[H3]A Healer’s Touch Can’t Soothe Everything…[/h3] A Shaft and Dervs Collab [I]3rd of Midyear, Nightfall Gilane, Hammerfell[/I] [hr] This alleyway didn’t feel the same. Tainted, in a way. Like returning home to find it ashes. It had been an hour or so since he left the note for Sora to join him in their “spot.” A small part of him still playful, thinking of someone else other than Sora seeing the signed note from him and wondering just what it meant, minds wandering and whatever conclusion they might come to. Even so, his eyes darted about everywhere, to the rooftops that once made a window to the starry sky now like a peephole into a cell. To the walls that once held in his and Sora’s presence like arms folded in a hug, now hands wrapped around his throat. He wondered if Shiburi was watching him at this very moment, the notion making him grip the silk of his pants too hard for his liking and he had to force his fingers to open up again. An anger that wasn’t even vengeful, or righteous indignation. It was the embarrassed furrowed brow, the twisted guts, and screaming of someone who’d been groped, violated. It was just one more thing for him to not sleep easy over in the marching parade of drug-hazed memories of sweat, perfumes, and wandering hands. It put a choking lump in his throat at what memories it brought up and he felt like he must scream and break everything around him until- footsteps. He readied himself, steeled his nerves.... [hr] For once, things seemed like they were going pretty well. It was the day after Daro’Vasora had confronted Jaraleet, sought reassurances from Megana, and made a new friend in Shakti, and Calen sounded like he was going to make a full recovery. The incident with Raelynn left her chilled; the Khajiit didn’t know what had happened to her, but the wounds and trauma were evident. The Breton woman, as conniving as she was, was still someone Daro’Vasora had a fondness for and the aftermath of whatever had happened to her left a much more broken and terrified person in her stead. She was taking time to recover, rightfully so, and Daro’Vasora knew she would have to speak to Raelynn eventually. But for now, she had to make some for Latro and see how he had made out the past day; they didn’t have much time for each other these days, it seemed. She had managed to procure a Gold Coast red wine, cheese, and grapes of all things, and with the Dwemer short sword bundled up to present to her paramour, Daro’Vasora felt pretty lively when she started to close in on their spot, which was starting to hold some emotional weight for her. The feather-light mood she was in crashed immediately upon seeing Latro’s battered form and haunted expression, and the Khajiit hurried over to him, concern etched across her features. She set the basket and blanket down and took his face in her hands, looking him over with wide eyes. “By Alkosh, what happened?!” she exclaimed. Latro almost flinched as Sora moved closer to him, but he restrained himself. He put his hands under his thighs and looked to the ground, wondering whether to tell her or not. Raelynn already knew of his plans. If Sora knew, he wouldn’t put it past her to fight for her place at his side when he went to meet Shiburi. He didn’t want her involved in that, or any of this. The thought of her being snatched up only to return like Raelynn did had him breathing harder. He shook his head and folded his hands in his lap, “I was robbed.” He said, “I cut one but they...” He swallowed, remembering how at mercy he felt under Shiburi. It was the first time in years he’d found someone he couldn’t put down. He hadn’t felt fear like this since he was in the brothel, or an oar-slave before that. “But they got what they wanted. My money, and to beat me.” He muttered, “I’m fine now, Raelynn healed what she could.” “I refuse to believe that a mere robber did this to you… we’ve been through a lot, Latro. Are you telling me the truth?” she asked softly. She wanted him to trust her, to confide in her. It was those little connections that kept you sane when all seemed lost. Her mind fluttered to when they first came into each other’s company, in the Falmer infested ruins. She knew she trusted him with her life, but something darker was going on within him now. What was it? “Please, I’m here for you. Tell me what you need.” He chewed his lip thoughtfully, but the final nail in the coffin was looking into her pleading eyes. He cursed under his breath, closing his eyes, “Raelynn knows what happened. I know pieces of what happened to her. The fucking waste of life that did those things to her has a brother,” He said, “That brother came for me, a big Ohmes-Raht with cold eyes. Tiger’s eyes. The only reason I’m alive is because...” Latro clenched his teeth and turned away from her, eyes screwed shut. The fact that he could be brutalized like that, and so easily. The fact there was someone who could be watching his every movement and could fight more ferociously, best him so effortlessly. His mind flashed to his face buried in a pillow, his voice hoarse from screaming and sobbing. Weight. It gripped him with fear. He turned back to Sora, hand on his chest to steady his breathing and his quick heart, “Because he just didn’t want to that day it seemed.” He muttered, voice wavering, ”He didn’t take me anywhere, he didn’t even ask a single thing about our group. He threatened us- threatened [i]you[/i]- that if I didn’t meet him here in a few days’ time that he would call the Dwemer down on us.” “[i]If[/i] I didn’t meet him.” He restated, “He warned me of his brother. Said that where he gave me a choice, his brother would not. Said there was evil in his eyes. That he wasn’t the Khajiit he once knew.” He swallowed, head shaking slightly to put himself back on track, “If I have to meet him or he’ll come for you, I will.” “There’s no sense worrying about what tomorrow or the next will bring, we’re here, now. I’ve been able to take care of myself this far, I don’t want you letting that shitbag use me as leverage against you. I know the risks.” Daro’Vasora reassured him, not sure if she really believed her own words as she laid her hand on Latro’s chest. “Look, you’re taking the word of a cruel bastard at face value, don’t endanger yourself on the off chance he could be telling you the truth. I trust you to do the right thing, I just don’t think you should make your choices based off of threats sent towards me.” she hesitated, breaking eye contact for a moment as she pressed her head against his chest. “I’ll admit, I’m scared. I don’t like the prospect of being hunted like an animal, but you know something? I’ve been scared ever since that fucking mountain exploded and here we are now. I could have stopped moving forward so long ago, but I didn’t, because there’s more at stake if I stop now than if I just went somewhere safe. You may be afraid for me, but what about you? Don’t you think that I should have a say in what happens to you, Latro?” Latro put his arms around Sora, stroking her head, “I know. We’ve made it through the shit together and this shouldn’t have been any different.” He took a moment to smell her perfumes, letting the moment go quiet before he spoke again, “After what I saw of Raelynn… have you [i]talked[/i] to her? I don’t know what I would do if you came back to us, to me like that.” “Raelynn already asked me not to go, but I already gave her my answer. I’ll tell you what I told her, that I will tell you when I leave.” He said, knowing it would do nothing to put her at ease, but he felt he that this was something he must do, “I won’t be alone. I’ll bring one of the others with me to shadow me. Make sure that he doesn’t take me, and if it comes to it, try to take that bastard instead.” She sighed heavily pressed against him. It was likely the best compromise they were ever going to get. “Just find the biggest one you can find and bribe them with a drink, it’s all I can ask I suppose.” she managed, holding him at arm’s length and forcing a smile. “Well, can we at least try to put all of that aside for a few moments and just enjoy ourselves for a change? I came here to get away from our problems and try to pretend that, even for an hour or so, life’s a perfectly normal thing where nobody dies and I have someone who cares about me. Does that sound like something we can do?” Latro regarded Sora with his easy smile, “Of course.” He looked over her shoulder, a bottle of wine and a couple boxes, as well as something long as his arm wrapped in what looked like oil-cloth. “Wine, and… what else?” “Could be bread, could be a fish, could be someone’s forearm. You never know what you’re going to find on the market these days.” Daro’Vasora replied with a smile, picking up the cloth bundle. “Find out for yourself.” He took it as Sora offered it to him. It had a weight to it, but well-balanced. Through the cloth, he could feel what felt like a broad, thin thing of hard material. “Oh, I hope it’s a forearm.” He chuckled as he undid the strings at both ends that kept the cloth from unraveling. What he uncovered was something to behold and sucked the chuckle out of him like a wraith did breath. A sword of Dwemer-make, something that could’ve been commissioned for an officer. He held it in one hand by the scabbard. The pommel was an angular thing, shape of a 20-sided die he’d seen used in a smokey tavern in Nibenay, the hilt carved from what felt like tusk or horn as he ran a finger along it. The crossguard was thick, complete with a finger-ring on each side of the blade, extending out from the hilt in two slightly pointed crow’s beaks as long as his finger- perfect to dent in armor if he were to half-sword with the otherwise arming style blade. With weighty respect and slow reverence, he put a hand on the hilt. [i]A sword has a voice,[/i] Francis had said to him long ago. His hand on the hilt was all that was needed to leave its whisper in his foe’s ear. Slow as slow, he let it emerge from its scabbard to reveal the blade itself, half drawn, [i]A deadly threat now, to all who hear it[/i], Francis had said. The blade was slightly shorter than his arm sans hand, thick in breadth but looked to taper towards the point, still yet at rest in the scabbard. The fuller was a work of art, as well, chiseled out of the blade in the shape of gear’s teeth. [i]A sword full drawn, it screams a challenge on the air![/i] He pulled the sheath away, holding the shimmering polished blade, point towards the heavens. He regarded the weapon with awe. He hadn’t seen a blade so artistic since Francis had shown him his longsword. His mouth slightly agape, he reverently put the sword back into its sheath, the soft whisper of the blade gliding along the cloth-lined interior, clinking with a finality to the moment as the crossguard met the opening of the scabbard. [i]But to forget this is to forget yourself,[/i] Francis’s hallowed whisper echoed in his ear, [i]the sword itself inspires to works of violence. Such is it that to it against another should always end in bloody finality, always. Such as it should be, lest it become a thing too easy to hold.[/i] He put the blade beside him with a smile. “This is so much better than someone’s forearm.” He smiled and hugged Sora, deciding to break the heavy air around him at holding a sword after so long, squeezing her tight, “I’ll keep it close. To use it would almost seem like it would be to soil it.” “Oh no, someone’s going to be disappointed they accidentally grabbed the wrong bundle. I was totally looking forward to seeing your reaction to the arm after all.” She replied with an exaggerated pout, pulling Latro back into the embrace with a smile on her lips and her eyes closed. “I actually traded Shakti her family sword I stumbled across for it, she had this one as a temporary solution, but you know me and Dwemer craftsmanship. I figured you of all people would appreciate something like this.” she said, patting his wrist above the sword. “Swords are meant to be seen and used. When you go and meet this bastard Ohmes-raht, be sure to show him the meaning of irony when you stab him with his masters’ own hardware.” “I’ll be sure to.” He nodded, “If anyone deserves violence in that level of finality, it’s the people who did that to Raelynn.” He placed the sword down beside him and nodded to the wine, “But I thought you wanted to leave that talk behind us for a bit. What’s in the boxes? Gift knives this time?” “Hands?” Daro’Vasora offered unhelpfully before setting down the blanket and setting herself upon it, one of the boxes being picked up a moment later and unpackaged. “Found some cheese that didn’t smell like Gregor’s feet, and I managed to find grapes that didn’t turn into raisins. Figured a taste for the finer things might set us in a better mood, don’t you?” she said, plucking a pair of grapes and popping them in her mouth before offering the box over. Latro grabbed up a couple for himself and set down beside Sora, “I haven’t had cheese, wine and grapes since...” He thought, scratching at the stubble he had already begun to sprout again since he’d shaved the night before and coming up with no memories that rushed to mind, “Well, I’m having it now and with someone close to me.” He chuckled, using his knife to cut into the cheese and popping it into his mouth with the grape. “Jehanna.” He nodded, “I haven’t eaten like this since Francis and I visited Jehanna.” “Do you miss him?” she asked, filling up a pair of ceramic cups with the bottle of wine. “Every day.” Latro said, low and wistful, “He took me as I was and made me who I am. He was my Zegol, fostering my talent for both music and the study of using weapons. A hard but fair teacher.” Latro smiled, thinking back on his time in Jehanna, “We were there to visit a friend of his, a bard and orchestra conductor who’d studied at the Institute of the Arts in Daggerfall. He owned an estate as large as the Three Crowns, and just as opulent.” He chewed for a bit, before plucking a grape and biting half of it away, “It was there I learned to sing and play at once, a skill in itself. We had to find some way to earn money in High Rock. Francis was a big name in fencing there and he’d won enough duels that he had gone months without being contested, so that left prize money off the table as a means to putting food on ours.” “What of you? Do you settle into luxury as second nature or has it been a while?” “Well, I was starting to get back on my feet again in Imperial City before the Dwemer came and trashed the place, but wealth and opulence have always been things that just came and went out of my life without much fanfare. Sometimes, I had more than I really knew what to do with, others I went entire days with less food than this until I came across a windfall. I just never was one for planning or budgeting, I just always treated everything as temporary. I had a nice uptown Apartment in the city, but that burned down due to some rivalries I’ve accumulated over the years. “The only real luxury I afford myself is clothing; you look good, you feel good, you act smartly. Even with all of this going on, I don’t mind spending what little coin I have on frivolous things if it buys even a day’s worth of piece of mind and contentment.” Daro’Vasora said, biting into a chunk of the cheese, wishing it were in a fondue and mixed in with moon sugar. “I always just lived day by day without really being wistful about things that might or might not happen. Have you considered what you want after all of this is said and done?” she asked, shuffling over to lean against Latro. “Normalcy.” Latro said, putting his arm around Sora as she leaned into him, “I want to live day by day without the prospect of having to fight someone to the death. I want to spend my days traveling, nights at warm hearths where I can find them and tell my stories, sing my songs.” “Maybe, just maybe, in my travels I will find Francis. He never had many friends in Hammerfell, but if we ever go to High Rock or Skyrim, there’s many people I could ask.” He said, “Needless to say, you’re welcome to join me. The roads are less lonely with a partner.” “I just might.” She replied with a soft smile. “Of course, you’re never going to keep me out of a ruin for long, I still have a name to make for myself. Maybe you should just come back to Leyawiin with me for a while, father would like you. There’s no reason we couldn’t follow two kinds of dreams, is there?” “Of course not.” Latro smiled warmly, “I’d never think to stifle you. It’s what makes you [i]you[/i], delving into ruins and doing dangerous things. I wouldn’t dare keep you from what makes you happy.” “As long as you return to me at the end of it mostly intact.” Latro chuckled. “At the [i]least[/i], mostly.” “No promises,” she purred. “I’d like to think you find a few scars attractive.” “I do.” He smirked, “Until someone looks like they’re the only thing holding them together. You’ll just have to deal with having an other-half that prefers sitting on his arse at the hearth and telling people all about how the Dwemer war was back in his day.” He plopped the other half of the grape on his tongue and brought it back behind his lips, chewing, “What are they like, though? Your parents?” Daro'Vasora smiled at the memory of her parents faces. “Well, for starters, they look more like you than me. My father, Ra'Rinjo is an Ohmes-raht, and my mother, Ko'Juzini, is an Ohmes-raht. My grandparents were very serious about planning around the moon cycles, they wanted to make sure their children could fit in the world of men in the Empire by sharing a familiar face. I suppose it worked because my father's a large scale merchant who does a lot of shipping, and mother is a court scribe for Count Caro. Both take their careers seriously, and I grew up in a mansion and wanted for nothing.” she chuckled under her breath. “I was so spoiled, I just never realized it until after I went out on my own. “Father's always been a jovial man, a wide smile and a very spontaneous personality that just gets excited over even the silliest little things, he loves life and he reacts to new shipments like a cub getting presents on his name day. Mother was always a quiet, studious sort who arranged much of my education. She rarely raised her voice towards me, but her disapproval stung whenever I messed up. I was an only child until about seven, and I would have had a older brother, I'm told, but he died when he was a cub who hadn't even learned to walk yet. I miss them all, but I didn't want to come home until I was someone they'd be proud of.” she sighed, running a hand across her mane to straighten loose threads. “I always got up to trouble, to the point I stole from father's shipments just to see if I could get away with it. He looked so disheartened, it broke my heart when I got caught. That's when I got the honourific Daro, I always felt it was a mark of shame against me from my family. I… I think it was father's way of approving of me embracing our heritage. Mother and father had children when passion struck, not to make us born a certain way. It's why my sister and I look nothing like them, save for eyes and hair.” Latro nodded, taking it all in. There was so much he didn’t know about Sora and she only got more interesting the more they talked. “The moon cycles, planning around them. I didn’t know Khajiit cared about such things as fitting in with the Empire, among the man races.” He said, “My first time seeing a Khajiit, I had only heard about them in stories until I was about fifteen.” His easy smile twitched a bit as he let go of a truth that made him seem too odd. A truth that could potentially lead to the facade the entire group knew as Latro to come crashing down around him. Or at least who Sora knew as Latro. But he didn’t want her to know that the man she cared for had lied about almost everything to her, that Latro wasn’t even his real name. The shock of what his tongue let loose stunned him and he anxiously waited for Sora to say something. “Most don’t, but when your family’s been a part of Imperial society for generations, you try to give yourself an advantage when you can if you want to integrate.” Daro’Vasora replied, giving Latro a quizzical glance. He reacted like he made an inappropriate slip of the tongue, and she couldn’t fathom as to why. “You had never seen or spoken to a Khajiit until you were 15?” she asked, blinking. “Where did they have you hidden away, a monastery where you never knew about cute girls until you made a daring escape from some creepy old men?” she asked in a playful tone, squeezing his arm as she rested against him. Still, the words he spoke left a lot of unanswered questions… everything he mentioned about Francis, his travels around High Rock, the fencing tournaments, the performances in taverns. There was no way he could have missed her people all those years, could he? A frown found its way across her countenance, and worry filled her heart. “Latro,” she said after a few moments in a subdued tone, “What aren’t you telling me?” Latro gave a long sigh, forlorn eyes on the ground as he shuffled to sit facing Sora. He held his gaze on her own for a few quiet moments before he spoke, “I haven’t been honest with you.” He started, only meeting her eyes in glances, “My family isn’t from Camlorn. They’re from the Druadach mountains. I’ve only been to Camlorn when I was twenty summers.” “When Francis found me, I was a nineteen year old boy with no direction. No convictions. They’d been stripped from me when I was taken by slavers.” He muttered and wiped at his eye, “Francis found me three weeks after I’d escaped the brothel that the slavers sold me into. And even after taking me in and giving me the tools to make sure I or anybody else I knew never had to suffer like I did, I wasn’t even truthful about where I’d come from, what I’d done in the past.” He folded his arms around himself and looked away at Sora, “I’m the son of a Reach Clan Chieftess, not the only child of an aristocrat in Camlorn, like I told you. Like I told Francis.” He let go a shuddering breath and gritted his teeth, as if pulling the truth from him was like pulling a blade stuck in his belly that had been there for too long, “Latro isn’t even my real name. My Reachman name is Pale-Feather of the Crow-Wife clan. Finnen to the Bretons.” “But that name, that man died somewhere along the way from there to here, where I sit now. Not torn away, but chipped at.” He told Sora, “I’ve no family anymore in the Reach after what I’d done in Markarth Hold. I had no family ever since Francis and I parted ways.” He put his face in his hands and shook his head. Not wanting to see Sora’s face as he told her the person she cared so much for had lied to her, to everyone. “I’m sorry, Sora.” Daro’Vasora had tensed at the sudden and unexpected admission, and her stare into his eyes was unwavering. She studied him as he spoke, noticing the change in his infliction, the guilt, and the painful recall he was going through. Even though it shocked her to find that he had lied about who he was, she felt she could understand why. A lot of people hid their past and ran from it, presented themselves as someone else. Some were spies, others just trying to leave a bad life behind, and many felt they would never be accepted if they didn’t conceal parts of who they were. She suspected it was the latter. It was the talk of being sold into slavery, forced to service people in a brothel for a cruel owner that wrenched her heart; it hit harder than the revelation that Latro, the sweet boy from Camlorn was actually a Reachman known as Pale-Feather Reaching over, she pulled his hands down from his face and placed another on his cheek. “Tell me that everything you feel for me is real, that the person who I came to care for is real. Tell me that everything since I met you isn’t a lie.” she said evenly, searching his face for answers. “Sora,” he began, placing his tear-wet hand over hers on his face,”Everything I’ve told you about my feelings for you are as real as the blanket we’re sitting on.” “I would never lie to anyone about things like that,” he held her gaze and smiled, “I would never lie to you about things like that.” “My only request is that no one else knows unless I tell them.” He asked, “Please, that name belongs to someone I am no longer.” “I can accept that.” Daro’Vasora said with a sad smile, suddenly pulling Latro into an embrace. “I know it was difficult for you to tell me this, to admit it to anyone. If you weren’t sincere, you would have kept that secret to the grave… but you told me, you trusted me. That means everything to me, Latro. I haven’t felt I had that with anyone in a long, long time.” she said, setting back down on her knees, keeping her hands in his own. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the same man I’ve always known, even if the details changed a bit. I will keep it a secret told in confidence between us, but I have to ask why you feel like you need to hide that part of who you were? What happened?” she asked softly. “I was disowned by my father for not being the tall, muscle-bound warrior like him. He did leave in me a capacity for violence. Anger was my main purpose in all things, anger and spite for him.” He said, voice simmering, “When I set out on my own for my Lone-Path, a ritual every budding member of the Crow-Wife clan goes through, I reached the western edge of the Eastern Reach. I threw in with the Forsworn because I knew it was everything my father would hate.” “They turned me from a warrior of my clan to a knife in the dark. A poisoner. I killed, so much, with axe and sword and poison and knife.” He said, voice low and haunted, “When my companions were hunted and killed, I ran back to the only other place I knew, my home. They knew of my deeds in the East, and they all disowned me after that. I was taken by slavers and made into a whore. I burned down the brothel in Wayrest and killed my client and my owner.” “I didn’t feel right after Wayrest. Dirty, used, weak. And I was no heir to the Crow-Wife clan for betraying everything it stood for.” His eyes closed and he sighed, “So, when Francis found me, I told him my name was Latro. I wasn’t a whore, a slave on the run, I wasn’t a disgrace to my own people, I wasn’t a terrorist who preyed on the fears of the meek.” “I was Latro, meek and timid and peaceful. A bard come from Camlorn to ply his trade. A healer, instead of killer.” He said, “Everything I wasn’t.” “I’ve left my share of people to die on expeditions, Latro… sometimes by my own hand. Betrayal and mistrust have been such cornerstones of my life, I never flinched when it came time to cause harm. It was wrong of your family to disown you, to cast you aside because you fell down a wrong path. I’ve had a moment of clarity lately where my own ancestors told me what I was doing wrong, but that they still love me despite all of that.” she squeezed his hands tightly in her own. “I promise that no one is ever going to harm you like that again, I swear on my ancestors and the moonpath that I must walk. You do not need to be ashamed of the deeds you’ve done, the harm you’ve caused, because I know your heart and I know the man you wish to be. You were but a boy, manipulated into dark deeds because you had nowhere else to go and weren’t old enough to question what they had asked you to do. Anyone who says they haven’t had their hearts gripped by darkness and committing to unspeakable acts at some point are liars and cowards who refuse to admit that the world can be just as cruel and messed up as they are.” She looked him in the eyes sternly, her voice confident and defiant. “You are not the man you were, and even if you were, I would still love you for the man who you are. That man that Francis found, who you’ve been ever since, that’s real. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” Latro sat, quiet. His hands were in his lap as he looked at them. He hung on one word that Sora had said, and although it had all been heartfelt, that word had set his heart to pounding harder than any fight he’d been in. “You love me?” He asked, finally looking at Sora. “Yeah, I guess I do.” she admitted with a sheepish smile, running a hand to tidy her hair. “I just can't imagine going separate ways. When I hurt you back in Anvil, when you thought I'd left for good… it put things in perspective. You're one of the reasons I could never leave. I thought I'd be having nightmares of the Falmer for weeks, but I just dream about what you did for me, Latro. You make me feel safe, and appreciated. Even with all of this crazy shit in our lives, when I’m with you, it feels like it's going to be okay. So yes, my soft-hearted and guilt ridden Reachman, I love you.” she admitted, her tone light and affectionate. She felt like a young woman again, someone who wasn't aged by hardships and expeditions and had much simpler dreams. Latro gave a smile just as sheepish as he looked away timidly. He looked back at Sora with red cheeks, his lips moving as if he was trying to say something, until he gathered himself and finally did. “I love you too.” He said, first smiling and then chuckling. He liked the sound of that coming from his mouth. The syllables fit his lips perfectly as he said them and his heartbeat was hummingbird wings, “I guess I knew I did when you were the first one I asked about after waking in Cyrodiil. When I thought you weren’t anywhere to be found but the bloody streets of the White-Gold city, I felt so empty. Now that you’re back, and to stay, I feel the very opposite. I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done with you, nor will I, to the days I’m old and gray and I’ve forgotten half the songs I’ve ever known except the ones I sing to you.” Latro’s bashfulness prompted Daro’Vasora to giggle, and her heart felt ablaze when he affirmed her own feelings with his own, and she thought back to when she thought she lost him after the attack on Imperial City, where everything in her life had gotten turned upside down. She thought about when she found him in the marketplace, trying to replace his lute, and her subsequent gift that Latro had kept with him since that day. She reached out and placed her hand gently on his cheek, tears welling up in her eyes. “I thought I lost you the same day I lost Zegol, and it was a reason why I could never turn my back on all of this. I lashed out at everyone, I don’t know why people have stayed with me or trust me. I have regrets, but you aren’t one of them. You never will be, either.” she leaned in, kissing him tenderly on the lips and resting her brow against his. “Speaking of songs, you still owe me one, my darling bard.” Latro smiled at that, “You won’t ever let that go, eh?” He chuckled, “I’ve started thinking about lyrics, but I only have the melody down in my head.” He got up and walked to the bench he was sitting on when she came, grasping his lute, the lute she’d gifted him those long days ago. His fingers brushed across the strings and he set them to the task of tuning it once more as he made his way back to Sora. “It’s a nice one really,” he said, appreciating the feeling of soft wind as he glanced up at the darkening sky, the first few stars poking through the darkness above. He took the lute in both hands, one ready to strum and the other fingering the fretboard. He took a breath and plucked the first few notes, letting them ring out on the night air as he hummed along to it and Sora swayed with him.