Chapter Text
The air on the hill was cool, carrying the scent of damp earth and the first, daring blooms of night-blooming jasmine. Spring had well and truly arrived, but the remnants of winter's chill still lingered in the shadows. Momonga—Ainz Ooal Gown—sat on the crest, his skeletal form a stark silhouette against the vast, velvet expanse of the night.
The stars were magnificent. Unfettered by the light pollution of a ruined world, they blazed with a clarity that stole the breath he didn't have. The Milky Way was a river of spilled diamond dust arching from horizon to horizon. He didn't need to breathe, but he found himself falling into the rhythm of the night anyway, the slow turn of the heavens a clock for which he had all the time in the world.
A soft rustle of grass announced her arrival. He didn't need to turn; he knew her presence, the rhythm of her heartbeat, the warmth that seemed to radiate from her even at a distance. Enri settled beside him, her shoulder not quite touching his, but close enough that the night felt shared.
For a long time, they just sat. The silence between them was a comfortable, living thing, filled with the chirping of crickets and the distant call of a night bird.
"You really love the sky, don't you?" Enri's voice was soft, barely louder than the breeze.
Ainz's crimson gaze remained fixed on the cosmos. "Yes." The word was simple. "Where I am from… you could never see it. It was ugly. A ceiling of smoke and despair."
He felt her hand then, small and warm and impossibly alive, sliding over his gloved one and then beneath, her fingers lacing through the bones of his. The contact was startling, as it always was—a tactile reminder of the chasm between their existences, and the bridge they were building across it.
He turned his skull to look at her. In the starlight, her face was pale and earnest, her eyes reflecting the very constellations he'd been admiring. She was looking at him, not at the monster, the Overlord, the weapon, but at him. And she was smiling. A small, gentle curve of her lips that held a universe of understanding.
His features, frozen in a permanent rictus of bone, could not smile back. There were no muscles to lift, no lips to curve. But he willed the sentiment into the stillness of his posture, into the gentle squeeze of his bony fingers around hers. He saw her smile widen a fraction, and he knew she saw it. She always did.
"I love you, Ainz."
The words hung in the air, clear and quiet as a falling star. They didn't shock him. They settled over him, a statement of fact as undeniable as the turning of the seasons. In this form, his true form, the emotional suppressor dampened the storm of human feeling to a calm, analytical sea. He could not feel the torrent of love, not the dizzying, heart-clenching rush it would be in his mortal body. But he understood it. He appreciated it with the full depth of his being. He knew it, intellectually and profoundly.
He had shared her bed, known the heat and weight and breathless intimacy of her. He had tasted her kisses, witnessed her strength and her fear, her joy and her stubbornness. He lived with her, fought for her, teased her, protected her. He had built a life, piece by mundane piece, around her. In his human form, those experiences translated to a love that was fierce and tender and overwhelming. Here, in his bones, it was the bedrock of his existence.
"I love you too, Enri." His voice was the same deep, resonant echo, but it was quieter now, the edges softened by the night. It was not a passionate declaration, but a vow etched in stone. A truth.
Another peaceful silence descended, richer than the first. Then, with a soft sigh, Enri shifted, leaning over and resting her head against his thigh bone, her cheek pressed against the dark, impossibly fine fabric of his robe. The Robe of the Overlord, a divine-class item that seemed to drink the starlight itself.
"This must be uncomfortable," he remarked, his tone dry. "Even with a godly robe that swallows light."
"No," she lied, her voice muffled slightly against the fabric. "It's fine."
A low chuckle rattled in his chest, a sound like stones tumbling in a deep well. It began with genuine warmth but was swiftly, mechanically clipped off, smoothed into nothingness by the passive effect that governed his undead psyche.
Huh. Laugh-nt.
Enri didn't flinch. She just nestled closer, her body relaxing against him. She was used to it by now—the abrupt silences where emotion should be, the unnatural calm. It was part of him, just like the bones and the burning eyes.
They stayed like that as the moon traced its path, a lord of death and a village girl under an infinite sky, held together by a promise whispered into the dark. It was not a fairy tale. It was something better. It was real.