Garroth's POV

All that night I never slept, my mind on the kiss. I wish I could work up the courage to tell Aph how I felt, but...

No. I can't. I just couldn't take being rejected.

Aphmau was asleep, her back to me. I mentally sighed and closed my eyes, slowing my breathing and trying to sleep, not noticing Aph turn and glance at me before turning back around.

Attempting to sleep didn't work, I just continued to mentally relive those few seconds of sheer bliss I experienced earlier. It was amazing and terrible. Amazing, because I got to kiss Aphmau, and terrible because I pretty much robbed her of her first kiss.

In the morning, neither of us looked at each other. We just kind of avoided each other's gaze, and we went forward, very very awkwardly.

Finally Aphmau seemed to get fed up with it, around maybe lunch. "All right! Forget this!" She turned to me. "Let's just stop being awkward. It happened, let's get over it and move on."

I nodded, slightly relieved even if I didn't show it. I had worried that it would mess up our friendship. "Agreed."

We continued walking to Moonlight, until I noticed some horses, and we tamed them.

"This is hard!" I yelled after being bucked off for the fifth time. "How do you make this look so effortless?!"

Aphmau, who had tamed her horse on the first try, laughed. "Haha, sucker." I glared at her. "Just sing it a song, that's what I did."

"Are you crazy?" I asked. "Sing to a horse?"

"Just do it." Aphmau looked so amused at my predicament.

I rolled my eyes and tried to get back on my horse, purposefully completely silent, just to be contrary. It bucked me off again. Aphmau will never let me live this down.

Aphmau almost fell of her horse she was laughing so hard. "Come on..., sing... the horse... a song." She choked out between laughs.

I gave a heavy, put-upon sigh and began humming a bit, singing a random song I made up off the top of my head quietly. The horse let me on, and I tamed it. Yep, she's going to tease me about this for the rest of our lives.

"See?!" Aphmau exclaimed. "It works."

I rolled my eyes at her. "Shut up." I muttered, but I was smiling. It was a small, amused smile that I desperately tried to smother, but judging by the knowing look in Aphmau's eyes, she saw it.

She laughed and we continued along our journey. We kept up a small conversation as we went, mainly so as to not travel in silence. I ended up starting a discussion about sword techniques and such with Aphmau, which suitably distracted us from the kiss last night and the awkwardness of the day up until lunch.

In fact, I had almost forgot about it until we stopped for the night again. Even though it was my first kiss and it was with Aphmau....

The next few weeks passed in much the same way- we'd continue our journey, teasing each other and joking around, studiously ignoring the fact that the kiss happened, and heading to Moonlight.

It seemed to get colder as we went, but while I was used to the warm air of O'khasis, Aphmau was used to the frigid winds that we were traveling through, so it didn't quite affect her as much as it did me.

There were times where we had to stop and double back, due to the fact that Moonlight was in the mountains so there were places that just couldn't be traveled through, which meant that the whole thing took even longer.

After another month we reached Moonlight. Aphmau took over from there, and she led me to the gate. As soon as Aph saw the village over the ridge of the mountains we put on our helms.

"Hello." A voice nodded curtly. "I'm David, the Head Guard. What brings you two here?"

Aphmau didn't reply, and we had talked about this. They may recognize her voice, so I'll do most of the talking. "We're guards, and we wanted to work in Moonlight for a while."

David gave us a look. "Any reason for the helms?"

I shrugged. "We don't want people to see our faces. It's as simple as that."

"Hm." David hummed, thinking it over. "Apprentice guards or actual guards?"

"Actual. We were apprenticed under the head and second in command of the Neapolitan Villages." I replied.

David nodded. "I know William and James so I'll send a letter in a bit, to see how good you two are. For now, come with me. You two can stay in some of our extra rooms in the guard tower while we get this settled. I'll also have to talk to the Lord and Lady about this."

We nodded in acceptance, and were led to the guard tower. Once we were left alone, Aphmau came into my room and took off her helm. Her eyes were wide and worried. "Garroth I can't do this. Why did we think this was a good idea? I'm going to see my parents again, which is awesome because I love them, and they're my parents, but they tried to make me marry someone I don't even know and what if they know it's me and make me marry that guy? I don't want to do this!" Aphmau, by the end of her little rant, was talking so fast it was practically all one sentence.

I took off my own helm and put my hands of her shoulders. "Aphmau, calm down. They won't recognize you. In the past three years you've changed enough to not be recognizable. And if they do, you can either talk to them about it or leave. Your parents care about your well-being and happiness, unlike my father, so they will listen to you. Calm down."

Aphmau looked in my eyes for a few seconds after I finished calming her down and smiled. Then she hugged me. "Thank you Garroth. That really helped me."

"No problem." I replied, hugging her back.