CHAPTER 3-8
Phoenix

With the flag gone and no teammates returning triumphantly to the dock, enemy team's flag in hand, it was a humbling walk along the beach with Áthas back to Prisoners' Point.

Phoenix didn't mind. The afternoon was sunny and comfortable, and the wind's breezy sighs coming in off of the Drowned Channel to ruffle his hair were delightful. The uncomfortable pressure on the center of his ribcage had eased. And best of all, Áthas was by his side. He could feel her looking over at him and smiling to herself from time to time, and basked in the warmth that this created. He wasn't entirely sure what it was that was inducing those little smiles that he could just barely see out of the corner of his eye, but he suspected that the answer would make him smile, too.

The fact was, in the short amount of time he had been here on Sidereal Isle, getting to know all these new people, he was already learning that Áthas was a good deal more than just a very pretty face and a bubbly personality. "Still waters run deep," went an Earthling saying Willow had shared with him once, and Phoenix, having had a glimpse of just how deep those waters ran on the first night of the trip, longed to know more.

"So what do you think happened to the flag?" Áthas asked into the companionable silence they had been sharing as they walked along, interrupting his mental musings.

"I was apparently very wrong about the direction any attack would have been coming from. Which means, I'm guessing, that Fynn was only a distraction, and not an actual attempt on the flag." He shrugged. "I'll take responsibility for letting my team down. I'm sure the triplets will be crowing about their victory for the rest of the -"

Wait.

Heinrich and Fynn would have been much too responsible to allow one of the triplets to make that swim. And if Fynn had been the distraction...

Áthas was watching him out of the corner of her eye with her pale eyebrows raised, waiting for the realization to come.

"Heinrich got the flag?" he breathed, and she nodded. This newfound pride he felt in his brother was so overpowering that he was momentarily staggered. Heinrich was, clearly, capable of far more than Phoenix had ever thought possible. "You saw him, didn't you?" he asked, and she nodded again. "Hey!" He had to laugh. "I thought you were supposed to be impartial, here!"

"I am! But if I'd pointed him out to you, that would have been taking your side!" She bit her lip, trying to hold back a giggle. "It was your decision, remember, not to be guarding against any attacks coming by water."

"Yeah, you've got me there...though I would argue that you were, in fact, actually distracting me on purpose while he was stealing the flag. What do you have to say to that, hmm?"

Áthas just laughed this time. "Maybe. But even if you had seen him in time...would you have stopped him?"

Phoenix looked over at her, this unexpectedly wonderful woman strolling along the shore beside him. When she turned her head to meet his eyes, cerulean finding viridian, some silent understanding passed between them, and he suddenly knew, as surely as he'd ever known anything in his life, that things would never be the same again.

He faced forward once more, a lightness dancing in his chest he couldn't remember ever having felt before.