Author's Notes: This was fully intended at first, to be this little one-shot. Therefore when I came to the end of it and realized just how out of hand it had gotten, the chapters are kinds of short and sparse. It is similar to In the Shadows of the Temple, although I can promise you, only happy endings here. I realized as I was writing Outcast that although Kalibose and Mae were close there, that was not the time that they would fall in love. This is that time.

Inkwells will be updated Sunday evenings along with a chapter illustration on my deviantArt (username zarabethedraws)


Seven Years after the End of Outcast

Unlike their friendship, the process by which Kalibose stopped referring to Mae as his "friend", and then his "best friend", and started calling her his "girlfriend", was so slow that he barely even noticed when it changed. It wasn't even that he thought of her any different; they had just both stopped correcting people when they assumed the two of them were together. It was easier that way. Of course when Mae had kissed him for real the first time, hard and fast and exuberant, he felt a lot more confident thinking of her as with him, and not only close happenstance. They just spent so much time together that the boundaries and the labels all blended into something unimportant. When you shared room, and space, and often crawled into bed with each other when the night was too cold, and sat around without shoes or proper attire the next morning and talked until they laughed themselves stupid and tried to shove each other off the bed, the difference between "friend" and "girlfriend" was inconsequential. Everything was so happy and innocent and sometimes irritating and tense, that the occasional kiss or hug that went on a little longer than it should have was just a small spark in the warming fire that surrounded them.

It was during their first trip to Pandaria however, that things started to change.

It had been a bit of an ordeal to arrange the trip at all. Mae had talked of making a pilgrimage to Tian Monastery ever since they left Ashenvale forest the first time, and although Kalibose had not the slightest interest in the southern continent or the pandaren culture, he wanted her to have that. Kalibose had to attain special paperwork from the King of Stormwind himself, verifying that he was indeed a legal resident of Elwynn Forest before he was able to purchase a ticket. He had worked on it in secret, as they both saved up their money, and when he had presented her with two viable passes to Pandaria for that spring, she had kissed him to take his breath away and he had to remember what his name even was still.

Even then, things had remained more or less the same between them. They scrimped and saved and made plans for his brother's family to check in on their apartment when they were gone. There was a six week monk training session in the middle of their two and a half month trip, and that would leave plenty of time for them to explore the Jade Forest and see all the sites. During her training course, Mae would be in the monastery all day, but they could have supper together and have the same room in the local inn. Kalibose planned to delve into some of the local magic lore and mogu history while there. It never even occurred to him to plan the trip just for her: between them, Mae was synonymous with Kalibose, and vice a versa.

The travel there was an adventure in itself. Mae had been like a school-aged child on the ship—so excited that she couldn't sit still. She followed the cabin boys around constantly until they finally taught her everything that she wanted to know about running the ship and how to sail it. If he ever needed to find her, he knew to look high up in the rigging first, then at the great wheel second, watching the helmsman steer and talking his ear off, most likely. Kalibose was not at all excited to be on the ship. He spent half of his time being ill over the side, and the other half sleeping. He was happier to get his feet on solid ground again than he was to see how the sun set red and gold against the sea or to watch the dolphins keep pace them them in the water.

After they landed however, and Kalibose spent some time sleeping off the seasickness that seemed to follow him ashore the first day, the continent was theirs. Alliance-Pandaren relations were at a high years after the war that devastated their capital, and they experienced little hostility as they took in the beauty that was Pandaria. Mae's enthusiasm was infectious: she drug him to every single shrine in the Jade Forest, and despite his initial culture shock, he was happy to be there. The architecture itself was amazing-he had not done much research on Pandaria before they left, so consumed as he was with finding a way to get there, so everything they encountered, from the food to the wild animals, was a new adventure. Under Mae's tutelage, he tasted things he would never have under normal circumstances: boiled squid, bamboo shoots sauteed in butter, egg drop soup, and foods that he couldn't hope to pronounce and had no idea what was in them.

The very best thing that he found, however, was just sitting back and watching Mae. Watching her inquire politely about the rules of the shrine they were visiting, then respecting them to the letter. Watching her pull a seat up to an ancient pandaren man sitting in the corner of a tavern and listen in rapt attention to every story he could spin. Watching her asking a group of pandaren children to teach her the game they were playing, then going at it with as much enthusiasm as they were. To see the beautiful bliss on her face with every new experience, he would follow her anywhere.

It was during the three weeks they had just to themselves, that it started. The very first day that they traveled, they ended up in a small shrine the entire afternoon. There had been little to say: it was so quiet and sacred that anything else was superfluous. It was only after they had bid the monks farewell and set off again, Kalibose leaning heavily on his staff and Mae skipping along backwards to watch the temple disappear behind them, that the silence had been broken. She paused in the middle of the path, grabbed his hands and pulled him further off the side until they were almost into the trees. He'd been lost in thought, tangled up in the quiet presence of the shrine in spite of himself, and it startled him.

"Mae? What-" and then she had thrown her arms around his neck and kissed him until he saw stars dance in front of his eyes. That particular occurrence had happened before (although it never failed to knock him breathless) but the parting was different. Instead of hugging him, pulling away and skipping off, leaving him reeling, she paused, their mouths inches apart. She leaned her forehead against his, and even without her hands on the back of his head, he wouldn't have pulled away for anything.

"Thank you, Kal," she whispered, and he wasn't sure what exactly did it to him, the feel of her hot breath on his lips or the nickname that she never spoke in public, but instantly he felt like his skin was on fire. His hands were on her hips, and he slid them around her back to brush against her shoulder blades. It was nothing either of them had not done before: in fact there had been nights when he had nightmares or she had frightening visions, that they had held onto each other for dear life until dawn. But it was different this time: he was acutely aware of the heat of her skin beneath her shirt, her bare arms, the way her sharp fingernails lightly scratched the back of his neck. She seemed to fluster herself with how direct she was being: at this close of a distance, watching her open her mouth to speak, swallow, and then breathe out a giggle was absolutely captivating. Her cheeks were dusted dark pink and more than the kiss, this moment threw every thought out of his head. It took him a space to remember that she had said something. He had to clear his throat to speak, but he kept his voice quiet. He didn't want her to move yet.

"For what?"

"For...this." She only leaned back a few inches to gesture to the area around them, but he felt as if she were pulling miles away. "I have always dreamed of being here. Thank you for making this possible."

"Anything for you, Mae," he smiled, pulling her back to him. Right here, with her inches away...he needed this. It was only in hindsight that he realized how sappy his answer was, but he forgot it as he kissed her back. That was not at all how it usually went. He always let her make the first move: in fact, he didn't ever make a move at all. Either he was too nervous to do so, or it was so unexpected he didn't have time to react. This time however, he didn't hesitate as he pressed himself against her. He brought his hands up to cup her face gently, as if she were a delicate flower that he must protect. She made a noise of surprise, and he grimaced, preparing himself for her to pull away, but instead she pulled him down to kiss her more deeply. Without any intention to, he moaned quietly, ignoring the forest around them, the hazy sunlight filtering through the trees, and the group of noisy travelers that was approaching from the nearest town. He felt her stiffen in his arms, pull her hands back and it was only when she broke away and took a step that he realized some of them were whistling in their direction. He felt his face heat up even more than it already was, and he gave them a particularly ugly glare as they laughed, not unkindly, and continued on their way to the shrine. Mae's cheeks were still flushed, but she grabbed his hand and started back on the path. They did not speak of what had just happened between them, but she did not let go of his hand as they walked, either.