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Jacin was everything to Winter. The blue in her veins, the space between her hollow bones, the warm color in both her irises.
But Jacin was also a dork.
Winter and Thorne both agreed on this.
And with two sandwiches and a bench in a glass hallway near the ship docks, they discussed it at length.
“Then he threatened to duel me! Dueling- ” Thorne had said, bug-eyed, one cheek filled with bread. “Do Lunars duel? Is that a custom?”
The princess giggled. “Public lashings were common”
He was silent for a moment as he swallowed the rest of his lunch. “Those still aren’t legal, right?”
“No, I don’t think Cinder would let it be. She might make an exception for you maybe.”
The brunet threw his head back and laughed. “Now you’re sassy? I can’t escape it since Cinder and Scarlet started rubbing off on Cress!”
“Perhaps I learned it from Jacin,” Winter added, taking a small bite from her zesty sandwich. “He had been sentenced to public lashing one time.”
Winter smiled at the memory, not because of the gore of seeing the love of her life tied and beaten, but the things he had said to her that night. The side of him that no one else was allowed to see (but everyone knew was there because he was not good at hiding it), a man that would do anything, anything for her.
“Huh. Wish I was there.” Thorne added.
In the comfortable silence, her eyes went to a grand, marble door nearby. If Jacin were here right now, he would be standing statuesque next to it. And since Thorne was here with her, he would probably be standing even closer. Winter would offer him food, and he would decline, Thorne would have something witty to say about it, and Jacin would make a threat of violence with a deadpan face.
“Where’s your loverboy, anyways?”
“He accompanied your Cress to a shell rehabilitation meeting. Do you want to eat the rest of this?”
“Pickles? No way. And what do you mean shell rehabilitation meeting ? She’s already in therapy,” Thorne added skeptically, brushing the crumbs off his lap and standing up.
“No, no. It’s for the friends that were rescued from the labs.”
Thorne nodded and made an ‘O’ shape with his lips. “To reintroduce them into normal society? Well, as normal as moon people can be, ” he added, muttering the last part.
Shells had very limited education (being a thaumaturge telling them an intimidating version of what reproduction was like, effectively scaring them away from it), but they had made their own versions of interaction before they were put in cryo-sleep.
The shells that couldn’t find their previous families, or families that wouldn’t take them back, were offered jobs in the Artemisian palace. Winter was very fond of all of them. They would say very strange things to the aristocrats, ask the most awkward questions at the most horrible times, but they were Winter’s people .
Despite effectively being a war hero, many still thought Winter was crazy, including her close friends. But apart from Jacin, the shells were the only ones in the palace who were too different for others to swallow, swimming in their heads too often. Like she was. They understood.
Many had dreams of moving the Earth, and maybe being normal on Earth meant losing your peculiarity.
But this couldn’t be true. Cress was raised in a drastically different way than the other shells, but she was still just as weird and wistful as them.
“The friends, they really admire her,” Winter said after a moment. “They told me that Sybil Mira had taken her away one day. They were very envious because they thought she was going to the palace to be freed, but Sybil told them that she was killed instead.”
Thorne nodded. “Yeah, I remember that at the banquet. Like, all of them were sobbing. Kind of touchy, too.”
“They don’t know much better, though,” Winter said, dusting her dress off and standing as well once her sandwich was finished.
“Hence the rehabilitation!” He said proudly, already at the door holding it open. “Let’s go supervise.”
Jacin had made a promise to Cress, a very long time ago. That promise was that her safety would come only second to Winter’s.
But sometimes he wondered, What was he willing to put up with for her?
He already dealt with shells and their lack of personal space and emotional boundaries at the palace, but here, there were about a hund of them all in this one conference room in South Artemisia.
Despite Jacin placing himself far away from the others and staying silent, that didn’t stop people from coming up to him and asking, asking, asking, asking-
“Why are your arms so big?” A pale, redheaded teenager asked.
“I exercise.”
“What pertains to exercise?”
“Pushups.”
“What’s a pushup?”
Jacin rolled his eyes to the sky. “Look it up. You have a portscreen, don’t you?”
The boy, Wane, scoffed. “Portscreens are so blue . I see enough blue on the faces of others.”
He fought another eye-roll, but only because the statement reminded him of something whimsical Winter might say. “I’m sure someone else can show you.”
Wane nodded nonchalantly, thanked him, and ambled away.
This queued Jacin to turn his attention to Cress, who was swiping through her portscreen, and being swarmed by a group of shell women. She looked a little flustered, but not overwhelmed by the attention.
He discreetly made his way over to the crowd and cut through so he was right behind Cress.
Ah.
He should have guessed by the squeals and giggles from the shell girls that Cress was showing them pictures of the Captain. One picture was him carrying an antidote crate, concentration etched in his eyes. Cress swiped through her photo gallery again, showing a picture of him fascinatingly watching a romantic net drama (one he claimed to hate, by the way).
“Ahem,” Jacin coughed.
The blonde turned around swiftly, as did the shells.
The shell girls hugged him immediately, all greeting him. He just about pushed them off in shock until Cress shot him a knowing yet weary smile reminding him that they don’t know much about personal space.
Wasn’t she supposed to be mentoring them on that instead of showing them pictures of her boyfriend? Jacin coughed again. “Hello, everyone. I need a word with the shortcake.”
“Hey!” A brunette yelped. “That’s mean. Crescent is short and lovely and not a cake! ”
“Ah, Callista. He’s not being mean. It’s lighthearted, a nickname.” Cress said, gently pulling her away from Jacin. By now the rest of the shells had gone somewhere else, off to another counselor to ask a thousand questions.
“No, Cress is a nickname because it is short for Crescent Moon. But shortcake has nothing to do with Crescent Moon.”
Cress sighed, “Okay, so-”
Jacin tuned it out, waiting for her to be done. Why did they ask her to explain these things when she could barely explain it herself?
It brought him to another time when a shell woman came up to Cress and kissed her on the mouth like they had been casually dating for years.
Thorne had jumped out of his chair, and when Cress was done being shocked, she stuttered, “Why did you do that?”
“Because I love you!” She exclaimed happily.
“You do not love her, you’ve known her for two days!” Thorne had interjected.
“Of course I love her. She is a hero to all our shell friends and saved us all!”
“I am a friend, then, but you don’t- you can’t kiss people! On the face like that!” Cress swallowed.
She had placed her fingers on her chin like she was deeply considering this. “Yes, yes. Interesting. Thank you for letting me know.”
Cress’ mildly sarcastic cough brought him back to the present. “What did you need?”
“I think it’s about time we go back to the palace.”
“Aww, why? I was having so much fun,” She whined.
“Having fun showing off Thorne?”
There was a comedic silence, before she said, “Yeah.”
Jacin rolled his eyes for maybe the hundredth time, but this time only in jest.
Cress feigned an offended gasp, and swatted at him lightly, standing up from her chair. “You would show off Winter too if put in the position!”
“She would show herself off.” He said, stopping by a door while Cress waved goodbye to the shells.
“Thorne probably would too,” She said, finally closing the door and cracking her fingers. “But I’m just getting the word out he’s mine.”
Jacin almost snorted at the sudden and unexpected possessiveness of her statement. “Sometimes I wonder if he forgets he’s yours.”
She thoughtfully shook her head. “No, it’s a lot like Winter. Kind of.”
Jacin raised his eyebrow.
“Well, like, Winter attracts people by existing, you know? She can’t help it.”
That was very true. She could swish her hair once, and twirl in her dress twice maybe, and get just about anything she wanted. But still, “Thorne can definitely help it though.”
Their footsteps echoed off the grand hallway, chatter from the shell meeting all but gone. “Maybe. I don’t know.” There was a hint of doubt in her voice.
Jacin, out of fear he offended her, added, “Not that I think he’s unfaithful. He’s obsessed with you, really.”
“In a romantic way?”
Jacin nodded.
The flush that was on her face earlier came back. “W-well, Winter’s obsessed with you!”
He decided they were far away enough for anyone to hear, so he indulged himself in a laugh. “I know, I know.”
“Hello, Squire Clay!” Thorne bellowed as he strutted through the ship docks, Winter trailing behind, sandwich in hand.
Cress could hear Jacin’s eye roll (he was doing a lot of those today).
“Hey you,” Thorne greeted her, voice softer and looping an arm around her waist.
“Apologies I told him about your squireship status,” Winter hooked an arm around his neck and pecked his cheek.
“Does this mean you’re a knight now or something? What’s the surname for knights-” the Captain snapped his fingers, trying to call up the knowledge. “Your Holiness?”
“I think it’s just sire,” Cress said.
Thorne purred, “Medieval knowledge. Nice. How’d it go, sire?”
Jacin held up a hand. “Don’t do that,” he grumbled as Winter snorted. “It went fine. We left early because you two have somewhere to be.” He pointed to the other couple.
Captain looked down at her with wide eyes, looking for an answer. “Ah, the outbreak in the United Kingdom. Almost forgot about that.” She said.
“Of course! In the Canadian province. How could I forget?” Thorne chirped as if he knew the whole time.
“Well, I didn’t forget. The vaccines have already been loaded into the Rampion.” The platinum blonde said, signaling to the crates in the cargo bay.
Thorne hummed. “Guess it’s time to go, then.”
“Thank you, Jacin,” Cress smiled at him, and he smiled back.
“Have fun with your Trouble, Jacin!” He yelled from the Rampion, as the ramp closed.
He scoffed, for again, probably the hundredth time that day.