He awoke to the sounds of whispering. Excited whispering, thought Aleci, groggily. There was barely any light coming in from the one window they had, which meant it was very early morning.

"It's mine? Just for me?"

"Yes."

"Can we train now?"

"It's early-"

"Please, please, please-"

Finne let out a resigned huff, "If you don't wake up Ediann. Be very quiet."

"I am the quietest."

"I will hold Ethain, can you carry his cradle out? Put your sword in there-"

"It's a box, not a cradle."

"You know what I mean."

The bed creaked as Finne got out of it. He stretched, then met Aleci's eyes. Aleci waved for him to get out the door with Edon. Finne gave him a half smile and nodded, motioning for Edon to follow him. The door quietly opened and closed after them. Aleci rubbed at his eyes, glanced at the barely there light and shook his head, pulling the blanket and cloak over himself. No, he refused to get up unless there was an absolute emergency.

The emergency came soon enough, seemingly only moments later with the sound of a wordless shriek that had Aleci falling out of bed, his right hand reaching for his nonexistent sword. Then he blinked groggily, taking in Ediann's furious jumps to reach for the metal latch on the door.

"Ediann," Aleci muttered, tossing the cloak and blankets aside to stride over.

Upon seeing Aleci, Ediann stalked away, throwing himself face first on the bearskin. Aleci sighed, then crouched down and gently turned Ediann to face him.

"Why?" Aleci signed, shrugging his shoulders and holding out both hands. "Why?"

"Ediann!" Ediann pointed to himself, furiously signing his name while wiping his eyes. "Ediann!"

"Ediann what?" Aleci signed. It was horrible to laugh at a crying child, his half asleep mind had somehow joined Ediann's head with the bear's head and Aleci had never seen a crying bear. "Do you want your mamaí?"

Ediann shook his head, opening his mouth to let out a wail. He threw himself to the ground and refused to sign further. What a pleasant morning, Aleci thought to himself. He went to his wooden chest, opened in and fumbled for his deck of cards.

"I will play a game with you," he signed, tapping Ediann's shoulder, kneeling down next to him. "Just the two of us, not Edon, a game. Would you like that?" He pointed to the paper he held in his hand, "A game." He was above teaching a child to gamble, but this one was a childhood favorite of his. Ediann shook his head, furiously wiping at his eyes. "I'll play and you watch," Aleci signed, making certain to indicate himself as I and Ediann as you. "You see this?"

He sorted the deck so that there were only two pairs of cards and placed the rest on a pile next to him. He would start out with four pairs, he decided, and after shuffling them, placed them in two lines of four next to Ediann.

"You flip two," he signed, and flipped two over as an example, two pairs he knew matched and two that he knew didn't. "If they match, you keep them. If they don't you put them back. One turn per person. If you win," he smiled, "I will have a surprise for you." He wasn't sure if Ediann understood his gestures, surprise was quite a hard word to sign, he'd abbreviated as he did with mamaí , holding his hands up to his face and then flicking them to the size.

"Surprise!" Ediann repeated, sitting up.

Sometimes he wished he was so easily cheered by simply winning a memory game. These days he could only look enviously at couples in happy matrimony. Which was rare, if he had to admit to himself, so perhaps he wasn't that jealous all the time. Ediann proved to be adept at memorizing. It took him some time to understand what exactly the point of the game was, but he soon smiled widely when he realized he was winning more pairs than Aleci. How sweet, thought Aleci, watching Ediann giggle and compare his pile of cards to Aleci's meager two pairs. The game kept Ediann so occupied he didn't even notice Finne returning with Edon and Ethain.

"Can we train again?" Edon said excitedly, pulling at Finne's hand. The sword was nowhere to be seen, Aleci could only guess that Finne had told Edon it was best to keep it away from Ediann for the time being.

"Is he alright?" Finne walked over and kneeled down next to Ediann. "Good morning." he signed.

Ediann refused to look at him, holding the cards protectively to his chest, then relenting and putting the cards in his lap. "Ediann game. Ediann game with Praefect. No mamaí, no Edon."

"No Edon," Finne said out loud, raising an eyebrow. "Do you like the game?" He signed to Ediann.

"No," this was signed with glee.

Finne chuckled, "Alright then." He ruffled Ediann's hair, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "You didn't teach him to gamble did you?" he said to Aleci.

"No. I have standards," Aleci nodded primly. "Such as waking up at perfectly acceptable hours."

Finne laughed softly, and that startled Edon enough to turn and look at Finne with wide eyes.

"I want you to teach me the tongue now," Edon exclaimed, to Aleci he scowled and said, "Stop making jokes about me!"

The cabin didn't exactly have a window, so it didn't take long for the faint smells of cooking to saturate the air, signaling that the legion was waking up. Iachos had come earlier to check Ethain and the man had suggested they might as well enjoy the fresh air outside. Aleci was more than happy to oblige, the lake was quite splendid to look at. He pulled a chair out for Finne to sit on as they sat a distance away from the lake. A safe distance away, Finne had told him, nodding at Edon. They watched as the more adventurous of his men had taken to swimming in its cold depths and their excited shouts as they egged each other on to jump in. No doubt Kaeso was among them, thought Aleci, though it was too far away to make out Kaeso. The entire affair was watched on in envy by Edon.

"You can't swim in the lake," Finne said firmly, shaking his head at the pleading look Edon gave him, "promise me."

"Can I ride around it?"

Finne sighed, and nodded.

When they accompanied Edon to his mare, however, Edon forgot the idea entirely.

"What are you doing?" Edon demanded, watching as Mercus braided his own mount's mane.

Mercus shrugged, "Don't you braid," he pointed to the braid, "your horse's tail?"

"She's not a pretty horse!" Edon insisted. "She's a riding horse!"

"Why can't she be both?"

This made Edon frown, then he looked at Mercus's horse and at his own black mare. "Show me," he demanded, before seeing Finne's frown and amending it with a please and a smile.

"I'll occupy him," Mercus mouthed to Aleci.

"Stay with him," Finne told Edon firmly, and was given a distracted nod. "Come, Ediann." Finne reached for Ediann's hand.

It was quite a difficult task, Ediann had both of his hands full of the cards. He was shuffling them clumsily, fingers tracing the figures of the soldiers they depicted. He was particularly excited with the cards that showed archers. No surprises there, thought Aleci. Mercus was unusually helpful today. Aleci began to suspect that his men had concocted a plan of their own when the next man they ran into was Domerc.

"What do you have there?" Domerc signed, putting the basket he held in one arm down on the ground before crouching down to get Ediann's attention. At least, Aleci thought he signed such, Domerc was a notorious speller and a lover of abbreviations, so it came out something along the lines of, "Wat u halv?"

"Ediann game." Edon signed back, after giving Finne a baffled look. "Mine."

So Ediann would sign mine but not I, Aleci thought, amused.

"Shau?" Domerc signed, gesturing for Ediann to sit down next to him.

"Show," Aleci corrected and Domerc ignored him.

"Went scouting last night and found another cabin," Domerc said to Finne. "I thought you might like this, you can put him in it instead of the box. I'm sure you can hang it in the wagon as well." Then he smiled at Aleci, all teeth, and said, "He's quite a good swordsman. Perhaps you're out of practice."

Finne looked baffled at the exchanged, his eyes going from Aleci to Domerc with confusion. He relaxed though, when he saw Ediann 'shauing' Domerc the game. Domerc, to his credit, lost spectacularly.

"Would you like to show me then?" said Aleci, raising an eyebrow. "Show me what you can do with a sword."

Finne glanced at Ediann, then at Edon farther away and said, "I don't want a big audience."

"You won't. The cabin has a cleared space behind it." Domerc interjected.

"Is that so?" Finne said, before tapping Ediann's shoulder and motioning that he would be behind the cabin, with his right fist to represent the cabin and his other hand behind it.

Ediann nodded, returning the gesture before gleefully pulling at Domerc's sleeve to play another round. Aleci made certain to scowl at Domerc before leaving with Finne, the gesture was also ignored.

"I haven't done this in a long time," Finne muttered.

He had placed Ethain in the basket near the cabin wall, and he stood facing Aleci, an uncertain look on his face. The area behind the cabin was clumsily paved with stones, perhaps the original owner wanted to expand the current resident. Now it made for a makeshift arena.

"You could start by trying," Aleci offered and yelped in surprise when Finne decided to attack first.

Finne was fast and swift on his feet, even as he didn't quite match Aleci's blows, he was quick to counter Aleci's strikes. What Aleci had in raw strength and practice, Finne matched in agility and cleverness. There was a still healing injury on his stomach, concealed by his tunic, but a twinge of pain from his face and Finne immediately took notice.

"You are ruthless," Aleci panted, as Finne spared him no blows.

"I am?" Finne said with a grin.

There was nothing Aleci hated more than the cloying words of poets. No one had emerald green eyes or teeth like pearls but… he would be blind to ignore that Finne's smile made him feel something. A craving to see it again, he thought. Well, where was the harm in that?

They exchanged some friendly blows before Finne signaled that he wanted to stop.

"I should… feed him," he muttered, a flush of embarrassment on his face as he glanced down at the blotches on his chest. "It won't be too hard of a stain to get out, don't worry-"

"Don't apologize," said Aleci, rubbing at his neck, "it's a tunic, they get... things on them."

Finne gave him an incredulous look, then shook his head. "If you say so. Praefect." he handed Aleci the sword before walking over and picking up the basket that contained Ethain.

"I said-" Aleci began and stopped when he saw Finne's shoulders shaking with laughter.

"He likes you," Finne said, quietly, a faint blush on his cheeks. Ethain had woken up when the basket jostled as Finne took it into his hand and Finne reached down to coo reassuringly to him. "Or at least, he likes hearing your voice," Finne looked thoughtful. "I suppose it never worked with Ediann so I've never tried talking..." He glanced at at Aleci through his lashes, "Thank you for holding him last night."

"You are restricted by two arms," Aleci said, urging his stupid mouth to say something brilliant, "it would be stupid of me to just stand there."

"And how many arms should a person have?"

Up close, without the confusion of the lights from lantern in the dark, Finne was remarkably handsome. Especially when he smiled and asked his impish questions. Aleci would like nothing more than to press a kiss to Finne's throat, to watch him shiver and laugh in delight as they-

"Depends on how many children," Aleci replied, swatting the thoughts away like unwanted flies, "though if you ask me, I would rather have more eyes. Not that only having two stopped my mother from scolding me." Thinking of his mother always banished the intrusive thoughts. Though, if they were on the topic, she was indeed remarkable at telling him off before he'd gone and done a mischief. If she didn't catch on, then she'll give him an exasperated sigh when he told her he only thought of the mischief because it was her that told him not to do it in the first place.

"You must be quite the terror."

"Depends on who you ask. I am my mother's favorite son, of course, being her only son I have no competition."

That made Finne laugh, a genuine one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and a light to his face that always seemed to be set in a half-sigh of exhaustion. Finne's cheer did not go unnoticed by Kaeso, who intercepted Aleci as he walked away from the cabin.

"So you're not a complete disaster," Kaeso crowed, clapping Aleci on the back. "Domerc and Mercus didn't suffer in vain after all."

Aleci turned up his nose at the damp plant-and-fish smell that clung to Kaeso and carefully took his hand away.

"And you foisted the task upon them," Aleci sneered, "you coward."

"Aleci," Kaeso scoffed, "I know I will chase after brats of yours one day, and knowing you as a child, I am a wise man to delay this inevitability."