Chapter 56: 56. I See You, Kyrathiel
He waited two hours, which was long enough for the barracks to be quiet and for the night to fully settle in. Then he followed the sound of the Banner of the Unbroken Sun, which moved in a way that was different in the wind, and found Marshal on the outer rampart.
She stood with the Banner next to her and looked out at the dark horizon where the battle lines were. The moonlight caught the gold in her red hair and the scars on her shoulders that the armor didn’t cover.
She didn’t turn when she heard him coming, but her body language changed in a way that showed she knew who it was.
He said, "You’re not really on watch."
"No," she said. "I’m avoiding."
"What are you even avoiding?"
A long pause.
She turned to face him, and in the moonlight, her expression was vulnerable in a way he had only witnessed twice before: once on the bridge that morning and once in a piece of writing she had inadvertently revealed when he called her name.
"You’re the one," she said. "I’m staying away from you, and ’avoiding’ can be the right word as well."
"Why?"
"You make me feel things I promised myself I would never feel again," she said, stepping closer as if she were fighting against her own will. "And it’s scary." She looked him straight in the eye.
"And it’s scary." She looked him straight in the eye. "I told myself I could keep my distance!"
"You’re my Master, and that’s a clear relationship with clear responsibilities and a clear hierarchy!"
"As the Marshal, of course, I understand hierarchies." Another step. "But at some point between the dungeon and the bridge this morning... I lost the ability to keep my distance!"
Lucian thought. "Oh yeah... she’s starting to act differently now, and it feels more vulnerable."
’Well... I should’ve not wasted this chance because I want Marshal—no, Kyrathiel... to feel something she should feel."
He said, "Kyrathiel."
She shut her eyes for a moment when Lucian said her name out of the blue. When she opened her eyes, the thing she’d been holding back since the bridge was there without any of its usual protection.
"I... I fell for you," she told him. "Somewhere between the training, the fights, and the moments when you treated me like a person with a name worth remembering, I fell for you!"
"I really am... fell for you..."
"I don’t know how to do this relationship because the last time I cared about someone so much, he never saw me, and I’m scared of what it will feel like if you don’t either."
’I knew it... well, here goes nothing.’
’This second chance... I need to have as many woman as I can love.’
"I see you," he told her. "I meant what I said on the bridge, and I’ve meant every word of it since the first time you called me pathetic."
He noticed her breath catch slightly at his words. "And I love you, not for the legend, not for the SSS warrior who defeated five SSR monsters in just fifteen seconds."
"All I see is just Kyrathiel—the woman who lost everything yet continued to rise again."
The tears fell quietly, as they often do for those unaccustomed to crying. A few at a time, without warning. She didn’t look away or attempt to conceal them.
"I love you," she said in a simple, direct way that was very much like her. "I love you for seeing me and for making me care again when I thought it was safer not to."
He said, "I love you too," and he meant it in the way that he was learning how love worked for him, not replacing anything but growing around it.
"I’ve loved you since the first training session when you said that respecting Glacielle’s strength was more important than keeping her safe from herself."
"That’s a weird reason to fall for someone," she said, with a hint of dry humor.
"Well, I’m a weird person from my previous life."
She laughed once, quietly and honestly, and it was the most open sound he’d ever heard from her.
"I’m glad that we’re feeling the same way..." Marshal slowly gets close to him.
She closed the gap and kissed him. There was nothing tentative about it.
All of the controlled intensity she brought to everything she did let go at once into something that had clearly been waiting. He did the same thing, and she pulled him closer with the kind of determination that only someone who has been making decisions for hundreds of years can have.
When they broke up, their foreheads touched and they breathed differently. She was shaking a little.
"I haven’t," she said. "It’s been..."
"We don’t have to rush anything about it," he said.
She stepped back far enough to see him, and her eyes were bright with everything that had happened in the last few hours.
"I know," she said. "But I want to..."
"I’ve waited long enough, and you know that every woman has needs." A long wait finally came to an end. "I want you, Lucian..."
"All of you... tonight."
Lucian then blushed hearing her say that. "Don’t tell me it’s something related—"
"YES!" Marshal agreed right away before Lucian could finish the sentences. "I know that it’s too fast, but it’s one of the important things we should do as Master and his servants...!"
"W-Well... uh... alright then."
They walked back through the quiet barracks together, and the door to Marshal’s room closed behind them. She had organized the space with the efficiency that characterized her: weapons neatly stacked, a banner standing in the corner, and candles lit around the edges of the room, arranged with the care of someone who had anticipated this moment and prepared for it rather than leaving it to chance.
"You were planning this from the start, aren’t you?" he said with a teasing tone.
"It’s more like hoping it," she said, and there was that vulnerability again, the one she’d started to show him. Her voice was softer than usual. "After this morning. I thought that if you felt the same..."
"I wanted it to be right. If it happened."
"I feel the same way," he said. "More than I can say."
She took off her armor piece by piece with practiced ease, and it wasn’t a show; it was just a woman choosing to be seen without the things that used to define her. There were many scars on her body, and each one was different in texture and age.
’Holy shit... all those battle scars... make her look even hotter.’
’Is it really true that I’m going to do it with her right now...?’
’The Marshal that I see as someone fierce is turning so soft that it made me excited...’
She stood with them, revealing herself and waiting.
"You look even more beautiful," he said, "even with all of the scars."
"Stories of survival," she said, in a softer voice. "Do you want to meet them?"
"If you want to tell all of them," he said. "I would gladly hear every single one of them."
"And I’ll love each one for the same reason you said... they made you who you are."
The tears came again, and she didn’t try to stop them this time. She opened her arms and said, "Come here," and the distance between them closed completely.
...
Glacielle sat with her back against the wall outside the door and felt through the bond that she’d told herself she would accept. She found that it was easier to accept than she’d thought because what she felt from him wasn’t replacement but expansion.
His heart made room in the way she’d always known it would. She smiled to herself in the dark with her eyes closed.
Octavia was sitting next to her with her tentacles trailing softly on the floor and a cup of water in her hands. She wasn’t saying anything; she was just there.
Glacielle said, "You knew she was ready before any of us did," after a while.
"I’ve been watching people fall in love for centuries." Octavia said calmly,
"You learn to see it."
