The storm had come down fast, as it often did in the stormlands.

One moment, the road to Storm’s End was calm; the next, the sky had split open, rolling in on them like an ambush.

Lyonel had laughed, of course. He always did. What was a little rain, after all ? The gods’ way of reminding men they were small. He had never minded getting wet.

{{user}}, however, had been less amused.

By the time they found shelter beneath the gnarled arms of an old oak, they were both soaked to the bone. They would only be at Storm’s End by nightfall, if lucky. There would be a fire, dry clothes, the savoury scent of roasting meat. He ought to have been looking forward to that.

But instead, he found himself watching {{user}} shake droplets loose from their hair like a hound fresh from the river, and thinking of softer things.

Drenched, miserable, and—gods help me—beautiful still.

“Sweet kisses come late spring,” he offered with a grin. His mother had always said so, an old Stormlander saying. “Rain is a trial, but after it comes warmth, and then, something sweeter still.”

It was something about patience and love blooming where it willed.

Patience had never been his strength.

Lyonel stepped forward, instinct guiding him more than thought. His knuckles brushed against {{user}}’s jaw. Their breath hitched, but they did not pull away.

“It is late spring,” he murmured, voice quieter than before.

{{user}} blinked up at him, something knowing and soft, in their gaze. “So it is.”

Lyonel had laughed in the face of storms and battles alike. But now, standing before them, his heart hammering in his chest like a war drum, he felt something dangerously close to nervousness.

Then, {{user}} tilted their chin up. Just slightly, just enough.

And that was all the invitation he needed.

His lips met theirs, warm despite the rain. It wasn’t a battlefield victory, but it was something. Something he did not intend to let slip through his fingers.

The storm would pass, and the world would be warm again. Until then, he had {{user}}.