Bellona walked through the streets of Mutsukanai, headed for the only people she would find time to visit. She had been concerned about Arylos and Iris since Reyz’s initial attack; when Iris signed the paperwork to make them refugees, Iris had a smile but Bellona could tell she had been crying.

Bellona wanted to make sure the two of them were okay and nothing bad would happen to them. After all, Arylos had been gone for almost three thousand years; for him to come back now was almost prophetic and she didn’t want him to disappear again.

She walked up towards the front of the house and gave it a solid knock. Within a moment, the door opened but no one greeted her. She walked into the foyer and saw Iris was laying on the sofa but Arylos was not in sight.

“Hello, random person whom Arylos just let into the house,” Iris called out with a wave, unwilling to turn to see who it is.

“Have you really become that lazy, Iris?” Bellona asked, surprised to see her like this.

“Ah, Bellona,” Iris sighed and let out a laugh. “If you were in this situation, you wouldn’t want to move either.”

Bellona was taken aback as the air hummed and she saw a small cup float through the air gently and stop before her, as if asking to be taken. She hesitantly grabbed the cup and the air stopped humming and the weight of the cup situated in her hands. Within, she saw a familiar dark liquid mixed with a bit of milk and a touch of cinnamon; Arylos always remembered how she preferred her drinks.

“I see Arylos has introduced you to coffee,” Bellona commented while smelling the sweet and bitter scent.

“Introduced to what now?” Iris asked, unfamiliar with the word.

“Kouhi,” Bellona corrected, remembering there is a mild language barrier.

“Oh, yeah, I kind of like it. It at least wakes me up in the morning,” Iris commented, situating into her spot on the sofa.

Bellona took a sip and walked over towards Iris and saw she was leaning back in the sofa with a hot foot bath keeping her comfortable.

“Oh, I also see he’s taken to spoiling you,” Bellona laughed.

“What? Has he never done this for you?” Iris asked, opening a single eye to look at the Templarian.

“Never, although I’ve also never asked,” Bellona answered while shaking her head. “Where is he, anyway?”

Iris closed her eyes and shifted under her blanket and the two could hear a door in the hallway open. “He’s downstairs if you want to talk with him, but he’s working so I don’t think he’ll want to be bothered.”

Bellona gave a light bow and walked towards the foyer and saw the basement door was left open in the hallway. She took the invitation and headed towards the door, as she walked towards the door, she heard noises in the kitchen. She took a look and saw the strangest thing.

The air in the kitchen hummed loudly with power and she saw dishes cleaning themselves, food preparing itself, and even a broom cleaning the corners between the cabinets. The sight was surreal for Bellona, knowing that only one person in this house was capable of something weird like this. She remembered Arylos’s full strength; the ability to strike the ground and tear it open, even tear down mountains. He could control the sky, making it burn at his whim and even control the wind to create storms.

And yet this creature was doing the dishes and preparing dinner with this power.

Bellona laughed and made her way down the stairwell, thinking of the cruel irony. Arylos had become soft, or was this the life he wanted? She didn’t understand his motives; why would a creature as strong as him find satisfaction in living with a mortal like Iris? What enjoyment could he find in such a boring existence?

She came to the bottom of the stairs and was snapped back to reality as she was bombarded by the heat of flames and the sounds of metal. She saw the forge burning bright and hot with hammers flying, metal bars heating themselves and lining up to be struck by rows of floating hammers. Machinery churning on their own and swords polishing themselves.

She turned and saw Arylos wearing nothing but long black slacks doing squats, carrying bags on the ends of a metal bar on his shoulder as he growled, covered in sweat and entranced in his exercise. After one last set, he lowered the bar on the ground and straightened himself, his body twisting back into a normal position.

“I’m surprised you came by,” the strange Titan said aloud while massaging his joints as they cracked and he let out a relieved sigh.

Bellona shook herself free from her shock. She had only seen Arylos like this once before, and this was pretty mild compared to then. “What’s on your mind?” she asked with a concerned voice.

“What do you mean by that?” Arylos responded with a smile as he reached for a towel and wiped his face.

Bellona scoffed and pointed around her; the house cleaning itself, the swords creating themselves, she even walked up and tugged on the bar he was lifting and found even she couldn’t lift it. “Something’s gotten to you,” she explained while she turned to face Arylos again. “When you get like this, something is on your mind that you’re trying to get off of your mind. So what is it?”

“It’s nothing, Bellona,” he returned as he reached for a cup of water with ice cubes in it, something Bellona didn’t think possible in the heat of this room. “I’m just shaking off the rust, so to speak. Getting back into shape,” he told her before taking a drink.

Bellona scoffed and pointed towards his big and muscular form. “Arylos, I think you’re in as good of shape as you can be.”

Arylos held the cup out and a pitcher floated through the air and refilled it with fresh water. “On the outside,” he lamented before taking another drink. “I’ve become complacent. If I have to defend our life here by force, I have to be ready.”

“What do you mean by that?” Bellona asked, drinking her coffee.

“The fight against Reyz was a failure for me,” Arylos explained, heading back towards the bar and unhooking the bags from the ends of it. “That fight was too damn close, and people died because of it.”

“Three deaths total and some serious injuries; the rest were minor and mostly property damage,” Bellona assured, trying to calm him.

“That’s three deaths too many,” Arylos bit back, picking up one of the bags and setting it on a nearby table with a thud. “And one girl almost lost her life and instead made it out with an injured arm.”

Bellona watched him open the bag and begin taking large cuts of granite out of the bags to her shock. “You can’t beat yourself up over it,” she tried to ease his concerns. “I’ve never seen you this worried about collateral damage. Normally, you’d just say ‘they got in the way’ and be done with it. Why are you beating yourself up so much about this?”

“Because now I have collateral to be worried about,” Arylos explained while gently resting his fist onto the table.

“You mean Iris,” Bellona asked while drinking.

Arylos nodded and went back to sorting out the rocks. “When she found me, I was barely conscious, and Reyz was faster. Had I realised what was going too late, he would have killed her and I could have done nothing.”

“And that’s why you’re mad?” Bellona asked.

Arylos shook his head and slammed his fist into the table. “I’m mad because I can no longer justify collateral damage; Iris may just be among that collateral. I can’t risk that, Bellona. I just can’t.”

Bellona felt his pain, but she didn’t know how to console him. “Arylos, there’s not a whole lot you can do. I’m trying to be the realist here and say you can’t prepare for everything.”

“There is so long as I can keep her and my life here safe,” Arylos assured while tying the bag and hooking it back onto the bar he had and resumed his squatted position as he lifted the bar back onto his shoulders. “I cannot risk losing her and everything we’ve worked towards. So if my condition for remaining in this city is to fight off those who come after us, then I must be ready to die for her; that’s what I promised after all.”

Arylos resumed his squat reps as Bellona watched him while continuing to drink. She understood why Arylos was doing this; why he was pushing himself like this, but she couldn’t justify it. She didn’t understand his insistence. She knew Iris was important to him, but not why nor why he would go to such lengths.

Ultimately, she knew it hurt, but Arylos had to remember the truth. “Arylos, she’s mortal. She’s going to die anyway give her fifty or so years. What will you do then?”

Suddenly, Arylos lost his grip on the bar as it fell to the ground and cracked the stone floor. The air pulsed with it and the humming stopped as all of the objects floating by Arylos’s magic fell to the ground in a loud and deafening crash that scared Bellona, causing her to drop her cup of coffee and its crashing joining the cacophony of chaos. The Titan and the Templarian stared at each other in the suffocating silence, Arylos growling under his breath and his fist shaking and his breathing shaking.

He must have forgotten, or not considered it.

Bellona came close and rested her hand on his forearm, feeling horrible for what she did. Arylos flinched under her touch and looked towards her with burning eyes of both hatred and fear. The eyes of the monster now stared into Bellona’s soul and Bellona instinctively backed away. She had seen this look before; when the two of them fought on Orania and he pulled her wings off. Yet, this gaze also carried fear and sadness.

Iris rushed into the room, running downstairs and coming up to the two. “Is everything okay?” she called out, looking around to see everything on the ground and the two inhumans staring at each other.

“I’m fine,” Arylos growled while rubbing his eyes. “I’m sorry if that scared you. I just lost my balance and Bellona caught me before I hurt myself.”

Iris let out a sigh of relief. “Just be careful, okay?” Iris asked and made her way back upstairs, leaving the inhumans alone again.

“I’m sorry I scared you as well,” Arylos voiced as he corrected himself. “That was not fair of me and I should be more considerate of you.”

“You just lied to her,” Bellona cut in, her fear shaken free of her by the realisation, knowing how much it angered him to lie to her before.

“I did no such thing,” Arylos answered with a growl. “I lost my balance and you caught me before I hurt myself.”

Bellona shook her head before she processed the words again. He must have not considered Iris’s mortality until now.

“I’m sorry,” Bellona responded while shaking her head. “I was the one who was unfair. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You have no need to apologise,” Arylos explained and rested his hand on her shoulder. “You were concerned as my friend and trying to help me. I cannot fault you for that. To tell you the truth, I’ve been very conflicted myself so your reminder will help me ground myself.”

“Conflicted? About what?” Bellona asked.

Arylos shook his head and he waved his hand as the air hummed and the room began to resituate itself. “It’s a personal matter that I need to chew on for a while and chew on it alone, I’m sorry.”

“No, I understand,” Bellona responded while rubbing her arm. In truth, she didn’t understand but she had no way to relate to the Titan. This has always been their failing; they just don’t understand each other.

She secretly wondered how Iris was able to do it.