Medraut has sharp claws. Their horns strike through their hair like resilient flowers in an early spring snow. Sometimes when their class camps overnight as they head to their next assigned mission point, Sylvain watches the moonlight turn her white scales to shimmering abalone. He wonders: Does anyone else see?

They prefer to remain a neutral mystery. Benign. Hardly anyone asks them things anymore. She seems as pleased by that as she ever openly expresses. In their bright pale eyes he sees what it means to them--So this is what it is to be trusted. Sylvain knows that he cannot read their mind but he's sure they must think something close to that. Why else would Dimitri commend her every move and their professor continue to place her in the perfect positions for her precision and prowess to take center stage? It's almost symbiotic. The Lions needed a striker and Medraut accepted their invitation. Sylvain knows, too, that they are making up for his laziness. She probably doesn't think twice about it.

On night watch you're allowed to keep a smoldering fire. It's late autumn so they have to be careful what with all the dry leaves and brush, but most of them have much better survival skills than they did at the start of their time at the monastery. Medraut sits beside him on the branch they dragged over to use as a makeshift bench earlier. They are often the second-shift watch. Medraut agrees to most everything without ever offering alternatives. Sylvain complains. Here they sit once more on the shift no one else wants. The moon is cut in half and bright. It's like the sky is grinning at them. Medraut leans forward to prod the dying embers of the fire back to life. Their hair curls at the ends around the fin-like horns by their cheeks. The humidity, probably. Sylvain isn't sure she's ever noticed even a wave to their hair before. He blinks back at all the times he's studied her, considering, and misses when she turns to him with a curious raise of her brow and otherwise blank expression. Empty.

I want to fill it. He might misunderstand them fundamentally. They've talked and she's hardly drawn back her mask in a way that only leaves him wanting more. Faerghus will use them as a living weapon without thinking twice. He's made a terrible mistake offering that to her. He'll keep making selfish mistakes until he dies.

"What?" Sylvain shrugs and Medraut just turns back to the fire. She's not patient with him most days, but especially not when they're both so sleep-deprived. Sylvain can only wonder at what she's thinking. More of her hair slides forward as she tips her head down, folding both arms across her knees and letting her eyes slide shut. He watches as the scales that crawl down her neck and disappear beneath her light armor and underclothes begin to shine softly yet again beneath the moon. Perhaps she's mad--Sylvain is sure there's a soft haze over the surface like a mirage, a glow. Medraut is capable of tearing out hearts with those clawed hands. He's seen them slash an enemy across the gut when they've needed to right their balance before another swipe of their lance. He's watched her pretend not to consider plunging them into the chest of their more skilled classmates during spars like she needs to constantly hold herself back from lethality. So, he wonders, how quickly will she recognize a surprise as something more than an attack?

He exhales and the smolders bite themselves slightly brighter. Just a little warmer. Medraut starts to extend a scaled hand to hover over it and their shoulders draw in a bit. It's cold and Sylvain has never felt so terribly drawn in--Call it animal instinct or morbid curiosity or an unspoken wish that he felt any meaning in brushes with death--and he won't be able to put to words the reason why when she asks, if she asks, but he does it anyway: He leans down and brushes his lips over the exposed nape of their neck. Her scales are cool in the night air and before he closes his eyes he catches a glimpse of the slightly spiked nature of the small plates of them that trail down her spine into their collar. He wants to track them with his thumb. Instead he catches their quickly jutting elbow in one palm with ease so they can't elbow him in the stomach.

"What are you--?" Her head whips up, already did moments ago before he'd moved a bit more to press another kiss to the base of her neck, right at the junction of it and her shoulder closest to him, and there's white light flaring around her eyes, a wildness that tells him exactly what he wanted / hoped to see. Medraut might be considering tearing out his throat. Or they might be planning how hard they need to shove him away to make him land on his back. For now, though, they only look at him and he's very close. He rests his chin on her shoulder to remove all height difference. The scales on their cheeks are opalescent and emit a surprising warmth.

"Hm?" He hums coyly, brown lashes half-covering his irises. "Want me to stop?" Because no, they've never talked about this and they probably never will but Sylvain knows that somewhere in Medraut's heart is a creeping jealousy that screams for attention. And Sylvain is a good vector for that sort of thing. He hates everyone most days. He's tired of being used. Medraut isn't. They like it in some ways. So he won't fucking do it. They won't get anything they want unless they decide to try tearing him to pieces. "I just thought, y'know, since you kissed me first, I probably shouldn't give you mixed signals, right? We just haven't been alone in a while and sure, I'm not bleeding this time--" But you can fix that, is what he implies with a last-second lift of his eyebrows. Saved it. There's a vacant sort of look in Sylvain's eyes that's present more often than not these days. This trip isn't like the ones they all used to go on when they started at the monastery--nowadays they go fight in real skirmishes. They all work together to kill their enemies rather than spar with them. He misses when he could shove fresh snow down the back of Medraut's uniform and have girls chase him through town when he was caught going out with four of them at a time. He leans onto his cheek as he regards her, lashes lowering slightly as he glances to her neck and then back up again. A threat or offer of more, they can take their pick.