The tavern was alive with noise and smoke, filled with beastmen, demons, and humans crammed shoulder to shoulder, singing and dancing, shouting over one another. The air was thick with sweat, spilled ale, and the sharp bite of smoke. A lute twanged off key somewhere in the corner, and beastmen clapped along to their own rhythm.
Amira tugged Lucian's sleeve like an eager child, pulling him through the door.
"Come on, don't just stand there like a statue," she said, flashing him a grin.
Lucian scanned the room. Memories of his soldiers getting drunk after a big battle played in his mind, and although he seemed unamused, deep down he was quite fond of the atmosphere.
"Look! I think I see Layla."
She hooked her arm through his and dragged him toward a familiar voice.
At a corner table sat Layla, leaning casually against a hulking figure in soot stained blacksmith clothes. The man was built like a mountain, his greenish skin and broad, tusked jaw making him look every bit the ogre he was.
"Surprised to see you guys here!" Layla called, waving them over. "Figured you'd be breaking in every corner of the house by now!"
She winked.
They both just stared at her blankly.
Layla cleared her throat, passing over her awkward comment. "Amira, Lucian. This is Hort, the town's blacksmith." She said it with her eyes closed, the palm of her hand held upward as it framed Hort's face.
Lucian gave a curt nod.
Hort's eyes raked him up and down before he chuckled. "This the guy you were talking about, that looks like he could rip apart a mountain and has the face of a prince? He's super tiny. I've hammered horseshoes bigger than him and spit loogies prettier than him." Hort chuckled.
Amira froze, glancing nervously at Lucian.
Lucian only stared blankly back, grey eyes unblinking, not realizing a joke had been made.
The blacksmith scratched the back of his head, shifting uncomfortably under the silence and the awkward eye contact from Lucian. "Uh… I was kidding."
Lucian turned to leave. "I'll be back with food."
He walked to the bar, leaving an awkward silence in his wake.
"Did I offend him?" Hort muttered.
Layla smirked. "Nah. I'm pretty sure that's just how he is. Like a rock."
"If you'd made him mad, you'd know it," Amira added, sitting down and introducing herself.
***
Back at the bar, Lucian waited for the barmaid to finish up his order. Behind him, a table of merchants spoke low, their words carrying just enough for him to catch.
"…damn Flesh gang, came into town again last night."
"Did they hurt anyone?"
"Nah, when have they ever? They just drink, throw a few chairs, make a mess, then leave. Though they sure cause a lot of ruckus. Why would they hurt us when we've done nothin' to 'em?"
"Because they don't need to." Another chimed in. "Step too far past the gate, you're fair pickings. They own the roads in and out of here. You want to travel, you pay their insane toll or you disappear."
Lucian's jaw tightened.
The barmaid finally slid over, setting down a few plates of meat and bread along with several mugs of ale. "Here you are, handsome. And knowing Layla, you'd better take these too." She gestured to the beer. "She'll want another in a few minutes."
"Thanks," he said, balancing the tray as he returned to the table.
Back at the table, Hort rubbed his neck. "I was just cracking a joke."
"Don't take it personally, you big oaf." Layla snorted and turned to Amira. "So. Does he plan on leaving tomorrow still, or did you talk to him?"
Amira blinked, caught off guard. "Leaving?"
Layla raised a brow. "You told me earlier he might. Did you forget?"
The realization that she never got around to asking him hit Amira like a slap. She forced a smile, but her hands tightened in her lap.
Lucian finally arrived and set the tray down.
Amira immediately grabbed the mug meant for Layla and drained it in a few gulps.
"Hey—" Layla started, but Amira was already digging into her food with uncharacteristic speed.
"Sorry. Just really thirsty," she mouthed through meat stuffed in her cheeks.
Another mug disappeared. Then another.
With each drink, her forced smile came a little undone.
Layla kicked her under the table and told her to slow down, and in response Amira would just drink faster and mumble some nonsense about not taking orders from her subjects while spitting food at her.
Hort took a slow sip of his beer, gently reclining in his chair, attempting to blend into the background as an awkward argument unfolded beside him, the air thick with tension.
Lucian ate his food in his own world entirely.
"Do you make nails?"
He asked it flatly, eyes staring through the far wall in front of him.
Hort blinked, looking around before realizing the question was for him. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, I can make nails."
Lucian nodded. "There's a gap in the roof. If it rains, it'll leak. What kind of wood and nail would I need for something like that?"
Hort stared at him.
To his left, two women were now openly bickering. To his right, a man was calmly asking about roofing materials as though the tavern were empty and it were a Tuesday afternoon.
He scratched his head, trying to recall the house. He'd repaired it a few times before. "I'd say you'd probably need a hand width nail to drive the boards closer together."
Lucian raised his hand and rotated it. "My hand or your hand? Considering mine are… small."
Hort's mouth came open.
"HA."
It was the only sound that made it out at first. Then the rest of it arrived and he laughed hard enough to move the mugs on the table.
"You're not so bad after all!" He slammed his empty mug down and stomped his foot, clapping Lucian on the shoulder hard enough to slightly bring him forward. "I'd have to say my hand!" he said with a grin.
Amira downed another mug while Layla sighed, massaging her temple.
"So, LuLU."
*hiccup*
"What's the deal you and that Bell woman made?" Amira asked, her tongue tripping over the name with clear mockery.
Lucian wiped his mouth and gazed up thoughtfully, genuinely trying to recall what Bell was implying. "I wouldn't call it a deal." He pondered. "I think she was implying that I was welcome to stay with her if I needed to."
Layla slapped her forehead.
Hort scooted his chair back even further.
"Oh! That's just wonderful!" Amira said, reaching for another mug. "Well, you tell her—"
"Ami, that's enough," Layla cut in, snatching the drink from her hands. "Lucian, get her home before she drowns herself."
Lucian finally looked over at her properly.
"What happened to you?"
He stood. Amira got to her feet in stages, and caught his sleeve on the way up.
Lucian looked down at his unfinished meal with a sigh before looking up at Hort. "Well, I'll stop by one of these days and place an order for some nails," he said with a small nod of goodbye.
Hort returned his nod and gave him a firm handshake.
"Good night, you cats. Get some rest now!" Layla called, with a telling smile stretched across her face.
***
They made their way back to the cottage in the dark. Amira's steps went wide and then narrow and then wide again.
"I'm sorry…"
*hiccup*
"I don't normally get like this," she whispered from behind Lucian's left shoulder.
"That's alright. You just haven't seen your friend in a while, I get it," Lucian said, recalling nights he had carried his men back to their tents for exactly this reason more times than he could count, and had never once held it against any of them.
When they reached the door, Amira suddenly stopped.
Lucian turned, and she was standing in the dark with tears streaming down her face.
"What's wrong?"
She shook her head, refusing to answer. Instead she crashed against him, wrapping her arms around his torso in a desperate grip, crying even harder.
Lucian's hand hovered over her shoulders for a moment before he fully embraced her into a hug.
"Don't leave!"
She said it into his shirt, and pulled him tighter, and their combined balance gave out and put them both on the ground.
Amira pressed her face to his chest, her voice muffled by sobs.
"Please. Don't leave."
Her hand found a fistful of his shirt and closed on it.
"Everybody leaves. They just abandon me, so don't you leave me too, or I—"
She stopped. Whatever the rest of that sentence was, she couldn't get to the end of it.
"I feel safe when I'm around you and I don't know why." It came out very small. "My heart screams at me not to let go of you, and I can't explain why."
She pulled the fistful of shirt tighter.
"So don't. Please."
Lucian rested a hand on her head, patting gently.
"Amira," he said softly, the name rolling off his tongue with unexpected warmth.
"I'm not going anywhere."
Her throat tightened. Hearing him say her name made something inside her break open. She buried her face deeper in his chest, bright red and trembling.
Within minutes, the drink and the tears pulled her into sleep, her body relaxing in his arms.
Lucian scooped her up and brought her inside and tried setting her down in the chair that was positioned in front of the fireplace, but even in her sleep she wouldn't let go.
So Lucian sat in the chair with her in his lap and leaned back, resting his head on the broken in leather, his eyes slipping shut soon after.
***
Morning light filled the cottage, warming it.
Amira surfaced first, her long lashes blinking against it, and worked out by degrees that she was still curled in Lucian's lap.
Her face went crimson as the previous night came back to her in pieces, several of which she would have done anything to get back.
But she did not move.
She stayed frozen exactly where she was, breathing him in, watching the lines of his face with nobody behind them steering, and thought that she had never once seen him look like this.
She leaned in closer and brushed her nose against his shirt.
Lucian woke to her shifting in his lap, and their eyes met.
Amira's face went as red as an apple. Her mouth opened slowly and nothing came out of it.
"What are you doing?" Lucian asked, stunned.
"Uh." She started brushing at his shirt in a panic. "Um. Shirt!" Her eyes went around the room hunting for the rest of the sentence. "Dirt shirt. You've got shirt on your dirt."
"O-kay," Lucian said, and looked down at where her hands were, pressed flat against his chest.
Amira snatched them back and got out of his lap in one motion.
"Right." She looked at the ceiling. "The house is super dirty, haha, must be from all the dust, so I guess we'll be spending all day cleaning today."
She said the whole thing in one breath.
Lucian's eyebrows drew together.
Amira walked off quickly with her arms stiff at her sides, turned the corner, and what followed sounded a great deal like slapping.
Lucian stood, straightened his clothes, and inspected himself for further dust.
She came back around the corner with two red handprints on her face.
"So. You're still set on staying, right? We can clean out the guest room so you'll have somewhere to sleep, and I'll do the cooking if you don't mind the house chores, and maybe you could see to the farm so we'd have a steady income, and there's the roof, and the shed, and I don't know what's happened to the well but something has, and."
She went on for a full minute, rotating her wrist while her other hand pulled at the tip of her finger the entire time, and looked at every object in that room except him.
"Yes."
Lucian picked up the shoe that had come off her foot while she slept and held it out.
"I'd like to stay. If that's alright with you." He looked around. "I don't mind helping around the house either."
Amira's whole face opened.
It was the smile of a little girl who's found a flower, and it was beautiful, and it lasted about a second and a half before she pulled her lips in and bit down on the bottom one, dragging her teeth slowly across it from bottom to top.
She slapped a hand over her closed fist and rocked back on her heels, once.
"Okay." She said it cheerfully. "Right. Well. I guess the first order of business is getting this place cleaned up."
Lucian looked around at the dusty furniture, the filthy floors, the dishes and knickknacks scattered over every surface.
"Yeaaa," he said slowly.
"And, Lucian." Her voice dropped. "Sorry about last night. I got a little out of hand."
Lucian tossed her the shoe.
"Don't worry about it. It was kinda… cute."
He said it with a small smile, and then went back to looking at the furniture, and so he missed what it did to her.
Amira caught the shoe against her stomach and held onto it.
She smiled back, softly. Her crimson eyes narrowed and her pupils went wide and black, and she stood there in the middle of the room holding a shoe.
'He said it like it was nothing.'
'He says everything like it's nothing.'
"So." Lucian rolled up his sleeves. "I'll get started in here, if you want to grab breakfast?"
"Yeah," Amira said softly, running her eyes all over him, not looking anywhere else.
He crouched to test a floorboard. She watched him do it. There was dust in his hair and a crease across his cheek from her sleeping on his chest, and she found she had no interest whatsoever in looking anywhere else.
"Ehm." Lucian cleared his throat. "Eggs and bacon will be fine with me." He said it without looking at her, although he could feel her gaze on him.
"Right." Amira blinked and came back to herself. "Uh, the cleaning supplies should be in the study, and you can just throw the useless stuff in the trash."
"Okay," Lucian said, with an awkward nod, pressing his lips together tightly.
"Okay."
She left the room.
She got as far as the doorway, and stopped, looking back at him one more time.
After hearing the door shut Lucian glanced over at the portriat hanging above the fire place.
His hand drifted to the drape covering it and he pulled it down.
"It can't be-"