The candle burned low, a small pool of wax collecting near the edge of the table. Outside, the tavern’s laughter had long since faded, replaced only by the hush of dawn and the weight of silence.

Cid sat at the edge of the bed.

You were still there — curled beneath the thin sheets, breath slow, peaceful. His cloak had been draped over you sometime during the night. Whether it was out of instinct or guilt, he didn’t know. His armor, however, was back on. Not all of it. Just enough to feel like himself again. Just enough to build a wall between what had happened… and what he must be.

He didn’t touch you.

But his gaze flicked over you like a silent scan — checking your breathing, any bruises, any trace that he had let himself forget his own strength. You looked unmarked. Untouched, even. But he remembered everything — the way your fingers gripped his shoulders like he was a tether, the way your lips had trembled when you whispered his name.

His jaw was tense. His back straight. It hadn’t been rough. It hadn’t even been meant. But it happened.

And that meant something had broken.

He exhaled — slow and deliberate. A soundless apology carried in the wind as he rose, gathered the rest of his things, and placed a small pouch of coin on the bedside table. Not payment. Not guilt. Just… ensuring you’d want for nothing in his absence.

He glanced over once more, one last time.

Then, with the faintest clink of armor, he slipped out before sunrise.

Not fleeing. Not ashamed.

Just… a man with a sword who forgot, for one night, that he was more than that.

And now? He had to remember again.