In the end, all his predictions came true.

The heavy bar took them a good three, four minutes to work off the gate. After which, no amount of pushing or pulling allowed them to open the doors. The reason, as explained by the guards that showed up to demand an explanation of what they were doing, was a matching bar on the outside meant to enable the city to be more easily locked down when needed. The gate wouldn't be opened for an hour at the very least.

"You can try the other one that'away," the guard said with a thumbed gesture towards a different part of town. "But by the time you get there, and through, and back this direction, you'll 'ave wasted the hour you'd be waiting to get through 'ere."

Unfortunately, no amount of bribery or pleading had an effect on the guard's stance. In the end, the group retreated. They took the hour to gather their things from the inn and the ship, before bartering for travel supplies at various shops. Melitta surprised Kain with a request for a few coins, before telling him to wait outside a blacksmith. Within ten minutes after entering, she'd returned with a simple sword in hand.

"You can't be the only one with a weapon," she explained. "I doubt bows will do much good if we're ambushed, and that's all we had beyond your sword."

He nodded his agreement, and their small group returned to the gate with twenty minutes to spare. Dalphie filled most of it with chatter that Kain couldn't quite bring himself to care about.

"I can still feel him," Melitta reassured Kain, no doubt having noticed his frustration. "He hasn't disappeared again. Whatever was blocking me while they were here is gone."

When they were finally let through, Melitta hummed under her breath, and pointed. And, they were off.

Despite his mood, Kain couldn't help but marvel over the countryside. He wasn't sure if he'd ever walked so far inland. What memories he had of Eol were of the varying ports the Airlea had done business in. Which meant no visits to towering cornfields, dusty roads, and worn ranches.

He barely noticed the way his legs ached, or how his head throbbed in time with his heart. Instead, his attention was drawn by the wildflowers, the crops, and the various wildlife they could faintly spot through the farmland and roadside brush.

He wasn't sure how long they'd been walking before Melitta caught his wrist and tugged him to a stop. Perhaps an hour or two, if the stabbing pain in the soles of his feet was any indication. Rhode and Dalphie paused as well, the first taking the moment to pull out a waterskin and offer it to her friend.

"If you wanted," Melitta said. "I could teach you some of them. Just to pass time as we walk."

"Them?" he echoed.

Her lips twitched in amusement, and she gave a little nod at the roadside. His gaze flicked away from her, landing on where the field-grass gave away to small patches of flowers. The closest being a clutch of coral pink blossoms. Melitta pulled him closer, then crouched next to the flowers. The majority of him said he should turn down her offer, and start walking again. The gap between Callias, Iliana, and them was too far for his liking.

But...

The expectant, hopeful edge to her expression chipped away at his reluctance. It wasn't as if they could walk indefinitely. Even sirens, merfolk, and moon-blessed sailors needed to pause every once in a while to breathe.

She tugged on his wrist, again, and he stooped down next to her. Her face lit up, and, with her free hand, she caught her fingers under the flower. Her digits split beneath the duel leaves that formed the base, something that drew Kain's attention past the bright pink of the petals. The leaves were fused where they met, only the shape causing him to view them as two, rather than one. The flowers were long, and tube-like, something he hadn't seen before. Each stem held a cluster of them. And the flower itself was thin, and stretched two, three inches, before tiny petals flared out, showing the mostly blue inside. The only break in the color was the brushing of yellow pollen.

"We should--" he began.

"I noticed you staring around," she interrupted. "I know a lot about different kinds of flowers because of Calli. He likes to press them, and I taught him to read on botanical books for children. For example, this is a blue pearl. Weird name at first glance, I know, but, it's a bit neat."

Melitta plucked one of the flowers from its stem, and began peeling the petals back. At the very base of it laid a blue berry. She dropped the petals after peeling the berry away, and pinched the tiny fruit between her fingers. It was no larger than the tip of her pinky.

"The 'pearls' are pretty tasty. And deadly," she informed him. "But, only if ingested."

She offered him the berry, and after a moment's hesitation, he took it from her.

The hours passed like that. They didn't stop for just a flower again, but anytime their group did pause, she pulled him away to look at something. Sometimes it would be a wildflower, others a bloom on a tree or a crop they could touch without fence hopping. She'd fill him in on each detail about the plant, before giving him a leaf, blossom, or berry, then brush her hands off and start walking again.

There was something... warm, about it all.

He felt some of the tension in his shoulders fade with each bit of information. It was easier to breathe, and he no longer felt as if his temper was balancing on a knife's edge. Conversation came easier, and when they found a good campsite to settle in for the night, Kain ended up shifting around the items in his satchel till he had a free drawstring bag to place his new treasures in. Melitta said nothing as she helped Rhode pick out dried fruit, meat, and bread for their dinner, but she was smiling... and that was enough.

Afterwards, he practiced with his sword beneath the moonlight, not pausing until his breathing was labored and his throat ached. It wasn't until he'd drank enough to soothe the dry burn, that he realized Dalphie and Melitta were watching him. Rhode might've as well, if she hadn't already settled in to sleep so she could take the last watch.

"I..." Kain began, then trailed off as he failed to find the right words to question their attention.

"Let me practice with you," Melitta requested. "I know a bit, but not much. Calli and I learned from Umae."

Kain could only stare. She'd learned to fight from a god? Was that normal? It couldn't be. There were too many merfolk for him to spend time personally training each one of them in combat.

"Okay." He glanced at Dalphie. "I--was that what you wanted as well?"

Dalphie shook her head, an indecipherable smile on her lips. "No, thank you. I'm quite content to sit here and watch you, or rather, the two of you wave those swords around without me."

"If you're certain."

It only took them seconds to square off with one another. Worried tension filled his shoulders, and his fingers curled into a white-knuckle grip around the hilt of his blade. His thumb skimmed the twin serpents etched into the metal, eyes watching Melitta as she twirled the hilt of her blade in her hand. Then, without warning, she lunged.

He scrambled to meet her swift strike, before smoothly skimming his sword along hers, testing her grip. She twisted away from the meeting, feigning a slice towards his hip, before cutting up towards his arm. He danced back, feeling the slice of air as the blade narrowly skimmed his shirt.

"You know a little?" he questioned, lips twitching as humor filled his tone.

She grinned. "A lady never brags, Kain. Saying a little was good enough."

His thoughts flicked to Iliana. Had she been there, no doubt she would've rolled her eyes and muttered something about it being a good thing she wasn't a lady. Pain knotted in his stomach, but he found himself able to breathe past it as a laugh left his lips.

"I'm not sure it's called bragging when it's the truth, Melitta. You're skilled."

Her answering smile was breathtaking, and Kain nearly forgot to block as she sprung forward, blade whistling through the air. The conversation was forgotten as they exchanged another series of blows, each one making him realize how silly he'd been.

The entire time they'd been on the sea, then as they'd searched Nokos, Kain had been under the impression he'd needed to protect the girls. Wrong, he knew. But, it was what he'd been taught. Artemios had known bits and pieces of the Cieonian knight's code, and he'd drilled it into Kain since he was old enough to hold a blade.

The first rule was of noblesse oblige. The exact wording of the idea escaped him at the moment, but the basic concept as he took it was that it was the responsibility of those in power to protect those who needed protecting. Artemios had always gotten a laugh out of Kain's definition. Said most nobles just took the idea at face value. Throw some coin to a commoner, and protect them from foreign soldiers, and you were within the bounds of the knight's code.

Whatever the real definition, Kain'd thought that his traveling companions had needed, and deserved, his protection. The fight with the demon should've taught him differently, but all he'd been able to think of was how he'd had to bandage Melitta's wounds before they could leave Nokos. As they exchanged blows, however, and he was forced to put effort into avoiding her attacks, he realized that Melitta didn't need protecting.

It would be hard, but next time, and there would no doubt be a next time, rather than trying to handle whatever fate threw their way with single-minded heroics, he would be smart to rely on her help.

In the end, Kain won. Melitta gave a breathless laugh and said it came as no surprise to her, that he was more skilled. Kain wasn't certain he saw it that way. If the moon hadn't begun to meet the stars, and if they weren't so far from the coast, would he have won?

As they settled into their bedrolls, Dalphie tucking into sleep and Rhode rising to take the watch, he found himself watching Melitta, as if he could figure her out through study alone. Perhaps feeling his gaze, she slipped beneath her thin cover and rolled to face him. The dim light cast by the fire danced across her features, giving a warm glow to her curious smile.

"What is it?"

He hesitated, hand raising to trace the bottom of his cap. As he tried to gather the words for his question, he stretched one leg into his bedroll, the other tucked beneath the knee of his first. "Why?"

She quirked a brow.

"Why what?" There was laughter in her voice, and he felt heat touch his face. Why what indeed. He was such an eloquent person sometimes, wasn't he?

"Why did you..." Even as the question left his lips, the answer skimmed his thoughts and his embarrassment grew. "I--" He cleared his throat. "I was going to ask why you learned to fight, and spent so much time on it, I mean, it's obvious you spent time on it. You don't gain skill so late in life by slacking... and I realized it was a stupid question."

The humor slipped from her expression, but the smile stayed on her lips. There was a different edge to it and the way she watched him. It was a look Kain couldn't place. An emotion that his mind couldn't decipher. But, there was warmth in her tone as she replied, wiping away a faint fear that he'd offended her.

"It's not stupid. The life you've lived, Kain, wasn't privileged, but wasn't mine, either. I imagine you train to protect, don't you? Of course your mind wouldn't jump to a need to feel safe when you think of reasons to fight."

"Callias wouldn't let anything happen to you." The words left his lips before his mind could stop them, and Melitta replied with a dry, humorless laugh.

There was a heartbeat of silence as Melitta collected her thoughts and he mentally cursed himself, because, really, hadn't he just thought how Melitta didn't need a man to protect her? Then, she sighed, and seemed to curl up beneath her cover, a heaviness in her expression he hadn't seen before.

"You saw his scars."

Kain grimaced. The memory instantly sprung to his mind. Even in the cave, Callias had nearly constantly worn a shirt after Kain had woken up. His best guess as to why the merman had bothered when he'd just need to remove it anyway before swimming was the massive scarring that'd stretched over his back. He'd seen it once, just before Callias had dove into the tunnels.

Kain wasn't an expert in torture. He had no clue what sort of weapons left what sort of scars, but his best guess was that someone had taken to lashing and caning Callias over a long period of time. And--knowing their history--it'd probably been a number of years. There hadn't seemed to be a single bit of skin unscarred, and the markings ran deep.

"I never want Callias to have to protect me ever again." Her voice was quiet, a near whisper, but the emotion that filled could've burned stone. "He deserves so much more than a life of standing between me and the world. He deserves a life, Kain. Freedom. Love. And I'll be damned if anything will stand in the way of that. Even me."

He realized, then, that perhaps Melitta's motivation wasn't that different than his own. It might've originated from a history more painful that anything he'd ever experienced. But, he had the feeling that she hadn't learned to protect herself. More so, it felt that she'd done it to protect Callias from being harmed while fighting for her.

"... you deserve that, too," he said after a moment. "All of that, Melitta. Happiness, freedom, love. You deserve it."

She let out a slow breath. "I--I know. I know it. But--"

The air fell silent, and Kain forced himself not to fidget as Melitta closed her eyes, drawing in another deep breath. His throat felt thick at the idea that he'd caused her to reach this point with their conversation. But, at the same time, he felt as if it were something that needed said.

"He protected me for so long. So long. And still... he does not--his nightmares, Kain. Mine are bad, but his scare me. I am afraid that if I had not chosen to stay with him when Inna and Umae offered us that choice... I do not know what would have happened. I do not know--I cannot let anything else happen. I would die for that. What I deserve pales in comparison to what he does.

"Thank you for talking to me, like this, Kain. But, I think we should sleep now."

With that, she rolled over, facing the other direction. Part of him wanted to say something, anything, but the rest realized her need to be left alone.

So, he murmured a quiet good night, and settled into his bed roll. But, he didn't sleep.

Instead, he studied Melitta's back, his thoughts a mess of questions on what he could do to ease even a little of the pain that'd broken into the tone of her dismissal. If she'd let him...

He wanted to help.