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Heiter was already tipsy when Frieren noticed Himmel was sweating.
Not the normal kind of sweat from walking all day in armor, either. That she understood.
This was different.
They’d stopped early for once. The road ahead was quiet, the trees tall and close, and Eisen had declared this a “good place to rest,” which for him meant he’d found a flat bit of ground and a tree with a trunk big enough to lean against.
Heiter had broken out a skin of wine the village elder had “donated to the cause of heroism.” Eisen was tending a pot over the fire, stirring with one hand, tasting with that same hand, then grunting in approval. The light was low and warm, the sky a deep blue just shy of night.
And Himmel was sweating. A lot.
He sat on a log near the fire, cloak off, shirt unlaced at the collar. A faint sheen of moisture gleamed at his temples, catching the firelight. That, too, could have been explained by the day’s march.
What couldn’t be explained was how he kept tugging at his own collar like it was strangling him while the evening air was still cool on Frieren’s bare hands.
Or the way his pulse was uneven, jumpy, fidgeting at the edges of her perception like a nervous bird.
Or the scent.
She picked it up slowly, the way she always did with human scents: delayed, like the air had to remind her nose that details existed. It drifted across the camp in a soft wave as the breeze shifted.
Sweet, sharp, a little wild. Familiar, in the way that almost all omegas had something similar wrapped around their own variations, but stubbornly Himmel underneath it. Heat curling under steel.
Frieren blinked once.
Ah.
She glanced over at Heiter to see if he was reacting. He wasn’t. The priest had the wine tilted up, one hand braced on his knee, humming some half-remembered hymn under his breath. His cheeks were already pink. His eyes were slightly glassy in the way that said another sip and he’d start giving advice no one asked for.
Eisen was focused on the pot like it was a dragon he had to wrestle into submission. He sniffed, added a pinch of salt, and stirred again.
No one was panicking.
Himmel dragged a hand through his hair, making it stand up more than usual. The motion exposed the line of his throat, the damp skin there. Firelight painted his face in warm color. His pupils looked just a bit too big when he glanced her way.
He caught her staring.
He smiled.
It was a wobbly smile, but it was still Himmel, bright trying to muscle past strain, inviting everyone to be less worried than he was.
“Hey,” he said, voice rough. “So, funny thing.”
Heiter lowered the wineskin. Eisen stopped stirring. Both looked over.
Himmel cleared his throat.
Then cleared it again.
Frieren watched the pulse jump at the side of his neck.
“We, uh… might need to do a little planning,” he said. “It appears my heat didn’t get the memo about us being on the road.”
Heiter squinted at him.
“Didn’t you just have one?” he asked.
“Three months ago,” Himmel said.
Heiter waved the wineskin at him.
“Then you are right on schedule, boy,” he said. “I’ve tracked your cycles since you were sixteen. You’re boringly regular.”
“Thank you for that deeply personal piece of history, Father,” Himmel said dryly.
Eisen hummed.
“This is the first one since Frieren joined us,” he said.
That landed like a pebble in a still pond.
Himmel’s smile flickered.
“Right,” he said. “There is that.”
He glanced at Frieren again and then quickly away, like the heat had finally cracked his composure enough that looking at her for too long felt dangerous.
Frieren frowned thoughtfully.
“Omega heats last usually two to three days,” she said. “Four, if poorly managed. Symptoms can include fever, irritability, crying, excessive attachment, irrational decision-making, self-sacrificing requests, and-”
Himmel made a strangled noise.
Heiter groaned.
“Frieren,” Himmel said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Please. I beg you. Do not read the pamphlet at me.”
“I am not reading,” she said. “I am recalling.”
“Worse,” he muttered.
Heiter tipped the wineskin in her direction in a half-hearted toast.
“I grew up with him,” he said. “His heats don’t bother me much anymore. First one I saw, he sobbed into my robe for six hours and asked if the Goddess would be mad if he died of embarrassment.”
“You promised we’d never tell that story,” Himmel said.
“I lie,” Heiter said cheerfully.
Eisen ladled something from the pot into a bowl, tasted it, and nodded in satisfaction.
“We should make sure he eats,” he said. “Food helps.”
Himmel lifted his hands, palms up.
“See? Eisen gets it,” he said. Then, to Frieren, “This isn’t a crisis. I’ve done heats on the road before. I just… wanted to tell you ahead of time. So, um. You aren’t surprised if I get weepy. Or weird.”
“You are already weird,” she said.
His shoulders dropped a little, some of the tension leaving him.
“Thank you,” he said. “Strange how that’s comforting.”
She studied him more closely now that the word was out.
His scent was climbing, that unmistakable heat-sweet curling stronger with each minute. His breathe kept waving out and retreating, like it couldn’t decide whether to cling to hers or hide. He was sitting very upright, as if slouching might admit something he was not ready to admit.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
He hesitated.
“A little,” he said. “It’s mostly… annoying. And loud. Inside.”
“Loud?” she repeated.
He chewed his lower lip, then shrugged, cheeks pinkening further.
“It’s like… imagine your instincts are a very stupid choir,” he said. “They sing one song. Very badly. On repeat.”
“What song?” Heiter asked.
Himmel looked away again.
“I don’t want to say,” he muttered.
Frieren tilted her head.
“Is it my name?” she asked.
He made a choking sound.
“Frieren,” Heiter said. “You cannot just ask that.”
“Why not?” she said.
“Because he is trying very hard not to die,” Heiter said.
Himmel groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face.
“Can we please not,” he said. “I was aiming for quiet dignity this time.”
“Your ears are bright red,” she observed.
“Yes, thank you,” he said weakly. “Very dignified.”
Eisen set a bowl in front of him, steam curling from the stew.
“Eat,” Eisen said. “You will feel worse if you don’t.”
Himmel shot him a grateful look.
“Thanks,” he said. “See, this is why Eisen’s my favorite. He solves things.”
Frieren frowned.
She wanted to solve things.
Heiter took another drink and leaned back against a rock, humming again.
“Omega heats are like storms,” he said. “You hunker down, you ride them out, you try not to think too much. He’ll be alright. He always has been.”
He always has been.
That should have been reassuring. Instead, it nudged something prickly in Frieren’s chest.
Always. Without her.
She had only joined them recently, in human terms. In her terms, she’d barely blinked. Himmel had lived entire heats, entire waves of instinct and vulnerability and wanting, without her anywhere near him.
The idea bothered her more than she knew how to articulate.
“You do not have to ‘hunker down’,” she said. “There are interventions.”
Heiter eyed her warily.
“No tinctures,” he said immediately.
“I know which ones are safe,” she said.
“I don’t trust your definition of ‘safe’,” he replied.
Himmel laughed once, breathless.
“Please don’t drug me,” he said. Then, gentler, “Really, Frieren, it’s fine. I appreciate your caring, but you don’t have to… manage it. I’ve got coping strategies.”
He said that last part like someone who had cobbled together “coping strategies” out of grit, denial, and crying in bathhouses at odd hours.
Frieren folded her arms.
“You are in our party,” she said. “We handle monsters. Bandits. Lost children. Heiter’s hangovers. Why would we ignore your heat?”
“Those are all different things,” he said.
“Not really,” she said.
He laughed despite himself.
“See?” Heiter said, pointing at her with the wineskin. “This is where she makes it worse.”
“I am trying to make it better,” she said.
“Intentions, meet consequences,” Heiter said solemnly.
Eisen went back to the pot, ladling out servings for everyone.
Himmel picked up his bowl, hands steady but a little too careful, as if he was scared he might spill simply by existing too hard.
Frieren watched him eat, watched the way he swallowed like his mouth was dry, watched the little winces when a wave of heat rolled through him.
She did not like it.
She did not like that tight feeling behind her ribs again.
She did not like that she didn’t know what to do.
“Alright,” Himmel said when he’d cleaned his bowl. “I’m going to go turn into a tragic figure in my bedroll. If anyone hears distressed whimpering in the night, please assume I’m fine and do not investigate.”
He stood.
His legs, Frieren noticed, were less steady than usual. Superficially normal. But she had watched him enough now to see the difference in the microseconds, the slight pause before he shifted his weight, the way his hand brushed the log for balance.
Heat was tugging at him already.
Her instincts, slower than his, finally caught up.
She wanted to follow.
Not because the magical pamphlets said anything about “constant alpha supervision recommended,” though some did. Not because Heiter was tipsy and Eisen had declared this a “Himmel problem.” Not because she felt obligated.
She wanted to follow because Himmel looked a little bit like he might fall apart if no one was watching.
“I will check on him,” she said.
Heiter, mid-drink, lowered the wineskin and squinted at her.
“Gently,” he said. “Frieren. Gently.”
“I am always gentle,” she said.
Himmel choked on nothing.
“That is objectively not true,” he said. “You disintegrated a demon earlier today for breathing near you.”
“It was interrupting the conversation,” she said.
“Is that what I am doing?” he asked, one hand pressed to his chest in mock offense.
“Yes,” she said. “You are leaving.”
He smiled at her then, softer, something fond peeking through the strain.
“Don’t worry about me, alright?” he said. “I’ve been surviving heats since before I could grow decent stubble. This is just the first time you’re here to see it.”
That was exactly why she was worrying.
She said nothing, simply watched him walk toward his bedroll, watched him trip only a little on a root, watched him catch himself like he always did.
The scent followed him, warm and sweet and too loud to ignore now that she’d noticed it.
He lay down, tugged his blanket up, curled on his side facing away from them.
Heiter resumed drinking.
Eisen poured her a bowl.
“You are making a face,” Eisen observed.
“My face is normal,” she said.
“It is more concerned than usual,” he said.
She stared into her stew.
Concern felt strange. Maybe because Himmel was right here. Maybe because he smiled at her like that. Maybe because she’d joined late and was still learning the party’s rhythms and did not like feeling behind.
“I do not know how to help,” she admitted.
“You will learn,” Eisen said.
“By trial and error,” Heiter added ominously.
She gave him a flat look.
He smiled back, wine-loose and fond.
“It really doesn’t bother me,” he said. “His heats, I mean. Grew up with the boy. First one, I thought he was going to catch fire from the inside. Second one, he handled a little better. Third one, he tried to pretend it wasn’t happening and nearly passed out in choir practice. After that, we developed… routines.”
“Routines,” she repeated.
“Hot water. Food. Distraction. Letting him cling to my robe and sob about his undying devotion to whoever he was fixated on that month until he ran out of tears,” Heiter said. “He always survived. I always thought he wouldn’t. That’s just how it goes.”
“Who was he fixated on?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Heiter’s smile went a little wicked.
“Various saints. The Goddess herself. A baker’s son who gave him cake once. A traveling swordswoman who beat him in a duel and then kissed him on the cheek, and a elf he saw in the woods once,” Heiter listed. He eyed her over the rim of the wineskin. “Your turn seems to be a bit more permanent.”
She absorbed that in silence.
The heat scent was stronger now, even from here. It coiled around the camp in faint waves. Himmel’s breathe fluttered like candlelight.
Frieren thought about leaving him alone. Respecting his privacy. Letting him “handle it” like he said.
Her chest tightened again.
“I will still check on him,” she said.
Heiter sighed in that way that meant he knew better than to argue.
“Be kind,” he said.
“Always,” she said.
She waited until Heiter’s humming turned soft and aimless, until Eisen leaned back against the tree with his arms crossed and eyes half closed. Both men were still awake enough to react if a demon appeared, but unattentive enough that following Himmel wouldn’t be an obvious intrusion.
Frieren stood.
The night air beyond the fire circle was cooler. It slid over her face and hands, carrying the scents of moss and damp earth and Himmel’s heat. His bedroll wasn’t far, he’d just moved a little away from the main cluster, toward the trees, like distance alone could make his instincts quieter.
He was lying on his back now, blanket kicked halfway off, one arm thrown over his eyes.
His hair stuck to his forehead in damp strands. His chest rose and fell too fast.
The scent wrapped around him like a second blanket.
“Himmel,” she said softly.
He twitched.
His arm slid down enough that he could peer at her.
“Frieren,” he croaked.
His voice was rough, like he’d been shouting, although he hadn’t. Not yet.
She took a step closer.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
He swallowed.
His throat worked visibly.
“On a scale of ‘mildly inconvenient’ to ‘I hope the Goddess smites me out of pity’?” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Somewhere between ‘choir practice incident’ and ‘tried to climb the chapel bell tower to feel the wind’,” he said.
She had no frame of reference for those, but his expression suggested it wasn’t good.
She moved to sit near his bedroll, leaving enough space that she could pretend this was respectful distance.
His eyes followed her.
“You don’t have to babysit me,” he murmured.
“I am not,” she said. “I am… observing.”
He made a weak noise that might have been a laugh.
“You’re terrifying,” he said affectionately.
His hands were curled, one near his chest, the other fisting the edge of his blanket. Little tremors ran through his fingers now and then.
She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.
“I have seen heats before,” she said quietly. “In villages. Cities. Some were managed well. Some were not.”
“And?” he asked.
“The ones managed well had someone there,” she said. “Someone who stayed. I am not good at… the soft parts. But I am here.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
Something in his gaze loosened.
“That’s good enough,” he said, voice very soft.
He closed his eyes again, maybe because looking at her hurt. Maybe because the light from the fire made everything too bright.
His breathing hitched.
“Frieren,” he said after a moment. “Is it… worse that you’re here?”
She considered the question. Honest answers, she’d learned, were usually the best with Himmel, even if they were blunt.
“Yes,” she said. “It makes your scent stronger.”
He groaned.
“I didn’t mean for you,” he said. “I meant for me.”
“Oh,” she said. “For you, also yes.”
He laughed and then cut himself off with a soft, embarrassed sound.
“Great,” he said. “Fantastic. Wonderful. I love that for us.”
His hand dragged up, covering his eyes again.
“My instincts,” he muttered, “are being very clear about what they want, and I’m trying very hard to be respectful about it, and it is… difficult.”
“What do they want?” she asked.
There was a pause.
He made a noise like a kettle about to scream.
“I am not answering that,” he said.
“Is it me?” she asked.
“Frieren,” he whined.
“So it is,” she said.
“Stop,” he said. “You can’t just say things. There should be a law.”
She thought there were probably several social laws about not poking at an omega in heat with direct questions. She had never been very good at those.
“I want to help,” she said. “I do not know how.”
He exhaled hard.
“You just… being here is already a lot,” he said. “I know that sounds stupid. But when you’re in the middle of it, it feels like you’re going to explode. Having someone who doesn’t flinch away is-” His voice cracked. He swallowed. “It helps.”
She could do “not flinching.” She had centuries of practice.
She shifted slightly, re-evaluating the distance between them.
“Would it help,” she said slowly, “if I were closer?”
He froze.
His arm slipped from his eyes.
He stared at her like her hair had just turned into snakes.
“That is a trick question,” he said.
“It is not,” she said.
“It is absolutely a trick question,” he said. “Because yes, that would help, and also it would make everything worse, and also I might cry on your cloak, and also I don’t know if I’d be able to let go again.”
“That sounds like an ‘also yes’ situation,” she said.
He made a helpless gesture with his hands, then immediately regretted moving because it made his body remember it existed.
“Frieren,” he said quietly. “Are you sure? This is… a lot. I don’t want you to feel trapped. Or obligated. Or… weird.”
“I feel weird already,” she said. “Humans are strange. You are very warm.”
“That’s the heat,” he muttered.
“And you are begging me not to leave you alone,” she said.
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
His eyes became shiny.
“I haven’t said that out loud,” he whispered.
“You did at dinner,” she said. “In different words.”
He bit down on his lower lip, shoulders shaking once.
“Please,” he said. “Please stay. I know I said… I told the others not to investigate if they heard me, but you,” He took a shaky breath. “You being here makes it feel less humiliating. And more. Uh. Other things. But mostly less humiliating.”
“I can stay,” she said.
“Then yes,” he said. “Closer would… help.”
She shuffled off her log and onto the ground beside his bedroll.
His eyes followed every centimeter like she was performing some sort of delicate magic.
She sat so their shoulders barely brushed.
Heat radiated off him in waves. His scent wrapped around her more densely. Her own instincts, usually quiet, chimed in faintly: hold.
She hesitated, then lifted an arm.
“May I?” she asked.
He stared at the arc of her arm like it was a test.
“Yes,” he said, voice small and sincere.
She draped her arm carefully around him, resting her hand along his upper arm. The contact was light. Easy to break if he wanted to.
He did not.
He leaned into it with all the subtlety of a falling tree.
His breath punched out of him. He made a broken sound and buried his face in his hands.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to-”
“It is fine,” she said.
“It is not fine,” he argued. “I’m clinging.”
“You are not,” she said. “You are leaning. There is a difference.”
He sniffed.
“Frieren,” he said. “I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me.”
“I am not,” she said.
“You sound very much like you are,” he said.
“I am being truthful,” she said.
His shoulders shook again, this time with laughter.
“You might be worse than the heat,” he told her.
“Is it better or worse than Heiter?” she asked.
He considered.
“Different,” he said diplomatically.
His head found her shoulder gradually, like it had been approaching there for a long time without realizing. When it finally rested against her cloak, he let out a breath he’d been holding so tightly it trembled.
Her arm tightened a little.
He was still so warm.
She thought of cooling spells, of the page in one of her old notebooks where a healer had recommended damp cloths and shade. She thought of ice magic, then immediately discarded that as too dramatic.
“You are overheating,” she said. “One moment.”
He made a questioning noise.
She lifted her free hand and murmured a small spell, directing it to his skin, not his blood. A soft cooling breeze brushed over his face, then his neck, drying some of the sweat.
He sighed. His shoulders sagged.
“That,” he said, eyes fluttering half closed, “is the single most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me during a heat.”
“It is basic temperature regulation,” she said.
“Don’t ruin the moment,” he said.
She let her fingers rest lightly at the nape of his neck as she kept the spell running at the lowest, gentlest level she could manage.
His scent slowly shifted, not less, exactly, but less frantic. The sharp edges smoothed. The heat still rolled through him, but he wasn’t flinching with each wave now.
It worked.
She felt oddly pleased.
Then his instincts caught up to the new comfort, and everything got worse.
“Frieren,” he whispered.
“Yes,” she said.
“You smell very good,” he said. “That’s a weird thing to say. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This is going to be a recurring theme, just warning you now.”
“It is fine,” she said. “You are in heat. You are allowed to have opinions about smells.”
“That is the most elf thing you’ve ever said,” he muttered.
He shifted, trying to get even closer. His shoulder pressed into her side. His head turned, face now partly against her collarbone. His hands, abandoned by his embarrassed brain, ended up holding onto her cloak.
“Frieren,” he said again, voice cracking on her name.
“Yes,” she answered.
He swallowed audibly.
“Please,” he whispered. “Don’t…don’t let go. Whatever you do. I know I said it was worse with you here, but it’s also… so much better. Please.”
She tightened her arm around him.
“I will not let go,” she said.
His whole body shuddered. A small, choked sound escaped him, halfway between a sob and something else.
“Thank you,” he breathed.
He pressed into her, the way small children did when they finally let themselves believe someone wouldn’t move away. Legs still curled, shoulders curved inward, trying to make himself smaller even as he reached for more.
Her heart did something strange in her chest.
“You are trembling,” she said.
“I’m aware,” he muttered.
She shifted, carefully, moving her hand from his neck to the middle of his back, drawing slow circles with her fingertips.
“Breathe in,” she said quietly. “Slowly. Hold it. Breathe out.”
“You and Heiter should start a club,” he said, but he followed her instructions.
His breathing, which had been uneven and too quick, gradually found a rhythm closer to hers.
The scent still coiled. The heat still pulsed.
She didn’t know if she was meant to notice that part.
Probably not.
“Frieren,” he said after a while, voice muffled against her. “I am going to say things I regret.”
“You already have,” she said.
He groaned.
“I love you,” he whined.
She paused.
He froze.
“That,” he said, strangled, “was one of them.”
“I do not think you regret that one,” she said.
“I regret saying it out loud while my body is Being Like This,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
She thought about the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. The way his hand sometimes hovered near her shoulder in crowded towns, ready to guide her without quite daring to touch. The way his eyes had gone flat and distant when she’d mentioned leaving the party someday, before she’d realized humans did not like hearing that from elves.
“No,” she said. “There is not.”
He made a wounded sound.
“You’re going to kill me,” he said.
“I told you I will not let go,” she said.
“That’s the problem,” he complained.
Another wave rolled through him. She felt the tension gather in his shoulders before it hit. His fingers tightened on her cloak. His breath hitched.
“Frieren,” he gasped.
“Yes,” she said.
“I want,” He broke off, teeth digging into his lip. “I want more. This is greedy. I know. I’m sorry. I’m trying not to be.”
She thought about all the pamphlets and notes. About “comfort touch recommended” and “do not engage in misleading physical intimacy if you intend to withdraw afterward” and “omegas in heat are prone to heightened emotional attachment.”
She also thought about Himmel in bedrolls without her, in churches without her, in cities and towns and lonely forests she had never set foot in, begging for more from people who did not understand how deeply he felt things.
“What kind of more?” she asked.
He made a terrible noise and hid his face even better against her.
“That is not a fair question,” he said.
“Specificity helps,” she said.
“You are absolutely making this worse,” he informed her.
“Yes,” she said. “You asked for my help.”
“I did,” he admitted miserably.
He trembled again.
“Just….just hold me,” he whispered finally. “Harder. Like you mean it. Like I’m not… embarrassing.”
Her arm tightened around him.
She drew him fully against her side, shifting so he could half lean across her. Her hand splayed across his back, fingers pressing through his shirt.
“I do not find you embarrassing,” she said.
His breath punched out of him like he’d been hit.
“You say that,” he whispered, “and I believe you. That’s the worst part.”
“Why is it bad to believe me?” she asked.
“Because then I want to believe more,” he said thickly. “And that’s… dangerous. For me.”
She considered that. Humans always seemed to think loving too much was dangerous. They were the ones who died in decades. It made no sense to her to spend that tiny span being cautious with affection.
“I am not going anywhere,” she said.
He made another soft, broken noise.
“Frieren,” he said. “You can’t say things like that while I’m in heat. It makes me want to… claw my way into your ribs and live there.”
“That would be inconvenient,” she said.
He wheezed.
“Why are you like this,” he whispered.
“Elf,” she said.
Despite everything, he laughed. A real laugh this time, shaken but warm.
“There,” she said quietly. “Better.”
His laughter turned wet. He sniffed again and didn’t bother to hide the tears on her cloak.
“Please don’t remember the crying parts later,” he asked.
“I will remember all of it,” she said. “I have a very good memory.”
“That is absolutely the worst answer you could have given,” he told her.
But he pressed closer.
His begging, once he stopped trying to dam it up, came in small bursts. Not the dramatic, poetic pleas she’d heard in cities, where omegas recited lover’s names like incantations. Himmel’s begging was quieter. Raw around the edges.
“Please,” when a wave hit too hard.
“Don’t stop,” when the cooling spell eased.
“Stay,” when his mind tried to convince him she’d vanish if he blinked.
“Don’t think less of me,” barely audible, when he cried harder than he wanted to.
Each time, she answered with something simple.
“I’m here.”
“I won’t.”
“I don’t.”
Sometimes she just said his name.
“Himmel.”
He seemed to like that.
Hours slid by in that strange elastic way hours did around humans in distress. The fire sank lower. Eisen’s silhouette was unmoving against the tree in the distance. Heiter snored once, rolled over, muttered something about holy relics, and fell silent again.
The heat kept rolling through Himmel.
Frieren kept being there.
She tried a few other “interventions” from her notes, because she couldn’t help herself.
Distraction worked, briefly.
“You once tried to climb a chapel bell tower during a heat,” she said, when he was lucid enough to glare up at her.
“Oh no,” he said. “Heiter told you that one, huh?”
“Why?” she asked.
“I thought if I got high enough, the wind would blow the scent away,” he said. “You know. The smell of everything. Myself included. It was a terrible plan. I almost fell off. A bird judged me.”
“A bird,” she repeated.
“It had very judgmental eyes,” he insisted.
“Did the wind help?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “The fresh air made it worse. Also the bell rang while I was up there and I cried.”
She tilted her head.
“You are very bad at self-management,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “That is why I appreciate you, even as you make this worse in new and exciting ways.”
She also tried a mental game she’d once heard about: having him list things in categories.
“Name five cities we have been to,” she said, when he started to spiral inward again.
He hiccuped.
“Is this… heat trivia?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Alright.” He closed his eyes, thinking. “The capital. That port town with the good fish. The village with the terrible inn. The place with the singing bridge. The city where you blew up the demon in front of three children and made them think magic was the coolest thing that ever existed.”
“That could be several cities,” she said.
He laughed, then winced as another wave hit.
She tightened her arm around him until he rode it out.
“Okay,” he whispered. “New category. Things I love about Frieren.”
“That is not one I assigned,” she said.
“I’m improvising,” he said.
His voice shook, but he kept going.
“The way you watch the sky like it personally owes you money,” he said. “How you always look more excited about weird spells than legendary weapons. How you fall asleep at terrible times. How you act like you don’t care and then carry my favorite bread recipe for two hundred years.”
She stilled.
He gave a soft, humor-bent sob.
“The way you’re holding me right now,” he whispered. “Even though you don’t have to. Even though you could be anywhere else. You’re here. With me.”
His eyes shone when he looked up at her.
“Please don’t stop,” he begged.
“Then I won’t,” she said.
If anything she pulled him closer, her hand splayed, her body an unmovable anchor.
His heat didn’t vanish. He still smelled like wanting and warmth and Himmel. He still trembled. He still got caught in loops of apology and devotion.
But he didn’t drown.
When the worst of it finally ebbed, when the sharpest edges dulled and his body, wrung out and exhausted, finally stopped throwing new waves at him he sagged completely against her. His weight settled. His grip loosened at last, fingers slackening on her cloak.
“Frieren,” he mumbled, woozy.
“Yes,” she said.
“I didn’t die,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“That’s disappointing,” he said.
She glanced down.
His eyes were half-lidded, lashes still damp, cheeks flushed. He looked wrung out and small and unbearably human.
“You did well,” she said.
“I whined,” he said. “I begged. I cried on you.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
He squinted up at her.
“You’re supposed to argue,” he said.
“You asked me not to lie,” she said. Then, after a pause, “You also laughed. You answered my trivia. You did not try to climb anything dangerous. You did not run away. That is ‘well’.”
His mouth twitched.
“Okay,” he whispered. “If you say so.”
“I do,” she said.
He went quiet, eyes closing fully.
“Frieren,” he murmured.
“Yes,” she said.
“When I’m… normal again,” he said, each word slower, “I’m going to pretend I didn’t say anything dramatic. You don’t have to play along. But I’m warning you in advance.”
“I will remember,” she said.
“I know,” he sighed. “It’s terrifying.”
He nestled his head against her shoulder in a way that said his body had accepted this arrangement as non-negotiable.
She let him.
Dawn was a long way off.
The fire was nearly dead.
Eisen snored once, very quietly.
Heiter muttered something about “no more bell towers,” then quieted again.
Himmel slept, finally. His scent, while still warm, no longer clawed at the air. His breathing had evened. The trembling had stopped.
Frieren sat with her back against a tree, Himmel curled firmly into her side, her cloak pulled half over him as an extra layer.
Her arm stayed around him.
She could have put him back on his bedroll and moved away.
She didn’t.
“It is his first heat with the group,” she murmured to herself, fingers tracing idle circles on his back. “We should make a tradition.”
His mouth moved in his sleep, as if he wanted to argue with that.
She smiled, just a little.
“Next time,” she said softly, “I will be better at this.”
He made a small, content sound and burrowed closer, like his foolish, instinctive choir was very pleased with that answer.
She stayed until the sky paled and the birds started their annoying morning songs, an elf holding a hero who begged for her and did not, for once, have to beg alone.