Anon requested and angsty Janther first kiss. Just a warning, this one is angsty and there is character death.
When Jane was fourteen and Gunther sixteen, they were parted. No longer enemies but scarcely friends, they bid each other farewell with few words said. Many more went unspoken, but they would wait. It was only to be a year.
Gunther was being sent to Vermith Kingdom as a ward ("As a hostage!" Jane had protested.) and in turn a high-born girl was being supplied as a Lady-in-Waiting for Princess Lavinia. Each was to take up residence in the other's kingdom while the details of a peace treaty were finalised, and the paperwork signed. Each was to return home in a twelve-month.
Prince Cuthbert fell in love with the girl.
When Jane was thirty-two and Gunther thirty-four they were reunited on opposite sides of a battlefield.
They made their way towards each other, hardly seeing the enemies in their path before cutting them down and pushing them aside. Both were weary to their bones, un-horsed hours ago and all sense of time gone.
The war was pointless and seemingly endless, Kippernia guided by a foolish king and Vermith the victim of a merciless one. The title of knight had been tainted by war, like the people who bore it. Childhood dreams had been weaponised by power-hungry men, and the dreamers sent to die by the sword.
They grew younger with each skirmish, veterans like Jane and Gunther few and far between, serving inherited kings they felt no true allegiance for. And yet, when untrained boys met hardened warriors in battle they were slaughtered and forgotten about, their lives dissolved as easily as a peace treaty.
Jane and Gunther met at last with a clash of swords. Wordlessly they staggered in the mire, grunting with exertion when they came together and circling warily as they drew apart. The training sessions of their youth were a mocking memory, the words of their mentors whispers on the wind.
There was nothing to say that could be said, nothing to do but what must be done. And so they fought, keeping nothing back, holding each other's gaze.
Tears burned Jane's eyes when she realised they were falling from Gunther's, mixing with the blood that trickled from a cut above his eye and running down his face. He was old before his time, greying at the temples, and Jane had fared no better. They were tired, so tired of endless fighting, life lived on the road, keeping their distance from comrades who might not last the day.
And still they fought, as they had been told to do, until it was all that remained of their lives, until even when reunited it was all that they could do.
It was impossible to say who landed the first blow, or if perhaps they were synchronised, but their gaze never faltered as they ran each other through.
They sank to their knees and finally, blessedly, let go of their swords.
Gunther raised a hand to brush a stray curl from Jane's face, his thumb rubbing clumsily over her cheek. Jane mirrored him, placing her palm against his stubbled jaw as the colour drained from his skin.
Blood dribbled down his chin as he leant closer to her, and Jane's tears fell at last as he lowered his head to hers.
Blood, and tears, and lips met, separating only in death.
They were found when the battle was done, still on their knees, held in place by their swords, their heads slumped together.
When Jane was thirty-two and Gunther thirty-four they were buried together, and never parted again.