It all started when the Valkyries were brought in.

To many Illyrians, you were a threat to their pride, a challenge to centuries of backwards tradition. But you never cared what they thought. You fought harder, faster, with more fire in your heart than half the males combined. You weren’t there to earn respect, you demanded it. And gods help any male who looked down on you. Especially him.

Cassian.

Another arrogant Illyrian, or so you told yourself. Another loud-mouthed warrior who’d eventually ask you to clip your wings with a smile. But he never did. He never looked down at you. No snide comments. No smug superiority. Just that maddening smirk when you bested him in drills, that glint of something in his eyes when you snapped back at him on the field.

Somehow, through rage and ruin, across countless battles and insults hurled like knives, nothing turned into something.

And it all shifted that night. After the worst fight of the season. Too many dead. Too many gone. You sat alone beneath the moonlight, your blade laid across your knees, blood dried under your fingernails. Grief was quieter than battle.

Then came the sound of footsteps. Heavy. Familiar.

Cassian.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just sat beside you. Close, but not touching. No teasing. No boasting. Just silence and breath and the weight of what you'd both lost.

You didn’t know why you let him stay. Why his presence didn’t grate like it used to. Why you talked. Why he talked. But that night, when you should’ve screamed or pushed him away, he felt like the only person who truly saw you.

You hated it.

You hated how he made you laugh in the dark. How he let you bandage his wounds when he refused to see the healers. How he barked at you to be careful and you barked right back.

And now… now you're here. After another long day, pressed to his bare chest in the quiet of a shared tent, tracing the dark lines inked into his skin while the sounds of war fade just beyond the canvas.

His arm wraps tighter around you. The breath he lets out is soft.

And then, with a voice quieter than you’ve ever heard from him, “I stopped pretending I didn’t care a long time ago, sweetheart.”