*VERY IMPORTANT A/N*: This fic is pure self-indulgent fangirl trash. After nearly a year of dedicating every ounce of my mental energy towards my Berseria x Zestiria crossover project, Tales of Corzoria (and related fics) - which still didn't quite turn out in a way that I'm fully proud of, mind you, there's a lot I'd do differently if I were to write it all over again, but I still put a lot of work into it - I wrote this to reward myself for my hard work, and for no other reason. The only reason I am posting this fic for others to read is because there isn't NEARLY enough hot Zaveid action on this website, and I know I'm not the only one who claims Zaveid as their husbando. So just be warned, though this fic is still canon for my project, it is trash, which I wrote for no other reason than to have fun giving my Anime crush a happy ending and a good time - hell, the only reason I wrote Lucine in the first place was because I ship Zaveid with Edna but knew she wouldn't be around when the dust settled at the end of Tales of Corzoria, and I needed Zaveid to have someone. If you squint REALLY hard, maybe you can find some deeper meaning to certain parts of this story, but this is mostly here because Zaveid is awesome and deserves a break from being the butt of life's cruel, sick jokes, and because he's hot af. End of.

"Where are you taking me?!"

"Aw, you don't really want me to spoil the surprise, do you, angel?"

"Zaveid!"

It had been three years since Zaveid, Sahra, and Lucine had been released from the skypulse on the condition of telling the story of Kuksedra to the world, and a few weeks after they finished their first rounds of the world to tell that story. They had all agreed to take time between circuits to rest and give people time to think, and Zaveid had spent the break time hard at work on a surprise for Lucine. Now, as he led her across the Falkewin Hillside to show her the fruits of his labors, she pulled her hand out of his.

"Sahra would say going anywhere alone with you is a bad idea," Lucine stated, stepping away from him.

"Since when is Sahra your mother?" Zaveid exclaimed. "Come on, babe, you've known me for years; have I ever once done anything untoward?"

"…No," the water seraph admitted. "But…Sahra tried to advise me when we were human, and not listening to her was the worst mistake I ever made as Alisha…"

I really need to have another chat with Sahra, Zaveid thought, making a mental note to take care of this problem no later than the next morning. Courting Lucine was difficult enough as it was, and had so far gone almost worse than his attempts to woo Edna - for all his tireless efforts and dedication every waking moment, he hadn't even gotten to kiss her yet. "Look," he sighed, "I know that blessing of yours doesn't make you a mind-reader, but either you trust me, or you don't." He held out a hand for her to take, but didn't chase her. "And if you don't trust me, I gotta wonder what you've been letting me do since we escaped the skypulse."

"It's…not that I don't trust you," Lucine said slowly, eyeing his outstretched palm. "I just…don't know if I should."

"Well, you probably shouldn't," Zaveid admitted with a shrug. "But if you come with me anyway, I think you'll be glad you did. Come on, angel, I worked really hard on this."

"And what is 'this'?" Lucine asked, exasperated.

"I'm not gonna spoil the surprise," Zaveid stated. "You can head back to Ladylake if you want, I won't stop you, but something tells me you'll regret it if you do."

She didn't move.

"…Do you trust me, or not?" Zaveid asked firmly.

Lucine turned her head to look back in the direction of Ladylake, where Sahra was waiting, then back to him. "I…" She bit her lip, and Zaveid had no shame in seizing the excuse to admire the full, luscious curves of her mouth. "…Yes," she sighed at last, placing her hand in his, "I trust you, Zaveid." Her expression told him she thought she was making a horrible mistake, and though he knew she'd appreciate what he'd prepared for her, he also knew she wasn't wrong when it came to the big picture.

"Right this way, then," he told her with a smile, and he continued leading her across the grassy hills.

It took a while to reach the shaded grove Zaveid had finally settled on to construct his surprise, but Lucine didn't protest again. At last, they emerged into a small clearing among the trees, and Zaveid led her to the center before releasing her hand.

"All right," he said to her with a smile, "Now, sit down, get comfortable."

Lucine blushed, clearly nervous, but she knelt down in the grass as instructed.

Stepping back, Zaveid felt his smile widen with anticipation as he reached down and untied a small pouch from around his belt, right next to where Edna's plushie always dangled. "Catch," he told Lucine, tossing the bag at her abruptly.

"Huh?!" Despite being startled, Lucine managed to snag the pouch in her hands. "What's this?"

"Open it," Zaveid smirked, backing up a few more steps.

Again, Lucine obeyed despite her nerves, loosening the strings that held the bag closed before she reached inside and pulled out a small, soft object. "Is this…acorn meat?" she asked, confused. "You want me to eat these?"

"Nope," Zaveid replied, his back finding the trunk of a nearby tree, and he leaned against it as he summoned his wind powers to gently waft the scent of the open bag into the forest. "They're not for you."

"Then…what do you want me to do?" Lucine asked, clearly baffled and apparently not noticing the faint breeze.

"Just wait a moment," Zaveid answered - it took a tremendous amount of self-control to not snicker, but she was nervous enough as it was, and he couldn't risk scaring her off now. "You don't have to do anything, just relax."

Before she could ask any more questions, Zaveid closed his eyes, focusing entirely on the trickles of wind carrying the faint, almost-unnoticeable aroma through the surrounding forest as he led them to branch off in different directions and waft around certain trees. Come on, you little bastards, he thought, we've done this a dozen times, you just gotta work for me today and you'll never have to put up with my antics again…

Eventually, the response came, and Zaveid stifled a sigh of relief as he opened his eyes again to offer Lucine a smile that he hoped was reassuring. The water seraph sat stiffly, but at least she didn't run away; reading the wind, Zaveid counted the seconds until her fears would finally be dispelled.

At last, a rustling sound caught Lucine's attention, and Zaveid finally allowed a smirk to split his face as a single, fluffy-tailed rodent scurried into the clearing before freezing in place, liquid eyes focused on Lucine.

"Oh!" Lucine gasped at the sight of the squirrel. "Hello there, little one…um…would you like some?" She held out the chunk of acorn meat she'd taken out of the bag, offering it to the wary creature.

The Falkewin Squirrel's little nose twitched as it assessed the situation. Apparently not sensing a threat, it finally bounded up to Lucine's hand and plucked the shelled acorn from her fingers, gnawing at it greedily.

"You can pet it if you like," Zaveid told Lucine.

She turned to him in surprise, though he managed to catch the last remnants of her radiant smile.

He shrugged. "Squirrels might run at the sight of humans, but they don't mind us seraphim," he explained; "a buddy of mine used to tell me all the time about how much he missed petting Falkewin Squirrels. Go on," he added, smirking again, "I know you want to."

The squirrel was finishing its treat when Lucine turned back to it, and she quickly handed over another chunk of acorn meat before gingerly reaching out a hand and lightly stroking the fluffy tail. "Oh!" she gasped again, petting the little rodent a bit harder, and it scurried closer to her, giving her a better reach as she ran her fingers down its back. "Oh my," she breathed. "Oh, aren't you just the most precious little thing?"

Chittering from the treeline caused her to lift her head, as several more Falkewin Squirrels bounded across the clearing to her. She quickly reached into the pouch and pulled out a handful of acorn meat, which she proffered to the newcomers.

Sighing contentedly, Zaveid relaxed as Lucine quickly made friends with the seven or so squirrels that had come in response to his summons - the largest turnout he'd ever seen. They seemed to like Lucine a lot more than they had ever liked him, Zaveid noted, but he could hardly blame them for that; the water seraph had nothing but smiles and treats for all of the fluffy creatures, trying to pat all of them at once as they climbed all over her, nuzzling her and batting at the white curls at the ends of her sapphire-blue locks. She laughed with sheer delight, grinning as she tried to keep up with them, and Zaveid drank in the sight. Melphis Amekia…For a man who'd had no interest in women, Sorey had picked a damn fine true name for her in her human life, and it was even more perfect for her as a water seraph now - that smile was the most beautiful thing Zaveid thought he'd ever seen in his many centuries of life, and the withered remains of his heart almost felt like they swelled as he watched her joy.

Admittedly, his ruined heart wasn't the only part of him that wanted to swell, but even after three long, painful years of chastity, he was still adept at keeping his desires from manifesting physically at inopportune times.

Lucine started giving the squirrels cutesy names as they continued hounding her for food and affection, both of which she gave them in abundance. Though the squirrels all looked the same to Zaveid, he had zero doubts that she could tell which was which when she referred to one as "Floofy" and another as "Poofy". He didn't need her blessing to know that she was purely, truly, completely happy as she played with the squirrels, and as she did, an incredible thought occurred to him.

I did this, he realized, amazed by the idea. Through only my own efforts and nothing else, I made someone genuinely happy. I made someone's life just a little better, in a way that won't hurt her when she thinks back on it later. I did that. Me.

Hours passed, and Zaveid stood back and watched, almost able to vicariously feel some traces of happiness himself; even when the acorn meat ran out, the squirrels seemed equally infatuated with Lucine herself, as much as she was with them, and she hugged and pet them all, laughing when their tails got caught in her hair. It wasn't until dark fell that the squirrels started to leave at Lucine's insistence, as she gently crooned to them that they needed to go home, still giggling and petting them even as she tried to nudge them away. One by one, they reluctantly scurried and bounded off, until at last Lucine managed to send the final squirrel away - "Little Puff", she called that one, though Zaveid thought it didn't look any smaller than the others. Finally, the rodents were gone, and Lucine got to her feet, clutching the now-empty pouch.

"Glad you came?" Zaveid smirked, speaking for the first time since the squirrels had come, and he sauntered over and took back the little bag, tying it back to his belt.

"Y-Yes," Lucine stammered, her smile almost even more radiant in the moonlight. But as he watched, that same smile dimmed slightly. "Zaveid, tell me, and tell me truly…was all of that just…an illusion you conjured?"

"No illusions here," Zaveid assured her, spreading his hands. "Those were real-live Falkewin Squirrels. Edna once mentioned to me that you liked 'em in your human life, and I took a gamble that you still did. Like I told ya, a buddy of mine used to tell me about the fluffy squirrels he used to live with that would always let him pet them, and knowing where he used to live, I knew the squirrels he loved so much had to be Falkewin Squirrels. 'Course, they're a lot more rare now than they were back when I knew him, and a lot more skittish; it took ages to find the best possible spot in this forest to attract the most at once, and even longer to train them to come at the smell of shelled acorns-"

"Wait, that's what you've been doing since we came back to Ladylake?!" Lucine exclaimed.

"Huh? Oh, yeah," Zaveid shrugged, offering her a lazy smile. "Yep, I've been finding and training Falkewin Squirrels for ya."

"But…" Lucine blinked. "But…But Sahra always said you were-"

"Whatever Sahra said I was doing, she was wrong," Zaveid cut her off firmly. There was no need to tell Lucine the whole truth - that he'd been tempted, sorely tempted, and sometimes only the little nor doll tied to his belt serving as a reminder that Edna was watching from above kept him from going babe-hunting; the fact was, he hadn't strayed, and that was all that mattered. "Ever since we got back, I've been hard at work on this and nothing else, all for you, angel. And it was absolutely worth it," he added, cracking another grin.

Lucine stared at him, her eyes wide, her jaw slack. Then, all at once, she lunged at him, her arms going around his head, and she crushed her lips against his.

For a brief moment, it was pure reflex that had Zaveid returning her kiss, but then it sank in: He was kissing Lucine. That was his last moment of full consciousness before he sank into a euphoric trance, his arms going around the water seraph and pulling her closer as he kissed her harder, his tongue lashing out between her teeth as their mouths opened and closed against each other, tasting her greedily. She was even more delicious than he'd dreamed; she tasted like the air just after a gentle rain in summer, mixed with a flavor akin to the way a lilac smelled - sweet and delicate and refreshing and pure, just like her.

Weaving his fingers into her sapphire hair with one hand, he kissed her even harder, hungrily, not even noticing her clumsy, inexperienced attempts to reciprocate. He couldn't get enough of her. It was as though he'd been wandering lost in a barren desert for centuries, pretending to drink from every mirage he came across, and had suddenly found a trickle of water leaking out from a crack in a stone - just a trickle, but real water, real life. He felt a droplet of that life fall through the hollow void where his soul had once been now, splashing against the cold, dead remains of his heart with a plink!…and, incredibly, impossibly, he felt those remains shudder and stir, as though he wasn't completely dead inside, a faint echo of what it was like to feel alive.

Desire had long since crossed the line into need, he needed Lucine, clutching her against him and kissing her wasn't enough. Absolutely no thought went into the movement as he ran the hand in her hair down her neck to the bow just above where her spear was holstered against her back and pulled it undone, clawing at the laces that held her dress in place and pushing the fabric off her shoulder-

Suddenly, Lucine yelped against his mouth and shoved at him, struggling free of his embrace before he could think to tighten his grip and stumbling back a few steps. Zaveid blinked, hands outstretched, dazed and disoriented by the sudden lack of Lucine in his arms; after a moment of dizziness, he reached for the little plushie dangling from his belt and squeezed it a few times to ground himself - Edna had been right, throttling the nor doll did wonders for a person's self-control. Lucine, meanwhile, clutched her dress against her chest with one hand, her other hand frantically reaching behind her back to tug at the laces of her garment, as though she intended to tie them one-handed.

"S…" Zaveid cleared his throat and tried again. "Sorry," he managed at last, cracking a smile. "Got a little carried away there."

She didn't respond, still scrabbling at the loose strands of her dress's ties. "This damn dress," she grunted to herself. "Why did I have to come into being wearing this…?"

"Hey, stop scrambling like that, you're just gonna make it all lopsided!" Zaveid exclaimed. Reaching out to her, he stepped forward. "Here, lemme tie 'em-"

Lucine jerked away from him, her eyes wide and fearful.

The movement cut deep, wiping away any leftover euphoria from her kiss, and Zaveid froze. "What kind of man do you think I am, Lucine?" he asked in a low voice.

"I think," she replied, "you're the kind of man who would use his Heaven-granted powers to spy on girls in a sauna!"

"Sahra told you about that, did she?" Zaveid sighed. Of all the things to keep coming back to bite him in the ass…

"Yeah," Lucine said, grabbing at the laces of her dress all the more wildly, "and Edna confirmed it!"

Zaveid blinked. "She did, huh?" he asked softly, and he glanced up at the sky, where he knew Edna stood among the stars. Thanks a lot, babe…

"Do you deny it?"

He sighed again, heavily. "Sweetheart," he said, "I'm not gonna stand here and tell you I'm proud of every single thing I've ever done in my life. But there is a world of difference between peeping in on girls in a sauna and-" The ugly word caught in his throat, and after a moment, he decided that was probably a good thing. "And forcing myself on a woman," he finished instead.

No response met this declaration; Lucine seemed entirely focused on trying to fix her dress without giving him a chance to see any of her body, all while staying completely out of his arm's reach.

"Look, when a lady says no, she means no, and I respect that!" Zaveid insisted. "It won't stop me from asking again, but as long as the answer is no, I'd never…just…I'd never, okay? Let me fix the laces on your dress - please. No funny business, I swear; I'm the one who untied 'em, I'll fix 'em back up. You're not gonna make any progress carrying on like you are."

After struggling with her garment for another minute, Lucine finally seemed to realize her efforts were futile, and she fixed Zaveid with a sharp glare as she reached back and grabbed her spear, drawing it and brandishing it, the threat clear. She might as well have stabbed the weapon through his chest, but he inclined his head to show that he understood. With one last, wary glance, she reluctantly turned around, still clutching her dress to her front, exposing its ties to him.

Taking a deep breath, Zaveid stepped forward and assessed the damage. "Alright," he sighed, "you pulled the right lace too tight, it's all messed up now; I'm gonna have to undo both ribbons a ways before I can fix 'em up right. Please don't kill me."

Her shoulders tensed, but a slight bob of the white curls just below the nape of her neck told him she had heard.

Moving as quickly as possible, Zaveid tugged the crisscrossing ribbons out of their loops, almost all the way down to the small of her back, nervous that she'd turn around and stab him any second. Finally, the laces were undone enough that he could even them out, and as soon as they were, he started threading them back up again. He didn't have to ask her if he was pulling too tight - he'd spent more than enough time staring at those ribbons and fantasizing about pulling them apart to know exactly how they looked when they were done up properly. The worst part was when he neared her shoulders and the inner fold of her dress ended, leaving the ribbons crossing over bare skin; Zaveid couldn't entirely avoid brushing his fingertips against her, nor could he completely suppress the little sparks that danced up his arms and down to his loins every time he inadvertently did so. His movements started to get a bit clumsy, but he bit the inside of his mouth and forced himself to keep working.

At last, the laces were threaded through the top loops, and he tied them in a bow, though having to press them against the bare back of her neck to do so was almost painful for him. Finally, the tie was done, and he quickly walked backwards several steps away from her, palms outstretched. "All done," he told her. "See? Nothing to worry about."

Lucine turned, still holding her dress against her chest. Slowly, reluctantly, she released her grip on her garment, as though she expected it to fall off the moment she let it go. It didn't, Zaveid knew full well how to thread a woman's bodice, but when she tugged at the high neckline as though not believing it was really secure, he had to reach down and squeeze the Phoenix plushie dangling from his belt to suppress his frustration. Still, she eventually accepted that he'd been true to his word, and she finally holstered her spear across her back.

Neither of them spoke for a long minute.

"Alright," Zaveid sighed at last, "what am I not getting here?"

She blinked.

"I don't find myself confused by women very often, but I feel like I have a right to be a little baffled right now," he went on.

"Why?" she asked.

"You kissed me," he reminded her pointedly. "You're the one who touched me first, and now you're acting like you don't even trust me to come within arm's reach of you. Care to explain?"

"I…should not have kissed you," Lucine mumbled, looking away from him, and ice flooded Zaveid's seraphic veins. "It was a mistake. I apologize."

"Lucine…" Zaveid shook his head, completely bewildered, and he struggled with words for a long minute. "…I…you…What the hell do you think you've been letting me do for the last three years?!" he finally managed to cry.

The water seraph winced.

"Did you think I've been by your side for three years straight, doing everything in my power to make you smile, because I wanted us to just be friends?!" he demanded. "You're the one who said you wanted to take it slow, and I've been doing my best to respect that, thinking we had an understanding that 'later' didn't mean 'never'! Have you just been leading me on all this time?!"

"No, I - no, it's not like that," Lucine stammered. "It's just that…I thought you'd understand by now."

"Understand what?!" he exclaimed.

"Understand that I'm not who you think I am!" she shouted.

"And who do I think you are, exactly?" he asked.

In response, she grasped her left forearm in her right hand, shifting uncomfortably. Her mouth opened, but sound didn't come out right away; she seemed to struggle with herself before finally looking up and blurting out in a rush, "Edna told me about her!"

Zaveid blinked. "Who?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Zaveid!" Lucine all but sobbed.

"Babe, seriously, I have no idea who you're talking about right now," Zaveid informed her.

"Your…your woman," she said hesitantly. "You know…Theodora."

At the unexpected sound of the name, Zaveid stumbled back a step, all the breath choking out of his lungs as though he'd been kicked in the stomach. Gripping Edna's keepsake tightly, he ground out, "Why would she tell you something like that?"

"So I'd understand why you kept staring at me when you thought I wasn't looking," Lucine replied.

Groaning exasperatedly, Zaveid rubbed his free hand over his face. Women have eyes in the backs of their heads, I swear…

"I felt so horrible when she told me!" Lucine went on tearfully. "To have loved someone so deeply and then lost her in such a horrible way, and now here I am taunting you with her face…I know you must hate me, when you aren't just using me to see her again-"

"Wait, you think that's what all this is about?!" Zaveid yelped. "You think I think you're her?!"

"Was Edna lying, or mistaken?" Lucine asked.

"Well, no," he admitted, "but-"

"I can't be the woman you lost, Zaveid," she went on.

"That ain't why I-"

"I'm sorry I look like her, but I'm not her-"

"I know, and I don't want you to-"

"-so stop acting like I can be-"

"Look, what do you want me to say?!" Zaveid finally roared at her. "You want me to tell you you don't look anything like Theodora, that the resemblance isn't scary as hell and not being able to help comparing you to her at first isn't the reason I ended up noticing things about you, and that ain't how we ended up here?! Or do you want me to say I've forgotten all about her, that the only other woman I've ever loved with all my heart is nothing but a distant memory and means nothing to me anymore?! Because I can't tell you any of those things, Lucine, no matter how much you want me to!" Overwhelmed, he turned his back on her, furiously squeezing the little doll dangling from his belt as he struggled not to scream or cry or worse.

A long, painful minute passed, the clearing silent. Then…

"…Other?"

Lucine's sudden, soft question made him jump, and he turned around to see her looking at him with wide, astonished eyes. "Huh?" he questioned.

"The only…other woman…you've ever loved?" she asked.

Zaveid blinked. "Did I say that?" Alarmed, he quickly played back his own words in his head, and was forced to give a humorless chuckle at the realization. "Guess I did, didn't I…?" he mused.

For a minute, they just gazed at each other, both equally dumbstruck. Then, Lucine blinked and looked away abruptly. "Of course," she mumbled, "you mean Edna."

"What?! No, I - GAH!" Zaveid exclaimed, grabbing his temples. How many things could possibly go wrong tonight? Breathing hard, he forced one hand down to squeeze the little nor plush. Good thing it's not actually Phoenix, or he'd start complaining about workplace conditions right about now. "No," he sighed at last, opening his eyes to face Lucine, "I don't mean Edna. Edna…" He considered his words carefully. "Edna…is…family. It's different with her, it's complicated…but no, I don't mean her." He knew what Lucine wanted him to add, but he couldn't even think the words, let alone say them. With Edna on his mind, he could almost hear her biting, emotionless voice in his head: "Just say it, dummy, you already said it once." But that had been an accident, a slip of the tongue; to consciously, intentionally admit to something like that was beyond him, because in truth, he wasn't sure he believed it. Even if he did, to say he loved someone 'with all his heart' nowadays meant something very different from what it would have meant just over fifteen hundred years ago…

Lucine didn't say anything in response. Her violet eyes were washed silver in the moonlight, and he wondered what exactly her blessing was telling her.

When it became clear that she wasn't going to be the next to speak, he sighed, racking his brains. What exactly is a guy supposed to say to a woman when he's not trying to just flirt her out of her dress for the night? For most of the possible things he thought to say were geared more towards that kind of goal. Taking a breath, he decided to just tell the truth. That usually worked, right? "It's true that you look…scarily similar to…to Theodora," he confessed, his tongue tripping over the name for a moment. "First time I saw you, I thought you were her, and for a good while after I realized otherwise, I couldn't stop comparing you to her, constantly. And that's how I noticed, really early on, that…you're nothing like her at all."

"Oh?" Lucine asked, blinking in surprise.

"Yeah," he answered. "Any time I try to compare you two, it amazes me just how different you are." Out of habit, he cracked a smile. "To take the most recent example," he added, "Theodora wouldn't've pushed me away just now."

Another confused blink was Lucine's only response to this.

"Theodora wasn't the type to take things slow," Zaveid informed her. "She was more of a full-speed-ahead, all-in-on-the-first-hand kinda girl. 'Fear is just a shackle that gets in the way of living,' she used to say."

"And you liked that about her," Lucine said; it wasn't a question.

Zaveid shrugged. "Sure," he readily admitted. "I was young. I liked everything in life hard and fast, just like her…and when I was with her, I didn't think, I didn't wait around or hold back, because she didn't, and I wanted to keep up with her. We dove into everything in the world headfirst, together, no time for second guesses and no room for regrets. That was who she was…and who I was, who I could be, who I wanted to be, when I was with her. It's…" He shook his head, dragging himself back to the present. "It's different with you. You…make me want to slow down, worry about consequences and actually make plans, linger a bit and see what's in front of me…and…" For a moment, he debated with himself, then decided to go for broke: "You make me want to protect you," he confessed in a rush.

"Protect?" Lucine repeated, her violet eyes unreadable.

"I don't mean like…Lucine, you're a damn fine warrior, I know I don't need to protect you in a fight," Zaveid elaborated. "But you just…you care, so damn much - that much, at least, you have in common with…with her, but you wear it differently. It's like everyone in the world is a part of you. Every time you think you've let someone down, you act like you've let yourself down; any time someone else gets hurt, their pain is your pain. And it ain't just that blessing of yours, either, you're just so…open. And life…life is damn good at telling cruel, sick jokes. This world delights in hurting people like you. And I don't want to see you hurt."

Speaking of hurt, it was starting to hurt him, all this openness and honesty; he had to cut it short, or he'd fall apart. Taking a deep breath, he held out one hand to her, not taking even a single step closer.

"Look," he sighed, "if you've just been humoring me all this time because you felt guilty about who you happen to look like, let me know now so we can…end this charade, and I hope…I hope we can still be friends." The words hurt to say, but he knew he had to say them. "But if for some reason, you care for me too, even a little, then just know that I…" He what? The words still stuck in his throat, held back by the fear that he did not, could not, mean them. He tried again. "I promise that I…" That he what? What could someone like him honestly promise to someone like her? "I…I won't hurt you," he managed at last. "I promise I won't hurt you, if you just give me a chance."

Lucine eyed his outstretched hand warily, her own right hand going to grasp her left forearm again. To prevent herself from reaching out to him? "I…" she said slowly. "It's not that I…but…but Sahra would tell me I shouldn't…"

Zaveid let out an exasperated sigh. "Look," he grumbled, "in Sahra's defense, I asked her to put you off from me, okay?"

"Oh?" Lucine exclaimed. "But why?!"

"To protect you," he admitted. "A sweet girl like you, all hung up on a guy like me? I couldn't have that, you'd only get hurt." He turned his gaze to the sky for a moment, to where Edna was hopefully watching him spill his guts for something he knew he didn't deserve, just like she'd asked him to. "It took a good talking-to from my family to get me to realize how stupid I was being," he said softly, and he returned his eyes to his water seraph. "Maybe I can't give you everything a whole man can give you, maybe I can't give you everything you need and deserve, but I can give you everything I've got, and there's nothing else I'd rather do with my life." A beat, then he forced himself to add, "And when I say 'you', I mean you. Not Theodora, not the human princess you used to be, you, the person you are now - Lucine, Melphis Amekia the water seraph. No one else."

There was no more room for honesty; just laying his cold, dead heart bare like this had taken everything he had. Still, Lucine eyed his hand, gnawing her lip as she hugged herself.

"I thought…I was conceited," she finally said. "To think that you could…that you would…that I would ever be anything to you but…but a replacement for the one you lost-"

"You're not her replacement," Zaveid told her seriously.

She met his eyes. "Then what am I?" she asked.

Unprepared for the question, and already exposed and vulnerable in ways he had never been, Zaveid opened his mouth and simply vomited the truth: "You're my reason to live."

Her lips parted in a gasp; her eyes told him that she could tell, through her blessing, how much it had cost him to say that, how much he meant those words. Slowly, she removed her hand from her forearm…and placed it in his.

Sucking in several lungfuls of air all at once, Zaveid gripped her hand and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her as he gasped for breath, panting as though it had been centuries since the last time he'd let himself inhale. Lucine's form fit against his, her face pressed against his chest, as he breathed in the scent of her hair: cleansing and refreshing, like the grass after a gentle summer rain.

"I won't hurt you," he whispered to her, his chest still heaving. "I will never let anything hurt you. So long as I have any say, nothing will ever hurt you again. I promise."

"I know," she murmured. "I…I trust you, Zaveid." She pulled back slightly to look up at him, her fingers skimming along his tattooed chest, and he felt his whole body tingle in response. "I am glad I came with you today," she told him; "I'm glad we finally had this conversation, so we didn't have to keep assuming the worst about each other."

You should assume the worst, Zaveid thought. I'm the worst you could ever find, whether I want to be or not.

Meeting her eyes, her hair gilded in moonlight, Zaveid suddenly remembered this same situation with another water seraph, one who had also once been his reason to live, one he'd also sworn to protect…and how, in trying to sacrifice himself to save that seraph from a horrible doom, he'd ended up saving himself and leaving her to an even worse fate.

She needs to know, he realized. Lucine needs to know what a failure I am, that even in doing my best to protect her I might destroy her, just like I did with Theodora. She needs to know…

"I'll talk to Sahra tomorrow," he finally said aloud, "and…and you, too. I owe you both several truths I've been keeping from you. But…not tonight. Tomorrow."

"I know you're carrying burdens," Lucine said softly. "If you'd share them with me, I would be happy to bear them with you."

If you only knew…

Before he could even say anything else, she leaned up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his, softly, gently.

Plink! Shudder.

As he kissed her back, equally gently, he again felt that sensation of a droplet of life falling through the empty chasm where his soul had been and splashing against all that was left of his heart, and felt those few, withered remains shiver in response. To be dead inside was his only fate, or so he had thought for so long; but somehow, Lucine brought life to the lifeless, brought him higher than he'd ever thought he would be again, and even if he didn't deserve it, even if he knew he could only ever destroy anyone who got close to him in the end, he also knew he would always cherish her for all she was worth.