Author's note: if you haven't read Stahl's and Cherche's supports, she tells him that asking a woman to gather firewood with you is a romantic gesture where she comes from.

2. Firewood

"Stahl. Firewood."

"Yes, sir," Stahl managed, feeling a little guilty. It was Frederick's turn to cook, and Stahl originally went into the kitchen attempting to help, but had been caught with his fingers in the bowl of dough too many times. (It was going to be a bunch of fantastic cookies later on, but dough had to be appreciated too, didn't it?) "Sorry, sir. I'll do that instead."

"You'd better hurry. It will be dark soon."

"But who will help you with dinner?" Stahl looked longingly behind him as he passed the counter island, toward the door. "And dessert?"

A feminine hum was his only answer as Cordelia brushed by to take his place, touching Frederick's back for just a second to announce her presence. Stahl sighed and left. Arguing with either of those two was useless.

Firewood it was, then, but he could only carry so much alone. He scanned the living room for accomplices, unable to find Kellam anywhere and sure Sully had already gone off to do her stretches for the night.

But Cherche was on the couch, mending something or other with a needle. She caught his eye, smiled, and dropped her attention back to her hands again. He couldn't help but smile back as he walked to her.

"I was just going out to collect some firewood," he said as he came, "if you feel like coming along."

"Oh my." Her smile was sly but she didn't look back up at him.

"Is that a no, then?"

"I suppose, since we are in Ylisse, it can't hurt."

His smile widened to a grin as she folded her needlework and set it aside. He pulled her cloak off the back of the couch and settled it around her shoulders, catching a faint whiff of whatever perfume she sprayed it with. It made him want to drop his head to her shoulder and nuzzle her neck, but he refrained. He hadn't quite gotten around to telling her that he had fallen in love with her, yet. A moment had to come along eventually, right? It would all just fall into place, right?

Right?

"Will you tell me more about Valm?" he asked as she followed him out the front door and into the snow, and she only laughed a little as they made their way into the pines surrounding the cabin.

"I don't know how much more I could tell you; you're always asking. Why this fascination with my homeland, Stahl?"

"It's just interesting, to me." It was only half of the truth, but he couldn't very well tell her that he wanted to follow her back to Valm after the war if he hadn't even confessed his love yet. "Even little gestures can mean such different things to you and I, and most of the time, I like yours better. My own culture seems a little boring, sometimes, because I've been around it my entire life."

"I'm never bored with you around, Stahl."

"That's kind of you to say."

He smiled when he met her eyes, but she wore a look that was decidedly more sly.

"Stahl. Why Valm? Why not cling to the culture of Regna Ferox, or Plegia?"

"It just isn't quite as enticing," he said, a little nervously. She was looking at him like Minerva occasionally looked at her prey before she struck.

"Why is that?"

"Maybe there's nothing for me in any of those places."

"But there is in Valm?" she challenged.

"Rosanne," he said, very softly, and just like that, the sharp look was gone from her eyes.

"You can't be serious."

"I am actually very serious." They'd made it to the stack of firewood by then; Stahl pulled off the snowy tarp and began to gather wood into his arms.

"This is your home. Here."

"Maybe I'd like to make my home somewhere else."

He realized this was a poor time to do chores after all, and dumped his armful to the ground for just a moment to close the space between him and Cherche. Now or never.

"Cherche, I'd like to return with you and help you rebuild."

"Does this mean something different in Ylisse than it does in Valm?" she asked. "I am beginning to think you do not know what you are doing."

"I do," he told her seriously. "I'm collecting firewood with you." Igniting the spark of passion, she'd told him. "I mean, hopefully. Maybe I'm not doing it right."

Or maybe he wasn't right. Too boring, too Ylissean, too moderate in everything. The average. The median. Never anything special. Someone remarkable like Cherche, who could slay a man on wyvernback with her own back bare and then wash her bloody hands and use them to embroider a handkerchief deserved someone equally remarkable.

His thoughts were cut off when she pressed him back, and his spine pushed against a tree trunk as her lips met his. They were warm and so were her hands when she grabbed his.

"What did that mean?" he whispered as she pulled away, maybe a little starry-eyed. But she only smiled.

"I believe that is the same in both our cultures."

"Are you sure it's all right, Cherche? I mean, I was just thinking, and have been thinking…I'm not elegant like your Lord Virion or tall like Frederick or strong like Vaike. I think you deserve somebody exceptional."

"I am perfectly capable of deciding whom I deserve, thank you," she told him. "I find you just right—not too much or too little of anything. And I would be very happy if you returned to Rosanne with me."

He grinned and kissed her again, losing himself in her taste and her warmth and that soft scent from her cloak, but she was the one to pull away again, after who knew how many minutes had slipped away.

"Night has fallen, Stahl. I should get back, before Minerva worries."

"Right," he said, a little startled to see that it was in fact already dark. They were on their way back to the cabin at once, stopping only for an apology and a quick kiss to her hand—at first. But then she stopped him to kiss his lips again, and then he stopped her to kiss her ear, and then she stopped him to kiss his neck, and then he pressed her to the nearest tree and—

A roar split the air, making Cherche slip from his arms so fast that his face almost smashed into the trunk.

"Ah, I've alarmed her!" she said, and Stahl ran with her from the treeline. She went straight off to where Minerva was tethered and he entered the cabin, still grinning, eager for the cookies that must now certainly be coming out of the oven.

Most of the Shepherds were eating them at that moment, sitting in the living room around the fire, and they looked up as he approached. Frederick, from his spot in the kitchen, looked hardest of all.

"Stahl, you've missed dinner. We were just about to go looking for you. And—weren't you getting firewood? Where is all the firewood? We just used the last log."

For a long moment, Stahl wasn't sure what to say. He stared at the group before him like a cornered deer, turned on his heel, and sprinted back into the forest to grab his original armful before Cherche returned.

"Save me some cookies!" he cried over his shoulder as he left, and a few voices—he distinctly heard Lissa's and Sully's—sweetly cried back,

"No!"

That was all right, he consoled himself as he reached the pile of wood. He'd make a few trips, the whole cabin would warm up, and he'd have Cherche at his side to hopefully make him a new dinner with new cookies. She was a great cook. And he'd help—he wouldn't even sneak the batter, this time.

Well, maybe he might. That was what had landed him in this pleasant situation in the first place, after all.

Author's Note: Lissa and Lon'qu are next. Thanks for reading!