Rough day, love? "Mmm," Kier agreed dejectedly, wanting to sink into the cold stone beneath his back. I've said to scrap her. Send someone after her, I'm sure she won't be missed. "Mmmmm," he agreed again, groaning and whining and helpless, tired, even more miserable than he had been a second ago because he knew she was right but he couldn't do that, drawing his forepaws to his eyes and covering them, squeezing his eyes shut and pushing them into his sockets until he saw stars, hiding away from the world. "That I could, my dear," he replied miserably, flopping his paws down and blinking against the lingering blindness.

Letting out a long, sighing breath, wanting to wash everything from himself so he could let it go and move on to retaliation and defence with a clearer head, he rolled onto his stomach. Preoccupying himself with Eris' fur, threading it through his claws and twirling it round them, he continued, eyes down. He never wanted to hurt her, but neither was he ever dishonest. Kier was a liar, but not with Eris. Never with Eris. “A girl I was with a little while ago, insignificant, an apprentice — she was stupid enough to get—" He fought against a wary look up, "to get pregnant. And I— you know, it’s all very well to not care about the kits, I don’t," he raised his eyes and touched his paw to Eris’, devoted, still consumed by the grief, the torment, of their kits, the kits he had learned long ago to never speak of in the past tense, "they’re not ours. But it also wasn’t… you know, it isn’t terribly chivalrous to just let her die, you know? Once they’re out of her, maybe, but now it just felt sordid. So I, you know, I threw the trial, and Snowblister, being the great brute that she is," his paw slipped away and his voice grew more venomous, more bitter, his attention roving about, "surprised no one by exhibiting exactly zero class or tact and made a great song and dance about pointing out whatever meaningless little things I might have done." Considerably less song and dance than be had made, but this was his story. "And now a traitor’s daughter walks free — well! When that girl turns around and bites Snowblister in the back, she shan’t come running to me. We’ll see how well letting her live goes for her when Duskpaw grows up into a conniving little traitor and ruins us all. Her mother is set for execution at the next trial — let's see if we can get through that without Snowblister intervening, and then we'll finally be free of the last of Aspenstar's devotees. Why we let them go about free for this long is beyond me."

He was silent for a moment as he thought, his paw finding Eris' again and tapping lightly against it. "She's finally become a people's hero, I think," he spoke up again, like he was trying to think of everything he could get off his chest to alleviate the burden now Eris was here. "Snowblister. Guilt's too much for her. Now she has to go about cutting all the convicts free and setting them to the wind. Pathetic. Laughable. If anyone thinks she has what it takes to be leader, they're wrong." And there, beneath the vicious, sure-footed dismissal of his voice, was the insecurity. He thumped his head down between Eris' forepaws, turning his cheek so his muzzle rested slightly on the tendon of her foreleg. All the fight was gone from him. He was little more than an apprentice finally overwhelmed by ruling.

A thin smile spread across Kier’s face, thin and tired and in love, as his mate spoke ill of Snowblister. It was as comforting as if she had been stroking his fur, to be backed up and validated in his hatred, in his anger — it would have been so easy to be called irrational, to be called hysterical, to be told ’well, she is right, you know’; instead, she made him feel sane. And with that, Kier could let his anger go, let it seep out into the cool, damp air like it had been drawn out of him by Eris and exorcised. The anger could become calmer, at least for tonight. He would win. She would lose. It would be alright. His eyes fell shut as he listened, content to just be surrounded by her voice. He had just begun to purr, for what felt like the first time in weeks, when she mentioned his sister. Kier’s eyes opened again, fluttered and slow, as guilt, crushing and cold as shards of stone, cracked through him and settled in his stomach. Guilt because Kate was his — his blood, his sister, his responsibility — and it was because of him that she had ever been introduced to Eris’ life; and guilt because every mention of her was a reminder that he wasn’t doing what Eris thought he was. He wasn’t trying to get their kits back. He was hurting the League — oh, he was hurting the League — but he wasn’t doing that. He couldn’t do that. And every time he lied about it, every time he reassured her they were one step closer, his heart had one more crack added to it. Bullheaded idiots who think themselves as holier-than-thou. “Yes,” he agreed, the word so vague amid a laugh; he hoped it didn’t sound as uncertain, as airy, as guilty to her as it did to him. “She always was — every time she wanted to test something out, every time she needed a test dummy, over the drop I went. Not her, never her — the world would stop turning if she did it.” Even Kier didn’t dare press his mate’s boundaries; he didn’t say Kate’s name either. A bit of healthy fear for one’s wife was good.

At Eris’ sigh, he raised his head and looked up to follow her with his gaze, reaching out a paw to touch her own. He frowned up at her, worried and apologetic. Concern was all he ever felt anymore. The trial suddenly felt so long ago, so insignificant. And then she was turning the topic back to themselves. Kier’s frown turned to a smile, still soft and gentle. “No,” he agreed quietly, and there was a tired, mournful sigh to it, “we haven’t, had we?”

Kier’s worship of his mate had never changed since the day they first met, only joined by a more recent protectiveness; she not only got away with things no one else would have, but had such a bewitching effect on Kier that he never even realised he could have, should have, been annoyed — he never felt irritation, exasperation, weariness, never grew tired of her company or at the end of his tether with her dramatics. There was never anything but love, never anything but unending patience and awe. Especially after what she had been through. She could have prevented him from leaving their nest at all — he would have shouted for a sentry until they heard him and then told them, voice raised from up high, that he couldn’t make any of his meetings that night. She could have lounged over him during a discussion when she was particularly clingy, could have rubbed under his chin and cooed at him to leave all this and come back to the den with her and forced him to rearrange his paws and regain his balance every two seconds — he would have gone on talking with all the patience in the world, never snapping, letting her make him look a devoted, endlessly tolerant fool in front of everyone and just picking himself back up if she pushed him over. For Eris, Kier was a spellbound idiot. When she told him to forget something, he forgot it.

When she held out her paw, Kier glanced down at it before looking back up at her with a disbelieving, slightly crooked little grin. “A date?” he echoed around it, pushing himself up a little to lift her paw with his, and he sounded almost coy, like he was playing hard to get. “We’re married — I’ve already won you. You’ve,” he grinned, faux-cocky, “already won me.” Sitting back, he passed her paw back and forth between both of his own, soft and playful, white brushing over black, like her paw were a little ball of dough. “I thought married people didn’t go on dates anymore.” Clearly, he didn’t — he never wanted to stop winning Eris, never wanted them to settle into some unexciting, unfulfilling half-romance; they never would, not to him, who would never stop feeling the same wide-eyed, wonderstruck spark he’d felt the first day they’d met, but he never wanted to stop being worthy of her, in their twisted, unknowable way. He never wanted their love to grow cold; if anything would stay hot, more so than any crown, it was that.

what i say: im fine
what i mean: SHE COULD IMAGINE THEM IN THE WOODS INSTEAD OF A CAVE, BIRD CAGE IN THE CORNER, A NEST OF LEAVES INSTEAD OF MOSS

When she stood and forced him up, Kier obeyed, unbalancing slightly until he slipped one paw from her own and set it down. His grin was vibrant and smitten and more alive than it had been in weeks, months. He always loved, completely unabashedly, her insults; he sought them, courted them, because being brought down by her was the most exciting thing in the world when she raised him up just as much, because she never treated him, still, like much more than the annoying trainee who had carried her shards of fine china for her. Is it all the business meetings? “No, no — I like them!” he babbled freely, unaware of anything else as he dove into the subject, and it didn’t occur to him that getting excited about business meetings was precisely what she meant. “I thought I wouldn’t — I thought, oh, what’s better than doing nothing at all when you’re a king? But it is! It really is! It’s fun, all the theatrics and the trials when the unspeakable brute isn’t being un… stomachable? Un… What’s the word I’m thinking of. Unendurable, but… No, it’s got more punch. Doesn’t matter — unstomachable, I’m a king, it’s a word. But no, really, the meetings are what I enjoy most — isn’t that funny? I like the logistics.” He smiled at her, wide and happy and slightly glaze-eyed like he was picturing one in his head, and the little tyrant could almost be called cute.

And then he realised what he was saying, how he was monopolising what was meant to be a romantic night, and his eyes widened in alarmed apology, his mouth opening. “Sorry!” he gushed, and it came out sounding like a horrified question, like sorry?! How did I get onto this? “I’ll shut up. I’ll go—I’ll be more—“ He put on his Kier grin, the one everyone else knew, the suave, hooded-eyed one, and picked her paw up again, touching it to his cheek and tilting his head against it with his sultry gaze never leaving hers. “I’ll be more ’what would make you happiest this winsome night, my dear?’” A grin — a proper one this time — split his face and broke the spell, like he was making fun of himself and the words he used for everyone else outside this den. He let go of her paw with a quick kiss to the scarred pad and brushed his paw up to touch the scar on her lip, like he had the first day they’d met. “Mm?” He wanted, more than anything, to go back to places of simpler times, like their lab or the tearoom, but they were too close to League land and he didn’t want to make her clamp down again, not when she was being so open, so… her. She might be gone again by tomorrow night, might be gone again in a matter of hours; all he could do was treasure the times she was here, the times he could talk to her and she could answer. The times she could still be his wife, his Mousey. It was a tragedy, this sad worship of the present, but he didn’t feel it, didn’t let himself feel any of the sorrow. Eris was here right now, and so was he, and that was all that mattered. His patience applied to that too. He would wait weeks for just a few hours. “The sun’ll be up soon.” He smiled softly, tilting his head, eyes quiet with love. “Anywhere you want, Mousey. We can stay out all day.” 

This, perhaps. Before the miscarriage, Kier would have made a great performance of some dirty reply, some giddy, half-joking confirmation that oh, well, he was more than ready; would have backed up toward their nest and dragged her with him, because any tiny verbal slip, when Kier was always so unceasingly attracted to his mate, was met with a huge, teasing display of willingness. But now, he was more docile, disciplined, subdued; he was so gentle around her — so cautious, so afraid of hurting or destabilising or rushing her that everything in that regard had been pushed to the complete back of his mind — that if ever she did again want that, she would have to sit him down and look him in his bewildered, uncomprehending eyes and put it up in neon lights. It was a testament to his utter devotion to Eris, that he — he — was so tamed that he was complaisant to going without. So, he just turned his head and smiled at her when she pressed against him, not even thinking that he might once have made an erotic comment. The cave does get drab. He looked around forlornly, truly seeing it for what felt like the first time in months. Nowadays he just stumbled in past dawn and collapsed in their nest without looking at anything. "Yes it does, doesn't it?" he agreed, eyes raised as he looked around, sounding faintly guilty, like he were responsible. "We really ought to spruce it up — the only problem is, I don't really know how. How does one lighten up a subterranean cave? I'd say, oh, make more holes in the roof — but then it's just going to cave in, isn't it? Or the rain's going to get in..." He went on, babbling faintly, as his mate ushered him out of the den.

I met that. . . daughter, of yours. The annoying one. His head snapped to her at that. For a moment he went through a mental list of them, trying to work out which one was the annoying one, before— "Brat?" he replied, sounding despondently alarmed. Guilt flooded his gaze, his ears drooping backwards like she would have been within her rights to hit him. "Oh, Mousey, I'm sorry — they should all know better than to come anywhere near you. I've told them..." His voice became a hissing, frustrated mutter, like he was so tired, and then broke off; he glanced away, shaking his head. And how to stay out of our den. Kier looked back at his mate. "She came in the den?" He stopped, and for a moment it seemed like he was going to disrupt their plans entirely by making a detour to his kits. But, finally, he put Eris and his night first and took the second best option, reaching his paw slightly towards the first sentry he saw, like he was clicking his fingers at a waiter. "Put a guard on my kits' den. I'll be back later to talk to them." The sentry dipped his head and hurried away. Kier was clearly still bothered for a moment, lingering in the middle of the cavern like he wasn't content, like he wasn't fully there, lost in his head. But, finally, he became aware once more of his mate beside him and cast her an apologetic smile, padding on with her. But rather than leading her out of camp, he headed deeper into the caverns, past the den where he could faintly hear Brat arguing with the sentry. It quickly faded to silence as they descended deeper into the earth.

"You should come to the next trial," he told her gently, brushing along beside her as they walked and nuzzling at the back of her ear, eyes so nearly closed that he saw nothing of where he was going; he just trusted her to guide his paws well enough. "It would be good for you, to get out and about." An Empress going down to the gladiator games, turning her thumb down to the vanquished lying in the sand. "Bit of blood and excitement. Mm?" His voice softened, quietened, like he was worried about broaching the topic. He drew back a little, just enough to look at her as they walked. "I worry about you, all alone up in the den. Maybe we could at least get you some mice again, to give you a bit of company. It took me weeks to get used to sleeping without their squeaks and rustling." He grinned at her softly, his eyes never leaving her, like he was trying to reconnect to some earlier time.

There were times — many times — when Kier felt they were so synchronous as to be utter equals, feelings and fancies passing between them without thought, let alone words, the same soul in two bodies — except that wasn’t quite right, because the precise power of them came from the fact they had been two very young, very damaged, very individual souls when they had met, both simultaneously stunted in their kithoods and weathered beyond measure into cruel maturity. Came from the fact they had join together, allied themselves, not out of souls’ yearning, but out of some desperate, unspoken need, some recognition in one another, some silent, primal thing that looked at the other with wide eyes and saw a parallel future stretching out past the ashen horizon. And there were others when Kier felt like a grovelling, anxious doormat, hurrying along at her shoulder, wringing his hands and feeding her toadying, flattering ideas until she either pricked her ears up or turned round and knocked him over the side of his head, eager to please and terrified to disappoint — an obedient little spaniel and his cold-eyed mistress.

This was one of those times.

It was those two things — the utter synchronicity of them, and his fawning, nervous worship of her — that made their love such a living thing, equally tranquil and tumultuous. And he was as addicted to it as he was calmed by it. Eris was a drug, both soothing like no other and dismissive enough to keep him intoxicatingly uncertain, both the one supporting every crazed ambition he conjured up without question, and the one calling him an idiot with enough bite that it made him sit up straight. She’d known him as a gawky trainee when no one else had, and now she slipped her arm through his elbow as a lord. It was that duality that no one else could ever offer, that would keep him as hooked and in love as he’d been a month into their romance no matter how many years passed and no matter how many thrones they ascended and lost.

At her less than enthusiastic perhaps, a perhaps that made it clear it wasn’t up for discussion right that very moment, Kier dipped his head in acknowledgment, hurrying to catch up from where he’d lagged slightly behind, as sheepishly anxious as he always was when his mate was displeased with something. When she let out her almost-laugh, Kier mimicked it, visibly relaxing with relief, not taking his eyes off her as they walked; a thin, crooked grin spread across his face. Only with her did he ever just listen; she could have read the phone book from cover to cover and he would have lain gazing at her, entranced. And when that mischief glinted in her eyes, his grin only grew. He straightened up slightly as they walked, like he was physically rejuvenated by that spark of life, of opportunity, of possibility. “Yes! Of course, yes. Well — any cat you want, you can have.” He peered at her, leaning in. “You do mean cats, don’t you? If you don’t, disregard what I just said — it would be terrible if you thought I was some kind of psychopath.” He laughed, fully, more than he’d laughed in ages and far more genuinely, because if the two of them knew anything, it was that the both of them were most certainly that. Kier’s laugh when it wasn’t Kier’s laugh, when it was true, sounded far younger, far sweeter, than the high laugh of the thespian out on the stage. “But yes, of course! Break it in — break me in, too, if you need practice to get back in the swing of things.” He swept around to her other side while he said it, pressing in closer and giving her a hooded-eyed little grin, wiggling his unsheathed claws and tapping them down her spine. Then he drew back, returning to normal. Or, returning from normal to his better behaviour. They’d both known when he’d created the title that Royal Physician didn’t have very much to do with healing at all. But then, scientists rarely did. Far more about what they could do than what they should, you know.

All the while, Kier led her, by her side all the time, deeper and deeper into NightClan’s labyrinth — until the crushing weight of the air, of the rock, above them was as heavy as the world itself, until everything was cold and tasting of water, until there was silence so thick that it thudded in your ears and filled them with cotton. And then, suddenly, it all opened. Before them was a rounded cavern, vast enough to be larger than the main one in camp but still quiet enough to be intimate, with a pool of perfect blue water in the middle. The roof was low, but in the way that a Victorian bath house’s roof was low — decadent, sumptuous, close. Arches of stone surrounded the pool, and upon them and upon the roof, the walls, the smooth, dimpled floor, white patterns reflected off the water and shifted, danced. There was the quiet sound of trickling from somewhere, echoing faintly and filling the cavern with the tranquil music of moving water. It was all wondrously light, wondrously blue, like the water itself was lit by the glow of sunshine despite being so deep underground, and yet that very light was soft-focus, moody, warm shadows and sparking eyes. “Ah, good,” Kier announced, taking it all in with a very pleased air, “I knew where I was going after all. I feared I’d lead us to the eighth circle.”

He’d thought about taking her to the little abandoned church (dawn on the pews and Christ on the Cross, very romantic), but with Eris’ grasp on the present sometimes so tenuous nowadays, he feared that something so similar to the place she’d been born would push that grasp to breaking. And so, here they were. Second best or best of all. Kier turned to her with a smile, taking a small step back like he was suddenly playing the perfect gentleman, conscious of standing too close. “You know, Eris, my dear, I feel I’ve been remiss as a husband — I don’t know one very important question.” If he could have, he’d have hooked his elbow for her, his eyes hooded and puckish. “Can you swim?”

Kier’s grin stretched wider. “Oh, I’m open to all sorts of ideas,” he replied lowly, so cheesily seductive. It struck him again, fresh as if they’d met yesterday; truly, he was indescribably lucky — they had been in the right place, at the right time, and they had fallen in love with each other’s psychopathy. Who else could love him like she did? Who else could love him because of, not in spite of, all that made him so sick?

You do have all those pretty lives. Kier shivered. She sounded so easily callous when she said it, like if he were anyone else, it would have been a threat. Maybe it still was, even for him. He didn’t reply as she went on, just padded along at her side with pins and needles tingling down his back and making his fur prickle; it was an electrifying feeling. He only had five left, and he had a feeling he’d need them in the coming moons — but he could never refuse Eris, would never have even thought to; what she wanted, she got. He was blind for her, unthinking of any consequences, just like he’d been when he’d nipped off his tail-tip. If there were a diamond ring lodged in his throat, he’d claw it apart to give it to her; if he only had one life left, he’d give it up without thinking just so she could have a bit of fun and he could watch in the final seconds. “Mousey,” he interrupted finally, suddenly side-stepping to back her against the stone passage wall and pin her there. He grinned at her. “Are you asking to kill me?” Kier pressed closer, eyes dropping to rove down her chest. Inwardly, his heart soared with a strange grief, a nostalgic longing, a shimmering, protective love, at her clear wanting to return to the past; he wanted nothing more in that moment than to close his eyes and wake up in their lab, two insignificant outcasts. “We could,” he agreed, low and quiet and faintly taunting, paw trailing up her foreleg, “we could cut open some nobody. We could cut open ten nobodies. The Clan is full of them, just ripe for the picking. No one would miss them. No one would stop us. They’re all so afraid. If they tried, if they tried to stop you and I, they’d end up on the podium…” His paw continued to trail up and down, up and down, his voice little more than a warm, whispering murmur. “I could pass you all your instruments just like the old days, take care of all those hot, pesky hearts.“ He flashed a brief little grin, still looking down at the small, warm space between them, a mess of tabby fur and black. “Or…” His eyes flicked back up to her. “We could cut open me. But…” His eyes wandered down again and he pressed impossibly closer, Eris flush between him and the stone. “Five isn’t so very many,” he leaned in and brushed his nose through the fur of her neck, his warm breath licking over her collarbone, his voice dropping and growing sombre, like he were wounded by her disregard for his life, “— what if I need them?”

Then, quickly running his paw up to her cheek with sudden efficiency, he flashed her a grin, pulled her forward to give her a quick, chaste kiss on her temple, and stepped back.

When they stopped before the glistening pool, he turned his head to look at her, smiling at her reaction. And then he burst out laughing. “Can I teach?” he echoed, playfully incredulous. He padded around her again, running his paw down her hip as he circled to the other side. “Have you not seen what I did to Laertes?” For once, for Eris, there was pure glee about it — no guilt, not right now, always so eager to show off for his mate. “He was a prince’s kit and now he won’t breathe if I tell him not to. Can I teach… My dear, can you learn?” As he spoke, he waded backwards into the cool blue water without taking his eyes off her, waded backwards until he was up to the crook of his throat, unflinching, unresponsive to the gentle waves lapping at his fur — and then he held out his paw towards her. “Oh — and before you get any bright ideas, I think, if we’re going down the killing me route, there are better ways than drowning. Aspenstar did that, you know — it’s so démodé. If you suddenly—” he grinned, giving his head a boyish little shake, “if you suddenly grab my head and force it under I won’t cause a fuss, but I really think we can do better. Bit of water in the lungs, that’s not very interesting at all. We know a throat torn out can heal,” he still had a great, jagged scar to prove it, “ — I think we really ought to do something spectacular, you know.” He waded deeper, the water rippling out around his legs, around his waist, like he was tempting her with his own murder, enticing her to follow him into the water like a siren. “Cut my stomach open, spill my guts. What would happen then? What would it look like for you, watching? Would some divine hand come down and push it all back in and stitch me back up? Truly, what we really need is another leader to test it all out on — how much can the body take before there’s no coming back? There’s an experiment.” His eyes widened and caught the blue light. Cheating, he had called it when they’d first met; that’s what multiple lives were. Well, then, this was the perfect use for them — playing with them, with death itself, would make immortality less of a by-pass and more of a… puckish insubordination. Staring the reaper in the eye and flashing him a grin and scurrying off back down to Earth. He hoped all of this was enough of a distraction from her confused grief; it certainly was for him — he could hardly think of anything beyond this water round him and Eris, hardly remembered at all that he was leader and she was broken.

Kier laughed. “What’s wrong with how I teach Laertes? I’m nothing if not gentle. And I’ve hardly had to do a thing since he arrived here — what a testament to my teaching that is. A well-run Clan runs itself; how I wish they were all more like Laertes — I shouldn’t have to micro-manage everything, though,” he was grinning again, almost bashful, “I do enjoy it. Mostly.” The grin faded into a sneer, his eyes wandering to the side. “Before Snowblister…” His paw had been idly swishing through the water; now he raised it and snapped the surface, sending droplets scattering against the far wall. As Eris continued, he soothed slightly, turning his head to watch her approach with a soft, tired sort of smile. “Charm? Me?” he asked with faint, self-deriding amusement; he sounded suddenly exhausted, his ears drooping slightly. “Mm.” He looked away. “Maybe we’ll get a chance with Bermondsey. I don’t think my charm will work there, though. Doesn’t matter,” he turned back to her with a smile when she stopped in front of him, reaching his paw out to brush it over her cheek once more, over the scars Kate had left, “when he’s in chains, I suppose.”

And then he suddenly brightened, stepping back to take her in. “You’re almost swimming!” he exclaimed, looking her up and down with such excitement on his face, in his eyes. He was every bit the over-proud husband who would have taken a thousand photos of her doing anything. “Look at you! Oh, and you’re beautiful.” He closed the distance again, sounding helplessly, breathlessly bewitched as she stood there, her soft fur turned dark and wet by the water and the blue light playing with her features. He ran his dripping paw down her shoulder, her leg, her neck, like he just had to touch her. “You’re so beautiful. Do you have any idea how exquisite you are? I’m so in love with you. M’eudail, m’eudail…” He faded to whispered Gaelic, like he did when he was overcome, when he had no words left to describe her with; his eyes never left her. “You look just like you did on the moor — but stronger, braver, oh, so much stronger.”

Letting out a strangled squealing sound, like he was overwhelmed by everything about her, that was so at odds with everything about him — and yet so fitting, if you disregarded all the violence and just took him at face value, a weedy little black tom — Kier waded around to her side, creating little ripples. “Now,” he continued, more balanced, back to business. “I assume you know the basics — paddle-paddle, that sort of thing. Throw a kit in and even they know how to do it.” He paused, and then grinned, tilting his head. “Mostly,” he added, quirking his brows and glancing down. If the Highland families had wanted their kits alive when Kier had passed through with his family, only five or six moons himself, they ought to have kept them better guarded. “So,” he slipped a paw under Eris’ stomach beneath the water, pushing up like he was prompting her to let him take her weight. Confronted by how flat it felt now, he wordlessly switched position and brushed his paw up to instead hold her under her chest. He gave her a smile. “Paddle-paddle.” The smile turned to a grin. Near the centre of the pool, still clear and blue as day, the water turned deeper; for now, with it lapping under his chin, Kier could stand, but in a few more steps, he’d have to swim as well.

“Eris,” Kier replied, his voice so softly indignant, reproachful, as he looked at her with the wisp of a smile, like she’d just said the most ludicrous and unimaginable thing. “Of course you are.” He brushed his dripping paw across the side of her face, gently sweeping past her whiskers. “Your body’s healed, more beautiful than ever. Now the rest of you just needs a little more time.” He touched his forehead to hers, closed his eyes. “And I’m not going anywhere. I have five lifetimes to wait for you, my love.”

Slowly, quietly, with that small smile still on his face, he drew back, the water rippling around him.

When she slammed her paw down, Kier laughed, leaning back slightly and squeezing his eyes half-shut as the water splashed over his face. “No, not quite right,” he agreed around a little grin, water dripping from his cheekbones, letting her figure it out without any guidance or interruption from him and with all the patience in the world. When she managed to keep her head up and moved ever so slightly, he followed for a few small steps before slipping his paw out from under her and letting her go. “Good!” he exclaimed, his voice bubbling with laughter, his eyes bright as he watched her. “My, my,” he leaned back until he could float on his back, and then slid into a backwards somersault beneath the surface, his tail in the air for half a second before he resurfaced, now completely drenched. His fur was slick and shiny in the half-light as he swam over to her, soundlessly and surprisingly graceful — if it weren’t for the grin on his face. He’d gotten lots of practice in the lakes on the way to the League; pre-dawn swims, when everything was silent and the only things in the world were the crickets and the last of the stars and the coldness of the hour before dawn, had been the only truly soothing calm he had away from his siblings, the only time he could breathe in the quiet and not feel hunted or humiliated or afraid. The only time he could let his anger drift out of his lungs into the still black air.

When he spoke again it was with his slimiest Kier voice, his grin as impertinent, discourteous, unmannerly as if he’d said a thousand vulgar things. “You’re very pretty — does your husband know you’re out so late by yourself?” He floated in front of her for a moment, grinning as he drifted along like he were wolf-whistling her from a passing car, his cheek resting on his forepaw — and then suddenly dipped below the water again, confident as an eel, and reappeared sideways under Eris’ stomach, like a +. He grinned at her a moment, propping her up with his back, before slipping back under the water and reappearing close in front of her. He smiled at her for a few seconds, just looking at her like a selkie who had just popped out of the water to fall in love with a swimmer — and then added with a bit of gentle sternness, “don’t work your lungs too hard, mm? When you get tired—“ He tipped his head back towards the stone bank at the side of the pool, smooth and sandy-coloured in the rippling light. “Leader’s orders.” He gave her a proud little grin that completely shattered any charming façade, giving his head a joyful, youthful little shake.

He loved being able to call himself that. So often it felt a burden nowadays; with Eris, it felt like it was meant to feel. He felt how he was— not meant to feel, wanted to feel. Cruelty, power, theatrics — they were all fun. But this, this peace, this quiet joy that filled his heart not with the pounding drums of sadistic glee but with calm, silence, silence as complete as it had been on those pre-dawn swims — this was how he wanted to feel. His mate made him feel the same as he’d felt on the only happy nights of his kithood, and the… The impossible chance that the hunter who’d made him giddy in that tearoom would also be the one to make him feel like this, moons later, without possibly having known back then that she could fill him with both feelings… It almost terrified him how easily they could have passed each other by. And then where would they be? The thought of how differently life might have gone, how he might still be in the League, lost and unfulfilled and angry, so angry… Briefly, just in that moment in the water with Eris, all of Snowblister’s terror, her impossibility, the war she set off within him, felt worth it. If he lost this, at least he’d had it. At least he had her. Still, even now, with all the things the crown did to his head, it was all that really mattered.

“Mm,” he rumbled, leaning in with a sultry smile — and then he leaned back, the moment shattering as his eyes lightening and he let out a joyous bark of laughter. “A pretty thing?” Kier echoed, his voice so high and incredulous and teasing, slightly giggly, fully delighted. “Pretty?” Kier’s emotions made it easy to make him giddy, to make him squeal — his over-excitement in public was rarely an act. But whenever Eris flirted with him, it felt more like home than dizzy glee. Now, though, he was more ditzy than he had ever been. The trial was completely forgotten. He moved closer to her, and then laughed, and it was a laugh for only the two of them. For only two so equally cruel. “You know, sometimes I say things like that to she-cats and, do you know, they don’t ever seem to take it very well. I can’t see why—” He brushed his paw over her tattered ear, “it feels very nice to me.”

It was precisely why she was his dearest friend as well as the singular love of his life — because just as much as she thrilled him and awed him and made him giddy and grovelling and stupid, she was also the only one who was really like him. She talked the same as him; she used the same words; his voice had the theatrical flair, hers had the disdain. He was the noise; she was the quiet; he was uncertain, she enabled. Everything about them was made to be compatible. Everything about them was like it had been created to slot together, to both complement and fill in a thousand missing bits with a thousand of their own — and not just missing in the sense that they were both wounded children, but missing traits. They were such a fitting villainous pair precisely because they were so tightly bound as to be impenetrable — and yet, even with the love that sometimes bordered closer to all-consuming obsession, even with the closeness that could bind them together for three days before either of them thought to come up for air, there was always, always, that freedom.

But only because the Leader is cute. “Oh, now I’m cute.” He lowered his paw and grinned at her, like he was irritated by being objectified. “If I were a few inches taller, no one would think to call me cute.” He smiled lovingly, patiently, as she moved past, and then began to paddle. He didn’t argue with her comment about clearing out her lungs; he always worried about her being in that stuff den, so he was happy. When she turned back to beam at him, he let out a mock-dismissive little laugh. “What? You want me to be surprised that a genius like you can learn to swim like a water goddess in two minutes? You want me to be anything but bitter that my remarkable swimming career has been cut short by this rival?” He waded out to join her and, floating onto his back, gave her a little grin upside down; his voice was low and quiet. “You know I’m terribly jealous.” It was as full of pride as if he’d said it outright. He smiled up at her for a few moments more, gentler, more tender, still on his back. Then, finally, he suddenly grabbed either side of her face, dragged her down for a quick surprise kiss, and then rolled back properly into the water, beaming a cocky, victorious little grin. He swam a little circle around her, creating a rippling v-shape arc behind him, smiling at her for a moment as he circled playfully round and round, joyous as a kit — and then he disappeared again, staying gone for a little while longer than last time as he made his way down completely to the bottom of the pool. He’d been there once before, had sent Laertes down to see what was at the bottom, and now, touching the slick, smooth stone and drawing himself down to it so he could half-stand, he nipped off a few stems, the air running out in his lungs until no more bubbles sparked from his nose, and then, perfectly at home with the pressure against his chest, pushed himself back up. He reappeared a little way away from Eris, further away than where he’d gone down, barely able to suck in a breath around the perfect white flower he held nipped between his teeth. He grinned at her around it, water pouring down his ears. “It really is the most remarkable thing,” he told her, voice thin and muffled from where he could barely move his tongue and couldn’t move his teeth, “a full patch under the water, down here in the dark. Probably poisonous.” He laughed, still unable to move his mouth. Taking it from beneath his teeth, he set it down on the water and then cast a ripple with his paw, sending it bobbing peacefully towards his mate. His smile was soft. Then, tossing her a wink and a little click of his tongue like he was saying even down here, I’ll find things to woo you with, the gentle smile reappeared, his voice still tender. “Don’t stop,” he reassured her quietly, “keep going. Practice for as long as you like.”

With that sweet smile, he slowly swam over to the edge of the pool and dragged himself out, flopping back down at the very edge of it, so close the tips of his front toes still made little ripples. The stone was pale orange and quickly darkened by the water streaming off his sleek, shining fur. Giving his shoulders the smallest shake to shed the most cursory amount of water, he lowered his chin to his forepaws, still smiling at his mate with eyes soft and tired and calm with love. He felt that kind of hunger that came from swimming, from swallowing water, but he wouldn’t move. Not from here; not from this quiet moment with Eris. He’d sooner starve for her than take his eyes off her for a moment. Here, now, she was all that mattered. She was all that ever mattered.