Kyle had barely finished his second bite of millet when Buer's voice piped up again, casual and lilting—too casual, the kind that always carried a hook beneath the silk.
"So," she drawled, absently tracing circles against Egeria's arm as she laid across her like a contented fox sunning on a rock, "a little grass outside told me Focalor is coming back soon."
Kyle's chopsticks paused mid-air.
Buer tilted her head toward him slightly, her green eyes catching the light. They sparkled like dew over new leaves, mischievous and knowing. "Say, aren't you excited to meet your fiancée, Kyle?"
He didn't look up. He set the millet bowl down with quiet care and reached for the tea instead. His expression remained composed, but the air around him stirred with discomfort.
The word fiancée landed like a pebble in a temple pond—spreading ripples that brushed across all three of them.
Egeria didn't blink. She didn't flinch. Her hand, steady as a tide, continued threading through Buer's hair, her motions so consistent they felt more like a ritual than affection. But there, for the briefest flicker, her eyes narrowed—barely. Not anger. Not jealousy. Just… something being weighed.
"You haven't met her yet, right?" Buer continued, as if she hadn't noticed the silence her words created. Her voice grew lighter, singsong, but no less sharp. "Little Focalor is such a tsunami. Quite unlike our serene Lady Egeria here—" she turned her head affectionately toward the goddess she lay across, nuzzling into her hip with a breathy sigh, "—Egeria is still waters, endless and deep. Calm. Constant."
Egeria didn't speak, but the tips of her fingers slowed, resting lightly in Buer's hair.
Buer didn't stop. "But Focalor? She's a cyclone. A storm packed into the smallest, cutest little thing. Wild wind, tantrums, raw honesty, but she's a good girl y'know? You better get ready to have a wife who'll walk straight through your peace and scatter it like flower petals."
Kyle set his tea down. "You're making it sound like a threat."
Buer giggled, rolling onto her back in Egeria's lap, letting her legs drape over the side of the low couch. "Oh no, no~ It's a gift. A life with Focalor will never be boring. Though she might kick your shins under the table if you look at her wrong."
He let out a breath. "You're really not helping."
"Scared?" she cooed, batting her lashes.
He looked up at her then, finally meeting those playful green eyes. "Maybe a little."
That made her pause. Her teasing smile softened into something gentler—still curved, but touched with fondness. "Mm… it's okay to be scared."
She rolled back onto her stomach, stretching out along Egeria's legs again like a cat resettling. Then, with her chin resting on her forearm, she glanced sideways at Kyle. "Well, if you're that nervous…"
Her voice dipped, soft and coaxing, "Why don't you marry me instead? Poor little old me. I don't cause storms. I just bring the morning dew and good cuddles~"
It was teasing. Mostly.
But not entirely.
There was something real under the fluff—something quietly earnest. Something Buer never voiced directly, but always let bleed into her words like honey across warm bread.
Kyle looked at her for a long moment. Then at Egeria, whose eyes were half-lidded, face unreadable as ever.
And yet her hand… her hand had resumed its motion.
Soft fingers stroking gently through Buer's hair again.
But her nails just barely trailing against her scrap showing her displeasure.
"Ouch—Egeriaaaa," Buer suddenly whined, voice lilting with mock injury. Her fingers curled slightly against Egeria's side. "That wasn't fair, you scratched me."
Egeria said nothing, but the tilt of her eyes downward and the faintest raise of a brow betrayed her awareness. Her nails, for all their elegance, had barely traced a warning along the side of Buer's back. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to be felt.
Buer pouted dramatically, propping her chin up on her folded arms as she looked up at Egeria. "You just wanted to marry Kyle off when you engaged him to Focalor, right? Isn't that what this is all about? So what's wrong if I step in and replace her?"
Her voice was teasing, as always. But the note beneath it carried weight. A quiet defiance, a challenge laced in sweetness. She blinked up at the High Priestess with exaggerated innocence, batting her lashes like a fox pretending to be a bunny.
"I mean… surely even you can't pretend Focalor is thrilled about being engaged without her consent," she added, softer now, as if coaxing truth from a wound that had never been allowed to bleed.
Kyle stiffened slightly, his hand halting just over his cup.
Egeria remained still, fingers paused mid-stroke in Buer's hair. Her silence wasn't empty—it never was. She sat like a sculpture carved from moonlight, every part of her composed, timeless, and endlessly watchful. The silence stretched.
To Egeria her words were unfair, if Beur was allowed to marry Kyle why was she herself holding herself back? But of course she couldn't say that out aloud.
To Egeria, the words were unfair.
Unfair in the way only truth could be—messy, naked, and spoken with just enough sweetness to cover the sting. Her gaze stayed steady, unblinking as Buer looked up at her with wide green eyes and that practiced pout, but the stillness of her body had subtly changed. Too precise. Too deliberate.
Kyle saw it too—the way her fingers no longer moved with that quiet, meditative grace. They had frozen, barely brushing Buer's skin now, and her other hand had gone still in her lap.
Inside, a chord was struck. Not of anger. Not even jealousy.
But something deeper.
Why was Buer allowed to speak so freely of wanting him?
Why could she lay her head on Egeria's lap and ask for his heart without hesitation?
And why—why—was Egeria herself holding back when that same ache lived inside her chest like a secret sun, too bright to name?
But of course, Egeria couldn't say that aloud.
Not in front of Buer.
Not in front of Kyle.
Her role was to remain still, composed. She was the Mistress of all waters—serene and calm. Her purpose was to protect him, not to… want him. Not to feel the sharp little needle of longing twist inside her every time Buer dared to say what she herself never could.
And yet… her hand moved again.
Slow, careful. Back to stroking Buer's hair. But now with a slight pressure at the base of her skull, not quite a punishment—but not soft either. A reminder.
Buer felt it and gave a small noise in her throat—half contentment, half protest. She knew exactly what that meant. But she didn't let the moment go.
Instead, she tilted her head, her cheek nuzzling against Egeria's knee with exaggerated sweetness. "So cruel~ Are you mad because you think I'd make a better wife than Focalor? Or because I said it in front of him?" she whispered, letting her words rise like incense between them.
Egeria said nothing. But her eyes lifted—slow, deliberate—and met Kyle's across the table.
And for a second, a second that cracked like thunder across still water, he saw something behind those eyes.
Loneliness.
Not the kind that comes from isolation.
The kind that comes from restraint. From holding back desire so long it hardens into silence.
Kyle's breath caught. The teacup in his hand felt too fragile now. He wasn't sure what to say—what he could say. They were dancing on ice that had never been meant to bear this kind of weight.
Buer rolled onto her back again in Egeria's lap, smiling up at the ceiling now, her voice lighter but no less pointed. "You know I'm not joking, right? I might tease, sure. But I'd be good for him. I'd take care of him." She turned her head toward Kyle, eyes gleaming. "I already do."
Kyle opened his mouth. Closed it again.
Egeria inhaled slowly—deep and composed, but her fingers had gone still again.
"Focalor will return soon," she said at last, her voice like the surface of a pond on a windless morning. "When she does, she will speak her feelings. Until then…"
Her words trailed off.
Until then—what?
Until then, they just waited?
Until then, none of this was real?
Kyle looked down at his untouched tea. "That doesn't really answer anything."
"No," Egeria murmured. "It doesn't."
Buer's voice piped up again, ever light. "Then maybe I should ask you something, Kyle."
He looked up.
She turned onto her side again, head pillowed against Egeria's lap, and grinned. "Do you want to marry Focalor? Or were you just going along with your master's plans?"
That question hit harder than anything before. Kyle froze.
And Egeria didn't flinch.
But her hand, almost imperceptibly, tightened in Buer's hair.
As if asking the same thing.
As if she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer.
Kyle's voice broke the silence with the clarity of ice cracking beneath a boot.
"I'm only following her orders," he said, quiet but steady, "because the other option was that she kicks me out of the mountain."
The room, once heavy with teasing and innuendo, suddenly froze in a different way.
Buer sat up.
Not slowly. Not languidly. She moved like something had shattered inside her, her playful posture gone in an instant. Her green eyes locked onto Kyle's, wide with disbelief—then flicked sharply to Egeria.
"You didn't—" Her voice caught, and for once, the ever-playful goddess stumbled over her words. "You told him that?"
Egeria didn't speak.
Didn't look at them.
Didn't move.
As if stillness could erase what had already been said.
"You gave him that as a choice?" Buer's voice was trembling now, disbelief dancing with hurt as her wide, shining eyes flicked to Egeria. "You really told him it was either marry Focalor or leave?"
Still, Egeria said nothing.
But her eyes—those deep, unfathomable lakes—closed for a moment. Just a moment. Like the weight of what she had done, what she had said, was pressing down upon her inescapably.
Buer's lower lip quivered. Her fingers curled into trembling fists on her lap. "Egeria… that's…" She blinked rapidly, voice growing small. "That's cruel."
Her voice cracked, and her throat closed up, but she pushed the words out anyway.
"That's so cruel to him."
Egeria's jaw tensed.
"I didn't say it with cruelty," she replied, softly. But it sounded like a defense even she didn't believe.
"You didn't have to say it at all!" Buer exploded, voice rising in pitch and volume with pure, uncontrollable emotion. "He has nowhere else to go! He's been here since he was what, Seven? You're his whole world, and you made him think—think that he could be thrown out like nothing!"
Tears now—hot and heavy—streamed down her cheeks. She swiped at them with the back of her hand, hiccupping a little through her words, but didn't stop.
"He doesn't even know anyone outside this mountain! Not really! He doesn't have a family waiting for him, or friends, or anyone except us! Just us!"
Her voice was trembling violently. Her chest heaved with each breath, her hand planted on the table as if to steady herself.
Kyle shifted uncomfortably, clearly not used to being the cause of tears—especially not from her. "Buer—"
"No!" she shot back, turning on him. "Don't try to make it better, Kyle. You shouldn't have to pretend like it didn't hurt. I feel it, you know? I felt it the second you said it. You were just going along with her plan because you didn't want to lose this place—because you didn't want to lose her!"
Egeria flinched.
"I'm really mad at you, Egeria!" Buer's voice cracked, the sob at the end of her words choking like a lump caught in her throat. She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her palm, trembling from the effort of speaking through her tears. "Hmh—I would've run back to Sumeru if I could! I would've left! But I'm only staying… I'm only staying for Kyle and Focalor…"
She couldn't hold it anymore.
Her face crumpled, her body curled in on itself, and she wept openly—no longer the flirty, unflappable mischief she played so well. Her sobs were raw, ugly, honest. The kind of crying that made your chest ache just to hear. Like a child who'd finally been hurt too many times to pretend it didn't matter.
Kyle's heart cracked.
It didn't just hurt—it ached. Deep and familiar. Because he remembered what that moment had felt like for him, too. The day Egeria had given him the "choice." The cold, heavy certainty in her voice as she told him he could marry someone he barely knew… or leave. Just like that.
Buer felt it. Knew it. She hadn't even been there that day, and yet she cried as if she had been the one cast out.
She really was too kind.
Too pure.
Too feeling.
Buer stood, too quickly, her chair screeching back across the wooden floor. Her sleeves fluttered as she turned, her tears catching the lamplight like crystal droplets, and with a strangled sob, she fled.
No flourish. No parting tease.
Just pain.
She glided for the summit—her sanctuary—still sobbing, a glowing wisp trailing behind her like grief incarnate.
Kyle turned to Egeria.
He didn't speak.
Didn't need to.
Because she was already looking at him.
Her gaze—calm as ever, held something unmistakable, undercurrents of guilt, remorse, sadness of seeing Buer cry:
Go after her.
A slight incline of her head. The smallest softening of her eyes.
Kyle didn't wait.
He didn't really need to be told what to do this time around.
[A.N:- Reviews and Stones are really appreciated.]