Weak To Fire

14

Y/N was glad that Mereoleona had decided to train the next day. At least that was something that was as usual. Something that wasn't weird or out of the ordinary or awkward. She still couldn't believe just how awkward last night was. Why did she have to blush so much and stammer like some idiot? Why did Mereo even bring up the fact that she was obviously crushing on her? Y/N had no idea how to ever face her again. But she was busy training right now, so that was good.

She had sat down in her usual spot to watch her train and honestly, it just felt like before. Just like the times before Mereo had left to go back to the capital... only now her mind kept wandering back to that conversation that they had had last night in the lake. Y/N wanted to kill herself. She couldn't believe that she had been so obvious about it all this time. And that she had been staring at Mereo's boobs... but to be fair to her, they were pretty amazing boobs.

Either way, she had to live with it now. Maybe Mereo had only been joking and she had already forgotten about it. Y/N really hoped that she had. On the other hand, she kind of hoped that Mereo was going to make a move on her, because... well, Y/N wasn't the type to make the first move. Not at all. She was a water spirit. She was thousands of years old. She had all the time in the world to be making moves and that meant that she just never did anything about crushes she had. Because there would always be tomorrow or next week, until there wasn't.

There had been a few humans that Y/N had crushed on pretty hard, but they all just died so quickly. She had only managed to actually have more than a crush with one of them and that only lasted a few years or so. Humans didn't live too long, unfortunately. But Y/N really wanted to be with Mereoleona, so she hoped that she would either make her move soon or that she would gather up enough courage to make a move herself. Not that she was really expecting either to happen anytime soon.

But the thing was that she could never know with Mereoleona. She was so impulsive, it was hard to say what she might do next. Some people were incredibly predictable, but Mereoleona was the absolute opposite of predictable. Y/N didn't think she had ever met a person that was less predictable than Mereoleona. In a way she liked it, because every day with her was a bit of a surprise. Anything could happen. On the other hand, she hated it, because it was so difficult to plan for anything or prepare for anything. As she had said, anything could happen and that included things that Y/N didn't want to happen. It was a double-edged sword.

"Hey."

Y/N turned back towards where Mereoleona was standing. She was squatting down, sweat dripping down her temples. She looked like she wanted to take a break, but at the same time didn't want to take one yet. It was fairly obvious that she needed one, but Y/N wasn't going to tell her that. It was difficult to kill a water spirit, but that didn't mean that it was impossible. And she wasn't going to take those chances. Not today, anyway. Not with Mereoleona in the picture.

"What's up?" Y/N wanted to know. Mereoleona really looked like she was about to collapse. She was completely out of breath.

"Can you hand me my waterskin?" she wanted to know. Y/N shook her head. Fuck being cautious. Mereoleona needed a break more than anything and Y/N would make sure that she got one. If she was going to die in the process, then so be it. After all, there wasn't that much tying Y/N to this world.

"No. Get it yourself." she replied. Mereoleona gave her a pleading look. She really looked like she was barely holding it together right now. Typical. Mereo always had to push her limits, didn't she? Why couldn't she just take it easy for a day or two? She was already incredibly strong. There was literally no point in her pushing herself that much, but since she had to take over for her brother as a Magic Knight Captain, she seemed to be completely unstoppable.

"Come on, Y/N, please. I'm dying over here." she begged. Y/N just shook her head and crossed her arms.

"If you're that exhausted, you should probably take a break, you know?" Y/N answered. Mereoleona narrowed her eyes at her, before letting out a loud, deep, earth-shattering sigh. Y/N would never have suspected it, but sometimes Mereo got a bit of a flair for the melodramatic.

"Is this what this is about? You want to force me to take a break?" Mereo asked. Y/N nodded.

"Yup. You have to take one. Face it, Mereo, you've been training all damn morning without taking a break. And now you look like you can barely stand up straight. It's not healthy if you exhaust yourself that much. So take a break or train until you're dead. But I'm not going to enable your lethal training plan." she told her. Mereo groaned and got back to her feet, before dragging herself over to her.

"You literally sound like my mother." she mumbled, as she sat down, leaning against the tree next to Y/N.

"Well, maybe your mother is a smart woman then. You really need a break. Didn't you come here for a holiday?" Y/N wanted to know. Mereoleona shook her head, to which Y/N raised her eyebrow. She had heard the version that Mereo had gotten a week off her work to relax from everything.

"Nope, I didn't come here for a holiday, I came here because I felt bad for having left the way I did. I never thought any of this was going to be relaxing, because I thought you'd be really mad at me." she replied.

"Well, I was really mad at you."

"Yeah, but not like... mad for the entire week and so mad that you literally would try to kill me the entire week."

"Wait, that's what you've been expecting of me? Did I leave such a bad impression?"

"I mean, you were pretty pissed off when we first met."

"That was different!"

"Sure..." Mereo said with a grin, before taking a few big gulps from her waterskin. She put it back down again, catching her breath and looking over at Y/N, her mouth forming a big smug grin.

"You know what I think?" she asked. Y/N wasn't sure what she was getting at, but she had an exceedingly bad feeling about this. Mereoleona was up to something and she didn't know what it was.

"What do you think?" she wanted to know, even though she was almost sure that she was going to regret asking.

"I think you just wanted me to take a break, because you wanted me to come over to you. So we could talk and all." Mereoleona said, giving her a testing glance. Y/N wasn't sure what she was getting at, but she felt like it had something to do with all the awkwardness yesterday in the lake.

"I mean, I do like talking to you, I'm not sure what you mean..." Y/N replied. She wanted to look at Mereo, she really did, but she couldn't actually manage to look into her eyes. God, this was so embarrassing. Why couldn't she just be normal about this? Why couldn't she just tell her that she had a huge, massive crush on her and that she thought that Mereoleona was hot as fuck?

"Oh, come on. You know exactly what I mean. Stop being so shy about it. What's the worst that could happen?" Mereo asked. Y/N gulped audibly and quickly shook her head. No, no, no. She wasn't going to confess anything. Mereo couldn't make her, right? But... what if she did feel the same? If she felt the same, then Y/N was just wasting her time by not telling her anything.

"Sorry, I really don't know what you mean, I..." she started. She stopped talking when she saw Mereo glaring at her and rolling her eyes. Y/N felt like she was going to die any second now. She knew that Mereo was going to say it. She knew that she was just going to confront her directly about it and she was terrified of it, but there was nothing she could do. Once Mereo had gotten something into her head, it was going to happen or not, no matter who or what tried to stop her.

"Y/N, you have a massive crush on me. Admit it, I already know."