Delyth tugged Alphonse closer until she could press the smaller woman tight against her. The healer was warm, her touch familiar and undeniably real. Soft, tawny hair pillowed the warrior’s cheek, and still, she cried, dripping snowmelt as though some hardened piece at her core was thawing. “Do you get to stay?”
Alphonse clung tighter to Delyth and nodded. When she finally spoke, her own voice was muffled, hidden within the hug. “Yes.”
Delyth half lifted the healer and spun her around. Overwhelmed— no, dizzy with the joy of it. The idea was too big, the hope that she had carried since coming to care for Alphonse fulfilled.
Alphonse was whole. Free. Completely herself and all the world open before her.
The warrior stilled, her heart thudding hard within her chest, and looked down, nudging Alphonse’s chin up so that she might look the smaller woman in the eyes. “I love you, Alphonse.”
❀
It was strange, going from that comfortable place to the realm of the living again. Louder, darker. Her mind tried to understand what precisely had come to pass, and Alphonse could only hold onto Delyth.
It was a gift. Not just for Delyth, a mighty warrior who had given everything to save Thloegr and her people, but for Alphonse too. A new chance to live the life she wanted, a chance to actually live at all, not just hide away in Moxous ‘preparing’ for life.
“I love you, Delyth.” How long had it been since they held one another? Kissed? Alphonse felt herself blushing. “Are you going to kiss me?” She felt eager and nervous all at once. What if they had only been in love because things were so dire? What if Delyth didn’t want to kiss her after Enyo had kissed so many others? What if Alphonse had forgotten how?
Delyth smiled, her breath ragged with feeling and her eyes catching the light of the full moon. “Only if you want me to,” she whispered, dragging the pad of her thumb slowly across the healer’s bottom lip. Her own eagerness was evident in the flicker of wide pupils and the press of strong fingers at Alphonse’s waist.
“What if I don’t remember how?” Alphonse whispered, already grinning at Delyth’s choked laugh.
“Gods, you silly woman, what does that matter?” she asked, the very same answer she had given the first time they made love. Delyth’s lips against Alphonse’s were perhaps the sweetest thing she had ever tasted in her entire life. Both of them. When they broke apart, Alphonse was beaming, and Delyth was sniffling, and they were clinging to each other as if they might never let go again.
Only then, there was a sarcastic voice behind them.
“Don’t mind me.”
Alphonse glanced over her shoulder. Tristan stood there, precisely as she remembered him, though he wore nothing but petals in his blond hair. Yanking her gaze away, Alphonse realized that she too stood bare for all to see, though Delyth quickly covered her with a wing.
“Delyth,” she whispered, voice kept low to keep anyone else from noticing. “I’m naked.”
Delyth laughed and used the screen of her wing to slip out of her linen shirt and wolf pelt so that she stood clothed only in a sleeveless leather jerkin and breeches. She helped Alphonse first into the shirt and then wrapped the fur around her shoulders to hide the slits cut for Delyth’s wings. “There. They’ll probably have something else for you where Etienne is staying with the city’s menders. He’s alright, but he could benefit from your touch.”
Delyth was a tall woman, so her shirt covered the most important parts, still, Alphonse was acutely aware of the indecency of her dress. Her legs were exposed, from mid-thigh to toes. The warrior seemed to notice her discomfort. “It's quite cold. Would you be more comfortable if I carried you?”
“Yes, please,” she whispered, relieved.
As Delyth scooped her up, Tristan’s drawling voice called out, “What about me?! Should I just stay naked, in the snow?”
“You better hurry to the temple. Frostbite is bad this time of year.”
“Frostbite?!” His footfalls slapped after them as Delyth headed towards the temple.
Alphonse sighed. “Tell me everything that’s happened, Delyth.”
✶
Etienne sat up in bed, a book on his lap and a candle on the stand beside him. It was dark out already, and there was a bone-deep wariness in him that demanded he put aside his tasks and sink again into slumber. Though, perhaps, it could wait another chapter.
The mage turned the next page, a faint rustle in the silence of the mender’s ward, barely broken by the distant night-noises farther away from Caerthleon’s center. It was so still that when a knock came upon his door, Etienne flinched, leaving a tear in the paper between his fingers. He felt a schoolboy’s guilt, smoothing it down with the pads of his fingers. The words were still legible. “Come in!”
Delyth was the last person Etienne expected to be behind the door, and yet there she stood, strangely disarrayed in nothing but a jerkin and trousers, like a dockhand or sailor. He thought she’d have made it out of the city by now. That he’d seen the last of her for a long time.
“I ran into Aryus, and well—” she just looked at him for a moment, her brows drawn together. “I came in to warn you, but really I don’t think you’ll believe me unless you see.”
She stepped aside, turning to call into the hallway. “Just come in!”
There was a scuffling, and then the door opened to reveal—
“Miss me?” Tristan purred, leaning in the doorframe as Delyth stepped inside. He hadn’t bothered to dust the flower petals out of his hair, so he looked rather lovelorn. Like Delyth, he wore little clothing— just a pair of trousers that looked suspiciously like they’d just been snatched from a clothesline. Etienne just blinked, his mouth dropping open. The sight was too unexpected, too absurd. He couldn’t understand.
Small hands pushed Tristan out of the
