#maginpui

“And thisone..?” A gloved finger carefully pointed to and traced the question as sheasked it, before shifting and resting once again on the table.

“The fourthfonon,” Luke offered, his tone confident in his answer. He turned to Tear, aglimpse of doubt sparkling in his eyes. “… is the answer, right?”

A light smile(and somewhat rare) brushed upon Tear’s lips as she gave a nod of reassurancein Luke’s direction. “Your answer is correct, Luke. Try to have moreconfidence, but… as I said earlier, you’re doing a lot better than when youstarted.”

“Thanks forhelping me study, Tear,” he smiled in return, gently scratching his cheek as heturned back to writing notes. “You really didn’t have to keep doing thisconsidering…”

“Considering?”she questioned, a hint of confusion to her voice.

“Consideringall the things we’ve – you’ve been doing recently. With the miasma andeverything, you shouldn’t be pushing yourself too hard.”

Tear gave hercompanion a sigh, shaking her head in turn. The smile before had been replacedby her usual frown, and the demeanour surrounding her had seemed to change in away Luke couldn’t find words to explain. “Luke, I’m fine. And I’m not pushingmyself too hard.”

He simplygave a frown towards her in reply. Giving himself a moment to catch his breath,the noble carefully yet firmly voiced his thoughts as clearly as possible – a featthat seemed almost unimaginable a few months ago. “But what if you do push yourselftoo hard? Tear, you’ll… get even more sick, or worse.”

“I appreciateyour concern, but this is our mission. It’s above everything else. If I die inthe process, so be it.” Her reply was almost immediate and equally as firm, buther voice even so remained hushed. “I accepted this as a possibility when Ijoined the knights, and if it happens – it happens.”

The room fellsilent as Luke bit his lip. She could be stubborn – and it was something Lukehad always known well. The pencil in his hand had gently been put down on thepage of the notebook he had been writing in. Green eyes looked to the table inconcentration, as his thoughts attempted to find another route in talking toher. It took another few seconds before an idea clicked – and knowing she wouldwillingly rather walk away from this, he knew he needed to act quickly on this.

Letting a sighfall from his lips, he looked at the knight once more. This time he looked hermore closely, watching his own reflection in her eyes of blue. His fistsclenched in anticipation, even as his expression looked somewhat calm and composed.“If you don’t want to talk about it then say so. Don’t lie and pretend to befine when you clearly aren’t. Just… please, don’t lie to me, Tear. You’re animportant member of our team; I don’t think we could’ve got this far withoutyou.”

Maybe it wasthe surprise of it all – of the noble trying this much to get through to her.Maybe it was the fact that she was just a little tired. Maybe it was the miasmapoisoning. But something in Tear had frozen, and words to counteract his ownhad ceased. She refused to believe that he was right, but knew full-well if hewere in her own position, she would do the same. Moving her head down, breakingthe eye contact they held, a single word was eventually muttered on her side. “…fine.”

“Meaning that…you’ll promise?” he asked, just to make sure.

“I’llpromise,” she stated in return.

A somewhatreassured smile had grown on Luke’s lips, and a shade of pink faded into hischeeks. But the look in his eyes was much more determined than before. “It’s nota real promise until you pinky promise.”

“Luke…” Teargave a sigh and raised a brow in his direction, but offered her smallest glovedfinger even so. There was a part of her that just couldn’t refuse to.