Author's Note: So I've actually had this idea floating around for years, and had bits of it written, but it took a friend's special day to get me in gear and prompt a total rewriting of all of it, for the sake of his love of JaffarxNino. It turned out much darker than originally planned (this is your warning for gore) but I hope it's still enjoyable (?) in its own way. Happy birthday to Sentury!
It had just finished raining. They wandered the wet cobblestones of the small Pheraean town they'd reached before nightfall, and Nino watched the moonlight glint in the rivulets between their footing.
"I think we should stay at an inn tonight," she said to Jaffar, softly.
"No. It is too dangerous."
They both knew they were being tracked for leaving the Black Fang. For the past three years they'd wandered, afraid to stay in one place too long, sleeping on the road more often than under roofs. But this night, something was different.
"Jaffar," she said, "I'd really like to."
"It is a risk."
Not a definite no. Despite his face never losing its usual stony expression, she knew she'd already started to melt him into agreeing with her.
Learning to emote was still a difficult process for him: sometimes he reacted too strongly, and other times not at all, just as he used to before. She was starting to think he couldn't feel true emotion, and was simply learning to mimic proper responses, until one day she told him a funny story about her old friend Erk and he burst into tears instead of smiling.
"What is it?" she asked as she held him, bewildered. He was clutching the front of his shirt.
"I don't know. It just happened. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," she whispered, and rubbed his back until he'd cried it out.
She'd never seen him cry before or since. Perhaps, at that moment, his mind and body had simply decided to release all the horror and pain he'd encountered working for Nergal, or else he'd never smile at one of her stories again.
"Do you have a particular reason, Nino?" he asked her, breaking her from her thoughts.
"No," she lied. "But we've travelled a long way today, and the ground is wet, and you still have most of the money from your last mercenary job. Don't we deserve a break?"
He did not respond, not until their weary feet had led them past a small, dark alley and in front of the town's bright inn.
"Fine, then," he said. "Go speak to the innkeep."
"I think you should do it," she said. He spoke a great deal more than he used to, but he was still pretty terrible with people, after eighteen years of being kept apart and only drawn out of his solitude for assassinations. Nino tried to get him to practice as often as she could, even though it made him uncomfortable (for, as she teased him, could the Angel of Death really be too afraid to haggle with a merchant or tell the grocer to have a nice day?).
He nodded reluctantly at her words but slid his pack from his shoulders and placed it on the inn's wooden front steps. Nino did the same. He turned once he'd ascended three of the steps, however, waiting for her to follow.
"You can do it alone," she said as she shook her head. "I believe in you."
He turned and obeyed without question, as always. When he was inside, she allowed herself to sit down on the first step. It wasn't that she didn't want to follow him—of course she did. She never felt safer or more loved than when she was at his side, because she knew he was constantly watching out for her. He'd left an entire life behind for her, a life he was good at, because that life put her in harm's way. But he needed the practice, and she had a lot to think about. Just for the moment, she needed to be without her husband.
They'd only been married for half a year, although Nino knew by the time the war ended that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. She even discussed it with Erk, since leaving the Black Fang and fighting Sonia had taught her that it was foolish to trust her own instincts.
"How can I be sure it won't all fall apart?" she asked the mage, nearly in tears, and he chewed the inside of his cheek for a long while before he replied.
"What one must remember, according to Lord Pent, is that a marriage isn't like a magic spell. It isn't something that simply succeeds or fails. It requires work, and constant effort. If you believe you and Jaffar can do this for each other, I don't see why you would have any problems. But," he cautioned, "he is still unstable, if you will forgive my frankness. I strongly encourage you to take plenty of time to consider this, and to see how and if his emotions return."
She had listened, and his advice had been prudent. Her courtship with Jaffar had been very awkward for myriad reasons, but very sweet as well, since they were both learning together, and were both so afraid of making mistakes with one another. They valued each other too highly.
At first his embraces were alien and hesitant, only emerging when she wept, and then when she was tired, and finally naturally, for no reason at all. Kisses were even harder for him to navigate—she supposed their first was clumsy, looking back with more experience, but she liked to remember it as beautiful all the same, because it was a first for both of them, and he'd smiled afterward. But the range of emotion a kiss could carry—loving, lustful, apologetic, grateful, reassuring, desperate, happy, sad—confused him, was difficult for him to interpret. Sometimes she wanted to convey love and he thought she needed reassurance of his love; sometimes she wanted him to kiss her more and he mistook her gesture as platonic. Once, over dinner, he'd come up behind her and kissed her neck as if he planned to take her maidenhead then and there, and she'd been so startled and excited that she spilled most of her plate into their campfire. Thinking she was afraid of him, he didn't come within ten feet of her for a week, no matter how she tried to convince him otherwise. In the end, she couldn't blame him. So many people already feared him for a past he regretted; if she came to fear him, she knew it would nearly kill him.
But he got better. He learned to navigate her thoughts and learned to give in to his instincts, especially once she told him that she'd fallen in love with him long before the war ended. It didn't matter, as Serra and Rebecca used to say, that a good man whispered sweet nothings and cuddled and was open with his feelings. Maybe that was what they wanted for themselves, but Nino was different. Sonia and the rest taught her that words could be faked, caresses could cover up darker injuries, and feelings could blind someone from realizing they were being hurt—perhaps by their own mother. It was actions that spoke. Even if Jaffar said so very rarely, all his actions proved to her that he loved her and was trying, and that was all she needed or even wanted.
Despite hearing that it was a man's job to bring up marriage, Nino was the one who had done it. Jaffar had made it very clear, many times, that he would be at her side until death parted them, to protect and provide for her.
"Then why don't you marry me?" she asked.
He flushed, just barely, which made her touch his face, since she'd never seen that before.
"Jaffar?"
"There are many reasons," he said finally.
"Like what?"
"I can hardly kiss you properly. Don't you know what else a husband must do for his wife?"
"Yes," she said as she blushed too—at least, she'd heard as much from the other women in the army. "But I think you're a good kisser."
"But I wouldn't…know."
"Well, me neither. We'd figure it out together, just like everything else."
"But what about children?"
"What about them?" she asked. "Wouldn't you like any, eventually?"
"You think I could be a father?" he demanded.
"Of course I do," she said softly, moving her hand from his face to his hair.
"No. No. You're wrong."
His shoulders had tensed. "Jaffar, you're a good man. That's all a child needs. A father who is good to them, and loves them."
"I've never loved anyone but you," he protested, and he didn't have to say the rest: that he didn't know if he could.
"We'd learn," she insisted. "A child of ours is me, really. Me and you put together. What could be easier to love?"
"You don't understand. I don't want anything with me in it."
That just about broke her heart, and she'd thrown her arms around his neck to assure him that he'd come to love himself as she did. They'd go to Pherae where there was farm work to do, buy a small house, settle down, live peaceful and honest lives. They'd pay their respects to Lord Eliwood. Wil and Rebecca would help them make friends. He'd feel better then. Simpler.
And the farther they fled from the Black Fang, he'd admitted to her six months ago, the more he believed her. The more he wanted to wed her and settle down and have children like a normal man, because that alone could keep him moving forward. So they were married quickly while travelling through Araphen, by their old acquaintance Lucius, with Raven of all people as a witness. It made her miss Lloyd and Linus and Erk and Lady Lyn and Uncle Legault—all the people she'd invite to her wedding if she could've—but there was nothing to be done about it. They had no time to send invitations and wait for the arrivals of some, and the rest were dead.
Really, everything had happened quite fast, she mused as she sank her cheek into her hand, there on the step of the inn. She hadn't realized it could happen so fast.
She was so lost in thought that she didn't hear the footsteps; she only felt the rough hand that clamped tight around her wrist. Squeaking, she was yanked to her feet by a burly man that smelled too strongly of ale, backed by at least four others.
"What's this?" he asked her. "Such a pretty girl, all alone! Must be lonely!"
"Let me go!" she cried as she tried to pull away. His grip only tightened, and his friends began to laugh. "Stop it! That hurts!"
Her free hand went for the spell book hidden beneath her cloak but he jerked her with him before she could reach for it, and together they stumbled into the alley beside the inn, out of the moonlight.
"Don't," she said when he pressed her against the wall so hard that her head smacked against the bricks, "you don't understand!"
He just grabbed her chin to try and kiss her. She squeezed her eyes shut, wrenching her neck in all and any directions to avoid his mouth, hating how foolish she'd been to stop paying attention to her surroundings.
"Hurry up!" one of the other men said, and a third laughed again.
"No; if he breaks her for us, we'll have an easier time of it."
She gritted her teeth against a scream and suddenly there was a loud gurgle and a hot splatter against her face. Her eyes shot open when she tasted iron and the body against hers slid to the ground with a wet slap, leaving a long stripe of blood down the front of her dress. His throat was slit.
Jaffar stood in front of her, knives drawn and dripping, more like the Angel of Death than ever. He glanced over her to make sure none of the blood was hers before he turned to the others.
"Don't," she whispered. He ignored her as the four men, too drunk to realize what a threat he was, rushed him, only understanding he'd come between them and their prize.
He hadn't truly fought in three years, besides the odd mercenary job to earn money to keep travelling, and when he was surrounded Nino scrambled for her spell book. He made quick work of two of them, but the third pulled a knife from his sleeve and stabbed him deep through the gut. Rusty knife, rusty skills, she screamed and tore pages in her haste, and thunder flew from her fingers so fast that it hurt.
The bolt struck the man with the knife and he collapsed immediately. Jaffar ducked to stab his heart and ensure his death, straightened as if he felt no pain, and ignored the begging of the fourth man, who raised his hands and tried to back away. His blood pooled at Nino's feet. She dropped her tome from hands she only just realized were shaking.
Sheathing his daggers, Jaffar looked at her. His red eyes looked blank from this distance, empty in the darkness. She shook her head and a sob escaped; her trembling shook tears from her eyes as she took a step backward—away from him.
He took a step forward, cautiously, and his expressionless face cracked for a moment to show a trace of concern. She continued to back away until her back thudded against a wall at the end of the alley, where she slid to the ground, trying hard to stop crying.
It wasn't as if she'd never seen Jaffar kill before. But this was different. With the Black Fang, he killed because he was ordered to. It was his profession, and he was never penalized for it. He had been a soldier during the war, afterward, and soldiers killed as well. But this, he had done of his own free will. And for just a street brawl. He could go to prison for murdering men like that, he might even be put to death, himself.
And he had done it for her sake.
He sank down onto one knee before her, slowly, and peered intently into her eyes.
"Why, Jaffar?" she demanded before she could sob again.
He did not speak for a long moment. He reached out to touch her knee, hesitated, and drew his hand back to his side.
"They were going to hurt you," he whispered. His voice, though toneless as always, trembled. She felt a surge of worry at that, and reached out to take his hands, finding that they were trembling too.
"I'm not hurt," she told him. "You shouldn't have killed them. You shouldn't have killed them!"
"They were going to hurt you!" he repeated.
"That doesn't matter! They didn't have to die."
"Men like that do deserve it."
"You are not an executioner anymore!" she cried. "You aren't the Angel of Death!"
"I've spent my whole life dealing out justice for other men," he said, his voice raw. "This time I exacted it for myself. For you."
"I don't want justice." She was crying again but she couldn't stop. "I'm so tired of bloodshed. I just want peace, Jaffar. I don't care what they planned on doing to me, or what they did do to me, or what anyone may do to me in the future! It isn't worth it."
"I'm sorry," he whispered as he brushed her tears away. "I'm so sorry."
She clasped his hand. "Don't do this again. Promise me that you'll never kill anyone else."
"I promise. Even if it meant the difference between my life and death."
"Or mine," she urged.
He was silent for a long, long time.
"Promise me, Jaffar."
"I promise," he said again, softly.
Plip.
She gasped as she recognized the sound, more firmly ingrained than she ever wanted it to be, and got onto her knees quickly to examine Jaffar, who was pressing his free hand to his stomach. Blood welled beneath his fingers and another droplet hit the dirt beneath them: plip.
"Jaffar," she moaned as her mind began to race. He was wounded, five dead men stood between them and the nice warm inn, and now they had to flee before anyone found out Jaffar had murdered them. She was sure he could plead that he was only defending her and then himself, with his wound as proof, but it would cause a stir, and the Black Fang would find them right away. They had to stay low if they were to have their happy life.
And now they needed it. More than ever before.
"Stay still," she commanded, pulling off her cloak and tearing it into strips. He obeyed while she wrapped them tight around his bleeding middle and thought through the situation: "So we can't stay at the inn tonight; they'll find the bodies in the morning and put two and two together. Unless someone comes out earlier and finds them. Do you think they heard the scuffle?" The thought made her breath come faster.
"No," he answered. "It was still rowdy inside; they could have heard nothing."
"We have until dawn or so, then. We'll have to leave this town. I haven't the time to bandage you here, but…" She glanced at his wound again and bit her lip.
He grazed her mouth with his thumb to get her to stop, and then pressed his own lips to hers for just a moment. "I will survive this. I've had much worse."
And you helped me survive then, too, she knew he meant to say. With new resolve, she stood quickly and they both fled, grabbing their packs from the inn's steps, although by the time they got out of the town she was weeping again for the slain men and he was leaning heavily on her shoulder with his bandage stained through.
They made it perhaps a mile out, beneath a copse of trees that hid them from the road, before she finally pulled his pack off of him and pushed him to the ground.
"Out of your shirt, now," she said as she unwound the strips of her cloak. "Come on."
He took it off without flinching, but she hissed when she saw the wound. It was both deep and dirty. A sudden memory assaulted her of the first time she'd ever had to do this, of the metallic scent of blood, warm and sticky on her hands, staining his dark skin as she tried to wipe it away. This time, it was easier. She was still frightened, but not for his life—merely of what would happen when he lived, and what she would have to tell him.
She cleaned the wound with water from her canteen, and dressed it with her roll of bandages and the vulnerary they kept for emergencies. His hands were still trembling.
"What is it?" she asked as she worked.
"I don't know. I've never felt this way before."
"What way?"
"When I saw you with that man…my heart went too fast. My stomach fell. I thought I might be sick, or panic and ruin my aim."
"It sounds like you were afraid for me."
He thought about that in silence while she helped him get his shirt back on, and insisted he relax while she set up their tent. A fire was a bad idea, so she didn't bother, although she regretted it. The light would have comforted her. Now she only had the wet grass, the moonlit sky, and the cool spring air for company as she studied Jaffar's unreadable face.
"We can't keep running like this," she told him.
"Does this have to do with the reason you wanted to stay at an inn?"
"Yes." She curled her knees up to her chest and hugged them. "We need to find a place to live, and soon. We need something stable. We need it."
"I tire of this running too, Nino," he said gently, "but we must bear it as long as we can."
"But…" She struggled before blurting, "But I'm pregnant."
He was quiet for a long time. And then he asked, almost sharply, "Are you sure?"
"I haven't had my cycle in two months," she said. "I don't know what else that could mean." And she was sore, and everything smelled stronger sometimes, and if she had to be honest, she simply knew. Something was growing inside of her. And she loved it already. She didn't want it to constantly be jostled by their running and hiding and living in fear.
Jaffar gave no response. Finally she had to ask him, "What are you feeling?"
"I think I am afraid again," he whispered. She started to open her arms to him but was relieved when he moved to her side of his own accord, and for a long while they just held each other.
"It will be wonderful," she said. "You'll see."
"I believe you. I'm just…nervous."
"And excited?"
"And proud?"
"And disbelieving?"
"And in love?"
"Yes," she said with a laugh as she squeezed him tight. "Very much in love."
"This is a relief," he admitted before he kissed her hair. "I thought my feelings were all wrong again. But if yours are the same…"
"I'm sure it's normal," she assured him.
For a while he was quiet again, no doubt thinking about the future. Finally he said, "We shall find Rebecca's village, then. She can tell us where to find work, and we will start to settle down. In the meantime we will stay at inns, so you don't tire yourself."
She kissed him: gratitude. He kissed her back: tenderness.
"I think we'll be just fine," she said, a little giddily, as she pulled away.
She didn't sleep in his arms that night, to give his wound time to heal, but of course, she couldn't feel lonely, with their child inside of her. It took her a long time to sleep, but when she did, it was sheltered and she dreamt of starlight.
Author's Note: The title comes from the Spanish term "dar un luz." In reality it means "to give birth," but literally it means "to give a light." Which I think is just about the most darling thing.