I'm Just a Killer for Your Love!

Nepheli Loux let out a long sigh and started once more over the charts. In the center of her study's wide desk was a large map of the southern Lands Between, fastidiously marked-up and updated by hand in recent days as conditions to sluggishly, stubbornly, improve. It was three steps forward and two steps back, but it was still progress. Columns and rows of named conscripts both accounted for and not. Detailed reports on mines, farms, churches and wells and their status as of Godrick's defeat. Were they overrun with rioting demi-humans? Were the soldiers gone mad there? Had toxic wildlife encroached yet? If any of these things were true–how long, approximately, until they were back under control of the Lord's throne?

"Careful now, you'll end up like Gideon."

Nepheli straightened up impulsively to find Dandelion, Stormveil's tarnished savior, approaching from the corridor. He gave a wave, stopping in the threshold to set down a burlap sack just out of the way.

"Welcome back," she nodded in his direction, "and thank you for the warning. I'm not sure glasses would compliment my image, not to mention a hunchback. What've you brought?"

"Armor crests." Dandelion fished one out of the sack. It was an embossed brass plate about the size of his head and slightly thicker than a coin. On it was, of course, the Beast and Tree seal of the Golden lineage. "Kenneth said you were planning on reissuing them when you instated the new guard."

"He told you that?" Nepheli smiled sardonically. "He must know my plans better than I do. Very well, leave them there. It's a good idea. Is he still awake, this late?"

"He was when I got back about ten minutes ago. So was that damn gatekeeper, who let me in. And Boc, who helped me take these crests off the armor. And Bernahl, who relieved me of the heaping pile of swords I collected…"

"...Well, I suppose no one can say we aren't industrious here at Stormveil." The Lady of the castle seemed relieved. "I'm glad everyone is working hard, given all you've done–we can't afford to squander the opportunity you've given us, here." She paused. "Did you happen to see Sellen on your way in?"

"If she was here, she was well-hidden."

"Curious."

"Speaking of which." The young man continued with a knowing expression. "I'll be back in touch with Jerren the Witch Hunter soon. There's a lot of stout folks left with their wits in Caelid. You'd be surprised. Doesn't look like Radahn is getting a successor anytime soon, so Jerren is trying to set up arrangements for some of his old guard regiment to find work elsewhere. Let me know your decision soon, and I'll have Blaidd send word to him."

"I can't thank you enough." Nepheli gave a shallow bow of her head. "Will the Half-Wolf be joining us, then?"

"Not tonight, he took off already."

"Well, that's one inconvenience out of the way." She laughed. "Pardon my manners, but I'd hate to find a bed big enough for him on short notice. Compared to your giant jar friend, he's a lot less convenient to put up for a night!"

"Not to mention his appetite. I don't blame you!" Dandelion laughed too. "'Course, looks to me like nobody's sleeping around here. All hands on deck, all the time, huh?"

"I think your new friend has lit a fire under us all." Nepheli's smile softened.

"That's funny," the man jerked his thumb toward the hall, "because I'm pretty sure she's the only person in the whole castle who's fast asleep."

"I suppose she really isn't much to be afraid of, then, after all. I was taking a real chance on your word, Dandelion."

"I know. I owe you one."

"No, I'm quite certain we're all still firmly in your debt." Nepheli waved away the notion. "In any case, what's your relation to her? If you don't mind my asking."

"She's my partner. I can't say how far she plans on following me, but I hope to keep her around as long as I can."

"Your partner?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah," Dandelion looked away, "we're, like… Y'know…"

"I don't," Nepheli snickered, "I really have no idea, actually."

"I wish I could tell you more, but I really don't even know her that well." The young man sighed. "But!" He stuck his finger in the air. "I'm working on it. I am working on it!"

"I'll be rooting for you," the Lady of Limgrave bowed lightly again, "and once more, thank you for all your help. Stay as long as you like, of course."

Dandelion found his way back to the barracks, which in spite of the castle's disrepair were comfortably sparse. On one of the many cots was lying Tiche, whose sleeping form was so akin to a corpse that the tarnished had nearly missed her when he'd first arrived. It was late, so much so that the moon was already tracking back down the sky, and after hearing Kenneth describe all the monotonous, silly chores he'd put her up to, it was no wonder Tiche was tired. As promised, three days had elapsed since Dandelion and the assassin had parted ways. He found himself bubbly with glee that, although there hadn't been a promise, Tiche was still here.

And she had her hood off.

Don't be a creep, now, Dandy. The tarnished chastised himself after looking for a second too long. He carried his bedroll to a cot not directly adjacent to hers, confident that a one-cot space between them was probably, maybe okay. After setting up his bed, he doffed his armor and took a seat. He pulled a small, loosely-bound book from his pack and stared down at a blank page for a moment. His eyes flitted back up to Tiche. No, back down to the page. He thought about his day and the beautiful terrain he'd ridden through. Then he looked back up at Tiche. No, no. What about the feeling of nostalgia he'd gotten while eating lunch on that crumbling wall…? He snuck another glance at Tiche.

Then he stopped messing around and just looked at her like he really, really wanted to.

She was sleeping in her armor, of course, but it looked like it'd been cleaned and maybe even repaired. Perhaps Boc's work. Her hands were crossed on her chest, very much like a dead body lying in a coffin, especially with the way she was totally flat and still on her back. Her face was in plain sight for the first time since her accident. Her skin was the color of tree bark in winter, touched just slightly at the cheeks and forehead with the rosy glow of life. Even in sleep, her lips pulled taut into a resting scowl, but Dandelion thought it fit her–if only because he could usually see that same scowl barely peeking out from under the shadow of her hood. She had long eyelashes, black at their roots that grayed to nearly white at the end. Her wavy hair was much the same, chopped inexpertly off at her shoulder and tangled around itself, neglected almost perpetually beneath her cowl.

"That is quite enough."

Dandelion leapt backward, startled by the sudden sound of Tiche's voice. She slowly swiveled and sat up to look down at him.

"Are you done?" She fumed. "Are you satisfied yet?"

"You scared the piss outta me!" The tarnished chuckled nervously, clutching his chest. "I thought you were–how long have you been awake?"

"The whole time, imbecile." Tiche pouted. "I thought if I ignored you for long enough, maybe you would wisen up and back off. Perhaps you need a less subtle lesson?" She stood to tower over him and began slowly cracking her knuckles.

"No–I was–that was just–uh…" Dandelion scooted across the floor in a panic. "Listen, Tiche, don't be mad! I wasn't really even–"

"-What's this?" The assassin halted, stooping down to pick up something he'd dropped. It was the little leather book. She sneered, flipping through the pages to skim it. "I see now. Documenting my weaknesses? Devising a plot to kill me? Or worse…? I should have…" She paused to read the contents of the small volume.

Green, green.

Tell me tales of lands I've never seen.

I'll open up and swallow them down

To frolic through them evermore

And live them in a dream.

Blue, blue!

Show me all the faces I once knew.

Set every one of them before me

And remind me if I forget:

"You can't take them with you!"

"Ah… Um…" Tiche faltered, flipping to another, more recent page.

Mist above the lake

Like her, I cannot reach it

Fades as I draw near

Great walls of old stone

Time and weather slowly gnaw

at you, as at her.

Death, unrelenting

Share with me your dearest daughter

Assassin of love

so fair?

in black?

"Th-This is…" Tiche was already flipping to another page, too enthralled in the words scrawled in ugly handwriting to realize how fantastically red her face had grown. "What are…?"

Before she could even finish speaking, the breath was knocked from her lungs as Dandelion bowled the both of them over in a flying tackle.

"That's not mine!" He howled, desperately grasping for the book as Tiche clasped it tightly to her chest. "It's–I'm holding it for a friend!"

"Let go of me!" Tiche growled, desperately trying to shove Dandelion away while keeping a hold of his book. "This is yours! Confess! Confess!"

"I just–I picked it up off a dead soldier!" The tarnished dug in deeper, wrenching his arms around Tiche's shoulders as they fumbled around on the floor. "Er, uh, it's from the Carian Library, those are just–"

"Liar!" Tiche managed to use his weight against him as he tried to pin her down. She was no expert in grappling, but her size advantage was more than enough to secure the win in a light scuffle like this. She carefully passed the booklet into one hand and, rolling Dandelion onto his back in a surprisingly agile twist, pinned him with her knee between his legs and her free hand trapping his wrists. Victorious, the assassin stared him down from above. "Admit it! Admit you wrote these!"

"Why do you care?" Dandelion hissed, his voice wavering.

"Admit it!" Tiche drew nearer, forcing more of her weight onto him. "Confess!"

"Th-They're–" The young man swallowed, looking away. His voice softened. "-F-For my mom…?"

"Liar!" Tiche pressed.

"Sh-Shuddup!" Dandelion overheated, his face boiling red from the exertion and embarrassment. Then, however, in the depths of his darkest hour, a realization struck him. He opened his eyes wide, set his jaw, and stared hard back up at Tiche. "So what? So what if they are mine, huh? So what if I've been writing cute little poems about some cute little assassin, huh?"

Tiche realized at last how extremely close together their faces had been, and how firmly their eyes had been in contact for the past several seconds. All the small, embarrassing slights she'd felt against her confidence since she'd been resurrected seemed to compound into one. Rather, every embarrassing moment together so far had built up a certain tolerance inside of Tiche, and then in a single instant that wall of resistance was blown away by a tidal wave of strange, mushy, gooey feelings boiling over from an extremely deep cauldron of suppressed something buried within her.

"I-I'm…" She stammered, then opened her mouth and spoke quietly. "...I'm not cute. And I'm not little."

"D-Didn't say I was talking about you." Dandelion scoffed weakly, having regained just enough composure to bluff a little longer. "But even if I was, what do you care, huh? They're just stupid poems I write sometimes. When I'm bored."

"Are they true?" Tiche asked and immediately regretted it. "Er, I mean…"

"They're just me rambling, I don't know." Dandelion shied away again for a second, but finally put some strength into his arms. "H-Hey, come on, get off of me and gimme my book back, you jerk!"

"Fine!" Tiche spat, releasing the tarnished and scrambling away at last. "I don't know anything about poetry, but you… You should… You have to keep that stuff in, you hear me!" She fumed. "You can't just go spilling out weird emotions and things, and saying all kinds of pretty stuff about nature, and–and…" Her lip trembled. "...You're gonna give somebody the wrong idea, you know!"

"Th-That's why I keep it a secret!" Dandelion grumbled meekly, snatching his book up off the ground. "I gotta do something with all this crap!" He poked himself in the chest. "If you weren't so nosey, this wouldn't be a problem!"

"What do you mean you have to do something with it?" Tiche scowled. "Just… Just ignore it!"

"Ignore what, my feelings? Sor-ry!" He was starting to get angry in a way she hadn't seen before. He continued in a mocking tone. "Not everybody can be a superhuman assassin who doesn't care about anything, ever! Some of us actually have to deal with our emotions instead of letting them bleed to death in the black pit of our souls! Or, what, do you just not have any emotions at all?"

"I do!" Tiche shot back instantly, too loudly. Embarrassed again, she shrank back and lowered her voice. "I do have… Feelings and stuff. I just don't have time to… to…"

She droned off, and a silence followed. Dandelion was staring at her from under a deeply furrowed brow, and his mouth was chiseled into a hard frown. He said nothing, just held her trembling gaze as she tried to articulate herself. But, of course, she couldn't. After all, she'd never tried.

"...Is it that weird?" The tarnished finally let his expression soften, and the heat finally fell from his face in every place except his cheeks, where it remained in earnest. "The poetry stuff, I mean. I meant to keep it from you, of course, but…"
"I don't know." Tiche shrugged, no longer able to meet his eyes. "I don't know anything about poetry, so… Perhaps you'll find s-someone else who can appreciate them, one day."

"I don't want…" Dandelion stopped himself. "Er."

"What?"

"Nothing," he sighed, "but… You should try it sometime."

"You mean…" Tiche tilted her head. "You think I should try writing poetry?"

"You said it yourself, didn't you?" Dandelion shrugged. "You have feelings, too, of course. You're just as much of a person as I am, so you might as well try and deal with it as best as you can."

"...Do you really believe that?"

"Believe what?"

"That I'm…" Tiche looked down at her steel gauntlets, dimly reflecting the torchlight in the worn pads of their fingers. She looked up at Dandelion and found him relaxed again, this time looking back at her with the same serene kindness as always. It began to register for the first time as a different kind of compassion than that he always showed to nature and other travelers. Perhaps his poems had afforded her a glimpse just a little deeper, giving her the little nudge she needed to finally understand: it was fondness. He wasn't enamored. Or infatuated. Tiche felt like she was lightyears away from even figuring out what the word "love" could possibly mean, but she at least knew it wasn't being beamed at her through Dandelion's eyes.

He just liked her, that was all. But that alone was new, strange, and wonderful enough to force into motion something inside of Tiche that was old, stuck, and very, very hard to move. She swallowed, wondering if it was just her, or if the light of the torches was really starting to get brighter in that small barracks room.

"You imbecile." She murmured at last, heaving herself back up onto her cot. "I know nothing about poetry, but I at least know that drivel would never pass for art in the capital."

"Hey!" Dandelion shot to his feet, stancing up to fight again, but his eyes were bright and his smile was wide. "You take that back! I write from my soul, and that's as artistic as it gets, alright?"

"Sure, sure." Tiche rolled over, hiding her face from him. "I'm sure all the lovely scholars in Raya Lucaria would love to hear you driveling on about some… Strange, frightening assassin character."

"Hey, now." Dandelion slid into his own cot, taking one last look at her before lying down. "You can shit on my metaphors, my descriptions, my rhythm, or whatever, but… You'd better not pick on my subject, alright? I mean it!"

"Shut up."

"You shuddup." He paused. "G'night, Tiche."

"Goodnight, Dandelion."