Midnight.
Luna sat propped against the headboard, breaking off small pieces of white bread and eating them slowly. Gareth sat at the table, polishing his Tier-2 longsword with careful, unhurried strokes.
"Were you serious? Earlier?"
The silence had stretched long before she finally broke it, a faint flush rising in her cheeks.
"Dead serious." He sheathed the sword, expression somewhere between wonder and conviction. "Never believed in that kind of thing before. Then I saw you and just knew."
"That's painfully cliché, Mr. Draventhal. I've heard some version of that line twenty times."
The corner of her mouth curved up anyway, barely, but he caught it.
Before he could respond, she added, "I need to think about it. Seriously."
"Think about what?"
He blinked, and then his pulse kicked up as the meaning landed.
Thinking about him. Considering him.
He'd braced for weeks of slow progress with someone like her, an 8th Circle mage, cool by nature, guarded. He hadn't expected this much ground this fast.
"Don't act confused." Luna's fingers tightened slightly on the bread, her voice dropping, though she didn't look away.
"Wasn't playing dumb. Thought maybe I misheard." He kept his voice level. "Take whatever time you need."
She didn't answer again, but the small upward tilt of her mouth said enough.
Neither of them spoke after that. The quiet wasn't uncomfortable, everything worth saying already had been, and the rest could wait.
He stayed until tiredness started to show on her face, then excused himself and shut the door behind him.
Got her.
He stood in the hallway a moment, touched his own face, flexed his fists, felt the Aura still humming under his skin.
Eighteen, a Grand Knight, and apparently not bad-looking either.
Maybe this wife-hunting business wasn't going to be as hard as he'd braced for.
Grinning to himself, he went back to his own room and lay staring at the ceiling for a long while, in about as good a mood as he'd ever been.
The next morning, someone pounded on his door mid-breakfast.
"Gareth! Boss! You up?"
Nicole's voice. He opened up and she barreled in, waving a half-eaten strip of jerky, practically vibrating.
"Eat fast, we're going to the Guild!"
"For what?" He picked up a piece of bread, unbothered.
"To register a mercenary corps! We've got three now, me, you, and Luna. That's the minimum for a proper registration!"
"You cleared this with Luna?"
"Not exactly my business to clear it with her." Nicole rolled her eyes. "You're the one with the crush, aren't you? Go ask her yourself."
"Some deputy you are, already assigning me errands."
He grabbed his bread and knocked on Luna's door next.
She opened it quickly. Color had returned to her face overnight, her leg holding weight again with only a slight limp, the shoulder wound hidden under her robe. Hair down today, falling past her waist against pale skin, looking like she'd stepped straight out of a portrait.
"Something wrong?" she asked.
"Nicole wants to register a mercenary corps. You in?"
Luna glanced past him at Nicole, who was doing a poor job of not eavesdropping from the hallway.
"Let's go," she said, nodding. "Give me a minute to get ready."
The three of them set out together not long after, Luna on his left, Nicole on his right, cutting through the main street toward the Guild hall.
Autumn light warmed the stone road under their feet. Vendors called out their morning wares, the bakery down the block sent out the smell of fresh bread, and somewhere the blacksmith's hammer kept its rhythm.
Nicole talked the entire way, walking them through the registration process, fill out the paperwork, pay the fee, and once it processed, the Guild handed over a certificate scroll and a badge. Formal, official, and absurdly simple.
"I already picked a name," she announced, thumping her own chest. "The Storm Company! Sounds strong, right?"
"Too generic." Gareth shook his head.
"Fine, the Thunder Company, then?"
"Even more generic. There's probably ten thousand Thunder Companies on this continent already."
"Then what's your genius suggestion?"
He thought about it for a second. "Bedrock Vanguard."
"Your hometown?" Nicole tapped her chin, then brightened. "Alright, I like it. Sounds solid. Like it won't fall apart the second things get rough."
Luna hadn't said a word through any of this, walking quietly at his side. But at the mention of Bedrock, she glanced over at him.
So that was where he'd come from. That explained a lot, someone with his strength choosing not to stay and build a name in his hometown.
Bedrock Town sat right against the Forest of Doom, which should have made it a natural hub for mercenaries and traders, if not for its terrible position otherwise. The forest to the east kept beasts a constant threat. The wasteland to the southwest made expansion too costly to bother with. And to the north, Locke Town and Saer Town, better positioned, easier to defend, had already claimed the region's trade and mercenary traffic for themselves.
No wonder he'd left.
The Guild hall was even busier than the last few days, the floor packed shoulder to shoulder, a fresh batch of quest tags pinned to the board, a cluster of mercenaries in silver armor arguing loudly over something at a corner table. The air held its usual mix of sweat, leather, and cheap ale.
The three of them pushed through to the registration counter, where the same scarred clerk from before was working the desk. She looked Gareth over, then past him at Luna and Nicole, her face giving nothing away.
"Mr. Draventhal. Something you need?"
"Registering a mercenary corps."
She pulled a sheet of parchment from the drawer and dropped it on the counter. "Fill in the first three fields, mandatory."
Gareth picked up the quill and wrote Bedrock Vanguard across the top, then his own name under Leader. Under Members, he added Nicole Thorne and Luna Isis.
"Isis." The clerk's eyes lingered on Luna for a moment. "Thought you'd have signed with Collins's crew."
"That's what you thought," Luna said flatly.
The clerk's expression didn't change, though something behind her eyes did. Collins had come through last night with a very different version of events.
So maybe he really had left his own team behind to save himself. Not unheard of, in this line of work.
Not her business to press further. Whatever had happened between them, that was theirs to sort out, not the Guild's.