"Niten?" Aoife asked uncertainly, the confusion apparent on her face. "What's going on, where's the archon, where are we, wha-?" I

I clamped a hand to her mouth to stop the torrent of questions that exploded from her. "Give me a minute to explain." I said calmly. She nodded slowly in reply.

"But before I explain, would you please relocate yourself from your current position? I find it to be a rather…compromising position, don't you?" I said slowly while at the same time concealing a grin.

Aoife frowned and blushed lightly…no that would be an overstatement. An almost unnoticeable shade of pink briefly appeared across her cheeks. With a swiftness and grace that only she, and perhaps her sister Scathatch, possessed, she got off of me before landing on the bed in a sitting position.

I sat up slowly before giving her the summary of what had transpired.

"Marethyu opened a portal and got you out and keeping the archon locked inside. After which, he handed you to me and I brought you here to my semi painted boat. After that, I healed you using my aura and now I am explaining this situation to you. Did you get all that?" I said slowly.

She just nodded again in a daze before flopping back onto the bed.

"Are you okay?" I asked quickly, thinking that maybe she hadn't healed enough or that I may have done something wrong.

She rolled onto her side, facing away from me, and replied, "Just a bit tired."

I sighed a completely silent sigh of relief.

We sat there for a few awkward moments. We never usually talked much. It was mostly her inviting me to journey across some of the most dangerous of shadow realms or some slight talking before a battle and things of similar stature.

All of a sudden, she asked, "Were you worried?"

I was stumped. If I honestly answered that I was worried, almost to death in fact, she may think that I'd lost confidence in her skills. If I said I wasn't worried, she might think that she wasn't that important to me.

Hundreds of years of experience have taught me that, you never really know what to say to women, be they human, elder, inhuman, beast, monster…or even insect for that matter.

I decided to go with not worrying because I knew of her pride of a warrior and she knew how much I trusted her. Maybe she will even think it a compliment, my saying that I wasn't worried about her being able to fight the mother of all archons.

Of course, the entire thought process, while seeming quite long, lasted less than half a second in reality.

I quickly put on a small smile and said, "Not in the slightest."

Suddenly, I saw her body's position shift. It was a very slight shift, so slight that a normal person would have never seen it. But, being the man and warrior that I am, I saw it.

Her body tensed up ever so slightly and she shifted her knees a bit. She also…shuddered? Now that movement was even more hidden. Even I couldn't be sure that she shuddered.

Of course, after seeing all these actions and adding them together.

I decided that I'd made some sort of horrible mistake somehow.

Truly, life is an amazing journey. One life time is not enough to experience the many possibly wonderful and terrible experiences that our world has to offer.

In a single life time I experienced some of the bloodiest wars in the history of Japan. In the same time, I became one of the greatest warriors to ever walk the earth.

But, I had never experienced the terrors and joys that I felt when I accompanied Aoife to the multitudes of different shadowrealms.

I never experienced true love until I was much, much older than the majority of the human race.

But this is beside the point already.

In summary despite my hundreds of years of existence and despite having hundreds of different and useful skills, I was unsuited and unprepared to face a situation like this one.

I quickly tried to rectify the possible mistake that I had made by quickly saying, "Aoife, I-"

But I was quickly cut off by her as she said, "What?"

I decided that waiting for a short while might be the smartest course of action for the moment.

And, true enough, Aoife continued to speak in light of my not responding.

She turned around and faced me with a grin on her face. She sat up and quickly said, "Good, I didn't need you or Marthyu anyway. I could've kept going for more than a hundred years of course."

Was it just me or did I just hear a slight tremble in her voice?

"Hell, I was even winning" she continued in a prideful voice.

Were her eyes slightly teary?

Just then, I remembered a few quotes I'd heard about war: "Audentes fortuna iuvat" or in English: "Fortune favors the bold"

Well, love and war are quite similar. Perhaps it would work…perhaps.

I quickly moved near her and cupped her face with my hand.

Aoife stiffened. She stared at me, unsure of what I was doing…or what I was about to do.

"Niten?" she whispered questioningly. She stared at me with uncertainty and perhaps hope showing in her eyes.

I stared into her eyes and almost lost my nerve. Could I really throw away our friendship for something that may just tear us apart and ruin everything that we'd done over the course of centuries?

Life is filled with so many difficulties… But, I must at least honor the memory of her late uncle, Prometheus, and try.

"Aoife…." I whispered softly, caringly. I bent down and touched my forehead to hers.

She was absolutely beautiful. No matter what state she was in, to me, she was always, and always will be beautiful.

That image of perfect beauty was the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes and gently placed my lips on hers.