I twitched a little bit. Just a little. Not because anything was physically wrong with me, but because there was something that I heard escape from Lux’s mouth. Something that definitely should not have been said. Not yet. While I don’t mistrust these people I think it’s a little early to reveal that we’re technically fugitives. While I realized that they were extremely nice to us, and that it wasn’t fair to keep so many secrets from them, while they share a lot about themselves, it couldn’t be helped.

Noct. That’s what I heard, and I’m pretty sure she said it loud enough for everyone to hear. She could have tried to play it off. That’s not what happened though. When I looked behind me, I saw her frozen in place, with her palm implanted into her forehead.

I don’t know how, I don’t know why. I don’t even really want to know, but somehow, she gave it away. IMMEDIATELY. I wish I knew that she was this bad at keeping secrets. I mean I knew that we were both relatively new to social situations. But how did she manage to give that away already? We had only met them around an HOUR ago.

Exidium was surprised as well. “To think that she contracted Salus, and can barely keep herself composed in front of people who are acting so casually.” I’m not sure what the standards were for being contracted with Salus, but apparently they were high.

“Boy, be careful. If your name becomes well known around here, it will only bring disaster to the both of you, as well as the people of this country.” His words were like an arrow that stuck into me.

My name was pretty unique, and was on most wanted list in the Kingdom. It could create a problem if it were to spread around that Noctis Lucifer, the demon who slaughtered his way out of the city after just being contracted with a beast, suddenly appeared in a neighboring country. I wasn’t exactly sure how publicized my name had become. Maybe it was only within the Kingdom’s borders. But there was always the chance it quickly spread to every other country around.

Best case scenario was that they wouldn’t be able to put two and two together. Hopefully ‘Noct’ wasn’t enough for them to immediately think of Noctis. If only she would have shaped up. But no, she stayed there frozen in place. And then they all knew something was wrong.

“Hey, Dusk, what does she mean by Noct?” Maximus had looked at me with a hint of curiosity in his eyes. I really didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t know how I was supposed to get out of this situation. If I just awkwardly change the subject, then it will come back up. If I tell them now, they might just run away from us.

“No idea,” I made a choice, “Hey, where do you guys want to meet us tomorrow?” They saw me brush past the subject and didn’t make a big deal out of it at that moment. I guess they had realized something was wrong with what she had said, and that it wasn’t meant to be said. So they swept it under the rug and acted like nothing had happened at all, which I was thankful for.

“We can just meet you at the guild.” Virgil was the first and only one to respond. The atmosphere after that was suffocating. It was too uncomfortable for any of us to talk, since they’d just ask questions they know we can’t give the answers to.

“We’ll go on ahead. We’ve been out for a while and would like to rest soon.” Lux declared as she took my hand and ran ahead. She signaled me and then summoned her wings, and I did the same. We then took off leaving the first people our own age we ever interacted with behind in the dust.

It was only about another 5 minutes before we were in the city. I suggested we hand the quest in tomorrow morning instead of tonight. We then returned to the room we had been renting for the past couple weeks. It was a cozy place that had two separate bedrooms. When got into the room and shut the door, Lux attempted to explain herself.

“I have no idea why I said that.” And to that, I couldn’t find anything to say. “I got flustered because I thought for the first time I had friends, and when they started to look at me strangely, I said something out of the blue. And that somehow included your real name.”

“I get that you’re nervous around people, but please try to keep matters about our past to yourself. Eventually, if we keep interacting with them, we’ll have to tell them about our matters, but until that time, just give vague responses and memories. We can’t be too careful with our identities.” Although I wanted to scold her more, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Instead I retired for the night. Meeting new people is exhausting, even if it wasn’t for that long. That night I had a nightmare. It was more like a terror. I’ve never felt so powerless in my life. I thought everything that was happening was real, and it was because my name was leaked and I was thought to be in the area.

The kingdom caught us here, and there was nothing I could do. All I could do was watch as Lux was executed in front of me, and I was next before long. I was watching her die, because my name came up. I could do nothing but blame myself as her corpse was covered in blood. My greatest fear came to light. I couldn’t bear to think about losing her, when she’s so precious to me. Most of my life I relied on myself and Exidium. Now that there was someone by my side, I wasn’t willing to give her up. I loved her with all my heart.

By the time I woke up there were tears in my eyes. I wiped them away and I saw Lux looking down at me, with a face full of worry. I reached up and hugged her, and told myself it was just a dream, that she was still right there. Lux was confused as of what was happening but simply returned my hug, and began to stroke my hair.

Her jet black hair smelled like the forest we used to live in. Although she wasn’t that strong, her embrace began to calm me down. After about a minute we separated and she left my room as I was getting dressed. As I left my room. She was just standing there.

“Hey, Noct? What would you say our relationship is?”

Well, I didn’t see that one coming, I can say that much. So I did what anyone would do in this situation, I stuttered like an idiot. “W-Well....Uhh...”

“Sorry for asking a weird question. I was just thinking about it after Ruby and Amethyst asked. And then I realized, I didn’t really know how to define our relationship. I know it sounds weird but I have this feeling that I can’t put to words, but it’s overwhelming. When I think of people trying to make you feel inferior I get angry, when you look at someone else I get jealous, when you’re hurt my heart breaks. I want to tell you that I love you, but I can’t figure out how to express it.”

She was listing off a number of things but they faded into the background as soon as three words came out of her mouth. Being the intelligent and sophisticated person I am, I stood there without saying a word. Lux realized what she had said and turned a shade of red that I thought only belonged to fire. She then began to mutter gibberish to herself, trying to calm down.

I could kill without blinking, but now I’m faced with a girl who just told me she loved me and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. Different things require different amount of courage I guess. Killing and women are completely different things. Understanding killing is like catching a fish. Trying to understand women is like trying to catch the Leviathan. No matter how much time you spend trying to catch it, you’ll only know it’s there at most.

My mind went through a million different things before I blurted out a response that I hadn’t thought of yet. “I love you, too. You’re more important to me than you’ll ever know.” Where that came from, I’ll never know. But the important thing is that I said it. Or is it the fact that she heard and understood it? Oh well, either way it worked out exactly how I planned it.

She didn’t have to say anything to respond. She simply looked up from her stammering and smiled. Tears began to flow as her face began to become less and less flushed. She walked over to me and wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me. Time stood still and I had no idea how long we were standing there, but it felt like an eternity.

I knew that we couldn’t be this way forever. The easy life would have to eventually come to a stop. But for that moment, I was completely contented with days without too much hardship and someone to spend them with. To think that a poor boy with nothing in his possession but his own name, would be making out with the princess of his country was like something out of a fairy tale. Like the ones that my mother used to tell me when I spent all my time with her.

Eventually we had to part from each other, in order to catch our breath. It was a reluctant departure, but it wasn’t going to be forever. I had almost completely forgot that we were supposed to go see the rest of the city with Maximus and the others. So this time, when we headed towards to guild to meet them, we did so while holding hands.