Joshua lazily flipped a page in his book, and was impressed with how little his fingers seemed to tremble even as his heart threatened to beat right out of his chest. Under normal circumstances, the history of the humble cargo container would have been enough to keep him entrapped for hours. But now the paragraphs all blended together and he kept losing his spot. Honestly, the page turn had been more about keeping up appearances, and less about actually being ready to move on.

He risked a quick glance up. Estelle was still sitting by the water's edge and wasn't paying him any mind.

Trying to redirect some of this restless energy, he shifted in his camping chair. The usually-soothing ambient bird chirps and rustling leaves of the forest off the Manoria Byroad were doing nothing to slow his racing pulse. He didn't really think Estelle would notice that he wasn't actually reading his book (and that by extension, something was amiss). She was far too focused on the river and its inhabitants. But his failure at the restaurant had put him just a little on edge.

"Hah!"

Joshua jolted in his chair at the cry, and okay, maybe it was more than just a little.

"Got one!" Estelle crowed. She'd leapt to her feet, and was pulling back on the line to keep her catch hooked.

He took a deep breath, and then, calm as could be, set down his book and strolled towards the shore. If she was happy with this catch it would probably be the last one of the day. They'd had a wonderful day off, with beautiful spring weather, a picnic full of her favorites, and plenty of lazy kisses by the water's edge. The fishing was just the cherry on top. The walk home to their apartment in Ruan was straight out of a postcard, especially this time of day with the sun just touching down into the ocean. It would be the perfect proposal.

"Nice work" he complimented as he got closer. The current kept a consistent layer of silt moving beneath the surface, so it was difficult to make anything out in the murky water. But with the amount of splashing going on, it really looked like quite the catch.

"It's huge! Putting up-" Estelle cut herself off with a burst of excited laughter as the line jerked and she had to reel back in the opposite direction. "Putting up a heck of a fight!"

"I have complete faith." He sidled up behind her, resting his chin lightly on her shoulder.

"Struggle all you want Mr. Fish, you're gonna be delicious!" She cackled. "Joshua, taunt the fish about how good you're gonna cook it up!"

"Prepare to be lightly salted and drizzled in oil." A pause to consider what was left in their spice cabinet at home. "Maybe a dash of red pepper."

"You heard the man! Be afraid of the red pepper!"

Estelle fought with the rod and Joshua wrapped his arms around her from behind to help brace her. She didn't really need his help, but her triumphant cheering and laughter was contagious, and he couldn't help but try to soak it all in.

It felt like no time had passed, but when he finally managed to look away from Estelle again, the fish was much closer to shore.

"Alright, almost there." She announced, dropping the tip of the rod once more and quickly reeling in the slack. Estelle's prize was in the shallows now, and Joshua caught a flash of green flick above the surface.

That...hadn't looked like a fish.

Estelle shifted the rod to one hand and braced it under her arm to keep her catch from pulling away. But as she turned away to reach for the net she'd left on the ground, the thrashing on the other end of the line suddenly crescendoed.

In a burst, the definitely-not-a-fish lept from the water. What was probably its mouth bulged grotesquely as it reached the apex of its jump, and Joshua's eyes widened as he realized what was happening here.

"Get down!" He tackled Estelle to the ground, shielding her as best he could when the attack fired only half a moment later.

A grunt wrenched itself from his throat as a bunch of small somethings tore into his back. The thin shirt he'd worn today did absolutely nothing to soften the blows, and it felt only marginally less painful than shrapnel. It was hard to tell if the burning was a bad sign or a really Bad Sign.

"Joshua!"

"I'm fine." He bit out. Relatively, anyway. He'd been worse.

He started to rise, but Estelle beat him to the punch, rolling out from underneath him before he could say anything else. She charged into the shallows after their attacker, battle cry ringing out. Up on his elbows he was finally able to take stock of the thing. Rotund and flowered, it looked like another of the many variations of plant monster that made the area their home, the only real notable thing about it was its impressive size.

Cursing under his breath, he picked himself off the ground. He didn't have time for whatever wooziness the plant poison was trying to bog him down with, so he tuned it out like so much noise. Estelle was pummeling the plant monster with knees and fists to keep its attention off of him, but the blows didn't seem to be having much effect. He flinched as it laid a clean hit with a tentacle across Estelle's face, and she momentarily stumbled back, blood pouring from her nose.

Alright. His turn.

Joshua pushed off the ground and in an instant was back at the camper chair, grabbing his swords without bothering to clip on the sheathes. Another two leaps and he was on the monster, driving his blades into the ropey green flesh. It shrieked and batted at him with a tentacle, but he was already gone.

He caught Estelle's gaze and she nodded, falling back to focus on artes. Her orbment was shining from her hip, but her staff was with the picnic supplies, even further from shore than his swords had been. Running back to get it probably wasn't in the cards.

Surging forward once more, he slashed through the tentacles that came to meet him. On instinct he twisted to the left and in doing so caused the monster's jaws to close on nothing but air. As it overextended to make the chomp Joshua landed another clean blow through the mess of tentacles that seemed to make up the main body. There were no vital arteries to sever, so in practice the best strategy for these types was usually to separate the leg tentacles from the head/flower/whatever area.

Its mouth rippled and gurgled, and as seeds began to spill out it reared back for a repeat of its initial attack. Joshua braced himself for another assault, but a ring of rocks sprung into existence around him. With a crystalline twinkle the earth wall spun rapidly and knocked the seed projectiles away, dispersing as quickly as it had arrived.

Seizing the opening Estelle's support had given him, he lunged for the mouth and sliced clean through, seeds and putrid liquid sloughing into the river. A fire bolt whizzed over his shoulder, knocking the monster further off balance and exposing more of the tender inner vines.

One final strike and the grotesque, flower-like head was in two. The writhing mass of vines that made up the body seized and then went slack.

It was over.

He'd barely registered their combat link flare to life, but he missed the bright piece of Estelle in his mind as it faded away. He shook his blades lightly, and let the current carry away the last remnants of the monster grime.

Estelle had plopped down at the water's edge to catch her breath, and he carefully made his way back to her through the slippery bank. It seemed like the fight hadn't attracted any unwanted attention, the air was noticeably less tense than it had been a moment prior.

There were some mumbled curses from Estelle as he closed the last few arge. He looked her over with concern as he got closer, noting the blood trickling from her nose even as her healing arte reduced the swelling to almost nothing. "Are you okay?"

"That's my line y'know." She shot back good-naturedly, nose returning to roughly its normal shape. Joshua smiled and gingerly sat down next to her.

"Geeze, it really got you." Estelle assessed with a small laugh as she angled her head to take a closer look at his back.

Joshua grunted in agreement. He couldn't see the damage, but he could definitely feel it.

"Most of them bounced off, but it looks like a few made it through." There was a sharp pain in his shoulder as she presumably dug at one of the seeds. "Not too deep though, I'll get the tweezers."

If she cast Tear, the wounds would close over but the seeds would still be in there. They would probably work their way out or dissolve eventually, but it was better to get rid of them now since they had the chance. The clarity of purpose that battle brought had fallen away, and the wooziness was back with a vengeance.

Estelle returned with the first aid kit, and sat behind him. She took a moment to nudge him into a position that provided better access to the wounds. Once it seemed she was happy, there was a pause before she ran a soothing hand across the unhurt part of his back, the unspoken question was clear. He leaned into the touch slightly, letting her know he was ready. And with that she set to work.

At least the pain was a good distraction from the realization that proposal attempt number two had just gone up in flames. True, there was an argument to be made that there was plenty of time left in the day. And he hadn't even been planning on asking until they were halfway home. But despite the intimate space they shared as Estelle worked, he couldn't drum up the courage to bring his plans back on track. He wanted to do this right, and he didn't want Estelle associating such a precious memory with patching up his mangled back.

"What was it even doing in there?" She mused, pulling the first seed free.

"Maybe some of the orbal lamps are broken. Or it might be that they don't have enough power to cover the whole bank." He'd picked this location for how remote it was, determined to avoid a repeat of two weeks past. It seemed that perhaps he had overcorrected.

He winced as another seed was pulled free, this one a bit deeper than the first. "We should get the danger rating for this area updated on the map app until a tech gets sent out to look at it." He grit out.

"These new ARCUS functions are crazy. Remember when you just had to bother the guards for monster sighting info?"

"Next you'll be complaining about how they decoupled the orbment lineups from your ar-ah-" he bit back a yelp as the tweezers plunged into his back, "...arte options."

"That's you Mr. Spends-ten-minutes-trying-to-line-up-Silver-Thorn." Estelle hummed contentedly as another seed came free. "Also I wasn't complaining, I think it's neat." Joshua chuckled lightly, mostly because she was a little right. The new orbments were much more efficient about arte selection, but he did miss fussing with it sometimes. It would've been a nice distraction now.

"Okay, just one more, but I think it's pretty in there. Gonna have to dig a little."

He nodded slightly, consciously ignoring how raw his back already felt. "I'm surprised you didn't whack it with the fishing rod." The joke made it a bit easier as the tweezers went deeper.

"Heck no, I worked too hard for that thing." She laughed lightly at some image only she could see. "And it'd be a little too bendy y'know? My swing would've been all off."

"If you say so."

"Well I do say so, because I...got it!" It was all the warning he got before a painful tug shot through his arm, like she was trying to drag the bones out with it. But with a triumphant laugh from the impromptu nurse, there was a 'schlurp' and the tug was gone.

"Ew, this one started sprouting already." Because of course it had.

Finally, there was a faint blue glow and the sensation of warm water gently sweeping over his back. He couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped. It was followed by another arte, this one a gentle spring breeze tousling his hair, and as it blew by he could feel the last traces of nausea fade away with it. Estelle laid down a quick kiss on the now healed skin, and then another on the back of his arm where the last seed had made its stand.

"So…I'm guessing I should call it there today, huh?" She commented wryly, patting dirt and grime away as she stood. Joshua took the offered hand to pull himself up, and allowed himself an extra step forward so as to close whatever space was left between them.

"Thank you for patching me up." He laid a kiss on her forehead. "If you pull up another monster, I won't help you."

An obvious bluff, but she didn't call him out on it.

End notes: I always imagined that when Renne enrolled at Jenis, Joshua and Estelle moved to Ruan to stay close. It just doesn't seem right that they'd work so hard to find her and then live far apart just a few years later. Anyway, that's my excuse/headcanon for why they live in Ruan instead of Rolent.