Iris felt herself slowly wake up yet she tried to resist, keeping her eyes closed against the sunlight filling the room. She groaned as she felt the peace of sleep leave her and she was left laying down with her eyes closed, pretending to sleep. She couldn’t resist much longer as she resituated, rubbing her face against a familiar arm. She opened her eyes to Arylos sleeping peacefully on his back with one of his arms wrapped around her.

Iris laughed to herself as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes with a mighty yawn. “You’re slacking, boy,” she said softly while tapping Arylos’s bicep. “I thought you were supposed to wake up before I did.”

Arylos growled as his eyes twitched and the muscles in his arm convulsed. “I’m on vacation, girl,” he said in his traditional growling voice.

“Sure honey, whatever you say,” Iris said in a teasing voice. “So, what are you wanting to do today?”

“I’m good where I’m at now,” Arylos said with a deep sigh while pulling the blanket back over his shoulders.

“Oh come on, you can’t be that lazy,” Iris complained while puffing up her face.

“I just said I’m on vacation,” Arylos said with a smile.

“That’s all well and good, but you made the bed all sticky,” Iris complained with a frown as she moved her legs under the blanket.

“You started all of that last night so it’s really your fault,” Arylos teased with a heavy laugh.

Iris puffed up her face in a pout. “Yeah, well, I want to go swimming.”

“You can’t swim in open waters,” Arylos said with a laugh.

Iris laughed to herself, trying to contain her excitement. “Oh no, it sounds like someone will have to be there to make sure I don’t drown or teach me how to swim.”

Arylos was silent for a moment. After he processed what she was saying, he finally opened one of his eyes as the blood-red eye stared into Iris intensely. “I know what you’re doing and it won’t work,” he said in a deep growl.

“You don’t have to go though,” Iris said with a smile and patted Arylos’s chest. “I’ll just take Bellona or Eir or something. You can stay here if you like.”

Arylos’s eye twitched as he thought for a moment. He then closed his eye and let out a deep sigh while rubbing his face. “Fine, I’ll go,” he said with a defeated growl.

“I just said you don’t have to go,” Iris said with a smile.

“No, I’m going,” Arylos responded immediately. “You won’t leave me alone about it if I don’t go.”

“I’m not going to guilt trip you or anything,” Iris said sincerely.

“No, I know you,” Arylos said while moving his arm Iris was laying on. “You’ll say that and then hold it over my head years from now.”

“I’m not that kind of a girlfriend you know,” Iris said while pouting.

“Maybe not, but you’re a woman; I have to be mindful about what I do,” Arylos said with a light chuckle. “Can I have my arm now please?”

Iris laughed under her breath before lifting herself up as the Titan withdrew his arm. He massaged his forearm and moved the fingers as he tried to regain feeling in his arm. With a heavy and groaning sigh, he sat himself up in the bed and rubbed his eyes. Iris watched him and saw that his back was covered in deep scars and scratches, some scratches just left red skin while others drew small drops of black blood.

Iris gasped as she realised just what these scars were. “Oh fuck, I scratched you up pretty bad. I’m sorry.”

Arylos looked towards Iris and laughed while waving her off. “It’s fine, trust me. I rather enjoyed it.”

“But doesn’t it hurt?” Iris asked in concern while reaching out, wanting to touch the scars but a part of her knowing not to.

“Not in a bad way,” Arylos said with a chuckle.

Iris let out a sigh as she remembered just what Arylos is. “I don’t know about you Titans, but pain to us humans is kind of a bad thing in any capacity.”

Arylos laughed as he turned around to face Iris. “Oh, then you don’t want to see what happened to you.”

Iris raised an eyebrow in confusion. She then sat up in the bed and lifted the blanket off of her. She looked down and saw that her body was covered in various scratches and small bruises accompanied by bite marks. Her face went red as she remembered just how hard she wanted Arylos to go.

Arylos saw Iris’s reaction and laughed loudly. “That was all you; you told me to do that.”

“I-It was all in the heat of the moment,” Iris said while covering her blushing face. “It’s been a while and I…wanted something new.”

“It’s not a bad thing; I think it’s rather cute really,” Arylos said with a smile.

Iris let out a sigh as she tried to get the blood out of her face. “I did enjoy it though,” she said softly.

Arylos gently rubbed her scalp with a smile. “Then don’t feel bad that you scratched me up, alright?”

Iris slowly nodded as she took in the affection. With a sigh, she turned around and stood up out of bed, trying to get her shaking legs to obey her commands again. As she got her strength back and stood up straight, she turned and saw Arylos watching her with his bright red eyes and a smile on his face. Iris blushed lightly and smiled as well.

“Well, we can’t go swimming like this, so what can we do?” she asked while gesturing to her marked body.

Arylos thought for a moment while stroking his beard. “Well, we could–”

“WAIT! You can heal!” Iris realised while pointing at the Titan. “You can just make those disappear, can’t you?”

Arylos laughed as he kicked his legs over and sat on the edge of the bed. “For starters, you can’t so there’s no point. And secondly, why would I do that?”

“Why would you do that? It would make them go away, right?” Iris asked in a confused voice.

“What if I don’t want these scars to go away?” Arylos asked with a smile.

Iris thought for a moment as her face continued taking on a red hue. She remembered that each scar on his body would always serve as a reminder to him. She knew most of his scars were associated with dark memories but these would be different. These would be scars of a better time.

Memories of their first night.

“Y-You’re an idiot,” Iris said while turning away and hiding her red face.

“You say I’m romantically dumb as a bag of rocks; do you still think that?” Arylos asked with a teasing laugh.

Iris’s face continued to go red as she squealed internally in embarrassment. “I hate you,” she mumbled softly.

“No you don’t,” Arylos said while laughing as he got up from the bed. “Speaking of things to do, I haven’t been to a nice volcanic spring in a long time. What do you say to the two of us go visit those springs Bellona and Eir took you to earlier in the week?”

Iris slowly calmed herself down and turned to face the Titan. “We can’t go swimming like this so you want to go to a bathhouse?”

“We’ll rent out a private bath; dilemma solved,” Arylos said while draping a robe around himself.

“That’s not going to hamper my spending limit, will it?” Iris asked in a deadpan voice.

“Ironically, you have not been my spending problem this trip,” Arylos said while laughing and handing Iris’s nightgown back to her. “Don’t push that though unless you want your allowance cut.”

Iris pouted and snatched the nightgown from the Titan. “Fine then, I’ll be good,” she said while approaching the bedroom door. As she made her way out, she stopped and slowly turned back to face Arylos. “Hold on, why are you so money conscious? Aren’t you like billions of years old?”

“Older than that,” Arylos said with a scoff.

“Yes yes, I know, but if you’ve been alive that long, shouldn’t you have money saved up?” Iris asked while leaning against the wall. “Don’t tell me that the last Titan is dirt poor because he’s bad with money.”

“It’s not anything like that,” Arylos responded, embarrassment heavy in his voice.

“Oh, then what is it?” Iris asked in a sarcastic voice.

Arylos silenced himself as he desperately tried to think about how to answer Iris, all the while Iris was staring at him with cold eyes. “You’re right,” he admitted softly.

“I’m sorry?” Iris asked, trying to understand what she was right about.

“I’ve been alive a long time, worshipped as a god by many,” Arylos said with a sigh while trying to figure out how to tell Iris. “Over that time, I have accumulated wealth…a lot of it.”

“A lot of it?” Iris asked as a smile came to her.

Arylos sighed and looked at his hands. “You can’t tell anyone else, okay? The less they know the better. To be honest, I didn’t even want to tell you.”

“Let me guess; you spent all of that wealth and are now poor,” Iris said with a sarcastic sigh.

“No, it has only grown,” Arylos said in a soft voice. “Enough of it that there is a realm out there dedicated specifically to storing my collection.”

Iris’s face went blank as she tried to process Arylos’s words. “Hold on a minute; there’s a world out there that exists just to hold your wealth? We’re talking a whole world, like my world?”

“Correct,” Arylos said with a slow nod. “It holds everything from my personal library to my personal treasury.”

Iris felt a laugh of disbelief come to her as she tried to understand the scale that Arylos was talking about. “You’re kidding me, right? A whole planet just for your stuff.”

Arylos shook his head slowly as he tried to contain a laugh, understanding just how absurd this all sounds. “As you said; I’m ‘like billions of years old’.”

Iris felt the shock come to her as she realised her boyfriend was not only a Titan, a monster, and eternal. Her boyfriend was filthy rich. She remembered how he bought their house in Sentoraya without any consideration for the cost and wondered just what else he had donated to or bought. She knew he would import goods from Templarius which could not have been cheap, yet he did it without a care.

She couldn’t help but feel laughter come to her. “So you’re telling me–”

“The answer is no,” Arylos said sternly.

“Eh? It wasn’t even going to ask you anything,” Iris said in confusion.

“I don’t use that wealth because it’s blood money,” Arylos explained with a sad look in his eyes. “A lot of it was either given to me as offerings that I didn’t want, or spoils of war after worlds ended. Each piece of gold in my position is blood money in some fashion or another; some worlds would consider what I have illegal tokens of war.”

Iris thought for a moment as she tried to calm her excitement. “So why keep it then?”

“Because mortals like you are attracted to shiny things with a bloodlust,” Arylos explained calmly. “So I collect it and curate it as a record of the peoples it belonged to. I do use parts of it, but the rest of it is purely for my own collecting and studying.”

“Right, you’re an outsider,” Iris realised softly. “All of this is foreign to you, so you want to understand and study us.”

“Exactly, and what can I do with all of that material when it all fades away in a thousand years anyway?” Arylos asked rhetorically.

“Make your girlfriend very happy?” Iris said in an innocent voice with a smile.

Arylos’s dark expression faded to a soft smile. “Really?” he asked in disbelief.

“What? Happy wife happy life, that’s all I’m saying,” Iris said with a laugh.

“What have I gotten myself into?” Arylos said with a laugh while rubbing his temples.

“A relationship,” Iris answered with no hesitation with a big smile.

Arylos laughed in embarrassment while rubbing his head. As the two laughed, Arylos gave Iris an entertained smile as he pointed at her. “Speaking of, you do realise that you’ve been naked this whole time, right?”

Iris thought for a moment as she looked down, realising that she had been wearing nothing but the nightgown Arylos handed her that was draped over her arm. “Yeah, I guess I didn’t think about that,” she said nervously.

Arylos felt his entertainment fade, disappointed that he didn’t get a funny response from her. “Really? A couple of days ago, you would be bright red and running away right now.”

“Well, there’s no point in hiding things about our bodies from each other, right?” Iris said with a smile.

Arylos’s disappointment faded to a proud yet embarrassed smile. “Fair enough,” he said with a deep and relaxed smile.