A/N: Hated the previous title, so I'm changing it. There's also a bit of revision done to the story itself, but nothing major, so you don't have to bother rereading it if you don't want to.
This story could also be read in conjunction with It's Not a Matter of Won't, It's a Matter of Can't. However, it is also able to be read as a stand-alone, as well. A few things that aren't very pertinent to the story-line are explained in the story mentioned above, also authored by Haliaetus, as well as the continuation to use the same tactician. Aw, what the crap. It's the sequel. There. That make you happy?
It's a one-shot because it's too short to do actual chapters with it. Sorry. But you'll still love it, right? Please say yes. It's important for my self-esteem.
Fire Emblem does not belong to me; you would know if it did, due to Ephidel actually showing his face and some scandalous romance involving him, some random hot dude and a jar of honey if I did own the game. Seeing as there is none of that in the actual game, you can safely surmise that I do not own Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken.
Also, this is told from Heath's POV. Thought I should let you know since it's not obvious at first.
Warnings: Yaoi/Shounen ai (aka: homosexual stuff (just say it people!)), humor, and general artistic license. You have been warned.
There is something to be said for honesty, I thought as Matthew was once again dragged to Verian's tent for stealing something or other. I watched until both he and Lyn (who had been the one dragging him) disappeared into the tactician's tent. Vaguely, I wondered whether he'd attempted to steal Lyn's sacred sword again. The key word there being attempted.
Continuing on my way, I returned a greeting from Geitz as I passed him and resumed my earlier train of thought.
Was there something more behind what I had found a few days ago upon entering the tent I shared with Legault? He hadn't been there and I had barely seen him except right before bed for the past three days and we hadn't exchanged more than a few words in the whole time. It was starting to worry me; he'd always made a point of talking to me whenever he could get away with it, despite my attempts to get away and I found myself missing the annoying thief's chatter.
Wait. I did not just think that. Why would I miss him? He was constantly popping up in the lest expected places—I shuddered at the memory of the hot springs we had recently stopped at—and making my life generally difficult with his probing questions and odd remarks. If anything, I should be happy that he had finally understood that I wanted to be left alone.
So why was I always turning around, expecting to see him grinning at me like he always did before starting in on one of his one-sided conversations?
But I was digressing from my original worry. Reaching into my pocket, I absently fingered the small wooden carving.
It was a wyvern, cut from a piece of oak. Although not professionally done, it was still detailed enough for me to see that it had been intended to look like Hyperion, my wyvern. Along the base had been inscribed a single word, cleverly etched with the tip of a knife along the tail.
Thine.
No more, no less. Just the one word. And it was confusing me to Etruria and back.
Due to the fact that it looked like Hyperion, I knew it had to be someone in the army, but I had no idea who. Scratch that. I had an idea, I just didn't want to acknowledge it as a possibility. Besides, Legault had said he had been kidding when he'd brought up that stuff about love.
Although I had reasoned out that it couldn't possibly be him, my brain still worried at it like a dog with a bone, unwilling to let it go now that it had been brought to my attention.
Was that why he wasn't talking to me lately, because he was embarrassed? Somehow, putting Legault and embarrassed in the same sentence just sounded wrong.
Maybe it was something else entirely. After all, my birthday was coming up in a couple of days; I would be 24. When I had joined up, Verian had come to me and asked me several questions, including when my birthday was, so that was a possibility, though I didn't know who else knew besides the tactician.
Verian himself wasn't much of a suspect, either. Just in the last couple of weeks, there had been rumors of his being a double agent, but it had been more or less settled when he had fought Karel and won. Not two days after that, I had returned to the tent just as the deranged swordmaster was leaving and when I had asked Legault why he had been there, the thief had replied that Karel had been there for advice on love. I had dismissed the notion as an impossibility, but when I accidentally walked in on an equally impossible situation involving Karel, Verian and rope, I decided that Legault had been telling the truth.
So that took care of Verian and Karel. As for other suspects, I mentally ran down the list of people in the small army.
Lyn was too busy avoiding Eliwood and Hector, both of whom were trying to outdo the other in impressing the female lord and making Florina worry her head off in the process. All four were scratched off my list.
Pent and Louise were married, so it couldn't be them. Almost ditto with Harken and Isadora; those two didn't have eyes for anyone else, so they might as well be married. Canas, I had heard from Nino, was also married and the young mage was already more or less claimed by Jaffar, so they were all also off the list.
Oswin, Marcus, Merlinus and Wallace…enough said. I quickly scratched them off and continued on down the list.
Everyone was aware of the relationship going on between Kent and Sain, though the two cavaliers tried desperately to keep it under cover. Same for Serra and Erk, though for the exact opposite reason; Serra just couldn't keep her mouth shut when it came to the purple-haired mage and although Erk denied having feelings for the pink-haired cleric, I had observed him willingly offering her his assistance. Clearly a hypocrite when it came to that matter. Once again, I scratched names off my list and moved on.
At this point, I found myself back at my tent. Apparently, when I walked in autopilot, this was where I ended up. I was about to go inside when I was reminded that now was Hyperion's feeding time by the wyvern nudging me hard enough to knock me over, though I saved myself by grabbing onto his snout.
"Okay, okay!" I laughed, patting his nose as I went around to get the saddle and harness I would need to ride the large flying lizard. Feeding Hyperion was a time-consuming activity, but I enjoyed being up in the air with the wind blowing my hair back and the land laid out before me for miles all around.
As I threaded the straps through the buckles and checked to make sure everything was correct, I couldn't help but think that there was something missing. It wasn't until I was on Hyperion's back and the wyvern was getting ready to launch himself into the air that I realized what it was.
Legault hadn't appeared to chatter at me as I harnessed Hyperion like he usually did.
I leaned forward to provide less resistance as we rose into the air, my mind still trying to puzzle out the reasons for the thief's absence. As always, I could find nothing to explain the thief's behavior. Perhaps when I returned, I would try to find him and maybe get some answers.
A few hours later, Hyperion was full and the sun was beginning to sink behind the horizon, even from my lofty vantage point in the air. As the sated wyvern settled on the ground, I slid wearily off, not really wanting to stay and remove the harness. I knew the wyvern would be uncomfortable with it on, though, so I forced myself to go through the motions, finally dumping the pile of leather on the ground next to the tent as Hyperion settled down to sleep.
Walking around the tent, I opened the flap to enter, half-expecting Legault to be there already. But since when had the ex-Black Fang done what was expected? His bedroll was empty and showed no signs of anyone having slept on it.
Somehow disappointed, I went to my own, pulling off the outer layers of my clothes in preparation for sleep, which my body craved more than anything right now; not even the dinner that I had missed held a candle to how tired I was. Tossing the articles of clothing aside, I stretched a bit to loosen up, then laid down, blowing out the single candle as I did so.
How long I laid in the dark, I had no idea, but for all that I was exhausted, I simply could not sleep. Tossing and turning, I tried to will myself to sleep, to no avail. Finally, just as I was about to get up and take a walk, the flaps of the tent opened to admit Legault and I froze, glad I was facing the tent wall.
I heard his footsteps come into the tent, pause, then go to his bedroll. A few moments later, I heard him settled down and quickly fall asleep. As his light snores provided a backdrop to the night noises, I found myself drifting off to sleep, my eyelids refusing to stay open any longer.
The next morning, Legault was gone when I woke up. Although I wasn't surprised after the way he'd been acting for the past few days, I couldn't help but feel somehow cheated as I dressed in silence. Silence that was usually filled with the thief's inane chatter.
At breakfast, although I made a point of looking, I didn't see him at all and no one I asked had any idea where he might be, until I asked Verian. The tactician gave me an odd look before he answered, but I didn't take the time to analyze what it held.
"Legault?" The silver-eyed man responded. I'm going to have to get used to seeing him without his tactician's robes, I thought to myself as he continued. "I don't know exactly where he is, but he said something about needing some quiet time by himself. Does that help any?"
I already had a pretty good idea of where the thief had gone and I nodded as I turned away. "Yeah. Thanks, Ver!"
"You're welcome…I guess." He gave me a slightly bemused look, but then someone called for his attention and I didn't care anymore.
Since when does Legault need quiet time? I though as I jogged to the place I thought he might be. If you ask me, it should be others who need quiet time away from him, what with all the chattering he does.
A quick detour around Sir Wallace's tent saved me from any embarrassing questions about my training regime and/or long-winded stories from the general's past. As soon as I was out of that danger zone, I continued past several more tents to the woods that we had camped along the edge of. There was a clearing a little ways in that I had seen from Hyperion's back that had a small creek and looked very peaceful. I had noted it in case I needed to get away from Legault, though that didn't seem to be necessary, seeing as I was now the one seeking him out.
That brought me to a full stop. When had the thief become such a normal part of my life? When had I relaxed enough around him to allow him to get that close on a regular basis? Why was I worried about his absence now, when before I would have been ecstatic that he was leaving me alone?
I couldn't pin down the exact date, but it had happened, I was sure of it. Somehow, Legault had made a place for himself as one of the few people I cared about and he'd done so without my noticing it.
I was going to kill him for that. Just as soon as I made sure he was alright.
Growling, I continued forward, but as I passed the first trees, I suddenly doubted that he was actually there. He'd never been the type to actually go away when he needed to think. It was much more likely that he had cloistered himself in the tent and was currently playing with a dagger or two while he thought. With that thought in my mind, I did an about-face and headed for the tent I shared with him, coming at it from the back.
It was a good thing I did, too, because Legault was leaning against Hyperion, who was now awake, and talking to the beast. He hadn't seen me, so I quickly ducked back behind the tent I had just come around—Karel's—and stayed there, heart suddenly beating a mile a minute.
When had Hyperion gotten used to Legault enough to let him lean against him? As far as I knew, only Vaida and I could get that close to the wyvern and Hyperion wouldn't let the commander lean on him or even touch him. It had taken years to get him that used to Vaida, so how had Legault won his trust so quickly?
Was it because of me? A rider and his wyvern shared a bond, I knew that, but how deep did it go? Was Hyperion's distrustful nature because of me? I hadn't been the most social knight in Bern and since I had deserted, I had avoided others like the plague until I'd met this group.
Could Hyperion have picked up on my unconscious trust of Legault and echoed it in his own actions? Although there was no prior occurrence that I could think of from my time in Bern, it didn't sound all that far-fetched as I went over it again.
Now that I at least had a theory of why Hyperion liked Legault so much, I found my mind turning to why the thief was talking to my wyvern in the first place. Sneaking around the other way, I managed to get to the front of the tent without Legault seeing me. Entering the tent, I moved silently to the rear wall and sat down to listen through the thin cloth.
"I just don't know, Hyperion." Legault was saying. "I've tried everything and the guy still won't open up about anything. It's kinda disheartening when I don't get what I'm after, y'know?"
Hyperion made a sound that could have been agreement or simply a noise to get Legault to keep scratching him in that sweet spot.
"Yeah, I know he's on the run and all, but you'd think that after all this time, he'd at least be able to trust someone." The thief sighed and the tone of his voice changed so that it held an almost wistful element. "I wonder if he's figured it out yet…"
Frowning, I tried to make sense of what he was saying. He was obviously talking about me, but I had no idea what he wanted me to figure out. Shifting so I could hear better, I winced as something dug into my thigh. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the wooden wyvern with the carved word on it. I stared at it as an idea wormed it's way into my mind.
Had Legault left the wooden wyvern for me? It was starting to sound a lot more likely, seeing as I'd scratched off most of the rest of the army. Realizing that I had stopped in the middle of doing that yesterday, I quickly went through the rest.
Hawkeye and Dorcas were already married, Nils was too young, I didn't know his sister that well, and Bartre was too busy trying to win Karla's favor without incurring the wrath of her brother. Renault and Vaida seemed to enjoy each other's company and although I respected my commander, I was sure out relationship was still based in the military. Raven was too obsessed with revenge on Hector and Lucius was too worried about the mercenary to care about anyone else outside of professional reasons. Farina and Dart used too much of their time arguing over maps and money and, I suspected, flirting. Geitz and Fiora took a little too much time when the were sent on recon missions together and half the camp was certain he'd propose by the end of the month. Pretty much the same story with Lowen and Rebecca, though a bit more out in the open, since they spent most of their time in the cooking area. Matthew made no secret of his and Guy's relationship, though Guy tended to stutter whenever asked about it. Rath had finally agreed to teach Wil how to ride a horse, but I suspected that the lessons included more than just riding. All of them were scratched off mentally as I went down the list.
By the time I had gotten through that, I realized with a sinking heart that the only two people left were Priscilla…and Legault. Which reminded me; he was still standing not ten feet from where I was in the tent, still talking to Hyperion. I tuned back in.
"So I've been avoiding him for the past few days, to give him time to think, y'know? But I'm not sure he understands yet." Now the thief sounded just plain sad and I immediately squashed the impulse to ask why. This was too important to interrupt. "I told him I loved him, y'know. It was a while ago and I told him I was joking, but I've never told anyone that, even in jest." Hyperion made a sympathetic noise (which could also have been translated as "Why did you stop scratching?") and the thief sighed lightly.
"I even talked to Verian about it. Oh, I didn't tell him exactly what was going on, but I gave him the general idea." He added hurriedly, as if Hyperion had given him an incredulous look. "Just enough for him to understand. I think he knows, though. He could probably see right through me the entire time I was talking to him. I almost wish Heath could, too, but then that would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?" he laughed.
My mind wandered back to breakfast, when I'd asked Verian if he knew where Legault was. The tactician had given me an odd look, but I hadn't taken the time to analyze what it meant. I wondered now if it had been because he'd known what was going on and was confused as to why I didn't. For some reason, it made me mad that someone else knew more about what was going on with my tent-mate than I did.
"You think I should confront him about it?" Legault's voice had dropped to a mere whisper and I had to strain to hear it. "I don't want to make him mad, though." Well, that was a little late. I was already ticked. "Do you think he'll listen long enough for me to explain? Yeah, I know. He does have a bit of a temper, doesn't he?"
Suddenly, another voice joined the thief's. "Legault? Is that you?" I cringed slightly as I recognized Verian's voice.
"Hm? Oh, yeah. How can I help you?" Legault didn't sound like he'd been surprised, but I was willing to be he was covering it up.
"Nothing for me, though earlier Heath was asking where you were. I told him you needed some quiet time alone. I didn't know you'd come here. Isn't this Heath's wyvern?"
"Yeah, it is. Why was he asking? Did he tell you?"
"No, but I think he's worried." Legault snorted, effectively portraying his opinion on that matter.
"No, he's not." I could hear the bitter edge in the thief's voice and something in me winced. "He's not worried about anything except saving his hide from Bern."
"Why do you say that?" The tactician's voice held a certain measure of disapproval that I wouldn't want levied at me. Legault didn't seem to notice.
"The only reason he stays here is because it offers better protection from any agents of Bern. He's told me that much at least. If he didn't think he'd be safe here anymore, he'd be gone before you knew it."
"I highly doubt that that is the case anymore." Verian replied evenly. "However, I think you should talk to him about it. I think you'd be surprised." He was right. If Legault had just come to me and talked about it, it would have saved both of us a ton of grief and me from the embarrassment of having to eavesdrop from inside my own tent.
"Really?" Legault's voice was full of sarcasm. "Well, excuse me for spouting off stuff I don't have any foundation for, since I'm only his tent-mate." His voice changed again. "I know him better than anyone else in this army, Shadow, and when it comes to stuff like this, I think I'm the master, not you. So you can just remove your nose from my business unless you want me to cut it off for you."
Verian sighed. "You're not going to be easy to persuade, are you?" He muttered, more to himself than to Legault. "Fine. I'll leave you alone, but at least try talking to him? I can't have both of you on the field distracted by personal matters."
Legault didn't answer and I could barely hear Verian's footsteps as he walked away. A moment later, I heard the thief mutter to himself. "I'm going to go in the tent. See you later, big guy." I heard him pat the wyvern one last time before turning to walk around the tent.
Hurriedly, I stood up and went over to my bedroll, picking up an extra strap of Hyperion's harness and some oil. It was probably a good thing that the strap needed it anyway, since Legault would probably notice if I was oiling a perfectly fine strap.
The tent flaps opened and I looked up to see Legault staring at me in surprise, obviously not having expected to see me in there. I met and held his gaze evenly and he was the one to finally drop his gaze. Sighing, I broke the slightly awkward silence.
"You've been avoiding me, haven't you?" I asked, unable to keep the slightly accusatory tone out of my voice. I saw him wince and regretted the tone, but not the question. He owed me some answers and I deserved to hear them.
The thief came into the tent fully, laying down on his bedroll before he answered my question. "Yes."
"Why?"
"You wouldn't understand." Came the muffled answer as Legault rolled over, his back to me. I scowled at the back of his head.
"Try me. I might understand a bit better than you think." I saw him tense as he put two and two together and got four.
"You heard, didn't you?" He asked, his voice barely loud enough to carry across the tent.
"Most of it," I admitted. "There are still some gaps, though. Such as why you haven't bothered giving me even the time of day for the past few days."
He rolled back over to pin me with his gray eyes. "You wouldn't understand." He repeated. I continued to scowl at him, annoyed that he was trying to run away from the problem.
"What don't I understand?" I pressed, determined to get the answers to the questions that had been plaguing my mind for the past day and a half. "I'm not going to leave you alone until you tell me."
"Nothing, Everything." His answer was just as cryptic as the thief himself. He paused, then continued in a low voice that I wasn't sure I was supposed to hear. "Maybe if I knew you trusted me…"
That did it. I stood up and stalked over to glare down at him. "You think I don't trust you? Is that it? Well, let me tell you something, mister. Hyperion doesn't let anyone my myself and Vaida near him. Nobody but me can touch him. Yet you apparently can do both and I've only known you for, what, two months? You want to know why? Let me tell you what I think."
I turned slightly away as I continued my rant. "A wyvern and his rider share a special bond. Often, this bond includes not letting anyone but the rider ride the wyvern, but the creatures don't normally object to being that close to other humans. In Bern, I wasn't the average social knight; I stayed in my rooms a lot when we weren't training, reading or simply thinking. Hyperion didn't socialize much with the other wyverns, either. It took me years to get him used enough to Vaida to allow her to approach him, but he still won't let her touch him.
"Now, after deserting from the Bern army, I've avoided others like the plague. Surely you can understand that? But I realized something today. Since I joined up with this group, I've felt safe. I've finally found someplace where I won't have to constantly look over my shoulder to see if there's someone who recognizes me and will turn me in. As a result, Hyperion is much happier here than he was when we were on the run.
"But today, when I was looking for you, I realized that you've somehow become one of those few people I care about. Don't ask me how it happened, because I have no idea, but it's the truth. It's my belief that Hyperion can somehow sense that I trust you that much and echoes that in his actions toward you. Can you get that through your thick head?" I was glaring at him again, daring him to contradict anything I had said.
I didn't think I would have to deal with that, though. He was staring at me as if I had grown an extra head and I suddenly realized that I had never lost it like that in front of him before. I remembered some fellow soldiers from Bern telling me once that seeing me lose my temper was like seeing a previously thought extinct volcano suddenly erupt for no apparent reason. It was just as explosive and shocking.
My anger immediately drained away. "Sorry," I muttered, turning away. "I've just been under a lot of stress for the past few days."
"No. I'm the one who should be sorry." I glanced over at Legault in surprise. He was laying on his back, one arm over his face.
"Why?" My voice held no malice now; it didn't need to. I had gotten my point across.
"I was a fool for thinking that you wouldn't understand, after all you've gone through." Something about the situation was apparently amusing to the thief; his mouth was crooked into a small smile.
"I guess Verian was right." He continued, oblivious to my surprise. "He said I'd be surprised if I tried talking to you about it and I guess he was right. That was quite definitely not the reaction I had anticipated."
"Ah." There really wasn't much to say to that. I thought about what else Legault had said to Hyperion. My gaze fell on the small carving that had dropped to the ground and I bent to pick it up. "Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. Did you leave this for me?"
I turned around to show the wyvern to Legault, but he wasn't looking at me. "Legault?"
He sighed and finally removed his arm from his face, meeting my gaze. "Yeah, I left it there for you." He said softly, almost hesitantly. I felt uneasy under the scrutiny of his eyes and looked down at the piece of wood I held. Absently, I turned it over until I could see the word that had been carved on the tail. Thine.
Memory of a past conversation with the thief and what I had heard earlier suddenly collided and I understood. Raising my gaze back to him, I simply stared at him, not sure if my voice would work even if I wanted it to.
Now it was his turn to look uncomfortable. "Do you like it?" I nodded, still not wanting to trust my voice to work properly.
Something wanted to come out, though, so I opened my mouth. "You…you weren't joking. Were you?" He knew what I meant and averted his gaze, biting his lip.
"No, I wasn't." I nodded again, feeling as if I couldn't breathe properly. Suddenly light-headed, I found my way to my bedroll and sat down heavily, eyes closed as I held my head in my hands. Quick steps and cool hands on mine told me Legault had noticed.
"Heath?" His voice was full of worry, but I couldn't hear much past the roaring in my ears. "Heath!"
I could feel darkness creeping in from all sides and I opened my eyes, finding Legault no more than a foot away. I had time to take in his frantic expression before darkness took me entirely and I fell into unconsciousness.
"A combination of stress and heat exhaustion…"
Drink this…"
"All he needs is rest now…"
The voices drifted in and out of the darkness, along with brief images.
My parents, back in Bern. My older brother, also a wyvern-rider, who had died while protecting a village several years ago. Vaida, barking out commands to her soldiers as death rained down upon us. Legault, laughing as I glared at him for showing up somewhere I thought I'd be alone. Legault, chattering at me even when I didn't acknowledge him. Legault, smiling that secret smile that always left me confused. Legault, chiding me for not smiling when he made a joke. Legault…being Legault.
When I finally woke up, I was in an unfamiliar tent, none of the usual sights around me. Propping myself up on my elbows and squinting against the bright light from the open tent flaps, I tried to figure out where I was. Another bedroll to one side and two more on the other, with several staves laid out nearby fixed that problem. I was in the sick tent.
Someone came in then, carrying something. They saw I was awake, did an about-face, and promptly let the entire camp know. I winced as the loud noise assaulted my ears. Why was Wil the one bringing me food?
A moment later, though, a very different person came into the tent, followed by a couple others. Legault's face held equal parts frantic worry and relief, while Verian's face was impassive and Lucius' was simply professionally worried. The blonde-haired monk leaned over me and tested several things, asked me several questions and basically gave me a complete look over before announcing that I would be fine with a little more rest.
I watched him go before turning to the thief who hovered by my bed worriedly. "What the heck happened, Legault?" I asked past a tongue that seemed intent on filling my mouth with dryness. He shook his head.
"I have no idea. Lucius says that it was simply a combination of stress and heat exhaustion, but you suddenly fainted in our tent while we were talking." I met his gaze and saw for a moment just how worried I'd made him. Ha, I thought wearily. Serves you right for making me worry so much about you. There wasn't much spite behind the thought, though; not after what he'd admitted before I'd fainted.
Verian smiled at me. "Well, seeing as you're better, I'll leave you two to catch up on the past few days that you slept through, Heath. By the way, happy birthday." Having excused himself, he went out of the tent, letting the tent flaps close and giving us privacy. I stared after him for a moment, nonplussed, before remembering that I had probably slept right through my birthday if I had been out of it for a few days.
I sat up as Legault lowered himself to the ground, suddenly looking uncomfortable. "Are you…are you feeling alright?" He asked hesitantly. I forgot about my birthday as I focused on him.
I smiled slightly at him. "Yeah. Just a bit tired, but I think that comes from the heat exhaustion." I told him. It erased some of the worry from his expression, but there was something else in his eyes when he looked at me.
"Do you remember…what we were talking about?" He inquired. I considered lying and saying no, but somehow it didn't seem right, what with him looking at me as if…as if…aw, hang it all.
"Yeah, I do." I told him. "But, Legault?" He looked at me curiously. "You said that you…you loved me, right?"
He didn't seem to get what I was implying. "Yeah…what about it?" he asked warily, not sure what to expect.
"I…I didn't get a chance to…to say that…" Why were the words so hard to say? They were there, at the tip of my tongue, but they wouldn't come out. I knew I did, though, knew I had for a while, though my stubbornness hadn't let me see it.
"Say what?" Legault prompted, confused. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again. He was just close enough…
I'm not sure that I thoroughly thought my actions through before I acted on the impulse that seized me then. Looking back, I'm not sure I wanted to. If I had, then I might have reasoned myself out of doing it. As it was, Legault was just as surprised as I was when our lips met.
He recovered quickly, though, and kissed me back, his arms sliding up my arms to slip around my shoulders as mine went around his waist, pulling him closer. He pushed and I fell back onto the bedroll, taking him with me. We stayed like that for a while, arms wrapped around each other, just laying there.
Finally, though, he lifted his head to look at me. "Anything you want to say?" He asked softly, a slight smile tugging at his mouth.
"Just one thing."
"Oh? What is it?" He started to play with a strand of my hair, twisting it around his finger and pulling gently on it. I caught that hand with one of my own and pulled him down for another kiss. We pulled apart for a few seconds and I told him then.
"I love you."
Dangit. I blame you reviewers for putting me up to this. This is entirely your fault. This is the second (or maybe third) fanfic that I've ended with that short sentence.
But there you have it. The sequel. Happy now? Or should I do a third? If you guys will send me pairings and ideas, I'll do them. I honestly have no aversion to any pairing except for the ones including Oswin, Marcus, Merlinus or Wallace, since they're just weird old guys. I will be using Verian in the stories, though, since I like him. If it's placed before It's Not a Matter of Won't, It's a Matter of Can't, though, he'll be just a tactician and there won't be any mention of him being ex-Black Fang.
Thanks for reading.
Haliaetus