Shark had never thought they would get to spend one of Sacer’s cheesiest holidays with someone they genuinely liked, but here they were. They felt like the luckiest person in the world.

Dorothea had found them whiling away their lonesomeness with some stale crackers in the dining hall. Citing a question about patrols, she dragged them all the way to the fort wall, not heeding any worried protests. Lo and behold, once they had scaled the spire, there was Cerid pacing the narrow circle at the top while taking quick breaks to squint out the window.

“Aha!” he gasped once Shark and Dorothea emerged from the staircase. “The expected avenue of travel!”

“Did you think we’d fly in?” Shark laughed.

“Considering that it is you, I could not count it out.”

“This was the least conspicuous place I could think of,” Dorothea stated. “Surely no one will have too many suspicions about two soldiers on patrol? Though I’m pretty sure we weren’t followed.” She frowned and looked over her shoulder. “Should be fine… Do you want me to watch the door?”

“It’s fine, Thea, promise.” Shark beamed. “Thanks for this. Besides, I’m not the one who needs to be more careful about doors.”

She smiled and blushed at the teasing, but Shark also noticed how tired and unsure she looked. Miserable, almost. It made them want to follow her and abandon this time with Cerid, awful as that would be. Doubtless knowing their thoughts, Dorothea shook her head and held up a barring hand as she stepped back towards the stairs.

“Just take a breather, alright? You both deserve it. I’ll be in the chapel if you need to find me. I should pray…” She mumbled her last line of farewell, speaking mostly to herself.

“More and more often, I’m worried about her,” Shark sighed once she’d eased the door shut. “But it’d be better to do as she asks since you both went to the trouble.” They turned to Cerid, grinning. “So let’s take a breather, buddy!”

Cerid’s thoughtful expression was a surprise. It was better than the usual anxious panic, at least. “How did the two of you get to be so close? If you do not mind me asking.”

“Nah, I don’t mind at all. Why would I?” Shark moved closer to the window to bask in the sunlight and sweet breeze drifting in. “Though maybe it’s not that special to someone from the outside looking in? You can decide for yourself.”

They were two people who had met when they had needed one another most while not realizing at the time how deeply they craved another in their life. Shark, a deserter fleeing in the dead of night. Dorothea, an orphan with the burden of her home, people and magic. Loneliness made their connection all the more poignant and precious.

She came into their life in a flash. The snow had seemed to claw up Shark’s legs while they repeatedly trudged, a wary, wounded creature, around the village outskirts. What if rejection was all that waited? In leaving Sacer, an irreversible severing had swung down by their own hand. Once people realized they were gone, it was over. If there wasn’t a place for Shark here, there wouldn’t be one at all. That fear left them balled up in the frozen blanket of white coating the strange land, waiting for something, anything. For her, it turned out.

When they awoke, Shark met the eyes of a teddy bear big as a soldier. It stared from its place against the wall, and they screamed. Shark had heard that such strange articles were found in the lowest floor of the Catacombs. They’d been captured somehow, and now they were about to face punishment.

A hand pushed on their cheek, turning their face the other direction. Wide eyes met theirs, just as scared as Shark’s. Eyes the color of a dark late-summer sunset. Gray hair framing a young, round face. A girl who, seeing them awake, let out a soft breath.

“You’re safe,” she said. “It’s okay. You’re safe here. You’re in Sirpo. No one can hurt you here. I promise.”

Deep down, they knew that she would have said those placating words to anyone. In that moment, however, it was everything they had always wanted and needed. Someone had finally told them that everything was alright.

They rolled over onto their side, clutched at her hand with their head bowed over it, and sobbed like a child. Their tears dripped down onto her fingers, and, tentative and gradual, she patted their head, then stroked their hair. Safety. When was the last time Shark had felt it? It could have been anyone by that bedside that day, but it was her. To Shark, it was deeply special. Not everyone would just let a wounded stranger into their home and comfort them so willingly.

They couldn’t leave her alone after that. She’d healed them of impending frostbite and let them cry and cling to her until Shark had fallen back asleep, all without her even knowing Shark’s name or anything else about them. Though they were both children for all it mattered, it made Shark feel like the younger one between them.

Dorothea Atlin. She didn’t act like a child, which made it all the more easy to depend on her. She was their first connection in Sirpo, and Shark held fast to her even after they became established, got a home and job and other friends.

At first, she’d been annoyed. After the first few days she’d become so infuriated with the constant pestering that she’d smashed a snowball into their face while Shark had been mid sentence.

“Leave me alone!” she ordered.

Shark had only laughed, amused and ready to romp in the snow. The fluffy pureness of it was still so new and otherworldly that they liked to roll about in it as much as possible. “No way!”

Her fury was insistent. “You’ll stay away from me if you know what’s good for you!”

“Ooh, do you have hitmen in your employ? Can I meet them? Can I become one?”

She was almost too befuddled to stay angry, and she gaped for a few seconds. “Can’t you see that I just want to be alone?”

Shark smiled. “No you don’t.”

“Yes, I do! You see how everyone treats me! That’s the way it’s supposed to be!” She gestured around them. It was true; no one was even paying them any mind. They ducked their heads and moved on, giving their leader a wide berth to handle her own business. “You need to fall in line with these customs, understand?”

“You don’t want to be alone. I’m not going to leave you alone.” They approached, ruffling her hair when they were close enough. “Because I know that a life like that isn’t living at all.”

“But I… I’ll just end up hurting you…” She, too, could cry like a child, and she proved it then and there. “So why are you trying so hard…!”

“Because I can be here for you and you can be here for me, and it just so happened to end up that way. That’s how it turned out, you know?”

So there it was. It was an inherently young thing, wasn’t it, to be so stubborn for so long but to only need a small gesture to turn away from her convictions. Shark barely understood her even then, and she would prove to open up slowly. Her reasons for believing she needed to be alone, her self-imposed limitations because of her magic. The destiny of her death. The distance between her and the people she was meant to protect. Even with all of these things Shark could never empathize with, there was plenty to bind them together. No family, no true belonging. What else were two people in that situation supposed to do but grow side by side? Because she was the one to hold their hand on that first day and because they were the one to refuse her isolation, they had been one another’s only for so long.

“When we first came here,” Shark concluded, “I was scared shitless. The thought of putting her in danger was just… Damn. But I depended too much on her. It was too easy to just say I could keep following her around for the rest of my life. It’s all well and good to hold on tight to the hand that saved you, but… You know. You have to reach out to other people, too.” They laughed. “Not a special story, maybe, but it’s my everything.”

“Of course it is special. The depth of your feelings, that is…” Cerid fidgeted, looking to his feet. “You are certain that the relationship shall forever remain entirely platonic?”

The notion of it was amusing to Shark, but they were more interested in why Cerid would be concerned. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. I mean, you saw how we reacted when you and Rhys thought we were a couple when we first got here.” They smiled reassuringly. “Why are you worried about that?”

“When I first saw the two of you, I was jealous,” Cerid explained slowly, taking quick glances into Shark’s eyes between parts of the admission. “No, we have already established that I was jealous of you from the start. But, as a couple or as friends, I wanted what the two of you had. I wanted to be understood.”

“Cerid…” Shark’s heart swelled for him. Even surrounded by people, he’d endured a loneliness Shark knew well for so long. All by himself. No Dorothea to save him. No one, rejected and misunderstood. Gods, he was so strong to have made it this far, and Shark admired and adored him.

A revelation came in a flash: this was their partner, and there would never be anyone else. Though everything was so uncertain and they were barely even scraping the surface of their relationship, Shark knew that much.

“You have a very strange look on your face,” Cerid observed. “Are you alright?”

Shark laughed. “More than alright, yeah. Course, it’s hard to not feel a little optimistic on a day that’s dedicated to being with the people you love most, right?”

Cerid pursed his lips as he turned red. “I am...one of the people you love most? Is that what you are saying?”

“Yep.”

“Ah.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I also adore you ardently, though I suppose you are already aware of that.”

Shark bounded over to hug him tightly around his shoulders. “Yeah, I know.”

Cerid patted their back lightly. “If your confidence were more misplaced I would not find it so charming…”

“Come on. You already know it’s useless to try to deny my charms.”

“Yes. I knew that from the moment we met, truth be told.”

Shark grinned. “Naturally.”

“Your ego is swelling to the size of the sky, I can feel it.”

“That’s just ‘cause you’re saying so many nice things to me.” Shark tugged him closer. “You remember how we got interrupted last time?”

Cerid nodded, looking away shyly.

“So, yesterday, I got karmic revenge and interrupted Thea too. Accidental justice has been done.”

Cerid’s face went blank. “Interrupted her with whom?”

Oh, right, it wouldn’t have been as obvious to him. “Three guesses. But you have to keep it a secret once you find out, okay? Here, I’ll give you a hint. Thea is in love with someone very kind and handsome. Objectively. No one’s cuter than you.”

Cerid smiled faintly at the compliment. “Well… Then it is obvious. It must be Captain Tamlin.”

“Huh! Nice job!”

Cerid squinted. “You are frowning despite the fact that your words on their own would suggest pride in my meager accomplishment. Hm.” He lifted a hand to pat Shark’s head. “Do not worry. I also believe that no one is more handsome than you are.”

Shark pouted. “What, I wasn’t jealous!”

Cerid smiled. “I did not say you were.” He looked thoughtful. “It is not as if either of us is the first person the other has ever had affection for, is it?”

“Well, no.”

“Then I am glad that no one before saw fit to claim you as their own so that you could make your way here to me.” He tilted his head. “Is that not good?”

Shark nodded. “You’re right. It’s very good.” They grinned. “Guess I’m kind of the jealous type. I’ve never been caught up in anyone as great as you are. Think you can handle it as long as I calm down a little?”

“It is not as if we have not and will not continue to surmount larger obstacles. Patience is a virtue. Let us employ it with one another as generously as needed.”

“Alright. I can do that.” Shark leaned down a hair further as Cerid’s arms drew tighter around their back.

“We will not be interrupted again today, will we?”

“Nope.” Dorothea had made sure of that, bless her.

“Then we should make the most of that, should we not?”

It was true. Since their relationship had to be hidden, they needed to take full advantage of every chance they got. “Alright.”

Cerid lifted his chin and closed his eyes. “Alright,” he whispered.

To Shark, it seemed as if his red cheeks were shining. They closed the miniscule distance left between them to capture Cerid’s lips. In the gentle stillness of that act, Shark felt the promise of the brightest future they could have ever imagined.

All they had to do, together, was have the courage and power to grasp it.