Moments later, they were sitting at a table, menus in their hands. Irmond and Seith had picked a different table, and though they were right beside Kalee and Wulf, they kept their distance. At first, Wulf had assumed the two had wanted time to themselves, then that they wanted to split the bill, until he finally realized that Irmond was trying to leave him with Kalee.

"For someone who's lived a lot longer than me, you two have zero life experience," Irmond muttered. "But you know what to do, right? Not the first girl you've dated?"

"It's been a while," Wulf whispered back. "I'll figure it out."

"You make this sound harder than killing demons and advancing through the stages insanely fast."

"It is…"

"Just stop talking to me."

"Got it."

Wulf sat down. The tables were designed with a bench on one side, slightly curved with the table, but also to give the guests a view of the ocean, which he appreciated. They ordered quickly, once the servers came to take their requests.

Finally, Wulf carefully, "How are you doing? Are you feeling alright, with everything going on? I mean, having dealt with a demon-spirit, and all that?"

"I'm holding up," Kalee whispered back. "I'm not sure if I'm better, but punching one of those spirits in the face was definitely cathartic."

"I don't know if we'll ever be fixed," Wulf replied.

"Do you have nightmares?"

"Not anymore," he replied. "Not in this life, I don't think I've had one that I remember. But sometimes, I've woken up in a cold sweat, or gotten uncontrollable tremors in my hands." He glanced down. "Fingertips are still green. I guess that's never going to leave me, no matter how much time I spend in the sun."

At first, he'd been worried about getting sunburnt. But that passed quickly. They were Silvers, and if they could handle being punched by a golem, they could handle a little sunlight.

"Do you have nightmares, still?" Wulf asked.

"Often enough."

"About captivity?"

"About losing my senses again," she replied. "I don't know…sometimes I dream that I'm blind. That I can't see when someone's going to hit me, and all the old fears come back. Constantly tight, constantly afraid. Even if I did train to overcome it, it takes me back to a time when I didn't have the training."

Wulf nodded. "If there's anything—"

"I don't think there is."

He sighed. "Maybe not. I don't know what to suggest. I'm no healer, and there are some wounds that I'm pretty sure they can't touch."

"Do you have plans for after we beat the demons?" she asked.

"I'll keep travelling, probably. There's going to be plenty of cleanup to do, and plenty of people who need help. Besides, there are more continents than just Istalis and Centralis."

"Sure."

"You don't sound convinced."

"I'm not sure if there's a world for me afterward. That's all I've done for decades. Fight, train, fight some more. If it ends…"

Wulf grimaced. "That, I do understand." He lowered his head. "I'm sorry for not having a solution. I just can't think of a way to snap my fingers and fix it."

"It's alright. You don't have to. We were sent here with a final purpose."

"The Field was pretty clear it wasn't going to kill us when it was done with us," he said. "You're going to make it to Gold. You'll live at least two-hundred years afterward."

"Yeah, I would."

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"Would," Wulf repeated. "Kalee, I get concerned when you talk like that." He chewed his lip. "I—look. I just don't want you to get hurt, alright? You're my crew. You're my Mage, and we all care about you. I can't ever give up, because I'd be leaving you guys behind. There are people who need me, and that makes it a world worth living in."

"I still need to make amends with my old teacher," she said. "I'm not giving up. Not until the demons are gone."

"But don't you want something more? We were the ones who wouldn't accept our fates. That was why we were chosen."

"Yeah, but we're not the exact same," she said. "That was a little snappier than I meant it—"

"I know." He shook his head. "Kalee, you'll be fine."

"You don't know that."

He lowered his head. "No, I don't. I don't know that anyone will be fine. I don't know if we can save the world, because we've lost once and we couldn't stop it. But you stood with me before, and you agreed that we could make a difference by each others' sides. Or close enough to it."

Kalee exhaled for a long time. "I guess."

He stared forward for a while, watching the waves roll up the shore, darkening the sand, then the wind blow past, lightning it. Seagulls swooped and whirled, or fluttered down to the beach and strutted across the wet sand. In the distance, as the sky turned orange, the Oroniths guarding the bay rotated, sloshing through the water and stirring up more waves.

"Do you ever wonder if the Field picked wrong?" Kalee breathed, barely audible over the lapping waves.

"That it should have sent an Orichalcum back? No."

"Not that. But someone else. What did it see in us? There had to be a reason why, right? It doesn't do things randomly."

"No," Wulf said. "It delivers us what we were searching for, so long as we strive to earn it. We'd done something in our past lives to warrant this." He glanced down at his fingers, the green stains, the constant reminder that he'd wasted his last life fighting, so much that he'd needed a constant influx of painkillers. It'd made his fingers green, it'd made him who he was now.

"What do you think caused the Field to give you your new Class?" Wulf asked. It wasn't really changing the subject. He needed a clue.

"I don't know. It's not clear-cut, like your Alchemy. I—" She hung her head, then laughed softly. "Oh."

"What?"

"Ever since I'd left my old teacher, after I yelled at him and left to go seek revenge on my family, I needed to sleep with a blanket of chainmail."

Wulf scrunched his eyes. "I don't understand."

"I felt like I was going to float away. Every night, when I couldn't feel the ground, when my arcane senses began shutting down, it felt like I was going to float away. I couldn't see, and my hearing was failing, and the only thing that worked was a heavy weighted blanket. People said it left impressions on my body that never really went away, though I don't see any of those anymore."

"Neither do I," Wulf said.

She gulped, then looked away, going red in the face. Then, finally, she added, "But it did leave scratches on my scale-patches. Those are still there, but you can't really see them."

From a distance, Wulf probably would've assumed her scale patches were tattoos. It was natural for a pangian, however. Some covered her shoulders, some down her spine for extra armour, some on her hips, and there was a unique pattern for every member of their race that wound around their navel. Wulf had only seen hers a few times before, but it reminded him of a fire.

"I don't see any scratches," Wulf said. "It's nothing noticea—"

Before he could finish, she grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand down. "Feel. There are wedges and grooves there."

"I believe you," he replied. But he did anyway, touching the armoured scales gently. They were each about the size of a coin, and where he was pretty sure they were supposed to be smooth, most had a pattern like chainmail had pressed tight up against it. "How heavy was that blanket?"

"It was a magical item. So…pretty heavy."

He spent a few more seconds sitting there, but then she released his hand. He pulled back and said, "Look…I don't know why we were chosen. I don't know if we're the best people for the job. I think the Field saw something in us, though. Potential, mixed with regret. Maybe you're not the same as me—that'd be impossible. But there's a drive there, too. I felt it with Irmond, I felt it with Seith. I know you're willing to fight off the demons. And I know you want something after, too."

He chewed his lip for a few seconds, then said, "Ah, to the hells with it. When this is all over, I don't want to travel the world alone. I want to do it with my crew. With my friends, and with those who are more than just my friends. I'm pretty sure you've been feeling it too, but if I've misread this, then let me know—"

Before he could finish again, Kalee leaned forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Yes, Wulf. I'm pretty sure I feel the same."

He leaned forward as well, matching her signal, then turned his head to the side slightly to dodge her nose. When their lips finally pressed together, his world shrank to just that bench. Just Kalee, her warm arm over his shoulder, their worlds connected. Her soft lips pressing into the slightly dry crags of his, and then finally, pulling away. He didn't close his eyes, even if he was supposed to, and neither did she.

She looked slightly different now, though he hadn't really noticed. Agility, strength, durability, and a twinkle of enhanced perception in her eyes giving way to untold experience. She was beautiful, there was no denying it.

For people who had linked their minds before, it was awfully overdue.

When they finally parted, she kept leaning her head on his shoulder, neck matching the shape of his body. He spared a quick glance back at Irmond and Seith. Seith brandished a massive smile, and Irmond gave him a thumbs up. He tried not to laugh so he didn't disturb Kalee.

A massive weight lifted off his chest, and he was pretty sure that Kalee somehow felt lighter on his shoulder, too.

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