Clorinde snorts. “Yeah, okay.”

Navia leans on the counter. It already looks like a massacre in her kitchen, and she isn’t looking forward to cleaning everything up, but it already smells delicious around them. She looks at the clock. It’ll take about half an hour before she could even try and put a toothpick into the cake.

“What are you thinking about?” Clorinde asks her.

Navia hums. She taps her chin in thought, wondering what to do for the next half hour.

It comes to her like a lightbulb over the head. “Do you want to dance with me?” she asks.

The corner of Clorinde’s lips twitch. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Oh, don’t be a party pooper,” Navia argues, but the smile on her face never leaves. “You used to do it with me when we were a little younger.”

“I’m more worried about you,” Clorinde remarks. “You kept stepping on my toes the last time we danced. Sometimes I wonder if I still have the bruises.”

Navia puffs out an indignant breath. “I was a little drunk!”

Clorinde laughs, and the sound renders her a little speechless. She laughs so freely now. She laughs just like she did the last time they were holding each other up from all the wine they drank, dancing and dancing, and laughing like when they’d—

Navia swallows back the memory.

“Come dance with me?” she asks again.

A little part of her wishes Clorinde says no. This is dangerous, her mind whispers to her. You know what they say about reenacting things to jog a memory.

But she doesn't care.

Not when Clorinde smiles at her so openly and kindly, bowing slightly and holding out her hand to offer her a dance.

It’s been a long time since either of them had danced. Her papa taught them both how to, thanks to all the Spina affairs full of galas and balls.

Clorinde’s hand sits at her waist, her other hand clasped in hers. There’s a respectful distance between them, and Navia is glad for it.

They dance to some imaginary song, one that Navia hums and Clorinde counts off from. Clorinde whispers the timing to her under her breath, their dance slow and steady for Navia to understand the pace. Clorinde smiles and praises her whenever she manages not to step on a few toes, and it makes Navia giddy enough to giggle and press her forehead against Clorinde’s shoulder in embarrassment.

Clorinde moves them around the kitchen faster. She’s strong, tugging them around and holding her by the waist when Navia nearly slips out of her grip when she dips Navia low without a warning. It makes Navia squeal in alarm as much as with delight, and she steps on Clorinde’s left foot as a small act of revenge.

The box steps become muscle memory to her, and Navia no longer has to look down at their feet to see where she needs to step.

She looks at Clorinde instead. She looks at Clorinde’s gentle smile, feels the way that the laughter in her chest doesn't ever stop, feels how Clorinde squeezes her hand in reassurance, how Clorinde looks at her like she’s holding something so sacred, and she feels alive.

She feels like she did when they were younger, out in that field after sneaking out.

She feels herself begin to fall, an echo from that dance, the whisper in her head.

Navia has to remind herself to catch it before it falls too fast, too far.

She steps out of Clorinde’s arms, patting Clorinde’s bicep and giving her a big, breathless smile. Clorinde just peers down at her, her gaze inquisitive and lost. Navia doesn’t give her an answer.

Turning on her heel, she picks up a toothpick and opens the oven, just enough to slip her arm into and puncture the cake.

It comes out clean, so Navia brings out the finished cake.

“It certainly looks edible,” Navia jests, still slightly out of breath from their dance.

Clorinde doesn’t even seem to be breaking a sweat. “Can I have your piping bag?” she asks, electing to ignore Navia once more.

It makes Navia blink. “Uh, sure. It’s on your right.”

Clorinde thanks her. She finds the piping bag full of icing, then looks down at the cake. She looks back up at Navia, silently.

It takes a moment for Navia to understand why. “Oh! Okay, gimme a sec,” she says, then puts her hands over her eyes and turns around.

She’s tempted more than once to peek behind her and see what Clorinde’s doing. It’s silent in the kitchen, and she’s dying to know what Clorinde looks like. Is she sticking her tongue out while she pipes out the icing? She remembers Clorinde used to have a habit of doing that as kids.

“Alright. You can turn around,” Clorinde says after a drawn moment, and she sounds a little apprehensive.

Navia turns around so quickly she nearly gives herself whiplash.

On the cake, Clorinde’s handwriting reads “Happy birthday, Navia” in yellow icing.

There are two stick figures underneath it. It looks vaguely like them. At least, their hats were a close indication of it.

“I was under pressure, so I couldn’t fill in the details,” Clorinde defends.

Navia giggles. Her chest feels light and springy, and she takes the piping bag from Clorinde’s hands. Silently, she draws a heart right between the two stick figures.

Then she puts some icing on her finger, and then she smudges it on the bridge of Clorinde’s nose.

Clorinde wrinkles her nose, but she doesn’t wipe it off. It makes Navia smile.

“We don’t have any candles, but you could pretend we do,” Clorinde says sheepishly. She motions to the candleless cake.

“That’s okay. You could be the candle,” Navia slyly replies. At Clorinde’s blank look, she says, “Get it? ‘Cause you’re the light of my life?”

Clorinde huffs out a sigh, and Navia laughs.

“Don’t blow on me,” Clorinde warns, already reading the mischief in Navia’s face. She points at the cake.

“Aw, can you sing for me then?” Navia asks with a pout.

“In my head, sure,” Clorinde says easily.

Navia hits her lightly with the side of her hip. “Alright, alright,” she yields with a chuckle. She leans down and tucks her hair behind her ears, then pretends to blow out candles on top of the cake.

There’s a soft smile on Clorinde’s face. She folds her arms over her chest.

“What did you wish for?” Clorinde asks.

“Telling you won’t make it come true,” she reminds her, grinning.

Clorinde rolls her eyes, but she concedes. It’s not like she could say anything about it, not when it’s the same excuse she uses every year with Navia.

“I hope it’s a good one then, if you’re adamant about keeping it under lock and key,” Clorinde says lightly.

Navia bobs her head with a smile. “How about we cut into this cake and see if you made something edible?” she jests.

Clorinde lets out a long, suffering sigh that makes Navia laugh. Clorinde joins her not long after, and all Navia can think about is how this is the best birthday she’s had in a long while.

And she hopes, truly, that her wish that they are never apart again comes true.

It’s only been a few days since the most stressful day of her life: when she had faced that man in the ring, exposed him as a fraud against the light of justice, and gained both a vision and an official title for it.

She tells Navia first— well, less telling and more showing, because as soon as Navia had seen the vision hanging around her chest, she yelled loudly and wrapped her in a tight hug that nearly suffocated her to death. Even more so when Clorinde informed her, through strained breaths, that she’s been given an official Champion Duelist position.

It’s clear that Navia is immensely proud of her for it, baking her everything that she could ever crave in fifteen different lifetimes. She won’t stop talking about it either, telling anyone and everyone who’s willing to listen that her best friend is about to become the ultimate protector of Fontanian justice at the early, young age of twenty-three.

It’s sweet. And it’s very much like something Navia would do.

She’s hunched over her desk now, a stack of textbooks on the corner of her desk, and even more textbooks piled up in the corners of her room. She’s reading by the candlelight, the constant flicker of its light making her head hurt. She persists, forcing herself to stare down at the paragraphs about Fontanian law. She has some books opened about sword forms and defense too. She’ll get to those eventually, late into the night.

Her door opens. Clorinde doesn’t look up, but she lifts a hand in a mild greeting. She’s still reading.

A hand rests on her shoulder and slowly caresses up and down the curve of it. Clorinde melts into its touch, her shoulders slumping in quiet reprieve.

Navia’s other hand comes up to touch her earlobe affectionately. Clorinde shivers under its naked touch, but she tries not to let its effect show on her face. Navia leans over to read what she has open on her desk.

“Why didn’t you call me over and let me help you study?” she asks accusingly.

The hand at her earlobe leaves, and it gives Clorinde enough time to breathe before it’s back, fingernails scratching gently into Clorinde’s scalp and coming to play with the blue streak in her hair, a habit of Navia’s that Clorinde could never seem to mind nor chastise her for.

As she often does, Clorinde suppresses her shudders.

She chuckles instead, then says, “It’s boring work. I didn’t want you to burden you with it, then have you fall asleep on me.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Navia replies, affronted. She takes Clorinde’s book and brings it up to her face, squinting at the words written on it. “I could just find another chair and quiz you on this stuff. For the… the… ‘History of Old Fontaine’? Do you really need to know this to be a Champion Duelist?” she asks incredulously, putting it down briefly to look at Clorinde.

“Not at all,” Clorinde says easily, plucking the book out of Navia’s hands and placing it back on her desk. “These are just good things to know and refresh on. A Champion Duelist functions as the fair sword of justice. It would be hard to be so impartial if you’re not up to date on laws, customs, history— things like that.”

Navia shakes her head at her explanation, but her smile is still warm. “You’re right about it being boring, but I still wouldn’t mind helping you out,” she says, sitting down on Clorinde’s bed closeby. It’s a small room, so their knees are still nearly touching.

“I’ll give you a kiss for every answer you get right,” she jokes, and Clorinde rolls her eyes even as that momentarily makes her heart skip a beat.

“I thought you were busy today, anyway?” Clorinde muses. “Mr. Caspar told me that you would be sitting in with him at today’s meeting.”

“Oh. That,” Navia says, and Clorinde can’t seem to get a read on the way that she says it.

Clorinde puts down her book and turns fully around to look at her. She sees a little pout on Navia’s face, and it’s clear that she’s upset about something.

“What’s wrong, Nav?” she asks, concern laced in her words.

Navia just gives her a hefty sigh, and she flops onto Clorinde’s bed backwards. It makes the mattress spring up slightly. She looks back at Clorinde, and Clorinde refuses to look away, even if her hand is still on top of the pages of her book.

“You can’t tell anyone I told you this,” she warns, and Clorinde just gives her a short nod. “I was walking around late last night and I heard Papa’s friends talking about me. Apparently, Papa’s been talking to them about stepping down sooner than later.”

Navia’s words click into place, and Clorinde connects the dots. “So you can finally be the President of the Spina di Rosula?” she guesses.

Navia’s smile is humorless. “Bingo.”

Clorinde chews on her lower lip, then looks back at her opened book. She doesn’t hesitate to close it. Looking back at Navia, she says truthfully, “I honestly don’t see it as a bad thing. You’ve been preparing your whole life for this.”

Navia frowns deeply at her; Clorinde winces. That was definitely not the right thing to say, then.

“I know you’re on top of the world right now but that doesn’t mean everyone is,” Navia says hotly.

Clorinde doesn’t respond. She knows from the way Navia’s looking at her, her eyes fiery and her brow knitted deeply, that Navia’s emotions are just stacking high.

Navia realizes it too. Her facial features soften and she sits back up, facing Clorinde nearly nose to nose. “Sorry,” she says bashfully, her fingers smoothing over her knee, “I didn’t mean to take it out on you, I’m just—”

“—frustrated, I know,” Clorinde finishes for her. She softens when Navia avoids looking at her in the eyes out of embarrassment. Tilting her head, she says gently, “I still mean it. It’s not a terrible thing for your father to think that you’re capable of taking his position. I’m sure everyone at the Spina feels that way about you too.”

Navia snorts. “You really think they’d trust me over Papa?”

“Well, of course I do,” Clorinde says fiercely. Navia’s shoulders square in defense, and Clorinde realizes that she’s doing the same. They’re on the cusp of another petty bickering, and honestly— Clorinde can’t afford to let that happen. Not about this. They can argue about what to do for lunch and bicker about who stole whose clothes, but not this. She forces herself to take a deep breath in and out, relaxing her body as best as she can.

“Navia,” she says softly, and Navia’s unyielding eyes lock onto hers. “I know that it’s scary, but it’s— don’t you think this is a good thing? That we’re growing up? That we’re getting to do everything we wanted to do together?”

She remembers how excited ten year old Navia’s eyes were, holding her hand and pointing at the night sky and excitedly chattering to her about how she can’t wait to grow up with her, hand in hand, in everything they do. She even remembers the magic show that Navia takes them to, the weekend after that.

“Well, yeah,” Navia acquiesces, her words breathless as she slumps her shoulders. There’s still a frown on her face. Clorinde can’t have that, now can she? “I just…”

Clorinde leans over and tucks a strand of hair out of Navia’s face. Her fingers linger on the soft curve of Navia’s jaw, Navia’s eyes flutter close, and for a moment her motives for doing so are blurred between the lines of her wants. She wants to comfort her, just as much as she wants to feel the softness of Navia’s skin, to feel closer, to have something that she’s always—

Clorinde swallows thickly. Her fingers leave Navia’s face and obediently remain on her lap. “I know your heart—” and sometimes I think I know it more intimately than mine, “—and Mr. Caspar does too. If he thinks that you can lead the Spina di Rosula, then you can. I think you can. And I know you think so too.”

Navia just gives a small hum in acknowledgement to her words. Her blue eyes look so sad, and Clorinde’s heart aches so heavily she feels like she could kneel in front of this woman and promise to give her everything she wants.

But that’s always been how she’s felt, hasn’t she?

“It’s like learning to ride a bike for the first time. Remember how that felt?” she declares, trying to set a lighter mood. “One second you’re screaming at me to help you get off and the next you’re making me run after you down the hill. It’ll be just like that.”

Navia snorts hard at the memory. She slaps a hand over her mouth as she continues to giggle, and Clorinde gives her a small grin.

“I said I was sorry about that!” she says with a little laugh.

Clorinde shrugs. “It was good exercise for me anyway. Except for the part when you made me fish you and your bike out of the fountain.”

“Ha, well, I can’t deny that you’ve always been my hero,” Navia croons, batting her eyelashes at Clorinde.

Clorinde rolls her eyes and kicks her shin, a light bloom of warmth covering her neck and cheeks. Navia merely peels out a laugh, and her laughter makes everything all worth it.

Navia’s natural smile is fixed back onto her face, shoulders relaxed and the tension got from her brow. Good.

“Sometimes I keep forgetting how sweet you can be when you want to,” Navia says, placing her palms onto the edge of Clorinde’s bed and swinging her feet. “Makes me pretty lucky, huh?”

Clorinde objects to the idea. “Perhaps it’s all the sweets you keep giving me for the past few days,” she muses, and it has her desired effect: Navia kicks her shin, just a smidge harder than she had.

Navia leans over, a soft smile on her face, and plants her lips on Clorinde’s cheek with a hand on her other cheek. “Nah, I just think you're sweet to your core,” she teases quietly, once she’s pulled away.

Clorinde feels warmth bloom under where Navia’s lips had touched her skin. She wonders if she’s allergic to Navia’s lipstick for that kind of effect.

Clorinde clears her throat as subtly as she can. “I wouldn’t be a good friend if I hadn’t at least tried to make you feel better,” she says, her voice still slightly strained.

“Still,” Navia says, her smile melting into something even softer, “thank you, for saying all of that to me. It’s just… scary to think about sometimes. Weren’t you scared the first time you entered the ring? I definitely was for you.”

I definitely was for you. Clorinde tries not to think about it too hard.

“Of course I was,” Clorinde replies matter-of-factly. Her fingertips smooth over the cover of her book to pacify herself. “I still am frightened, sometimes. I’m confident in my abilities to duel and to look at things fairly, but… I’m still human. So are you. Fear is natural for us all.”

Sometimes she has nightmares of being forced into the ring and looking up just to see Navia standing there in front of her, sword in hand. There’s a reason why Champion Duelists can be so far and few in between— although they swear themselves to Fontaine, they can’t just shun their hearts away from swearing themselves, too, to those they love. It’s not uncommon for Champion Duelists to face family or friends in court. No one is safe from such detachment.

Perhaps she’s lucky to have such a miniscule pool of those she loves.

At least this way, she only has to worry about Navia. No one else. It makes her job a whole lot easier.

Clorinde clears her throat. “But in any case, I wouldn’t worry too much about becoming president too soon,” she says, logic back in the palm of her hands. “You’re only twenty-four. Even if he thinks you’re fit to lead, I’m sure he’d want you to experience freedom in life before he asks you to settle down.”

“Speaking of,” Navia declares, her eyes sparkling with a newfound mischief, “when are you going to use your new Champion privileges and ask for some time off one of these days? You promised you’d take us to that one archipelago near Mondstadt. I hear it’s great this time of year.”

Clorinde shakes her head fondly. “You and your traveling,” she says, and Navia just smiles sheepishly. “I’ll have my hands tied for a while, I’m afraid. I’ll be sure to let you know once I’m not.”

“Aw,” Navia whines, but she doesn’t refute or demand that Clorinde try harder to ask for vacation time. She knows how important this is to Clorinde, and Clorinde is forever thankful for it. “How about tonight? Are you busy-busy, or being-cooped-up-and-reading-boring-books kind of busy?”

Clorinde huffs. “The latter.”

“Then you aren’t busy at all,” Navia says proudly. “Do you wanna do something with me right now? Something a lot more fun than your old books?”

Clorinde contemplates that. It’s true that she’d rather be doing anything else than reading such mind-numbing material, but her duties…

Navia’s eyes widen, her brow scrunches, a small pout on her face as she turns her chin down just slightly to look despicably pitiful.

Clorinde exhales a long, heavy sigh. “I told you to quit doing that,” she says, exasperated.

Navia already takes that as her answer. She cheers, a large, bright smile on her face. Suddenly caving in doesn’t seem like such a bad idea in retrospect after all.

“You won’t regret hanging out with me tonight,” Navia says proudly, shoving a thumb towards her chest. “It’ll help you get your mind off the stress of your responsibilities for a while. Celestia knows we both need it.”

Clorinde hums at that. It’s true, in all frankness. It’s only been a few days since she’s bore the official Champion Duelist title, and she’s already overwhelmed with the amount of things she needs to do. Having Navia by her side had been a godsend— who knows how far she would have delved into these books tonight, destroying her eyesight and brain, had it not been for her.

It amuses her how well they work in that regard. Navia keeps her from delving far too deep into the idea of her obligations, and Clorinde encourages Navia to dip her fingers into hers. It reminds her of the way a shore needs a rock.

“Where were you thinking we go?” Clorinde asks her suspiciously.

Navia’s smile slowly fades. She chuckles nervously. “I, um, didn’t think that far ahead.”

It makes Clorinde laugh, but Navia shoots her a dirty look. There’s still a smile on Clorinde’s face. “Throw out some suggestions. I can help filter through them,” Clorinde proposes.

Navia rubs her chin, humming in thought. “Golfing?”

Clorinde wrinkles her nose and says, “Absolutely not.”

“There’s a trivia night at the local bar.”

“Isn’t it about Natlan?”

“Yeah!”

“Navia, we know next to nothing about them,” she deadpans.

“Oh. Right.” Navia laughs, abashed, to herself. “There’s a painting class at Café Lutece too.”

“I’m not… artistically gifted.”

“Karaoke?”

“Oh, be more serious.”

Navia’s giggles overlap with her next suggestion. “Stargazing? It’s pretty clear out tonight.”

Clorinde thinks a little harder about that. It is quite nice out. However, the idea of being out alone with Navia, close together to keep body heat from the chill of the night, pointing out the stars to her, is…

“It could be a commendable choice,” she says with a small nod.

“Ooh, we can go wine tasting!” Navia says in delight, clasping her hands together. “There’s a wine tasting event this week from that bar near the Clementine line. They’re doing it outside, so we can kill two birds with one stone,” she finishes, looking mighty proud of herself.

Clorinde chuckles, resting her cheek on her propped up hand on the table. She just lifts an eyebrow at Navia and says, “I can’t say I ever took you for a wine connoisseur.”

“I’m not,” Navia replies, still in high spirits. “I just like the idea of spending time with you, is all.”

Clorinde’s chest and head feel all fuzzy at that. She’s grateful that she’s sitting.

“Plus,” Navia continues, saving her from trying to think of something to say, “Papa wouldn’t mind if I was out all night with you. Sometimes I think you’re the only person in Teyvat he’d actually trust leaving me with.”

Clorinde exhales, laughing lightly under her breath. “That’s because I brought you home, half asleep or drunk in my arms, more times than I can count,” she says amusedly.

Navia doesn’t look ashamed at all of that. “It is pretty nice being bridal carried by you,” she hums.

Trying to keep from rolling her eyes, Clorinde just says, half-jokingly, “I’ll go if you pay for our drinks.”

“Done!” Navia says, standing up so abruptly that Clorinde nearly sputters. She hadn’t expected to sway Navia with that. Navia notices her surprise. “What? Did you think I was going to make you pay for everything after I asked you out? You may have a fancy new promotion, Miss Champion Duelist, but I’m still a gentleman at heart.”

Now Clorinde really can’t help from rolling her eyes this time. She’s smiling though. “Remind me to thank Mr. Caspar for raising you right,” she says playfully.

“Oh, for the last time, just call him Papa,” Navia responds, exasperated. She’s already tugging Clorinde up to her feet and out of her chair. “Or even just Callas. You’re gonna break his achy breaky little old heart if you keep calling him that.”

Clorinde chuckles at her dramatics. “Mr. Callas it is.”

“You’re killing him, I tell you,” Navia says flatly, colored unimpressed.

Snorting, Clorinde squeezes Navia’s hand briefly and says, “I’ll just go and get my cape. You go on ahead. I’ll meet you outside.”

Navia smiles at her, wide and excited and so utterly Navia, and Clorinde nearly just wants to leave her cape all together and follow her out the door.

With her cape fixed onto her shoulders, Navia wraps her arms around her elbow and leads them to where the wine tasting is taking place.

It’s not before long that they arrive, and there’s a healthy amount of people milling about. As Navia promised, the venue is outside of the regular vineyard building— there’s tables and chairs set up, as well as an open floor on the property’s grass. There are lights strung up along the gazebo that hold towers of wine and barrels of more. Musicians play a gentle tune in the corner, livening up the place with a beat to move to on the dance floor.

It’s a comfortable, young atmosphere.

Navia and Clorinde take their seats at an empty small table. A waiter comes to greet them just as they push their chairs in, and he’s holding out a fresh bottle of wine for them to look at.

“Would you like to try some as your first taste of the evening?” he asks cordially. “It’s strong dandelion wine imported all the way from a notable vineyard in Mondstadt called Dawn Winery.”

“Ooh, dandelion wine?” Navia remarks. Her excitement is rubbing off everyone in her vicinity. “We’d love to try!”

The waiter nods, pulling out two wine glasses and removing the cork with a small pop. He pours the wine with practiced ease, then pushes the glasses over to them to enjoy.

“This one is on the house,” he says, a glint in his eyes.

Clorinde’s eyebrows shoot upwards. “Oh, but we insist,” Clorinde argues, and one look at Navia already shows her that her companion is just as shocked. They haven’t even been here for longer than five minutes.

“Nonsense!” the waiter says. He’s already walking away as he calls out, “A lovely couple on a date like you two need a good first glass of wine to celebrate the night.”

Clorinde and Navia clamber to explain themselves, but he’s already gone, serving another couple a few feet away from them.

They look at each other instead, mirroring each other with open mouths and lost expressions.

And then they just laugh.

It’s not the first time they’ve been mistaken as a couple on a date. It’s almost second nature, at this point, even if it does odd things to the temperature of Clorinde’s skin. It’s a first for them to get something as expensive as dandelion wine for free though.

So Navia just holds up her glass and tries to make the best of it. “Here’s to our date then I guess,” she says with a little bubbled giggle.

Clorinde clinks the side of her glass with hers, hiding her wobbly smile behind a sip of the wine.

As promised, it’s strong, resting on her tongue with a rich, velvety feeling and filling her senses with dark ripe fruit as it goes down her throat. There’s a hint of earthiness to it, which she guesses comes from the dandelions in it. She quite likes it, even if wine isn’t her most preferred option to drink.

Across from her, Navia makes a face. Clorinde’s lips curl up.

“Don’t like it?” she asks.

“It’s… not as sweet as I thought,” Navia admits.

Clorinde chuckles. “Well, we are at a wine tasting. I’m sure there’s bound to be something you’d like.”

Navia hums, swirling the glass. She drinks some more, even if there’s a visible scrunch to her face. “I’ll feel bad if I don’t drink all of this though. It was free,” she explains when Clorinde merely arches her eyebrow. “Unless you want it?” she asks hopefully.

“I want to leave some room for the other wines,” Clorinde says. “I can’t drink too much. You know how I am with getting drunk.”

Navia puffs out an amused breath. “I honestly still think you can beat someone up in the ring if you’re drunk,” she muses.

“Maybe. But I’d rather not take that chance,” Clorinde says, chuckling.

Navia’s voice is softer when she speaks again. “Neither can I.”

Clorinde looks down at her glass of wine, swirling it twice counter-clockwise, then takes a good sip. She pretends to be more interested in the color than the odd, sincere way that Navia is looking at her. She doesn’t think she can survive it without the wine, at least.

Navia’s mood shifts afterwards, and she stands up from her seat and tugs on Clorinde’s sleeved wrist to pull her up as well. She drags them to the table full of other wines, and they have their fill. The vintner explains to them the property of each wine they glance over, and Clorinde can’t help but sneak glances now and again to watch Navia’s focused, scrunched face as she nods along.

How enchanting it is, she muses, to love someone this much.

To adore her with such depth that reciprocity is wholly insignificant.

That standing next to her is more than enough for her; that standing here is what makes it right.

After a few small tastings of wine, Navia takes both of her wrists and drags her to the open floor. The musicians have struck up a more jolly tune, and Navia’s faintly swaying as they dance to some imaginary, made-up rules of dancing. She keeps stepping on Clorinde’s toes, making Clorinde wince, but her profuse, slightly slurred apologies each time just make her laugh. The moon shines bright from above, shining down onto them like a spotlight on a stage.

It just feels like Navia and Clorinde, and the world that they embody.

Do you love this girl because she’s here, offering you her heart and her friendship? the little, insecure flutter of her mind cries. The antagonist of her play. What do you, of all people, know of love?

Navia laughs when Clorinde twirls her, airy and breathy like a dandelion in the breeze. It buries into her chest and roots itself there, a promise of a flower blooming into her heart.

It’s true that she can’t claim to know what love is.

But if love is the way that she can’t look away from Navia’s smile, the feeling of wanting to weep from how beautiful it is so deep and profound in her heart, then this love is all she needs to survive.

Her limbs are beginning to tire by the fourth song. She wonders how Navia could last this long without needing to rest. She’s grateful when Navia’s push and pull with her begins to slow down, and the sounds of their breaths are beginning to be louder than the music.

Navia begins to slow to a stop, and Clorinde, obedient and so intimately aware of her every whim and want, slows down with her.

Navia’s hands find purchase on Clorinde’s hips, and they sway, slow and steady. They’re breathing hard, and they can’t tear their eyes away from each other. The flush of red on Navia’s face, a mix of exertion from dancing and the effects of wine, makes her look so beautiful under the moonlight.

Clorinde screws her eyes shut. She’s getting tired. She can feel Navia’s warm arms wrapped around her, how Navia’s hand caresses the strip of skin under her cape and shirt. The way Navia’s hand moves, almost hypnotically, to intertwine her fingers with Clorinde’s. They fit so perfectly together. Clorinde could hold onto her for the rest of her life and be at total peace.

Their foreheads touch. They rest on one another, like pillars that rely on each other to stay standing. She can smell warm, sweet wine as Navia pants.

Clorinde wrenches her eyes open. It’s tough, with how hard her eyelids feel, but she’s glad that she does. Navia looks so beautiful this close. She can count the faint freckles on her face like this, like stars that dot the sky. Her skin is so beautifully pink and radiantly warm. She’s so beautiful. Clorinde can’t stop herself from marveling at Navia’s allure.

Her mouth opens, just slightly. She exhales, and Navia feels her gentle breath.

Navia’s eyes look up at her through her eyelashes, an achingly slow movement, and she blinks. Like it’s the first time she’s seeing Clorinde.

Come closer, Navia’s eyes seem to whisper to her. Be close to me and never let me go.

Clorinde doesn’t know if it’s the wine that warms her system, or the electricity that now flows through her veins at the way that Navia looks at her, looks through her— but she exhales again, shaky and heavy, and tilts her head.

It’s aching how slow she leans in. But it gives her just the shadow of a second to realize that Navia is leaning in just as much as she is, replicating her every move. When Navia closes her eyes, she follows. Both of them tighten their embrace, one protective and the other tender. Neither of them knows who’s mirroring who.

She feels the whisper of Navia’s lips on hers. It’s electrifying.

And then Clorinde lets go of Navia, and she steps out of her embrace the same way a leaf snaps away from a branch in the wind.

Navia’s eyes flutter open. She blinks a few times, as if coming out of a long stupor. She must be drunk, Clorinde reasons, so this is normal.

“Clorinde—” Navia starts, hushed, her name spoken like a plea for innocence.

“Would you like me to fill your glasses?” a waiter asks them politely, motioning their empty glasses on a lone table near their hips. “We’re starting to clean up.”

“Oh!” Navia says, her voice twice as high, and her face twice as flushed. It’s an odd look, but Clorinde chalks it up to alcohol. “I— I, um… I think we’re too danced out to drink, thank you,” she ends, laughing away whatever she’s feeling.

Clorinde just watches her. She watches how Navia waves goodbye to the waiter, watches how frazzled she seems, tucking her hair behind her ears and darting her eyes around like a frightened animal in the woods. What has her so wound up? What is she scared of?

Then Navia takes her hand, but she doesn’t look at her. They clean up their table, say goodbye to the vintner who had been serving them all night and the acquaintances they had met on the dance floor, and head back to Navia’s place together.

The walk back to Poisson is quiet. It’s not at all suffocating, though Clorinde makes sure to watch Navia out of her peripheral vision, noting the way that Navia seems more distracted, how her eyes never focus on one thing for longer than two breaths. One of Navia’s hands is in hers, and the other plays with the hem of her skirt. She’s chewing on the inside of her bottom lip. She’s thinking about something, and Clorinde wishes she has the courage to ask.

Navia insists that she comes inside. She fusses over the opened calluses on Clorinde’s hands and the nicks that she’s suffered on her forearms from a duel that morning. It feels like a feeble excuse, but an excuse for what? Navia doesn’t need an excuse to make Clorinde follow her anywhere. Clorinde has always been obediently hers.

Clorinde sits on the Caspars’ couch, her forearm resting on a fluffy pillow. Navia is kneeling next to her, her first-aid kit opened on the floor.

Clorinde winces when Navia accidentally and harshly peels a callus.

“Sorry,” Navia says quickly. Her brow is furrowed, the deep frown on her face a testament to her distracted concentration.

Navia’s patched her up before— more times than she could count. Navia isn’t the best nurse in the world, but she isn’t ever this clumsy. Maybe it’s just a case of tipsy hands.

Clorinde doesn’t say a word as Navia works on her. It astounds her how gentle Navia can be. She wonders if Navia has ever caressed skin this reverently. She wonders if she isn’t the only one in the world to know what it’s like to have Navia’s fingertips fly over their skin, working to heal her, soothe her.

Then Navia’s soft, warm hands close onto hers. Her fingers curl into Clorinde’s frozen hand, engulfing it in hers. It’s astonishing how much they fit, in all the right ways. Where Clorinde is cold, Navia is warm. Where Clorinde is tough, Navia is soft. It’s like they’re meant to lock their fingers together like this, forever sharing in each other’s touch.

Navia holds her hand for a little while, an odd look of contemplation and shyness on her face. It surprises Clorinde at how sober she looks for the first time all night.

Then Navia’s mouth moves, silently at first, until she swallows and her soft voice calls, “Clorinde… I—”

The door wrenches open, and Callas drops a bag of flour on the floor with an exerted huff. He yells, looking upstairs, not being able to see the pair in front of him first. “Nav! Navia, can you come down? I know you were running out of flour, so I— oh.”

He blinks at the two of them. Navia’s hands have already disappeared from her curled fist. Navia smiles at her father guilelessly.

“Clorinde,” Callas says. There’s no bite to his words, not even confusion. “Are you staying the night?”

Clorinde’s eyes shift over to Navia, a silent question. Navia nods.

“I am, if that’s okay,” she says, and Callas is already nodding his head thoughtlessly before most of her words are out of her mouth. “Do you need help with—?”

“Stay there, stay there. You two seem preoccupied,” Callas says with a light chuckle, waving her away before she can rise from the couch. He groans as he pops his back. “And thank you for bringing Navia home. I can tell from the look in her eyes that she’s been drinking. She’s never been easy to handle when she does.”

“You’re telling me,” Clorinde affirms with a light sigh.

“I can hear you guys, you know!” Navia shouts.

Clorinde just laughs along with Callas. Navia’s fingertips are absentmindedly stroking the breadth of her forearm. It makes her shiver. It’s like they’re magnets, unable to stay away from each other when they’re already this close.

“I have something else to do outside before I hit the hay. We have leftovers in the fridge if you get hungry, Clorinde,” Callas says genially. His back is turned to them now, his hand on the door, but he’s looking over his shoulder to watch Clorinde. “And once you’re done, come outside and see me.”

He says nothing more and leaves them to their devices.

Navia and Clorinde share a look. Neither of them are concerned, but there is curiosity sitting in Navia’s eyes.

“You’re telling me what he says after, right?” she says.

Clorinde snorts. “If he doesn’t make me promise not to tell you, sure. I’m a woman of my words.”

Navia groans and says, “Sometimes I wish you didn’t have a stick up there.”

Laughing, Clorinde shifts her weight on the couch. She’s getting too comfortable sitting here. “You should drink some water,” Clorinde says, features softening. “It’ll keep you from moaning and groaning at me in the morning when the hangover hits.”

Navia sighs. She pats Clorinde’s forearm, letting her rescind it back to her side. She closes the first-aid kit and clicks it shut, rising from her kneel on the floor. “Go see what he wants,” she says lightheartedly.

Clorinde finds him sitting on a crate just a few steps away from the door. He’s watching the village, peering down at the children playing tag down below and the men helping each other carry boxes full of goods. He’s carving wood with a small knife in his hands.

He makes room for Clorinde on the crate when Clorinde makes her way over. They sit side by side, watching below, and silent.

It’s Callas who speaks first. “I never got the chance to congratulate you for becoming a Champion Duelist,” he says.

Clorinde blinks. Ah. Is that all?

“Thank you, sir,” she responds in kind, dipping her chin in thanks. “I couldn’t have done it without the wisdom you’ve given me for most of my life.”

Callas chuckles, as if she had said something profoundly funny. He stops carving, the edge of the knife still pressing into the wood. Clorinde realizes that he’s carving the face of a woman— it looks a little bit like Navia, but the hair is longer.

He puts down the wood carving and the knife next to him, then turns slightly to face Clorinde. He places a hand on her shoulder. His single eye glitters with something Clorinde had seen on her master before— pride.

The color of his eye looks so much like Navia’s. In this light, it’s as kind as hers too.

“You’re like a second daughter to me,” he starts, and Clorinde’s throat already forms a lump in the base, “If you ever need anything, you can always turn to us, right here. It’s the least I can do for the way you’ve made a home out of my Navia’s heart.”

Clorinde doesn’t know how to respond.

She wants to say, I think you have it the other way around.

But when her mouth opens, all she says is, “Thank you, Mr. Callas.”

The corners of Callas’ lips wrinkle with his smile. He pats Clorinde’s shoulder. “You’re a good kid,” he tells her like it's a fact. “There’s never been a day where I’m not grateful she found you.”

Clorinde smiles weakly at him, and Callas gives her a few more words of congratulations for her new position, as well as some advice about shady merchants in Fontaine, and sends her off. Clorinde looks back before she comes back into the house, and she sees him still sitting there, working quietly on his wood carving.

Navia is waiting on the couch for her when she returns.

Clorinde has to force herself to swallow the lump in her throat. “I think I’ll go home tonight,” Clorinde says.

She wants to take the words back immediately, when Navia looks at her like she’d just slapped her. “What? Why? Is everything okay?” Navia’s frown is deep, then it deepens even more with concern and anger. “Oh Archons, what did he say to you?! I’m gonna give him a piece of my mind—”

Clorinde laughs, holding her hand up to placate her. “He didn’t threaten me with a shovel, if that’s what you think,” she says, entertained by how quickly Navia’s shoulders drop at her words. “I just want to finish reading a chapter tonight. If I finish early tomorrow, I can sleep over, if you’re—?”

“Yes,” Navia says quickly. “But just a warning. Papa’s making the meatloaf tomorrow.”

Clorinde grimaces. “Maybe I’ll just come over after dinner?”

Navia laughs, walking over to her to fix how her cape sits on her shoulders. “I’ll make you some macarons for dessert as compensation,” she says with an apologetic smile. Navia touches her vision, her thumb running over the curve. It sets something alight in Clorinde’s bones.

“Get home safe?” Navia says gently.

Always, for you, Clorinde thinks.

“What do you take me for?” she jests.

“Yeah, yeah,” Navia says with a smile and a roll of her eyes. She slaps Clorinde’s chest twice, pushing her out of the door.

She’s a few good feet away from the Caspars’ abode when she hears a shout from behind.

She turns around, only to see Navia poking her head and shoulders out of the window upstairs, waving her hat at her. Even from this distance, she can tell Navia has a big grin on her face.

“Get home safe, Clorinde!” Navia shouts again. “I love you!”

Clorinde laughs, her feet willing her to keep walking, even as her neck is craned backwards. “I love you too!” she shouts back, albeit a little quieter. There are still people walking around her, and they’re already watching the exchange with amused looks.

“What!” Navia yells. “I can’t hear you!” she yells again, in a way that suggests that she totally can.

Clorinde’s face burns. “I love you too!”

“What!”

“I said I love you!” Clorinde shouts back, and she notices Spina members muffling their laughs nearby. It makes her face burn brighter, but she can’t seem to wipe the grin off of her face.

Navia’s bright smile lets her know that it’s all worth it, anyway.

And she knows that when she comes back to these steps the next day, she’ll arrive home yet again.