I don't own Star Ocean, this is a fanfiction.

I woke up the next day I wish I could say refreshed, but I couldn't. I actually was fighting a very big urge to scream my head off as I woke up, but that would cause Ilia to wake up. Why was I feeling the need to scream you ask? Well, Ilia when she was asleep somehow grabbed me by the tail and let's say that I woke up because she apparently thought it was a particularly hairy piece of bacon and she was hungry in her dream.

I don't know about other species out in the star ocean, but fellpool have very sensitive tails and having someone bite your tail is really painful. Well from now on I just need to figure a way to keep my tail from her reach. I guess I could tie it around my waist, no that wouldn't work. As I sleep it could come lose.

Alright there was only one thing to do then, sleep wearing a pair of pants, and keep my tail from getting out of those pants, I guess it was my fault for sleeping in just my underwear, but with the heat who would blame me.

"Morning Ilia, did you sleep well?" Ilia looked at me and smiled.

"Oh, I slept just find Roddick what is this thing I am holding, it feels like a some rather nice, soft fur."

I couldn't help but to smile as she said that, to me it was a rather nice compliment after all. I tried to look as calm as possible.

"Ilia, not to sound disrespectful or anything, but the thing you are holding is my tail." I don't know why she started to laugh as she let go off my tail. She must have found our situation rather funny.

"Most guys want to get a hold of my tail, and our first night sleeping together I end up grabbing yours instead. I guess you figured out why I didn't date for long. I tend to be rather clingy when someone is in bed with me."

I rather liked the way she was looking right now, her face is usually what I could say is beautiful, but when she blushes like she is now the only way I can describe is cute. "It's just that when you hold my tail so tightly, it can be rather painful. I guess you unintentionally found out the weak spot for my kind."

I got off bed and began dressing, I went to the kitchen to give her some privacy to change into her clothes and to make breakfast for us. She came into the kitchen and sat down as I had already prepared two plates for us.

"Today we begin training the militia, if we do a good enough of a job we might even become famous enough to get some work requests sent our way. We need to build a reliable network of contacts so that when Ronix and Millie show up we will have it easier to find our target."

She listened as she began to eat the food I prepared, I guess learning to cook from mom was not such a waste of time after all. She looked like she was really enjoying my cooking, and that gave me a nice warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

"I agree, we need to be ready for when the Captain and Millie show up, which brings me to a question I need to ask. What kind of a relationship you and Millie have?"

I nearly choked when she asked me that, I had to drink some water. "Millie is my cousin, she is the daughter of my aunt. We are practically brother and sister. Where did that question come from?"

She looked rather amused as I looked at her and took a drink of water before smiling at me, "I was just wondering if she would be upset that we slept in the same bed that's all. I have to admit that when you are embarrassed like that you look adorable."

I looked at her and smiled decided to do something similar to her, "Well you look so beautiful when you are asleep, I almost want to kiss you but that would wake you. Ready for the first days of training these greenhorns, or am I the only one that is looking forward to their complaining."

I was not wrong they did complain an awful lot, and by midday I had beaten half a dozen of the recruits that demanded I fight them on a duel. I showed them no mercy, for bandits and other criminals would show them even less than that.

The schedule we came up with was simple, we work their bodies till they can't stand anymore, and then we worked to improve their minds. As they days went by the complaining became less and less, and the recruits began to look more and more like a force able to protect the village. It was supposed to take us a year to get them ready for patrols.

Ilia and I got them ready in two months, and the chief of the village was smiling as he saw the results. Now that the first batch of recruits was trained, and sent on their initial patrols. It was only a matter of time before the results of our training became evident.

We had gotten so used to living together in that time, that we didn't even leave the room when changing clothes, or even be bothered in doing each other's laundry. I even got used to washing each other's backs when we sometimes took a bath together.

The negative aspect was that I was always paying attention to what Ilia said, which had the negative consequence of some of the housewives in the village calling me whipped. Their husbands could only smile at me and give me a sympathetic look when their significant other was not looking.

The results of the initial patrols were nothing less than amazing, they stopped two bandit groups, rescued three women from slavers, and even fought off a crook that tried to steal merchandise from the village supplier.

"Roddick I must say I am impressed that you managed to turn my dream into a reality so soon. As a bonus you can keep the house you are living with your wife, with the people in the force they can pretty much take care of training the new recruits, I am certain that they will follow the example you taught them."

"As of right now both of you are free to look for more work, I would prefer if you considered this village your home village though, the people for some reason feel a lot safer when you and your wife are around."

I laughed as the man said that, "They do, do they? Does that include the time when those teens tried to get shall we say fresh with her?" He laughed as I said that and for good reason. Some of the village teens tried to flirt with her, and even tried to touch her. That did not end well for them, a few broken bones, and concussions later they knew well to leave her be while training the troops.

"Can you possibly blame them? Your wife is really beautiful. If I wasn't happily married myself, I would even try to get a date or two with her myself." I could not help but to smile the way as I saw the look the Chief's wife was giving him.

"And if you did that I might need we would be holding your funeral. Ilia is beautiful as a rose, but those beautiful roses do have thorns. My wife is shall we say very much into maintaining a faithful relationship. What work did you manage to find for us?"

The man looked quite happy to hear that I was switching topics away from shall we say dangerous topics. "I actually found that there is a merchant that been having trouble with his supply convoy as of late. The man supplies our militia with weapons and armor, so you can tell why we are concerned if the man can't move his merchandise from one place to another."

A typical Escort mission, I saw no problem with that. Considering what we have gone through training the recruits, this was as easy as it comes. "Give me the details of the merchant and I will discuss it with my wife. If she agrees we will take care of the situation for him."

The Chief smiled and nodded his head, "You really are whipped, guess I am not one to say that since I am too. The merchant in question is the village merchant that sells, buys and repairs armor and weapons. The problem is that he was expected to get a shipment of new weapons and armor, but you know how shall we say bandit friendly the valley between this village and the next is."

"Don't you worry Chief, I am sure my dearly beloved will agree after I tell her we are fighting a few dozen bandits. My lovely wife does enjoy a challenge."

As it happens Ilia was walking into the building as we had been discussing the bandit problem, and she was indeed happy to hear that we had a chance to beat the living daylights out that bunch of idiots. For some reason, she was blushing as she agreed to take care of the problem and make sure that the trade route was taken care off.

As we walked out of the office I saw her smile as she held my arm pulling me close to her as we walked. "Roddick I know we don't know each other for that long, but I got to admit you know how to make a woman like me happy. Never imagined that this would happen, but I wouldn't trade this life for anything in the entire star ocean."

I smiled as she told me that, "Funny thing is I feel the same way, We still got a few years to wait till my cousin and the Captain show up. Can you imagine the look on their faces if they find us not only happily married and maybe with a kid or two?"

She punched me in the arm and pulled me close enough to give me a rather heated kiss on my lips. As the kiss ended she placed her head on my shoulder. "If you can't tell, I am rather happy to be with you. The only thing is, you need to be careful buster or I might just take you up on your offer to have a couple of kids. We certainly have a big enough of a house, and we aren't hurting for money either."

The bandits were actually mercenaries hired by a business rival. Ilia and I took care of them rather quickly and truth be told we found out everything about their little operation thanks to scaring them so much. I guess I would be scared too if a woman wearing metal boots told me to tell her everything about what I was doing or else she would kick my balls so hard they would replace my eyes.

The idiots were not paid much, in fact, they were working for the merchandise they been stealing. They did say something odd, they never intended to actually kill anyone. Beat up, sure, but actually kill them never even crossed their minds. I know I look young, but not even I am that gullible.

The route was made secure by us going to the supposed business rival and finding out he was nothing more than a con-artist. The idiot didn't even own a shop! He had a stand by the road and all his gear was next to worthless. That made me realize why exactly he wanted the shop in the village we called home ruined. As long as that shop exists, nobody and I mean nobody would buy his junk.

We could have gotten him to pay up for the things he had stolen, we could even have forgiven him and made him promise in writing to never do this again, but I was too upset to even think about doing any of that at the time. Why was I so upset you ask? Simple, the idiot called an armor plated bimbo. Nobody, and I mean Nobody insults and gets away with it."

I decided that it was high time we visited the ruler of the land both villages resided in. She was a very kind person, and apparently just by mentioning who we were she actually was quite happy to grant us and audience. We told her of the mercenaries, the stinking crook, and how our village weapon supplier had trouble because of that crook's activities.

She immediately did what I felt she would do, she ordered the crook be taken to prison, be given fifty lashes with a whip made from a chain it seems and then decapitated. With that kind of punishment, it would certainly serve to discourage anyone from trying to do that again.

Now the reason why she was so happy was simple, she had been having problems with a certain pirate group that loved to raid the ports in her lands. Hearing who we were made her happy because in a sense we found our next job, she wanted us to take care of the pirate problem. Their activities were making merchants pay more for basic food items, and such there were fifteen villages suffering from hunger.

I guess not many villages were self-sufficient like the one we lived on was, the only things we actually needed to resupply was the weapons and armor, the village pretty much took care of everything else be it medicine or food. "Don't you worry none, your majesty, we shall take care of these pirates post haste."

"Oh thank you, I been having trouble sleeping because of the trouble these loathsome pirates cause my people. I hope you realize how lucky you are to have such a considerate husband young lady." smiled and pulled me closer to her till she had an arm around my waist.

"Don't you worry your majesty, I know exactly how fortunate it I am. Now if only I could convince him that we can do this sort of work and have a couple of kids." I don't know why this made both of them laugh as she finished saying that, honestly I don't know why.