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How long have they been fighting like this? Dainsleif can barely remember.
They used to be a beautiful pair, the envy of many who yearned for love in Khaenri’ah before it fell to ruins. Now, they’re nothing but enemies whose blades always clash against each other.
He groans as he tries to sit up on the cold, hard floor, his own blood pooling around him as he pulls her knife out of his back.
Even a horde of abyss heralds and lectors won’t leave him injured this much. It was only her that could make his blood flow like a river, for along with his wounds came the pain of being stabbed by the person he trusted the most—the person he allowed to get closest to him.
He met her again today, and all she wanted to do was pierce her sword into her heart. Funny, because it feels like she had already long done that. It wasn’t when she first drew her sword against him, nor when she led the Abyss Order.
It was when she told him to let her go. And it once again did when she called him her enemy for the very first time.
He was quickly losing the threads that tied him to her, all on the brink of severance after everything between them shattered hundreds of years ago when she turned on him. And when he meets her again, she’ll do nothing but put a knife in his back once more.
But has that ever stopped him from holding on?
Dainsleif took the mysterious girl to his home after finding her unconscious on the seashore. He knew that he’s breaking the general protocol this way, but her lips were turning blue from the cold and he couldn’t turn a blind eye.
Khaenri’ah was cautious when it came to strangers in their land, and the strange wisp of light surrounding the girl’s body would surely make things more difficult for her. And Dainsleif was a royal knight—he would most likely be involved in keeping an eye on her anyway. So him taking her into his care would’ve also happened sooner or later. He might as well do it now and save her from shivering because of the cold.
His cape was wrapped around her body when he laid her down on his bed. He scrambled to light up the fireplace to usher heat into the room, hoping that it helps warm her up.
Dainsleif also takes the smallest pieces of clothing in his closet—a shirt that probably reaches up to the girl’s knees, cotton shorts that may be a little loose, and a jacket that will likely cover her entire body. He personally changes her out of the white and blue dress she’s wearing, only looking when it’s necessary.
While waiting for the girl to wake up, he casually observed her features along with the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. She had pale skin and short blonde hair, with longer strands framing her face. One could assume that she was just as regular as any other person down the street, but Dainsleif could tell that there was something different about her.
The girl finally woke up after a few hours, making the royal knight jolt awake from where he fell asleep—on a chair beside the bed.
“Where am I?” was the first thing she asked. Dainsleif was momentarily stunned by how golden her eyes were.
“You’re in my home,” he told her.
And it didn’t take long before it also became hers.
"Lu?" Dainsleif called out as he entered the house, taking out bits of his armor and leaving it in the living room.
The traveler popped out of the kitchen, looking slightly disheveled with a mixing bowl in hand. Dainsleif had to bite the insides of his cheek to stifle his laughter, amused by the sight of Lumine's cheeks stained with flour and strands of her golden hair caked with some sort of liquid mixture.
"What happened?" he asked while walking towards her. The girl pouted, her doe eyes looking cute as ever as Dainsleif approached her and cupped her face with his ungloved hands.
"I was trying to make your favorite dish for dinner… but… ah, I might have misread the instructions," she said sheepishly.
Dainsleif instantly received a jab to his chest when he laughed at her mishap, a string of apologies leaving his lips to appease the traveler as he ruffled her hair.
"Don't worry about it. I'll take you out for dinner tonight," he told her, wiping the flour off her face using his uniform's sleeves.
Lumine's eyes immediately lit up, her arms flying to wring itself around Dainsleif's neck. "Can we have steak?"
The royal knight kissed her nose. "As you wish."
She cheered and pressed her lips against his in return. "You're the best!"
Dainsleif chuckled, leaning down to give Lumine a proper kiss which she happily received and returned. Lumine ran her hands through Dainsleif's hair, pulling on it lightly as a smile played on her lips.
The knight opened his eyes and peered at the beautiful face in front of him, and without breaking the kiss, he lifted Lumine and wrapped her legs around his waist.
He groaned when he realized that all she's wearing was his shirt, which bunched up to her waist in her new position. He felt the girl shiver at the sensation brought by his hand on her bare thigh.
"Mr. Royal Knight Dainsleif, we're having steak for dinner. Not me," she teased, a soft giggle following instantly.
"Well, either way, we'd have to get you out of this shirt. We wouldn't want you going around town dressed in just my clothes, would we?" he said as he carried her to the shower, her face buried in his neck while she commented about how good he smelled even after work.
He really did loved holding her close.
Lumine’s sword clatters to the floor, surrounded by the blue energy coming from Dainsleif’s hand. Before she could even run to retrieve it, the bough keeper’s hand was already wrapped around her wrist.
The abyss princess was surprised (just like Dainsleif was when she turned on him hundreds of years ago) and caught off guard, allowing him to easily pull her into his arms. Dainsleif presses the golden-haired girl close to his chest, hoping she could hear how his heart continues to beat for her.
“I still love you,” he tells her.
Lumine says nothing, but Dainsleif feels her breathing slow down as she's pressed against his chest.
He holds her close and tries to reminisce all their beautiful memories together. His memory has all but faded, but there were images of her that will forever be engraved in his mind.
The girl’s short stature lets him easily run his hand through her golden hair, softly combing it with his fingers the way he used to before. He missed this, he missed having her in his arms and breathing in her scent.
“You might think of me as an enemy now, and you might not feel the same way. But I know I told you over and over again before that I love you,” he whispers, burrowing his face in the girl’s soft locks while concentrating on the faint smell of windwheel asters on her.
“And I still do. I just needed you to know that. I love you, Lumine.”
He feels her tightly balling a fist against his back, and something sharp glides along his clothed spine. He knows what it is, but he doesn’t move—not even an inch.
Her voice is hard and cold as ice when she finally speaks, making it clear that he should know that now it’s over. For her, everything good between them is all over.
“I loved you. I did,” she tells him.
And that’s when she plunges her knife into his back.
But not even that can change Dainsleif’s mind.
“I always will love you,” he says, coughing blood from his mouth. He slumps forward, and Lumine clutches his jacket tightly before eventually letting him go and conjuring her escape portal.
And as he falls on his own once more, his mind focuses on what hurts the most—and it wasn’t the steel digging into his flesh. Instead, it was losing her warm embrace once again.
He has long decided that he'll take as many knives to his back as possible, but only if it is her hand that wields it.
He'll take as many knives to his back, if that's the only way he could hold her in his arms once more.