“We all?” asked Nectaris from where she sat a few feet away, raising an eyebrow. Her knees were pulled to her chest, she had her arms wrapped loosely around them. She’d been using a stick to doodle hearts and swirls in the dirt, but now she was just twirling it in between her fingers.
When they’d first gotten up here, there’d been all the kissing and cuddling that she could get away with, all while she’d been an emotional mess after everything and also realizing that Cryolite had actually
come with them. Slowly, though, she’d realized that she could actually let go of him for once and he wouldn’t, like, vanish.
Now she seemed more relaxed than she’d been in a long time.
“I didn’t even know he was married back then,” she told him. “I figured out he’d used to be on my team and we talked about stuff. Like, morality, how I’d gotten out. God, a little bit.” Now that they were here, it was probably wasn’t a big problem to mention that Emain was a priest.
“And then he decided to get out and he went to say bye to the others and they turned out to be knights, and freaked out, and it got to be a
really hot mess really quick. I don’t know all the details, but when I got the letter from Promethei, who I didn’t even know at the time, that was all like, ‘get me a princess before I gotta kill this guy’, I think they had him locked in the bathroom? Even after he purified they were pretty grumpy about it for a
while.”
She kept twirling her stick, telling the story with the same chipper attitude she usually had with everything else.
“And then I was pretty grumpy at
them for a while. Like, the
bathroom?” He could’ve teleported out if he’d wanted. The part where they’d kicked him out of their house even after he’d purified had been the part that had really bothered her, but she didn’t mention that. She didn’t want Cryolite to worry that something like that was awaiting him.
“But that was a totally different situation. You’re just up here ‘cause, y’know, all the Princesses were kinda too tired out from the snake to do a purification on the spot, and we weren’t gonna send you back somewhere where the Negaverse could find you now that you’re obviously a traitor.”
Maybe she shouldn’t have been grinning, calling someone a traitor, but she was. He was gonna be free and he was gonna be with
her. He’d made the choice. He’d done it.
She rocked a little, just thinking about it.
Then she scooted closer as he asked the more serious question.
“I’m always impressed when people purify,” she told him. “No matter what, like, murder or awful stuff they’re turning away from. I’ve heard a lot of stories at this point. It always takes a slightly different brand of, like, courage.”
***
“Ah…so I’m getting the executive treatment then? A large suite, on-call housekeeping, bedside turnover and mints on my pillows every day.” He teased, all the while reassuring her that he greatly prefered the vast unknowns of space and beyond, to being shoved away in a port-a-potty until some other magical girl showed up, clicked her heels three times, and danced all his chaos away.
Or however he was going to let himself believe these things worked for now. The method and mode no longer mattered, he was in it, it was going to be done. If it involved chanting and a sacrificial table? Well — he was already barely dressed — stripping his starseed the rest of the way down, whining the old glamor off, wouldn’t take that much more effort, would it?
He was doing this.
I’m doing this—
And he took Nikki scooting closer as his cue to sprawl out carefully, his back to the ground, his head to her thigh. A new angle, looking up at her to answer these sorts of questions, but not one he found he minded.
Maybe I’ll take a nap right here? Just like this. Maybe I’ll never wake up — maybe we’ll all wake up together — three years back — and I can introduce Nikki to Aramis as she was then — and to me as I was — and we could go eat boba…
It was a nice dream. The kind that faded quickly as he opened his eyes and searched her own from amidst pink, frilly depths.
“Your smile is infectious, did you know that?” Reaching his hand up, glancing his fingers along her cheek, the point where hee grin made them even more rosy, somehow. “I’m not worried about being up here anymore…Well, less worried, at least. No world exists in which I’m completely devoid of worry — “ He wondered which princess they would find for him. Found he hardly cared anymore. Knew that would change as time passed, but at the moment? He was about as carefree as he could be!
He was doing this—- he really, really was.
“And it’s a shame that I don’t even have a sufficiently awful story to trade in. I’m just — myself, I suppose. Choosing where I want to be…deciding this is where that is..Ah..with you? Obviously.” He huffed a laugh and wiggled as if to get comfortable, nibbled his comfortably numb bottom lip. He’d never kissed Nikki so much — there was nothing quite like surviving the end of the world —
“But no one beat me with sticks, or put a gun in my hand and said ‘shoot’ — fighting is not my forte’….” His kids lowering, his smile taking a thoughtful tilt as he turned the rest of his words over. “My team, if terrible? Were never terrible to me. They never demanded terribleness of me.”
I loved them —
I love you —
I want more — for myself — from the stars — a reprieve from the calcified abscess that feels palpable in the center of my chest where this stupid hole is. Something barbed that needs to be ripped out—
I’m tired of worrying all the time— of fearing nothing for no reason—-
I guess, as a traitor? I’ll have something to look forwards to fearing now, won’t I? Something real—
“And if I was terrible? It was probably more-so in my profession than in my senshidom. At least, the profession I was training to be? Nobody likes lawyers…afterall…but I don’t imagine I’ll still go on to be one, so? Maybe more people can like me now.”
I bet Albite will still like me, even after he punches me in the face the first time we see each other again — scratch that — the first time we ‘fight’ each other again.
“Regardless…once all this is said and done..If only you still like me? That’ll be enough. I’ll make peace with that much and you can talk me up to your princess as though doing this is saving the world from some great evil, too. Instead of just...whatever middling thing I was. Hah— whatever allows me more brownie and memories? Maybe there’s a kudos system in the greater cosmos that we’re simply unaware of.”
He couldn’t hide a small yawn, caging a world eater was exhausting — surviving Nikki’s family less so — but not by much! ***
“Yeah, we’re pulling out all the stops,” said Nikki with an easy grin. “Maybe we can even get you the good mints, you know, the chocolate ones? And not the ones that taste like toothpaste.” She thought for a second, with puffed out cheeks. “Oooh, or maybe just straight up chocolate?”
Honestly, it felt like a straight up romantic getaway already. He could just lay his head on her lap. That was a thing he could do, and nobody would get mad at them about it.
And she could lean down and kiss him, one more time. Then, after that, she could sit up and start playing with his hair, gently running her fingers through it. It was really soft. Really nice. This was so,
so good.
“It’s not about, like, comparing who was the worst person before they got out or whatever,” she told him.
She wondered if there was something she could do with her fingers to get those worried lines out of his forehead. Rub his temples, or something? Pendour would know. Pendour was good at this kind of thing. Nikki just sat there, doing the best she could.
“I said it was a different kind of courage for everyone. Like, I know this girl who started seeing the Negaverse red flags and left, like, immediately. Didn’t even hesitate ‘cause of the stuff that would make her life harder afterwards. And you?”
Did he really think she would see him as anything other than brave? After everything the two of them had been through together? After so many others had fallen away from her, despite her best efforts to lead them to a better life, but he was still here?
No. He was the bravest.
“You were gonna leave basically because of someone else,” she said. It did still hurt a little bit to think about that whole situation, but she was doing better at not dwelling too much on it for her own sake. “And then even after all of that fell apart
super violently and broke our hearts and stuff, you figured out what you wanted for you. You still decided to go through with it. Like, that’s the story of someone really cool.”
***
Soothed by yet more kisses, he sighed as her fingers threaded her hair, lay there and listened without thinking too hard about anything. The motion was nice, her hands were steady, her nails felt good on his scalp—
He blinked, surprised into a chuckle, a real one, a genuine smile that held the edges of a blush for how surprising to him her honest appraisal of his situation was.
She really does love me, doesn’t she?
“We’ll when you put it like that?” His laugh soft as he tilted his head just so, trying to catch the tips of her fingers with only his lips, to land a kiss on the side of her palm. Feeling too lazy to lean up, to content in their settled state to risk disturbing it all by sitting up and dragging her back down towards him again.
I could probably fall asleep here, exactly like this — for days —
“It sounds very romantic — like I’m the real hero of my own story— “ Teasing notes and a soft hum, and man now he wanted chocolate and not the cheap kind from motels and restaurants. But the good kind, and he didn’t even know what Nikki considered good? Knew that’d be one more thing to learn on a long list of things to learn. “But we all know I couldn’t have done this alone. You’ll need to write yourself into my narrative, won’t you? Let me borrow some of your coolness points since you worked so hard behind the scenes.” Offering credit where credit was due, and maybe he’d include pendour and Nikki’s other family? Not to their faces, he didn’t need any more of Promethei looking all-knowing and smug about it. Or Emains wise, accepting glances..
Of course the man was a priest—-
“Because there’s going to be so much…everything you’ve already done…and then the rest…the things we’re going to have to do for ourselves after…to learn about each other...”
“My hair isn’t actually this long…”
“I wear colored contacts…outside of this…”
“I’d like another kiss?”
Because he could ask her anything and tell her anything, which meant he could ask for this too, right? Whenever he wanted now. And she could tell him yes — or no — or later — ***
“Oh yeah, I’m like your guardian angel,” Nectaris agreed. Cryolite had been super strong and made his choice and stuff, but she’d helped him a lot. She was gonna be making sure Encke never forgot it.
She was gonna get so much mileage out of telling him
I told you so. So much.
“So, when you tell the story make sure I sound super cool.” She giggled, but she had no doubt that he’d do it. It was really nice to see the soft way that he was looking at her now that he didn’t have nearly so much sorrow in his eyes.
She could lean down again to kiss him, too, when he asked. That was easy, and she really liked how it made him smile.
“Okay, but if you wanna really get back into the kissing stuff we should probably, like, roll over or something,” she said. For now she straightened again and kept brushing his hair, trying to think of how he’d look without the corrupt length. She wondered how short he meant by
short. She flipped through several options in her head, several eye colors, too, although she had a hard time thinking of anything there that was more striking than his natural red and blue. He had like, contrast and everything.
It fit, she thought, with all the different sides of him.
“Or we could talk, cause, like, there’s a lot we don’t know, huh?”
Like, basics, even.
“I’m a dance teacher. Well, like, aerials, mostly, but I do some other stuff too. I make some accessories and stuff to sell too, but I’ve been doing more with the dance stuff lately.”
It was really nice, honestly.
“I’m still super into J-fashion, though. Decora, you know, with all the hair clips and stuff?”
***
“I will…” Easy to promise as breathing, to find her laugh infectious and her touch warm. He was too lazy to move, to do anything more than stay settled. He didn’t even want to take out the little journal and write things down. No matter how important they seemed—
There’s always going to be more time to talk, she can tell me again. As many time as I need. As she wants to.
He told himself these things and justified relaxing in the moment, tilting his head to consider all the ways he had absolutely no clue about what some of it was.
“There’s a lot we don’t know…a lot that won’t matter because it will likely change, at least for me? But of course I still want you to know it.” And he still wanted to learn it from her, even if he forgot. He wasn’t so afraid of that anymore, of what that would mean for him with Nikki.
“I’ve never heard of Decora in my life—“ He was already imagining asking for examples, pictures, the whole nine. “I bet you’d be a beautiful dancer…you lead well…and teaching makes sense, you are very patient after all.” It was the one thing he had experience with, at least when it came to her. Smooth movements and endless hope for someone else putting things together.
“I wish I had more hobbies…before all this…I have the feeling I’ll have more afterwards? Promethei seems keen on getting me some…as does Emain…” He tried to think less of the work that would be coming with his name on it. To focus more on the incoming future hurtling his way, all the good things that being out of the loop meant! He’d always been a scholar after all, hadn’t he? Maybe that’d stick. Maybe Decora would become his new hobby too – or religion – or –
“As do you.”
The possibilities were endless.
“If nothing else? We’ll have time to go out on an actual date for once. The kind where we don’t both leave like midnight is happening and we’re turning into pumpkins.”
They had more than just the one night, more than just their powers lasted. ***
“Well, you can learn about stuff now,” she told him, “And then learn about stuff again afterwards. You know me. You know I don’t mind talking about this kind of stuff.”
There was fashion, and dance, and her family, and magic. Nikki could go on and on and on about all of it, with Cryolite’s hand in hers and with sparkles in her eyes.
“And you know I don’t mind dragging you places, either.” A thought struck her, because of how he was mentioning the husbands. “Bar jeopardy, with the squad?” Sticks and Stones, with the purple neon lights, was pretty much as far as you could get from the old library where they usually hung out, but that was fine. She wanted to see the look on his
face.
And after that, they’d have time for romantic stuff, too.
They had
time.
“I’m so, so glad that neither of us are turning into pumpkins anymore,” she told him.
And with that thought, the desire to be with him got stronger than the desire not to move, so she rolled the two of them around and started kissing him some more.
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