A Drink Before Battle [MxM] ✅

43: Someone By My Side

The wide glazed windows of the Golden Pearl were alight with the pink and purple of the evening sky, occasionally obscured by the silhouettes of guards passing by on patrol. The store was as empty as the streets outside, where only a few essential shops such as food vendors were still open for business.

Sevei sat on a tall stool at the end of the counter, sipping a cup of wine while listening to Yanek regale Gerna with tales of the day's battle, most likely exaggerated.

"You should have seen how fast they turned tail!" Yanek crowed.

Gerna gave him a cosseting smile, her warm eyes never leaving Yanek's face. "I'm sure you were quite fearsome," she said indulgently.

All told, there hadn't been much of a fight at the river, mostly a distraction to keep the Valeskan and Brinnish troops from marching to town. Upon news of Ghed's demise, the Loranarian army had packed back into their boats at once and retreated.

Sevei had spent the afternoon sorting the dead at the municipal house and laying them all into wagons. The Brins would be taken to the town morgue, Valeskans carried back to camp for their military funeral rites. They packed up any fallen Loranarians, and Prince Rendrick began drafting a letter to Loranar to arrange for their return.

Ghed's body was burned on site, right in the gardens of the municipal house.

Throughout all of this, Yeresym had been withdrawn and impassive, avoiding Sevei at every turn. At the end of the day he had led the procession back to camp, riding Prince Rendrick's own horse, lent for the occasion.

Sevei had volunteered to help out at the marketplace, giving him cover to check in on things at the Pearl.

As Yanek launched into yet another anecdote, Sevei tuned him out and turned his ears toward the sound of footsteps coming down the second floor staircase. The door opened, and Thelan appeared in the doorway, with sounds of laughter following her from up the stairs. With a fleeting glance to the trio at the counter, she sat alone at a table on the far end of the room.

Sevei drained the rest of his wine, then filled two cups of tea and carried them over, leaving Yanek and Gerna to their flirting. He set one cup down in front of Thelan, then sat across the table from her with his own.

"Is she still not ready?" Sevei asked. "What's going on up there?"

Thelan smiled lightly. "Mister Damah is lading her with gifts," she said, "probably far too many to carry in one trip."

Sevei chuckled, but then narrowed his eyes on Thelan. "Are you sure you can make it all the way to Caedra tonight? You still look exhausted."

"I'm fine," Thelan answered with a nod. "I'll stay overnight if I must."

"You can stay longer, if you like," Sevei said softly.

Thelan glanced up at him, then gave a defeated sigh.

"Thelan, you can say you're fine," Sevei prodded, "but are you, really? I don't mean physically, or your ethereal energy..."

Thelan stared into her earthenware teacup, turning it about in her hands and watching the tea ebb and flow within it.

"All my life, I have felt like there's something wrong with me," she murmured. "That I am wrong... everything about me is just... wrong."

She laughed self-effacingly.

"Have you any idea how hard it is trying to be the son my father wants, when I don't feel I was supposed to have been a son at all? I don't know why I feel that I was supposed to have been a woman, and I've done my best to hide it, but... nothing can be hidden from her. I never thought there could be someone who could know that about me, could see me... and still love me.