Their patrol continued on for some time. They found nothing in the way of bandits, spies, or even plain Risen. Their surroundings were so untouched that they vaguely wondered why they had to move camp, in the first place, especially when it seemed that things were finally calm for once. But they knew better than to question the decisions made by their grandmaster, so they simply complied with their orders.

Although Gaius was skeptical in every sense, and his pride lead him to believe that Robin was doing this out of pity. It was probably because of the cave incident that happened a while back, but moving camps and leaving the treacherous terrain behind them was necessary, in their eyes. At least, that was what Robin thought when they made the decision to relocate to another site up north. And for the most part, whatever decisions Robin made were followed perfectly and without complaint.

Still, there was a first time for everything, and Gaius figured that when he got a chance later, he would give Robin a piece of his mind. He huffed angrily, still bitter about what the grandmaster had promised him. They said they wouldn't treat Gaius like some invalid, right? They said they would treat him the way they had been treating him up to now, right? A single head injury couldn't have been enough to alter everyone's opinion of him, right?

He asked himself these questions, a bit immersed in the way of figuring out why things were happening as they did. It helped that the afternoon patrol was as exciting as watching the grass grow, because the intermittent silence in between routine checks of the perimeter were what allowed Gaius' thoughts to go wayward in the first place. If it weren't for Henry's presence at his side, he might have strayed even farther than originally anticipated.

"Hey," Henry said. "Do you think that animals go to the same places as people do when they die?"

"That depends. Where do you think people go when they die?" Gaius turned the question on its head, and brought a hand to his chin as he rubbed it thoughtfully. "If you don't have a place in mind, then there's no need to worry, right?"

"I guess," Henry conceded, sounding strangely unamused despite the smile on his face. "Well, let's say that bad people go to a bad place, and good people go to a good place. Where do animals go, in that case? The same places as humans or different ones? Like, do you think there's a Naga and a Grima for the birds? Or the dogs?"

"Crivens, like I would know," Gaius muttered. "Well, why not? People are animals, too. Don't see why we should get an exclusive afterlife from the birds and whatnot."

"Oh, that's so sweet of you!" Henry cheered, smiling even wider at the thought of it. "Although all those bugs you've probably squashed would hate to see you turn up in the afterlife. Not to mention all the people you've killed—"

"That's why it's called an afterlife. I don't gotta worry 'till I'm dead, right?" Gaius scoffed, and kicked at another loose rock in the dirt paths. He watched it clutter down the road before talking again. "When I die, I'll accept any socially awkward situations that come afterward."

"Pfft, you're so silly, Honeybuns." Henry reverted back to the casual nickname he had first given Gaius all those days ago. Unlike those past times, however, he said the name with something that almost resembled fondness. The blank tone of his voice was the only thing barring it from its true potential as an affectionate statement.

He ignored the fluttering in his chest.

"I'm just being honest, here." Gaius raised his hands in front of him in a defensive wave, but let them rest after he was done gesturing. "And going off that honesty, I'd say this patrol was a waste of time. There's not an enemy for miles of this place. But it's like Freddy said, huh? This is an easy job and it's the only one they'll give us, since the two of us are recovering, or whatever."

"You call him Freddy?" Henry asked, genuinely curious at this little factoid. "And he lets you get away with that? Hoo, boy, am I gonna give him a piece of my mind the next time I go to one of his fitness hours! And after that, I'll give him a piece of my heart, my liver, my kidneys, my stomach, and my—"

"Cut it out," Gaius asserted, almost routinely, now. "I got nicknames for everyone. I just don't always say them, is all. A fella's gotta have some tact when dealing with other people, you know."

Gaius stared at Henry for a bit, as if to silently say you've got to learn that the hard way, Junior. If the message got across or not, Henry didn't show it. He just smiled again, and busied himself with the crows that still followed after him all this time like he was their mother. He humored them by feeding them more breadcrumbs, and gently caressing their jet-black plumage with a careful hand.

He laughed. "Okay, whatever you say, Honeybuns! Let's finish up the patrol and get back to, I dunno, sitting around and doing nothing. Since Robin and the others probably won't let us do any real jobs until we move camp, probably."

"Yup, that's our hand as it's been dealt to us. Let's pick up the pace, then. And if you're thinking about asking weird questions again, just remember what I said earlier."

"Yeah, yeah. You said something like 'Ask something that's worth knowing', right? Sheesh, even a dumb Risen can get that much through their heads!" He cackled at his own humor, tapping his fingers against the side of his own skull for added effect. "But I promised to let you ask some questions, didn't I? So it's actually your turn to ask me something!"

"Oh, okay." Gaius rubbed at the back of his head. "Uh, lemme see...actually, I've been wanting to ask you this since I first met you." He glanced at the other carefully, gauging for a reaction to this possible confession in the making.

Henry, unfortunately, seemed completely unbothered by it. His trademark smile was as empty and apparent as ever, and the only sign that he understood anything that Gaius just said was the slight nod in which his head moved.

Still, it had to be asked. "How can you see when your eyes are always closed?" He paused for a short moment, then added on: "And why do you keep them closed to begin with?"

"Ooh, getting to the good stuff, are we? That's just like you!" Henry giggled again, the movements making his cloak tremble and giving his overall appearance the look of a shaking shadow. "Well, I'll tell you. I can actually see with my eyes closed, just as well as if they were open."

"Really? You're serious?"

"Super serious! If I'm lying, then may Grima—or Naga or whoever—strike me down with lightning!" He waved his hands in the air with a mad motion, only to stop midway and tilt his head to the side. "Actually, d'you think they'd strike me down with lightning anyway? Should I incite blasphemy to hone my thunder magic? Hey, should I?"

"Can you take something seriously, for once in your life?" Gaius snapped, feeling only a twinge of guilt when he saw Henry flinch ever so slightly at his sudden aggression. "Skip the jokes and get to the part where you tell me if you're being serious or not."

"But I was being serious! I think it'd be cool if the Gods really did strike me down like that." Henry held his hands behind his back, and stuck his feet out as he tried to balance on a particularly large rock. Then he spoke, voice occasionally wobbling in conjunction with his body. "I wasn't lying, though. I really can see just fine with my eyes closed. But everything's all monochrome, y'know? I can only see colors if my eyes are open."

"Then why do you bother keeping them closed? Is it magic or something?"

"Yup, magic! This one is a spell I learned a long time ago. And it's helpful, because I don't have to keep my eyes open if I wanna see something."

"Well, what happens when you want to sleep? Does your vision black out or can you still see?" Gaius asked, waving a hand in front of Henry's face to test his claims. Henry reached out and stayed Gaius' hand with a sly movement, smiling widely as he did so. Gaius let out a low whistle, obviously impressed by the display. "Jeez, you weren't kidding about seeing just fine! But the question still stands, Junior."

"If I wanna go to sleep, I just cast a sleeping spell! Or I get so tired that I just pass out on the bed anyway, whichever comes first~"

"Well, maybe you could keep your eyes open more often? I mean, seeing the world in black and white—literally—must suck." The Ylissean's eyebrow quirked up, and he gave the Plegian a knowing stare.

"You might just forget how to open your eyes at this rate."

"Silly, you've seen my eyes before. I can't forget to do something as basic as open them!" Henry laughed to himself, then slowly opened his left eye to reveal its color to Gaius, as if to validate his claims.

Gaius balked, because the hue changed from the last time he saw it Last time, Henry's eyes were as indigo as his robes and as royal as the silk on his body—this time, however, they were a brighter shade of sky blue, twinkling and resonating in tandem with the clear atmosphere above them.

"Whoa," he said. "They've changed?"

"Yup! I've concocted a bunch of weird stuff in my free time and I study black magic daily, so it's not hard to cast spells as simple as this," Henry hummed, drumming his fingers alongside his cheek as he did so. "Now it's my turn to ask you something!"

"Go ahead," Gaius agreed. "Remember the rule, though. Make it worthwhile."

"I know~ Okay, how about this? What's the deal with you and Maribelle?"

"Me and Twinkles? There isn't anything—"

"Aw, don't be shy about it!" Henry cut him off with a forceful cheer. "I don't need to see colors to see the tension between you two! It's as real as the Risen!" he smiled crookedly again, trembling in bouts of broken laughter. "Did you break her heart or something? I didn't peg you to be that kinda guy, Honeybuns!"

Gaius blanched at the thought of it. "As if," he said. "Twinkles and I know each other...from before the war, let's say."

"Ooh, scandalous!" Despite saying this, Henry appeared less interested than usual. He started picking at a loose thread in his ensemble as a result of such a change. "So, you broke her heart before the war started. That's kind of mean of you."

"You've got the wrong idea," Gaius insisted. "I guess I'll let you know, then. It's not exactly secret information—most folks know it, especially if they're from her hometown." He glanced between Henry and the crows that were still gathered around him, those that were cawing softly as they hopped from place to place. Watching their behavior eased his nerves somewhat, and he took a sharp inhale before continuing.

"Back in the day, when I was just doing any old job to keep myself afloat, I got mixed up with this crew. They wanted to steal from the treasury. It wasn't such a big deal to me back then, so I agreed. But then they turned it all around on me, see. They said they would kill the duke's daughter if I didn't go along with their plan. That really sucked and killing was just not part of the deal." A break appeared in the story, and olive-green eyes lost themselves in the cloud of reminiscence. They didn't return to reality or even to clarity until moments afterward.

"The worst part is that the mastermind behind the whole scheme wasn't some lowlife like me. It was another noble like Twinkles. And I didn't even know her back then, but she didn't deserve to die at all. So I accused her father of the whole heist, and got him into a lot of trouble. They didn't hang him or anything, but Twinkles still hates my guts for it."

"Why?" Henry simply asked. "I don't really get it myself, but shouldn't she be happy that her father survived, anyway? Or that you saved her life to begin with? People like it when they don't have to die or suffer, right? So everything should work out since you've told her this already!"

"That's the thing," Gaius said sheepishly. "I haven't actually told her the whole story yet…"

"Oh, well you should probably let her know soon!" Henry advised, voice fluctuating to playful lilts. "Did the enemies curse you with a forgetfulness spell or something? It's a pretty big thing to miss!"

"I haven't told her on purpose," Gaius emphasized. "I haven't gotten a chance to talk privately with her. I mean, she avoids me whenever she sees me. The only time she didn't was back in that cave, so…"

"Hmm~ That's really interesting, though! Too bad she hates you!" Henry laughed and laughed again, his tone of voice matching the crows' caws. For a second, it seemed as if the sorcerer would turn into a crow himself, and take to the skies with inky feathers and shadowy shapes.

He didn't do that, of course, so Gaius banished the silly thought from his mind and resumed speaking. "Well, I'll get to her, eventually. Maybe while we're heading up north to relocate our camp I can tell her."

"Maybe," Henry agreed. "If it doesn't work out, I can help you! I've got a couple of curses that could fix the situation. A curse that could make Maribelle obedient, for one. Or a curse that could make her deaf to all noise except your voice, so she wouldn't have a choice but to listen to you from that point on! Or maybe…"

"...That's not necessary," Gaius said. "No, there's no point talking to her about it if it's not on my terms. No tricks or anything, I've just gotta be honest with her."

"That sounds like a pain," Henry whined. "And I don't like pain."

Gaius sighed, and tilted his head back to view the sky above them. It was as blue as Henry's ever-changing eyes happened to be in that short moment. It was as blue as the clearest water in the world, and as blue as the stars that sparkled like diamonds in the dawn sky.

It was such a pretty, pretty color. It was nothing like the reds and pinks that Gaius had gotten used to seeing, or the white-black-purples of Henry's visage that were also becoming a familiar sight to him. No, blue was a safe, good color, and Gaius wished he could have more of it.

"Yeah," he finally said to Henry. "Yeah, I don't like pain, either."

.

.

.

"Okay, Honeybuns. New question! How straight are you?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, you like girls, right? Or maybe you don't like girls, or maybe you don't like people in general? Tell me!"

"Jeez, I was wondering when you'd finally crack and ask me about that. Well, let me say one thing. Love is love, right? It doesn't matter too much who it's with and all…"

"...Um, okay. So what's your point?"

"My point is that I'm open to anyone. Men, women, neither...whatever, I don't care."

"You don't? So you'll even date someone like Nowi or Tiki, who look young and pretty but are actually old, nasty women deep down inside?"

"Please, Tiki's more my age, but Nowi's still a damn kid. But yeah, I don't care that they're dragons or whatever. Panne, too. It doesn't matter to me that they're beasts."

"Y'know, since you're kinda dumb I didn't think you'd be so open-minded about these things."

"I'm gonna pretend that you didn't say that for your sake, not mine."

"Yeah, well, I'm serious! You always pegged me as one of those guys that just go around and ogle women all day! Nice to know that you're not as brainless as the Risen, hehe."

"Tch. You gotta have more faith in me than that, Junior!"

"Just by talking to you is a show of my faith."

"Ouch."

.

.

.

"What about you, Junior?"

"What about me?"

"How do you feel about romance and stuff like that?"

"Oh, I guess I'm like you, Honeybuns! I don't really care! Humans are weird enough, though. I get along with animals better."

"But humans are animals."

A wide smile appeared on his face, and he cackled.

"Exactly!"

.

.

.

They talked more and more. It wasn't so farfetched to think that they were making up for lost time. All those days spent hating each other, fighting each other, and avoiding each other seemed so long ago, and yet they weren't that far away in reality. Those were times where they didn't know anything about each other beyond the violence of the warfront—those were times where they didn't even care to know more.

Now was different, however. Now they had the remnants of a friendship under their feet. Now they had the makings of a real, stable relationship.

Henry smiled at the thought of it all. "We're done now, yeah? That was so boring...maybe I should have opened one of those reeking boxes to summon Risen, instead?"

"If you do that, I'll beat you before the Risen do," Gaius threatened seriously, making it clear that he didn't want to engage in unnecessary combat anytime soon. "But we're done. Let's report back to Frederick or whoever wants to know."

"Okay," Henry agreed. He bounced alongside Gaius' steady pace, a row of blackbirds still following after him. One of them took to pecking at Gaius' heels, and Henry simply cackled in response to Gaius' exasperated yells. "Aw, she likes you!"

"Well, I don't like her or any of these damned birds of yours!" Gaius said, shaking his feet in an attempt to shove the offending crows away. "Tell your friends to get lost before I make 'em into tonight's dinner!"

"If you lay a hand on them, I'll probably have to kill you." The words lacked their usual jovial tone, and the sedate smile on Henry's face didn't help to lessen their sharp threat.

Gaius balked. "I was kidding, Junior. For Gods' sake, I'm not actually gonna hurt them…'sides, we've got enough food that we don't need bird carcasses to restock the pantry." He stared down at the other, searching for a semblance of understanding. Finding none, Gaius quickly added on: "Take it easy, alright?"

"Oh, you were kidding? That wasn't a funny joke though!" He pointed this out, as if his own macabre lines weren't any less humorous. "Although I said I'd probably have to kill you, not that I would do it for sure."

"Yeah, because that would make me feel better."

"Hmm~ But don't you know? Killing you is out of the question now!" Henry perked up visibly, the smile on his face remaining the same but something about his overall disposition gave off the sensation of happiness. "We're friends! I would never kill a friend! Actually, if anything happened to you, Gaius, I'd probably cast a bloody curse on whoever did it, and kill every single person in their family afterwards!"

"That's overkill if I ever heard it," Gaius pointed out. "Seriously, though, you don't have to go through that much trouble over me. Sure, we can call each other friends now, but isn't that unnecessary for something as simple as friendship? It's not like we're…"

The words died on his tongue. He fumbled over what he had meant to say. It's not like we're...what? Lovers? Boyfriends? A married couple? The fact that his mind had wandered over to those affectionate titles as possibilities for the end of his sentence left him speechless. When had he been able to so easily regard Henry in that manner? How was it possible that he was regarding Henry at all, in a positive light such as this?

Wasn't it not too long ago that they were at each other's throats? What changed since then?

Maybe it was Henry that changed. He seemed to catch onto Gaius' sentiments entirely, and he left no room for mercy as he spoke. "Haha~ You suddenly stopped talking, Honeybuns! Risen got your tongue?"

"I—"

"You were gonna say that we're just friends, right? It's not like we're lovers or anything."

The word lovers as spoken by Henry didn't have the same ring to it when everyone else had said it. There was no affection—not even the joking kind—to be found in his voice. There was no sweetness, pleasure, or even joy when he said the word.

There was only malice. Malice, hatred, and baseless logic—the opposite of the fervent emotions that people usually used when referring to someone as their lover.

There was only malice.

"Well, yeah. Only people in love care about each other that much, right? Or people who consider each other family, or people who are family…those are the people that say stuff like 'I'd kill for you' and whatnot." Gaius thought about Chrom and Lissa in this moment, and the love they surely shared between them and their older sister, Emmeryn. Would Chrom kill for his sisters? (He already did, a voice inside Gaius said.) Would Lissa and Emmeryn kill for Chrom?

He found his answer sooner than he'd like. Of course, people with a bond that deep would certainly go to drastic measures for each other. It only made sense if the relationship was as strong and sacred as it appeared to be. No one would kill for strangers or—worse off—enemies. No one would dare go to that level.

...No one but Henry, it seemed. Henry, who was barely a friend and not even close to the other words (Lover boyfriend husband) already regarded his relationship with Gaius as one that warranted murder and death, should anyone try to break it. But wasn't that just how he was? Unstable, insatiable, surprisingly reliable Henry—wasn't he always on about bloodlust, misfortune, and death? For him to propose himself as a means to others' ends in the name of Gaius' love was nothing short of strange. But it might have been expected, all the same.

"And I don't know if we have that kind of relationship, Junior."

"No, we definitely don't." Henry—who was just swaying back and forth on his feet now—stopped moving entirely and remained still. Gaius' breath hitched in his throat as he awaited for a further explanation.

Henry gave it all too easily. "We don't have that kind of relationship, Gaius."

Gaius, too, temporarily dropped the nickname. "Then why'd you bring it up, Henry?"

"We don't have that kind of relationship," Henry simply repeated himself. "But I wouldn't mind if we did."

"Wh—"

"Lovers, boyfriends, whatever. I might not mind it so much."

They stared at each other. For the second time during their patrol, Henry allowed his eyes to be open, and Gaius watched with deep curiosity as the color of his irises shifted from sky blue to indigo. He watched as the sea of Henry's soul (That's what the eyes are, right? Windows to the soul and whatever?) shifted on ever-changing waves, moving back and forth in a tumultuous uncertainty.

Gaius watched and let his own eyes—that which was the grounded earth and grass below them—stay affixed in that oceanic gaze. He let the deep-rooted earth, sturdy and steadfast like his own, remain unmoving as the waves washed over him.

No one said anything else. And there was a wordless agreement to leave this matter to be sorted out for another day, as the sorcerer and assassin headed back to the base camp without a complaint.

The crows cawed out after them, as if to sing a mourning song in memory of their dead dreams, recently executed and forever altered.

They cried out for them.