#crowelna

It’s a quiet little place he’s called his own, in an isolated corner by the Citadel. Technically it isn’t a corner—it’s part of a plot of public land a couple of blocks away from one of the art museums. And technically it isn’t quiet, either. Can’t be, with the wire fences and wooden stakes, or the roar and honk of shining cars, or infrastructure. (He might be here for strength and strategy, but he learned enough in school to survive off of flashbulb memories, to know what the hell all these government officials are talking about all the time. The word weighs heavy on his tongue because infrastructure was never something his people had to worry about; his people were infrastructure. His people were power.)

But naming it so makes the place a little more peaceful, somehow. Something out of a storybook. Like a place he could write poems. If he could write poems, that is.

The rental fee is a good use of his monthly stipend, at least.

It’s on an afternoon that’s entirely too cheerful and sunny that he pries the gate open and makes his way to his plot, his knees finding a home in the ground and his fingers searching delicately for spindly leaves. He’s started growing little things here, lost track of how long they’ve rooted. Sage, thyme, basil. He knows them like the back of a gloved hand because his grandmother did. Had to. That was her job. Was.

Pelna isn’t here to tend—not to the plants—though he should be. It’s an effort from the Astrals that he’s even tending to himself. It’s just that he knows it’s what Crowe would have wanted from someone she only sort of loved.

He only ever took her here the one time, on an open day like this, when the sun was still lucky enough to be up when their shifts ends. They linked arms, because it was the most she’d allow him out in the city beyond playful shoves, ruffles of the hair, are-you-kidding-me stares, the occasional hug. There was just a tinge of shame—vulnerability, maybe—in the creak of the gate, the give of the ground under knee-high combat boots. He wished he could have held her hand then. Wished he could have kissed the back of it when she grinned at his little patch of peace, crouched among the plants, and said, “So this is where you spend all that extra time.”

Gods, she was so easy to be around. It killed him.

“So why’d you bring me here?” Crowe asked him, brushing stray locks of dark, scraggly hair away from her eyes. “If this is something that’s all yours, I mean.”

“Just wanted you to see it, I guess.”

She gave him a look; if he closes his eyes now, he can see every hint of skepticism in the arch of her brow, every wrinkle in the quirk of her lips. “I know you,” she said, and the words were a fist around his heart then, pulsing with him, wrenching in just the right direction.

He sighed. “I just… wanted to let you in before you had to leave. Okay? Maybe you could help when you come back.” With the flat of his palm, he patted down the earth, a half-affectionate smile on his lips. “Gets lonely here, sometimes. I think they’d like someone else to talk their ears off for once.”

“Pel…”

“I know.” They’d had this conversation a million times, clothed and not, between sheets on lazy Saturdays and on floors in the dark, accompanied by furniture in disrepair and unrequited everything. “I’m not asking you to. I know you can’t.”

She scoffed, halfheartedly, fingertips tracing uncharacteristically delicate patterns in the soil. She wasn’t looking at him. “You make it sound like I’m incapable of this shit.”

Pelna shrugged. “Maybe you are.” He hadn’t meant for his words to sound so selfishly hollow, but it was the real parts of him that she liked, anyway. The kind of like that said, let’s be passionately angry, angrily passionate, both, all the time, everywhere, and never said, I love you, too.

A fucking firecracker, she was.

He’d see plenty of them tonight. Eve of the treaty, and everything.

He doesn’t even know how long it’s been since she came back in a bag. What her last thought was. What her last word was. He couldn’t even bear to see the body. Couldn’t even pay her that single stupid respect. Nyx had to tell him everything. That they found her laying with flies and hauled her to a room that bespoke nothing but cold, clinical isolation. The spidery veins that ran like mascara down the tops of her cheeks, her eyes like smoky glass, every nuance in her expression a scream.

He’d never known her to be so scared.

He’d never known Libertus to be, either. But maybe that wasn’t why they’d woken up to direct-to-voicemail calls his uniform tossed in a haphazard pile by his locker in the barracks.

He has to be careful now. Can’t upset the soil. Can’t throw off the balance of something trying to live. Maybe he should be taking a leaf out of their books—and maybe he shouldn’t be making such stupid puns—if he only knew how to do that in the first place.

Maybe this is the first place. Nyx and Libertus had the training ground; Pelna saw them seated there once, broken men with swinging legs and murmurs about fire and promise. Luche must have grieved somewhere, for all their bickering. Who is he kidding?

On a Wednesday, Pelna took her to the herb garden, and she asked, in a soft tone he could have sworn she saved only for him, “Which one’s your favorite?” Like a friend who had more than a couple of hours left with him.

On instinct, his fingers reached for the basil leaves, and there was a split-second that he stopped himself. Let his fingers curl in, hovering like dowsing rods as they unfurled to brush against a sprig of rosemary. “Tastes like where we come from,” he said. “Sharp. Makes itself known. Sticks with you after you’ve had your fill.” He spared her a glance then, at the hard light in her eyes, the length of dark lashes, every attentive part of her. “Tastes like you.”

He saw more than he heard her sharp breath, and her eyes never left him. (He can still see it now. The invitation. The click in her mind.) “Do you want to come home tonight?” she said.

Pelna pressed his lips together, a hard, firm line, and his voice cracked when he spoke. “I can’t.”

He peels his gloves off now, presses his palms flat into the dirt, and shuts his eyes tight. He could have said he loved her again. Should have. Sure, she might have rolled her eyes, given him that publicly-safe shove. Or maybe she might have lowered her gaze and shaken her head. Anything would have been better than the near-audible crack in her expression, the almost-silent “Oh” that left her lips before she clapped him on the shoulder and said she’d see him at first light.

She’s left him a man of the earth twice now—maybe more. Left him a cluster of those flashbulb memories. People. Power. Fists. Lips. Love. Parsley. Sage. Thyme. Infrastructure. Everything.

His eyes well with tears, and they seep into the ground before he has a chance to catch them, trickle down the back of his hand when he reaches for the rosemary she touched before.  (He read somewhere that human skin changes every seven years. How long before she’s never touched rosemary? How long before she’s never touched him?)

Spindles poke at his skin, sharp and wooden and alive, and he buries his face in the crook of his elbow.

~XV~

One of Libertus’ favorite things to do after a hard day was to chill at his fave restaurant downtown for some peace and quiet. He had been screeched at by Captain Drautos during drilling on a long day at work and all Libertus wanted was to crack open a cold one with his mates.

That was not what he got when he arrived at Yama’s Hut that evening.

“I don’t care if you’ll buy me a new one! That one was mine!” Came Crowe’s hissing voice through the air.

Libertus found them, at their usual table, with Crowe glaring daggers at Pelna who had yakitori sauce smudged on his face, and Nyx was sitting in the middle, leaning on his stool and enjoying the show. Libertus was a tad too tired to realize instantly what’s going on and he only dropped his entire weight on the available part of the stool and groaning at his sore joints. Ramuh be good, he’s getting old.

Waving a lazy hand towards Yama Hut’s counter to signal for his usual order that Yama-chan knows by heart, Libertus eyed the tension between his two other companions. “What’s going on?”

Nyx snorted through his nose. “Pelna stole Crowe’s last kebab stick.”

Oh. Oh.

“I didn’t steal it!” Pelna waved, the yakitori sauce direct evidence of his theft. “She wasn’t touching it, and, I mean, I thought it was okay. I told her I’d buy her a new one.”

“I don’t want a new one, I wanted that one!”

“What’s the big deal anyway? It’s just a kebab stick.”

“It was my kebab stick. And even worse, it was my last!”

“So what?!”

Nyx laughed in his fist, and the connection finally clicked in Libertus’ head. Crowe and Pelna had just recently admitted that they started dating, and while they have been working together for years, apparently they are just starting to get to know each other’s nuances. Including one of Crowe’s most infamous pet peeves.  

“So what? So what?!” Crowe huffed, ready to use a firaga spell on poor Pelna’s ass. “Look, you may just eat whatever is on your plate like some cave dwelling Solheimian, but I go in with a strategy for every meal. That kebab was my favorite and I left it for last for a reason! And you just took it!”

“I said I’m sorry, okay?” Pelna mourned taking liberties with the kebab. They had been kissy and cutesy with each other a hot minute ago, so much so that it was making Nyx do some gag noises in the background. Crowe only stuck her tongue out at Nyx before she turned and nipped at Pelna’s lips a split second later. They were unashamedly showcasing their PDA for the whole world to see… until he grabbed her last stick. Couples shared bits of dishes with each other all the time, didn’t they? “I don’t see why you’re overreacting for a mere kebab.”

Nyx sighed. Libertus shook his head.

And Crowe looked positively livid. “I’m overreacting?! You did not just say that!”

“It’s just-”

“Pelna, buddy.” Libertus swiped Nyx’s beer and took a long sip from it and nodding his head sagely. “Take it from me, I’ve known this little rat since she was twelve years old and there’s one lesson you need to remember at all times.”

Pelna looked confused but in dire need of help. “What’s that?”

Crowe came all the way into her boyfriend’s face, acutely glaring at her yakitori sauce smudge on his face and growled, “Crowe. Doesn’t. Share. Food.”

Pelna looked horrified. If she was talking it third person, it must be serious. “For real? I thought you only were like that with those two.” He gestured to Libertus and Nyx, who had a tendency to snatch each other’s stuff all the time. “That’s why Libertus got so chubby.”

“Hey!”

“Nope!” Nyx popped happily. “Crowe’s been known to crush hands when they near her food. You’re lucky she hasn’t broken anything of yours yet.”

Pelna all but sagged from the tension when the realization hit him that his super new hot girlfriend had weird pet peeves of her own. He looked all but a lost puppy when he apologized to her. “Aw, babe… you know what? I won’t just buy you a new one, I’ll buy you two! And treat you for the rest of the week! Do you want some grilled shawarma with that?”

Crowe’s gasped as if he just proposed to her at the prospect of more food. “Baaaaaabe,” She whined, her voice going sugary high that made Nyx gag again. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me!”

Libertus frowned. “What about the day I bought you your first birthday cake?”

“Or when I paid for your vacation to Galdin Quay three years ago?” Nyx sounded offended.

But Crowe paid them no mind, only proceeding to grab her pretty boyfriend by his thick hair and pulled him up for another kiss.

This time it was both Libertus and Nyx who made the same noises. “I’m eating over here!”

“Oh, you know what this was?” Crowe not-really-whispered against Pelna’s mouth. “Our first argument.”

Pelna was too much lost at the feel of her to respond much. “Aww, it was?”

Libertus prayed to the Six above, knowing Crowe too well in what she’s going to say where he can hear her. “Please don’t say it, please don’t say it, please don’t say it.”

Crowe laughed but pretended the other two boys were not there. “Let’s take my food home and have some amazing make-up sex!”

“Gah, why?!” Libertus moaned, covering his ears.

Nyx only waved and smiled. “You kids need anything else? Some chips? Condoms? Be safe!”

Libertus groaned again.

Crowe huffed out a breath as hot as a smoking oven, confounded and caring less by the second about the sorry sack of snoring shit staining Booth 2. On any other given day, for any other given guy, she wouldn’t have cared. The boss might’ve, sure, but she wasn’t the one opening the damn place to transients camping out beneath the awnings. What she didn’t know wouldn’t rob her, and Crowe knew first-hand what it was like not to have a place to sleep at night.

But this was Precious Baby Nephew Pelna Khara, sitting cozy with curating coffees for minimum wage by day while undergoing the assessment for Kingsglaive recruitment by night. It was shit money for a shit job that a person would either need to be desperate or crazy to take. Crowe was both, Khara was one, and it wasn’t the answer behind door number “desperate.”

She resented him for that.

Which was why there was no mercy blunting the toe of her boot when she gave the booth a sharp kick, startling its occupant into a spray of flailing limbs and snuffled curses.

“If you were coming in early, you could have at least swept the place,” Crowe said, hands set imperiously on her hips.

Pelna blinked up at her with all the alarm of a catoblepas being poked by a mosquito on a hot summer’s day. Crowe wrinkled her nose, a twitch in the back of her head arguing with her not to judge the slovenly state of his face and his clothes and his everything. She’d scraped Nyx and Libertus off the floor of the old bar enough times not to be a prick about it – and they’d scraped her off that same floor enough times to make a hypocrite out of her if she was.

“Come on,” she sighed, falling into the old role of janitorial consult to better temper her irritation. “Opening’s in an hour.”

He wasn’t in the death throes of some wild bender, she didn’t think. He smelled like a man that spent the night plastered to a vinyl seat that had been pressed and pummeled by many asses before him, but not like a man that had been drinking before he spent the night plastered to a vinyl seat that had been pressed and pummeled by many asses before him.

“Morning to you, too,” Pelna mumbled without malice, grunting to dislodge the sleep in his voice. He sat himself up in the booth as if he was waking from a vat of molasses, jamming the heels of his palms against his sleep-bruised eyes.

Crowe returned the pleasantry with a graceless snort and marched to work while Pelna roused himself. She’d been working at the café for a few months now, pretending like she could fit the mold of Lucian propriety and make a living from it. But she wasn’t kind enough for coffee orders, forcing herself to smile through tirades of customer entitlement to the point where her palms bled from how deeply her nails cut into the skin.

Kingsglaive was more her speed, something she could pour her chaos into and curse out her colleagues as much as she damn well pleased without much reprimand. Her superior would give her praise instead of punishment for bringing her fight to the business. She was confident that the Kingsglaive was her real calling, and she had no doubt that she would be recruited for it – so long as she didn’t torch her current place of employment before the papers were processed.

And so long as she didn’t bury her boss’s nephew in the bags of coffee beans before then, either.

“Is this a first for you?” she asked, not because she necessarily cared, but because she hated awkward silences. “Breaking into your aunt’s place to crash on the café business’ most uncomfortable benches?”

He sent her a look of exhausted reprimand, having been the victim of her grievances since they’d been put on the same shift. He never repeated a single one of them to his aunt, nor condemned Crowe for having them. That kind of annoyed her about him, too. Half the time she did it just to see if she could get a rise out of him. But whereas Crowe was a firaga spell, Pelna was a barrier over a Nif stronghold in the frozen mountains of Gralea. Maybe if she got a little caffeine in him, she could loosen his gears.

“Sorry for surprising you,” Pelna yawned, stretching and shuffling over to the counter as Crowe plugged in the coffee pot. “Didn’t plan on sleeping through the alarm.”

Crowe rolled her eyes. Sure, let’s pretend that the snooze button is the real adamantoise in this room. “Didn’t plan on serving a customer before opening hours, and yet…” She made a vague gesture between him and the coffee pot snuffling awake.

“If I pay for it, will it buy your silence?”

“You’re lucky I’m not Kingsglaive yet,” Crowe mumbled. “Otherwise I’d tell you my bribe-by date had expired.”

“Good thing I squeezed in my chance,” he chuckled, wearily. “I can’t imagine it being much longer before you’re recruited.”

“You don’t have to charm me to bribe me, Khara. I’m already taking your money whether you pay or not.”

He laughed, another annoying little habit. The guy couldn’t seem to tell when he was being insulted or threatened or cursed or vowed to be her frenemy for the rest of eternity. He thought every little word she said was so damn funny. Gods, she just wanted to punch him some days. See how funny physical violence was to his future black eye. Knock out a few of his perfect teeth for extra oomph.

“Just speaking the truth, Altius,” he replied, reaching behind the counter for the sugar packets yet to be set out on the tables. “Promise you won’t forget about us peons when you’re off protecting the world from devastation.”

“Gonna be hard to forget your ugly mug when it’ll still be in my way every day.”

She poured two cups of coffee and slid Pelna his to mutilate with sugar and cream to his heart’s over-sweetened desire. She took hers black, scalding off the skin of her tongue while he poured waterfalls of tiny white crystals into his cup. He went quiet all of a sudden, a subdued smile put onto his face in the default position, not because he meant it.

“Not expecting an email?” she asked.

“Nah.” He waved a hand through the steam curling off the top of his cup. “I’ll be dead the first mission and I’m pretty sure the captain knows it.”

Crowe shrugged. “Is pouring coffee really so bad then?”

“Isn’t it?”

He crooked a brow at her, black receding into fluffy, curly black like a wooly caterpillar into soil. She challenged the look, narrowing a glare at his unaffected face. When it didn’t yield the retreat she was hoping for, she hooked her chin towards the booth he’d been sleeping in.

“That what you’re losing sleep over?”

Pelna’s face contorted into a grimace, eyes cast down to the speckled granite counter as he stirred in his sugar. It was a while before he answered her, Crowe’s heel tapping out a silent, impatient rhythm beneath the counter as she waited.

“Been in Insomnia for a while now,” Pelna murmured. “Long enough for it to feel like home, or well… it’s supposed to.” He shook his head, then cast his gaze around the little café: gray-washed walls like beached driftwood, retro tables of blue-and-white vinyl, nautical-themed bronze lighting fixtures, and casks of glass-guarded pastries sweetening the bitter taste the coffee left in the air. “This… this feels more like home.”

Crowe burnt the roof of her mouth on another impatient gulp of coffee, debating with herself whether she should pity the guy or tell him to suck it up and sleep in his apartment like the rest of the civilized people of Insomnia. But that would make her a hypocrite, too. Many a sleepless night saw her crashing between the couches of her two best friends, just to ward off the emptiness of her own apartment.

“Anyway,” Pelna chuckled, sipping tentatively at his over-sugared coffee. But he didn’t have anything else to add to segue the conversation into a different topic.

“Hoping a bed at the barracks will be cozier?” Crowe asked.

“Hoping we’ll be bunk buddies, Altius?”

She snorted and rolled her eyes, affecting disgust for even speaking the possibility into being. She hoped this morning’s discovery of him wasn’t some Astral-sent omen of pre-dawn wake-up calls spent dumping him from the cot of their cadet quarters.

“I’m hoping you’ll clean up after yourself, and not expect me to be your maid, here or as future roomies.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He knocked off a salute, sleepy smile still softening his features. “And I’ll do you one better, if you’ll let me. Can I treat you to coffee when you get your acceptance letter? To make up for this one, too?” He lifted the consolation coffee, meekly.

Crowe paused, pressing her palms to the counter-top while she considered his offer. He wasn’t a bad person, of course she knew that. He just caught her in a bad position, working a bad job that made her a bad person – though she had a feeling he wasn’t his best here, either. Email or not, she was stuck with him for the foreseeable future, Kingsglaive or coffee peddler – she had no doubt he’d be recruited, she’d seen him fight, and he was a fair bit more impressive with a blade in his hands than a coffee grinder.

She puffed out a sigh. At least she’d get a free meal out of it.

“Make it lunch and I’ll let you ask me to that. After pouring coffee all day, every day, it’s the last thing I want when I’m celebrating my success.”

“Lunch break date it is.”

She groaned and swept her coffee off the counter to go tidy up the kitchen before opening. Whether she liked him or not, Pelna would be her partner in many things from that day onward. And as sweet as she would come to learn he really was, he didn’t stop pissing her off most days, either.