A/N: Sooo, it's a bit short. I've been a little busy this week but I wanted to get something posted before I get to do hell week at work and have 16-hour days (but it is great because I am gonna make SO MUCH MONEY).


CHAPTER THREE

In which Edward learns some things

"Listen and be amazed!" Tormod grinned broadly and dropped into place next to Sothe. The thief's arm absently found its way under his cloak, and on his other side Micaiah covered her mouth to suppress a giggle. Tormod felt his face heat and he swallowed hard before continuing. "Big news afoot. The apostle is sending an inspection team to investigate the occupation army's abuses!"

"Really?!" Micaiah's face lit up.

Tormod tried hard not to stumble over his words as Sothe's hand slipped into his back pocket, squeezing appreciatively. "She sent me a message that preparations are finally complete. But—hey!" He made a grab for the letter, briefly cursing himself for not realizing what the rogue had been up to, but Sothe darted away from him, grinning as he unfolded it.

"She's issued an imperial edict to the forces telling them to cease all military action immediately."

The mage looked ready to burst from happiness. "Does that mean the fighting is over? That we've won?!"

Sothe nodded and swept her into his arms. "It looks like it. It's hard to believe it's over, but it must be."

"And best of all—" Tormod snatched the letter back and stuck his tongue out at Sothe "—Duke Persis is leading the inspection team! We'll be home free the moment they arrive. Our worries are over."

"So Sanaki's dispatching one of the empire's greatest men to handle things, then," Sothe murmured, placing his sister back on the ground. "That's good. He's highly influential, but he never stood on ceremony when we met him."

"So go on, then!" Tormod grinned. "Don't just stand there, go spread the good news!"

Sothe eyed him carefully. "We have to spread the news? Aren't you coming with us?"

"Nah, it's mostly your doing anyway. We'll hold back and let you take the glory." It was too hard to explain that he hated Izuka, hated the way the man had been so desperate to conquer that he had nearly stolen Muarim away. Sothe had a vague idea of his feelings, but he'd never spoken of that night to anyone else, and Micaiah simply couldn't understand—

"It's Izuka, isn't it?" Micaiah leaned into his line of sight, one eyebrow cocked ever so slightly. "You don't want to come because he'll be with the prince, and you're still angry with him for ignoring your needs as a person and instead thinking only of defeating the occupation army."

(in the back of his mind Tormod wondered how she'd done that)

"Well, y-yeah. Basically."

She sighed and shook her head. "All right…but stay here! We'll come right back once we've announced the good news."

She looked around and hurried away when she spotted Nolan. Sothe didn't follow her, instead catching Tormod's hand and ducking into the nearest supply tent. Then it was all hot kisses and wandering hands and—

"Fuuuck, Sothe," Tormod groaned, digging his nails into the rogue's arm as the other man nibbled his earlobe. "What's gotten into you?"

Sothe chuckled, pressing open-mouthed kisses onto the sage's neck, undoing the clasp that held his cloak together and letting it fall to the ground. "I'm happy." His hands were nimble and Tormod's belt joined his cloak moments later, and he was smiling as he lay on the ground behind a stack of crates. "You've exceeded my wildest expectations."

Briefly, Tormod decided that he should be annoyed by the implication there, but Sothe was sprawled on top of his cloak and smiling the way he never did for anyone else, and it would have been a waste not to take the opportunity. Instead, he straddled the rogue's hips, chuckling as Sothe dragged him down to kiss him again. The thief was hard, rocking against him and gripping his hips, and Tormod knew he was bright red when he vocalized (or at least attempted to vocalize) what they were both thinking.

"I—Sothe, I really want—that is, could we—I mean, do you want to—"

"Yes," Sothe purred, teeth scraping against the redhead's neck. "Absolutely. I miss you, Tormod. It's been so long. I want to feel you and be with you and know that nobody else has known you the way I do."

The sage swallowed. "I'd—I'd really like that." He chuckled as Sothe kissed him again. "But maybe not here."

"Why not?" The rogue's mouth trailed down his neck again, and he knew that Sothe had to be grinning. "We're hidden."

"Until the first person who comes in happens to hear something, or smell something, or we get too enthusiastic and knock something over," Tormod replied. Mentally he applauded himself for not letting his voice catch in his throat as the rogue nibbled his earlobe. "Tonight, Sothe. Wait until tonight. We'll have more time, and I know that by now Micaiah is probably going to be looking for you."

"I suppose you're right," Sothe sighed. "But that doesn't mean I like it."

"Well, I didn't say you had to like it."

Sothe rolled his eyes. "I don't like that I'm not still kissing you, either."

Tormod chuckled. "That problem I can fix."

())CRAYOLA))

"So—so I think I might like you back."

Edward cocked an eyebrow. Goddessdammit, he knew that he was bright red and grinning like an idiot, lips tingling. "Might? You don't kiss someone if it's just 'maybe', Leonardo."

"W-well, why not?" Now Leonardo was blushing too, avoiding his gaze. "I'm not sure about it either. But I've been thinking about what you said, and I've got no reason not to try. It makes sense, doesn't it?"

"No, Leo, it doesn't." His hopes crashed as quickly as they'd been lifted, and internally he began cursing himself. Wasn't this what he wanted? "You kiss someone if you like them. Not if you can't think of a reason not to kiss them."

"You said you like me, didn't you?" The blonde finally looked at him again, eyes as sharp as they were when they were in battle. "What's the problem?"

"I want you to like me back! Not just a maybe, but for sure!"

"Well, how exactly am I supposed to know? Does some sort of letter arrive for me and confirm the way I feel?" Leonardo groaned and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "I thought you'd be happy, Edward."

"I am!" he retorted. "But—"

"So then why are you making this so difficult?" Leonardo hissed. "What possible issue arises from me trying to see if we can make this work out between the two of us?"

"I just don't—"

Leonardo didn't let him finish, storming out of their shared tent and muttering under his breath.

He didn't come back at all that night.

())CRAYOLA))

"You've been fretting lately."

Micaiah jumped, shoving her glove back on. Goddess, she hoped she wasn't blushing. "I have not."

Rafiel smiled and sat next to her on the ground. "You have been. You try so hard to conceal it, but you cannot hide from me any more than the others can hide from you."

Micaiah snorted. "Of course. Just look straight into my heart, why don't you?"

Apparently sarcasm was not Rafiel's forte. Wordlessly he caught her right hand and pulled her glove off. His expression didn't so much as flinch when he saw the mark, and he examined it carefully, fingers tightening around her wrist when she tried to pull away.

"It's lovely," he finally said.

She had nearly snorted again. "It's disgusting," she muttered. She made no move to cover the mark. "There is nothing to like about the Brand."

"I don't see why not." Rafiel was still smiling, warm fingers tracing the lines that marked her as cursed. "So you carry the blood of the laguz. It doesn't matter. I'm sure there are some who would call you unnatural, but I certainly won't. You are a strong woman and capable of leading us in battle. You care for your family and friends and don't hesitate to right wrongs. There is nothing wrong with you."

Goddessdammit, she was tearing up. "Nothing wrong with me? I work beside you. I eat beside you. I have fought with you. You sleep in the tent next to mine, you take orders from me! I'm nothing! I don't belong anywhere!"

"Don't cry," he murmured. "Goddess, I did not mean to make you cry."

"I—y-you—"

Wordlessly he pulled her into his arms. It took a conscious effort not to squeeze the life out of him. Rafiel kissed her hair and wrapped his wings around them.

"You know that Sothe loves you," he finally murmured. "I have not felt such strong devotion between beorc in a very long time."

"He's my b-brother," Micaiah managed to say. "He's my only f-family."

He kissed her forehead. "And that man would do anything for you because you are his sister. You are the only family he has ever known. He loves you regardless of what you are, and you know that."

"He loves Tormod."

"You are the only family he has," Rafiel repeated. "He loves Tormod. I cannot disagree with you in regards to that. But he also loves you very much. Regardless of the mark that is on your skin." The heron squeezed her tightly. "And regardless of the mark on your skin, I care for you as well. I pray that if I ever have children, they are as strong as you are."

"You've only known me for a month."

He pulled away just enough to look her in the eye. "I know what it is I'm feeling. I care for you as a close friend, not as I care for—"

"Nailah," Micaiah murmured. "Not the way that you love Nailah."

He blinked. "No," he finally said. "I do not love you the same way I love Nailah. But I do care about you, Micaiah. Regardless of who your parents were."

For a long time they were silent. Rafiel finally broke the silence by asking how she'd known about Nailah. She hadn't been able to help smiling.

"I just did," she replied. "Sometimes I see people and I just know things about them, or I'll be walking somewhere and see something that's about to happen. When we were in Nevassa, running from the soldiers, one of them nearly killed a boy. I felt it not even a minute beforehand. I don't know how. I knew that something terrible was going to happen, and that it would be prevented if I managed to get there in time."

"So you can hear the spirits, then."

She shrugged. "I'm not sure I'd call it that. But I know things, impossible things. I can tell Sothe how he's feeling before he even realises it himself, and I do not have a particularly difficult time learning new magics. I suppose it could be the spirits, but I think that if it were them it would be more commonly heard of amongst mages."

Rafiel raised an eyebrow, considering. "You might be a descendent of the heron clan, then."

())CRAYOLA))

Inevitably, Edward came to the conclusion that he not even remotely in the wrong. It wasn't that he didn't want to pursue Leonardo, or be pursued back, but that fact of the matter was that Leonardo wasn't taking this seriously at all. What kind of person just kissed someone else out of sheer impulse? You had to be crazy to do something like that, even if the other party had already established where they stood. It wasn't as though this were something casual, either—Leonardo had very carefully gotten his attention, leaned in without hesitation, and made it quite clear what he was doing. On the lips.

And Edward had yelled at him afterward. But it wasn't as though he were the one in the wrong—it had been his mouth. And for Leonardo to shrug it off as though it were nothing, as though it hadn't meant the world to Edward…that had particularly hurt. Because why would you do something like that to someone and then tell them—

"Because it's better to be honest."

Edward nearly jumped out of his skin. Then he realized he'd said the last bit out loud. Leonardo sat next to him and clapped a hand onto his shoulder.

"Look, I don't want—"

"Shut up, Edward." Leonardo gave him a long, hard look before continuing. "I think you got the wrong idea. I meant what I said when I told you that I'm not sure about all of my feelings just yet. But that was not meant to imply that I would kiss anyone who expressed any sort of interest in me. I think that might have been the impression that you got."

"What other impression would I get?!" Goddessdammit, this was just frustrating. If it was supposed to be some kind of apology, Leonardo wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"I didn't kiss you because of any sort of…lack of qualm with doing so," Leonardo murmured, leaning in. "I did it because it was you, and not somebody else. I guess I want to be the one that you're thinking about kissing, instead of someone else being the centre of attention. But I wasn't quite sure what that meant."

His lips were nearly touching Edward's, and the myrmidon swallowed hard. "S-so does that—"

"So I guess that answers the question for us, doesn't it?"

Dammit, that still wasn't quite the answer that Edward had been looking for, but it was close enough. Leo's lips were on his for the second time in two days, the archer's fingers caressing his face. Edward knew he had to be bright red and when Leo pulled away he couldn't look the blond in the eye.

"I-I want you to be s-sure—" he began, but Leo kissed him again, more forcefully. This time Edward felt himself being pushed backward onto his bedroll, the archer leaning over him and grinning.

"Have you never kissed someone before?" Leo asked. "Is that why your feathers are so ruffled?" He must have taken Edward's silence to be agreement, and he chuckled softly. "Ashera, Edward, is that what this is about?"

"D-don't—"

Another kiss, and now Leo's tongue was involved. Edward pushed him away.

"No, I've never kissed someone before," he gasped. "A-and I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't w-want you to think I'm bad at it, or something." Then he remembered. "And I want to know for sure that you're doing it because—"

"Because I have feelings for you, stupid." Leo had a positively feral grin on his face. "I told you, I wouldn't be doing this with anyone else. I don't know if I love you, exactly, but I can at least say that I like being around you and I like that I'm making you all flustered from a kiss." His eyes were glittering as he leaned down, and Edward gasped as the blond licked a long, slow line up his neck. "Don't worry about doing it right." Teeth on his earlobe, a hand trailing across his chest. "I'll teach you."

It turned out that Leonardo was a terrific teacher.