Rethi spent a long time lying in bed that night, or morning depending on how much of a stickler you were.

The small but comfortable room within the Skinned Lizard was a blessing for today, the bed being just large enough to fit him and Alena within its sheets, allowing them to comfort each other as they drifted into the realm of sleep. Maximilian had always acted oddly around the topic of Alena and Rethi, most of the time poking fun at the couple.

It was a strange sentiment to Rethi, that their relationship would be seen as fledgling in the way that Max saw it. It was probably a holdover from his life back on Earth, something about the concept of a child being much different there—something that he’d never graced Rethi with the details on.

Rethi’s extreme awe for the man had slowly simmered down over the past while, though the introduction of his master’s literal Demigodhood certainly made it difficult to tone down too much. But now, Rethi held more of a strong respect and loyalty to the man, rather than a rabid piousness that he was leaning more towards earlier on in their relationship.

Maximilian was a good man, placed against impossible odds. Every time that Rethi interacted with his master, there was always something different about the conversation than the others that he had. It was something almost entirely indescribable, except for the feeling of excitement and energy that was derived from it. It was Maximilian’s selling point, as a person. Always listening, always contemplating, and always ready to give an answer to the best of his abilities for your own benefit.

The past day, however, had tested Rethi in a way he hadn’t expected to be tested.

In that little road town, it had been difficult to form opinions of nobility and the finer classes. The older townsfolk had their choice words to say about them, some good and some bad, depending on the encounters that they and their friends have had with the mystical upper classes.

Rethi was too young and lived too desperate a life to care back then, but now he felt that every step he took widened his perception of the world a mile. In the past weeks of travel, he’d met more people than he’d known his entire life, so many that he couldn’t possibly remember the names and faces of everyone he’d met or had any interaction with.

It was a scary concept at first, though he kept the fear to himself, the fear that he’d end up in a place and recognise no-one and nothing—a transient in a world not meant for him. Rethi could only guess that Maximilian had seen those emotions in him to some degree, whether consciously or unconsciously.

The first time Rethi had set foot in Crossroads, it had blown his mind. There were so many people, hundreds visible on the streets at any given time of day, the chatter and noise were ever present, the salesmen and women constantly hawking their wares to a barely attentive crowd.

It was earth-shattering, yet Maximilian barely even flinched, reminding Rethi of the stories he’d managed to pry from the man’s guarded lips. One time he’d even given Rethi a number, five million, that was the estimate for how many people lived in the city he had once lived in. The paltry number of people within Crossroads barely touched upon the magnitude of a number so massive that it took a significant amount of time for Rethi to even put it into context.

Maximilian had taken them to the Skinned Lizard that night, forcing them to confront the minority population of Crossroads immediately. Rethi had never seen a Reptilia, the only travellers coming from the south being various shades of human. The boy had been terrified that he was encroaching on their ground, territory unknown to him, but his mind was sorted out in short order.

He couldn’t say that he was entirely comfortable being around Reptilia, even if he wholeheartedly accepted them and their plight within Crossroads, even enjoying the company of Tenra, the Tiliquan man, and Gehne, the Gek waitress. It was some small part of himself that he couldn’t quite be rid of something he solved by ignoring its existence within him and hope would simply go away someday.

Rethi was being forced to make opinions of the world around him, despite wishing he could simply stay as a neutral party to the world, as he once was. Wish as he might, things were fed into his ears by osmosis, the simply act of walking down a street would teach you a lot about the place you were in, what the people were like, who held the power, who hated who.

Merchants in Crossroads were rich, some being the executors of entire companies, focused on obtaining money and power, only to gain more money and power. In a way, he saw a link between himself and them, an acknowledgement of how easy it’d be for him to do exactly the same as they have done.

But as Rethi learnt more about the rich and their power, and namely how they obtained it, his standards set themselves higher and higher.

They were rich beyond imagining, for the once poor boy. He held in his packs a small fortune, enough to live a downright luxuriant life off of, but their wealth dwarfed even that, far in excess of anything someone could possibly need.

And for what?

Rethi had fostered the contempt over the days they spent in Crossroads, quickly aligning himself to be on the side of the ‘commoner’, on the side of the persecuted and maligned. The meeting between Maximilian, himself, and the owner and staff of the Skinned Lizard had only furthered that opinion. Rethi had slowly come to understand just how much of the issues that the regular folk dealt with had a root cause in what the ludicrously rich were doing.

So, when Maximilian had told Rethi of his escapades within the northern sectors, Rethi had almost been confused. He’d excepted his master to somehow get the information that they, along with those of the Skinned Lizard, needed to formulate some plan to shake the broken system to its core.

Yet, Rethi’s master had told him of a young and extraordinarily rich woman and told him that he was going to train her. In combat. It had befuddled the boy. Why would he possibly teach a person like that to fight? What good would that possibly do?

Nevertheless, he agreed even if he did make a point to argue. Though, Maximilian had pulled out the magic words, the words that worked on Rethi every time—the same ones that had first convinced Rethi to stab the man, dealing a mortal wound to the nigh immortal Champion.

“Trust me.”

So, he did. Rethi trusted his master, even going so far as to create a character, commission a mask and do the whole thing discreetly. It scratched the boy’s itch for mysterious beings, much like the Keeper that he’d once met—something he had to constantly remind himself that it’d even happened at all with the sheer absurdity of it.

Then he had met the woman he was to train, only having Maximilian’s comprehensive briefing to go on by that point. She was… disappointing.

Rethi shifted within the sheets of the bed, wrestling with the desperate want to sleep, and the reluctance of his body to relinquish itself to the bed’s comfort. With a sigh, Rethi slid from the sheets wearing nothing but a pair of undergarments, something that Alena had bought from one of Oscar’s many friends. Rethi wouldn’t admit it, but they had totally changed his life, and there was absolutely no way he could be forced out of them and back into the horrifying clutches of what he used to wear.

Rethi paced for a bit, the wooden floorboards under his feet creaking with each step as he almost muttered with thought. Alena shifted in the sheets and it was only after a minute or two that he realised that she was staring directly at him, her blue eyes shining with the dull light of night.

“What’s wrong?” She said softly, not a word of complaint or frustration, only pure worry, and care. This was the side of Alena that no-one else saw, aside from the rare moment that Maximilian might’ve observed.

“I’m training that girl, the merchant’s daughter.” Rethi’s jaw clenched with the sentence, a mixture of frustration and… something else that even Rethi couldn’t quite identify.

“Valeri, right?” Alena murmured as she sat up in the bed, her back resting against the bedhead and the pillows, pulling the sheets around her to guard her from the chill of the early morning.

Rethi nodded, running a hand over his face, “I just don’t understand! Why am I out there training some rich girl how to do things when we could be…” Rethi scrunched his face up and gestured wildly, “doing literally anything! Me and Master Max could wipe out the gangs in a night if we wanted, what’s stopping us?” Alena hummed tiredly, but when her gaze locked with his, it was entirely alert—Rethi could almost see that calculator in her mind racking up an invisible set of numbers, flexing the muscles of her powerful mind. Yet another side people never got to see of the girl.

“Rethi,” she said quietly, patting a spot on the bed and telling him to sit, “I think that’s what he wants to avoid.” Rethi bottled his instinctive response until he had sat cross legged on the bed, letting Alena search his calloused and powerful hand with her gentle fingers.

“But why? We could fix so much! We could–” Alena shook her head, stopping the boy dead, feeling his argument fall apart with the simple shake of her head, the black locks swaying from side to side.

“If Maximilian thought that was a reasonable course of action, he’d have already done it, Rethi.” Alena sighed, “I hate to defend the man, he hardly needs defending, but he’s a literal Demigod of the Hearth, Rethi. You do know what the mere priests are called on Orisis, right?”

“Peace Bringers.” Rethi said, remembering the title being thrown around in the meeting with the Skinned Lizard group. They had high hopes that Max was one of them, or something close enough.

“Exactly.” She said clearly, “I don’t know much about the legends, I’d have thought you would know them better than I. But in the fairy tales my father would tell me, they would roam from kingdom to empire, mediating discussions and stopping catastrophes from every happening in the first place. They are said to have saved more lives than any hundred legendary warriors ever have, Rethi.” The words were succinct, Alena’s opinion clear on the subject. Rethi didn’t even need to ask if Max could be considered a Peace Maker, his master being so much more than that.

“So, I just… do nothing?” Rethi said, conflicted. Alena sighed again, conflict showing on her pretty features and grabbing a hold of Rethi’s hand more firmly.

“I think it just means you need to reconsider the effect of what you’re doing, my love.” Despite himself, Rethi felt himself melt a little on the inside, regardless of his storming emotions. He knew the significance of those words to Alena, and when she used them, she really meant it.

“How? I–” Rethi scrunched his brows in consternation, ruffling his own hair frustratedly, “I don’t understand what I’m doing.”

“Maybe you’re not meant to.” She said softly into his ear, leaning forwards and kissing him gently on the high bone of his cheek, “Maximilian is hard to understand at the best of times, even when he’s being entirely honest with you. He’s so different from us, so alien to our worlds. You can see how it hurts him whenever he remembers that.” Rethi listened to his girlfriend, the very same girl he’d first found friendship with after he had become a beggar. He could still remember when she first stood in front of him, her body language nervous, but quickly attaching herself to him.

He had found their relationship to be like a close sibling relationship at first, sometimes they would switch who was the older sibling, despite Alena being somewhere around a year older than he was. It was time he’d found as a blissful retreat from the depression of his mother and their lacking financial status. Many times, Alena had brought him bread to feed his mother, though they had never spoken a word of the charity.

“I think,” Alena continued quietly, “that Maximilian wants to show you that you’re more than a warrior.”

“But that’s what I am!” Rethi said, almost reflexively, a flash of anger worming its way into his mind. It was something so integral to his psyche now, to his very self-image. He was a Divine Warrior, devout to his master and the nameless God of the Sun who had once created Hindle, the Divine Weapon that sat within his cloak, waiting patiently to be used.

“And you are exceptional at it, Rethi. Otherwise, Mayer wouldn’t have even bothered to train you, let alone have you inherit his Divine Weapon.” She said placatingly, not even flinching at the outburst, “You are so powerful now. You can fight toe to toe with Maximilian, something he clearly delights in. But, if the damned man has taught me anything, it’s that I’m more than I think I am and I think you are too.”

“More than I think I am?” Rethi repeated, making Alena nod solemnly.

“You’re more than Divine Warrior, Rethi. You’re my boyfriend. You’re the successor of Mayer. The closest friend and confidant of a young mortal God. The sweetest, most caring man I know.” She paused to smile sleepily at him, making warm, jittery emotions flood into his chest, “You’re more than just a blade for Maximilian to send to war. I’m sorry that I ever thought that was the truth.”

They spent some time together in the chill of the morning, the heat of their bodies more than enough to keep them warm as they embraced each other, their skin warming against one another.

After a while, Rethi left his girlfriend’s embrace, confidently meeting the challenge of the day, donning the metal mask and his traveller’s clothing.

Midday left the Skinned Lizard through the window, this time Hindle came with him, strapped to his lower back and humming with the excitement of the slowly brightening sky.