The groan of the barn door was a sound Ari knew as well as his own name. He pushed it open and stepped into the familiar darkness.
"Hello? Thalassa?" he called out softly. "Are you here to confess your sins? The rate's gone up."
No one answered.
"Alright, first come, first served."
He dropped the blanket to the ground, the sound muffled by the hay. He uncorked the bottle of wine he carried with a resounding "pop" and took a long swig straight from the bottle.
"Ahhh. Suncrest wine," he murmured to himself, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "Much better than that church swill. This is how you commune."
He spread the blanket over the nearest pile of hay—the same one from eight years ago. He sat down and poured another drink, this time into one of the metal cups he had "borrowed."
"Okay, now to wait for her highness, the Captain."
He drummed his fingers on the cup. The silence stretched on.
"The wine's going to get warm, Thalassa," he said loudly to the empty barn. "And if you show up and you've missed it, I'm not going to get more. Just so we're clear."
The door creaked again, more stealthily this time. Thalassa's silhouette was framed for an instant against the night before she shut the door behind her. She wore leather trousers and a mail shirt that chimed softly with each step. Ari smiled in the dark.
"About time," he said. "For a moment, I thought you'd chickened out and run off to 'The Silk Rose' to find me."
Thalassa's voice came from the gloom, laced with mockery. "Please. If you'd gone there, Nyla would have kept you busy teaching her that new... 'chant' of yours. I wouldn't have dared interrupt."
"Nyla is very devout," Ari retorted without missing a beat. "A quick learner."
"I can imagine."
Thalassa finally reached his side and dropped onto the blanket. She took the cup he offered, her fingers brushing against his.
"You're still the same idiot," she said, but he could hear the smile in her voice.
"And you're still late. Have a drink. It's the good stuff."
She drank. "Where did you get this? Don't tell me you swindled the poor shopkeeper again."
"It was a legitimate business transaction," Ari said defensively. "He had a stomach problem; I had a remedy. We both came out ahead."
"You gave him a purging potion for his best wine, didn't you?"
"The details are irrelevant," Ari shrugged and took another drink straight from the bottle. "And you? How's life at the top? Lots of armor to polish? Lots of recruits to yell at?"
"Something like that," she admitted. "But it's more paperwork than you'd think. Reports, requisitions, registries... Sometimes I think I'm going to drown in parchment."
"A terrible death," Ari agreed solemnly. "I, for one, prefer the simple pleasures. Like this wine. Or this threadbare blanket. Or this makeshift pillow."
With a swift movement, he lay back and rested his head in her lap. Thalassa startled.
"Hey! Who gave you permission?"
"The divine right of priests to be comfortable," he replied with his eyes closed. "It's in the scriptures. The fine print."
"There is no fine print in the scriptures, you idiot."
"Not in the ones you've read."
He felt her fingers in his hair, hesitant at first, then firmer, stroking it.
"You're insufferable," she murmured.
"But my hair is soft, admit it."
"Shut up."
They fell silent for a moment, with only the sound of the wind outside.
"This place hasn't changed a bit," Ari said. "Remember? It was our first time. Right here."
"How could I forget?" she answered, her voice a little tighter.
"I was a fierce wolf," he continued with a self-satisfied grin. "You, a trembling, innocent maiden."
Thalassa snorted. "Fierce wolf? you were a scared puppy who didn't even know where to start!"
Ari sat bolt upright. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me," she said, defiant. "You were the one trembling, not me. And if I recall correctly, at first, you took the wrong... well, the wrong path."
"That's slander!" he exclaimed, feigning offense. "It was my first time too! And it was dark!"
"You had to ask, 'Are you sure this is the way?'" she countered, and this time she couldn't hold back a small laugh.
"Technicalities! The important thing is I found the final destination!"
"After exploring a couple of scenic routes, yes," she laughed.
He leaned toward her, his smile now predatory. "But once I found it, you didn't complain. Not one bit."
Her blush was almost visible in the gloom. "I was being polite."
"Right... Polite..." he purred. "You were so 'polite' that you're still thinking about it eight years later. So much so that you dragged your whole company of tin soldiers to this forgotten corner of the world just for a repeat performance."
Thalassa's laughter died down. She pushed him gently to lie back down again. "You're an idiot."
"But an idiot you like," he insisted. "And one who gets his letters answered."
"Yes," she admitted softly. "I got your letters."
"Even the one about the fish?"
"It arrived smelling of the docks. I had to air it out for a day before I could read it without getting sick."
"It adds character!"
"I keep it in a locked chest," she confessed. "Sometimes... sometimes I open it just to remember that not everything has to smell like metal and a recruit's sweat."
Ari fell quiet, absorbing that small confession.
"That's why I'm here," she continued. "It's not about the monsters, Ari. Well, yes, there are monsters, but... this mission wasn't mine."
He sat up, for real this time. "No? Then?"
"It was Captain Valerius's," she said with annoyance.
"The one with the perfect hair?" Ari asked, his tone souring.
"The very same. He's the Commander's favorite. He volunteered as soon as the reports came out."
"And what happened?"
"I got ahead of him," she said with a hint of pride. "I went to the Commander. I told him I knew the area like the back of my hand. That my experience here was worth ten of Valerius. I told him I'd be more efficient."
"And he bought it?"
"The Commander values efficiency above all else," Thalassa said. "And he can't stand Valerius's hair. So here I am."
Ari stared at her. "Why? Why go to all that trouble?"
"Because I've been wanting to come back for months," she admitted, her voice cracking slightly. "I'd read your stupid letters about Nyla and the bad wine and... I was worried, okay?"
"Worried? About me?"
"Yes, you, you idiot!" she exclaimed, poking him on the forehead. "Who else would it be? You're a non-believing priest, a hedonist trapped in a boring town who gets into trouble for a good bottle of wine. I thought you'd have been found in a ditch by now, or that the husband of one of your 'parishioners' would have cut off something important."
They looked at each other in the silence that followed.
"Someone has to make sure you're still breathing," she whispered finally.
Ari moved slowly, kneeling in front of her on the blanket. The moonlight lit up her face, and for the first time, he saw the exhaustion in her eyes, the tension around her mouth.
"So you came to rescue me, Captain," he said, his voice barely a murmur.
Thalassa raised her hand and cupped his cheek. Her thumb brushed against his lower lip. She paused, her blue eyes locked on his, deep and full of something that wasn't duty or discipline.
"Now shut up and kiss me already, you idiot. It's been too long."
And so he did.
There was no elegance in the kiss. It was a clash of lips, a clumsy, desperate meeting. It was the taste of wine and eight years of absence. It was the crunch of hay beneath his knees and the cold metal of her mail shirt against his chest.
When they pulled apart, breathless, their foreheads resting together, Ari was the first to speak, his voice hoarse.
"Wow."
Thalassa smiled, a genuine, tired smile. "Wow, what?"
"You still taste like trouble," he panted.
"And you're still trouble worth having," she replied, before pulling him in for another kiss, this one slower, deeper. A kiss that wasn't a memory, but a promise.
Tomorrow's patrol would be hell. But the night, Ari told himself, the night was his.