When they descended towards Leviathan for the third time, Val used the glow of Arius’s power to observe the surface of its skin more carefully.

Tinged in red, the conglomeration of scales looked odd. Some whispery strands seemed to stick out of its flesh and drift about like kelp or seaweed. Each scale clung onto Leviathan with additional extremities, more rigid than the whisker-like appendages.

Though she took curiosity in these, Val did not point them out to Arius.

She waited as they held each other in the water, waiting for Leviathan’s exhale to bequeath them a new bubble.

Once again, they merged into the interior of the air pocket where Arius’s heat could begin to dry them off. Settling down as he was before, he held himself in his shivers that were exacerbated by the frigid water.

“Um, you’re freezing, and I would be too if not for you.” She would have frozen to death upon the second that she plunged into Leviathan’s Cradle, if it were not for him. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

Even to her own ears, Val sounded cringey. The nervous tremor in her voice did nothing to help her cause, but she would not back down from asking for what she wanted. “Would you want to cuddle to share body heat?”

“Cliché but cute,” he commented.

That was not a definitive ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, so Val waited in her anxiety.

“Get over here,” Arius said, clearly having expected her to take his earlier remark as an affirmation.

Her heart could leap for joy, she was so excited to sit next to Arius once again. Wrapping herself onto his side, Val felt content that they had managed to make up. Insistence coming from a gorgeous, prominent god such as Arius, she was glad for that aspect of his personality, assuming that they could really make things work.

“You’re, um, making this a little awkward though,” Arius cut in.

Each beat of her heart raced away. Cuddling was not supposed to be hard, was it? Val hated that she could make it awkward, but she had no idea how to lie next to him properly. She did just kind of glob onto his side.

“You’re the one making it awkward,” she countered with a laugh. “I’m trying to hold you since you’re the one who’s cold.”

After a pause, Arius gave in easily. “Okay.” Shifting around, he made himself smaller to fit in her arms the best that he could.

Like that, Val ended up holding a god in the darkness of Leviathan’s Cradle while they awaited rescue from the Sea Itself. She would have to be watchful for Tavras’s arrival because if he saw them like this, he would certainly not be pleased with her.

“Your heart is beating louder than Leviathan’s snores,” Arius whispered.

Those thunderous snores threatened to drown out their speech whenever their voices dropped to accommodate a sense of intimacy between them.

Val laughed out loud and clutched Arius’s head tightly to her chest. “What? No! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Of course, she could feel her own heart racing as well as Arius who snuggled in her arms. This actually felt incredibly nice, holding him like this.

“Arius,” she whispered down to him, “would you like to talk about what we’re going to do once we get out of here?”

“Sure,” he said whilst tilting his head to look at her moderately.

Enamored by his face, Val could not resist placing one hand to his cheek. His skin was slightly rosy from its chill but began to warm under her hand. “Well, I was thinking that maybe we could go back to the Summit once we get out of here.”

A broad smile started to creep onto his face alongside his hopeful eyes. “Yeah?”

“When I say ‘we’, I mean all of us together—you, me, and Tavras.”

The mention of that last name took the smile away. Arius closed his eyes and groaned, “Val, I don’t know what is so hard to understand about this. I hate Tavras, no exceptions.”

“He’s going to get us out of here,” she tried to remind him. “I know how cruelly Tavras has always treated you, ever since you were a kid. Actually, I talked to Tavras about that, and he explained to me that he’s just always felt compelled to hate you. The ocean influences him and makes him do things—sometimes things that he wouldn’t otherwise do. Supposedly, he has a special connection with Leviathan, right?”

Gazing down to the clouded mass of Leviathan, Val tried to imagine how Tavras would have fared here in Leviathan’s Cradle. This dark and cold, desolate plane must have been a seemingly unending nightmare for Tavras when he resided here alone with the oceanic colossus.

“Do you think that he should be excused from his actions because of that?” Arius snaped. “Why did you ever reject me for my violence? I’m the god of war! When Suvier does terrible things, do you think that we should just give the God Supreme a free pass because he took destruction as a secondary attribute?” Physically, he tensed up immediately and more so as he spoke of his father.

Arius tried to remove himself from Val’s arms, but she squeezed him tighter to keep him close.

“Arius, shh, you don’t have to get upset. We’re just talking.” Though she said soothing words, Keep the Peace likely had the effect of actually calming him down again.

Even so, he freed himself and lay with her more equally as they continued to cuddle. Arius cupped one hand beneath her jaw and gave her a gentle shake, plainly stating, “You are never going to convince me that Tavras isn’t terrible.”

“I-I know,” she mused. “Do you understand that Tavras is important to me though?”

“He needs to become less important to you.”

Val held Arius’s gaze firmly. “You don’t get to make that decision for me, though. Can you just listen for a little bit and try to understand?”

The slight gulp was visible by the bobbing motion of his neck. As he looked in the vague direction that was up, he said, “I never wanted Tavras to show up so badly before, so we can get out of this wet netherscape.”

Whereas she required an explicit ‘yes’ to accept invitation to cuddle, Val only needed that much to begin speaking about her feelings.