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rose_in_winterCharacters: Edge, Kain, Rydia
Rating: PG-13
Contains: Endgame spoilers
Wordcount: 2999
Notes: Written for the FF Kiss Battle. This is entirelyseventhe's fault.
Betas: None
Summary: Edge and Rydia arrive on Mt. Ordeals seeking peace and solitude; Kain finds in them rather more.
Kain hears them coming long before he sees them. It's not just Edge's inability to ever be quiet (for a ninja, he makes a lot of noise, although Kain is just fair enough to admit that when Edge wants to be quiet, he is absolutely silent), nor is it the fwoosh of Rydia's fire spells or the ear-splitting thunderclaps that echo when Rydia seizes lightning out of a clear blue sky.
It's the shuffling as the undead rush to fight something other than him, and the echo of boot heels on stone. Kain knows most of the mountain's moods by now, its sounds and its seasons. His own presence impacts it; theirs brings more change.
So he is not surprised when they burst onto the summit, but neither does he go so far as to move to greet them. He waits beside KluYa's sanctuary, his spear at his side and uncovered. He doesn't think he will need to fight them, but one never knows, or so he tells himself. In truth, he does not know why they are here. He would think Cecil would do his own dirty work, but the part of Kain that King Odin tried to train into Cecil's eventual left hand thinks it's more deniable this way, and thus more logical.
Edge must have noticed, because he suddenly is standing between Rydia and Kain, and while he doesn't have his swords drawn here in the safe zone on the summit, he also doesn't have his hands far from the hilts. Rydia looks entirely unimpressed at his efforts to protect her.
"Greetings," Kain says, when they are close enough that he need not shout.
Edge rolls his eyes, visible even behind his veil. "Greetings? Really? That's what you have?" he asks.
Did his spear not make it impossible, Kain would fold his arms. As it is, he sighs quietly. "What did you expect? I can hardly lay a festival table up here," he points out.
Edge splutters. Rydia, to her great credit, does not shove him down the mountainside. "I think Edge was expecting a more enthusiastic greeting," she says mildly.
The awkward silence spins out between them, until at length Kain sighs and gestures with his shield-hand. "I have no proper seats to offer you," he says, "but you are welcome to what I have."
"Oh, we've got that covered," Edge says, swinging down a pack heavy enough to make a thud like a dead body. From within it, he produces a marvelous little folding table and several of the flat cushions that the Eblanese and Fabulian people alike favor. In a matter of minutes, he has set a table with journey rations and wine. Kain watches, astonished and uncertain of what to say.
"Are you going to join us, or loom disapprovingly?" Rydia asks, sinking neatly into a kneeling position on one side of the table.
Kain hastily covers his spear and leaves it propped against his tent, along with his shield. He is wearing only light ringmail--he does not need full plate up here, not with the safe field keeping the undead away, and whether they had come in friendship or enmity, he had not felt the need to fully armour himself. He kneels gingerly on Rydia's left, with Edge at his own left.
Another silence falls as they all stare at each other.
"Food first," Edge says, "and talk later."
When they had all traveled together, mealtimes would often be silent from their sheer exhaustion. Fighting an ancient evil was no easy task. Yet that silence had not been strained; this stretches out thin as spun glass, and as sharp when shattered. The hard bread they brought is fresher than what Kain trades for with the Mysidians, who bring foodstuffs to leave at the base of the mountain and take the reagants he harvested from the undead in return. He does not recognize the spices in the jerked meat, but it is not unpleasant. Rydia even unveils slices of dried fruit, wholly unfamiliar to him but sweet and slightly tangy, vividly yellow in colour and chewy.
When the wine has brought colour to all their faces and the food is gone, Edge clears his throat. Kain has been observing, and there is a tension between Edge and Rydia, and more that they carry with them like Edge's pack. He mislikes it.
"We aren't just here to socialize," Edge says eventually.
Sick dread gathers in Kain's stomach. "Cecil and Rosa?" he asks, already dreading the answer.
"No, nobody's hurt or ill," Rydia hastens to assure him. She looks away, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. "It's more....I can't stand all the people, watching me."
"And I'm about done with being King," Edge says, and then glares at Kain. "Don't even say it."
In point of fact, Kain did not actually intend to speak aloud his thought that he is surprised it had taken Edge so long to declare frustration, but he is now perversely determined to speak it. Still, he respects the word of royalty, even potentially-abdicated royalty.
"We haven't left for good." Rydia says it very quietly into her empty cup. "I mean, we'll go back." She looks up and her green eyes are haunted and hunted, her shoulders curled inward. That isn't right. Rydia always stands tall. "Just not right now."
Edge doesn't say anything, but he's still--much too still. Edge has never been one to hold still when he can move.
Kain nods. "I am afraid my own accommodations are not suitable for multiple occupants," he said, "but there is much space here." It will be strange to have noise other than that he makes here. He is not sure that he likes the idea. On the other hand, he can hardly tell them to go when in fact they are doing much as he did. Traitor he may be, and a disappointment to all who know him besides, but Kain will not be a hypocrite--in this, at least.
"We brought tents," Edge says. "And sleeping bags."
Kain wonders how long they intend to stay, but says nothing. "Please, allow me to assist," he says instead.
Edge cracks a few inappropriate jokes as they set up the tents, but fewer than Kain might have expected; that, as much as anything else, speaks to the seriousness of the situation. Kain wonders what drove them here, but he is not boorish enough to ask.
Hours stretch into days, then a week; they speak little if at all, each caught up in their own thoughts. Kain finds it strangely comforting to have them there, reminders that there is a world out there that remembers him. Edge is an excellent cook, and Rydia and her chocobo are effective enough hunters to make sure that they never want for meat. They all avoid KluYa's sanctuary, and they all avoid speaking about anything other than basic necessities like food.
It is Edge who breaks first, ten days after their arrival. "It's not that I mind being King," he says abruptly, stabbing a bit of roasted hare with his belt knife. "It's that no one wants me to be King my way. They all want me to be my father."
Kain can think of several excellent reasons why Edge should not be allowed free rein, many of them including inappropriate suggestions, but however much sarcasm he might employ to the contrary, he is aware that Edge is capable of doing the job properly, if flippantly. "It is difficult," he says instead, "to be required to emulate someone with little thought to your own needs."
"Yes, exactly," Edge says. "I can be a good King. I know what I'm doing. I'm just not going to spend all day every day in a closed room talking to old men who think I'm stupid because they remember me in swaddling."
"At least they treat you like you're human," Rydia says, and gets up from their little folding table to walk away into the darkness.
Kain puts a hand on Edge's shoulder when he would have followed her. Rydia is quite capable of defending herself against anything that might attack her on the slopes of Mt. Ordeals.
Edge slumps a little. "That's it, too," he says. "They all treat her like she's a savage beast who will burn them all to death for an insult--which doesn't stop them insulting her when they think she can't hear--instead of a person. Who cares if she doesn't know the order of steps for formal court dances? It doesn't make her less of a person." He drains his cup of wine and puts it down with an exaggerated care that speaks volumes. "She doesn't want me to defend her, and they all think I'm abusing my power and womanizing when I want her to stay in Eblan--and I don't want her to stay if she's unhappy, but I can't leave."
Kain has no answer for that, and the silence spins out sharp and brittle until Edge gets to his feet and hurries into his tent, leaving Kain alone by the fire.
Three days later, he goes hunting with Rydia in the forest at the foot of the mountain, because she requested his company. He doesn't make small talk, simply goes with her and helps field-dress their spoils.
"I don't want to go back to Mist and be alone," she says, "but I can't stay there when they all watch me like I'm going to go on a mad rampage." Her grip is too harsh, and she snaps the snare she is trying to place. With an oath, she throws it aside. "I can't make them respect me, I know that. But being alone in a dead village is better than being alone in a castle of vipers."
Kain is at a loss. Even in Baron, and long before Golbez, black mages are feared; their power is destructive. "Do you want them to learn to respect you?" he asks. "Or do you merely want them not to insult you?"
Rydia stares at the branch she is bending. "I don't know. What is their respect worth?"
"I can't tell you that." He laughs, mirthlessly. "Why do you think I am still here?"
She looks up. In her green robes, she might be a forest spirit, found roaming free. Her face is thinner than he remembers, sharp planes and cheekbones like blades, and her eyes are dark as the shadows of the pine trees. She is beautiful and terrifying, a force of nature. He has the impulse to drop to his knees and offer her prayers, sacrifices, anything she would demand. He resists it.
"You have a home to go back to," she says.
He nods. "A home I tried to destroy--as I helped destroy yours," he points out.
She flinches. He would not blame her if she reached for her magic. She does not.
"It is not the same," she says, each word distinct.
He nods again. "I know."
They do not speak again for two days.
The three of them fall into a rhythm that needs no words; the chores are divided up without discussion, and there is a thin and fragile comfort in their silences, although he knows Rydia is still angry with him and Edge is still hurt that Rydia is not happy. He dares not speak to either of them again, for he has no comfort or aid to offer, only more reminders of the destruction he helped wreak upon their homes.
Two weeks after Edge and Rydia first arrived on Mount Ordeals, they are sitting by the fire as the stars bloom above their heads. Edge and Rydia are sitting almost close enough to touch, but not quite. Still, Kain envies them that closeness; something important enough to them that they came out here to think it out rather than let it go. They have spoken to each other as little as they have spoken to him, but it is there in the small movements, the way Rydia always knows what implement Edge is looking for next when he prepares food, or the way Edge is there with a helping hand when Rydia is dressing game. It is a closeness that Cecil and Rosa share as well, and one that Kain has ever envied.
Rydia looks back over her shoulder. "Come sit with us," she says, sounding tired. "There's no need to skulk."
Kain gets up and walks over to Edge's other side, away from Rydia. Edge grunts and reaches up to grab Kain's wrist. "Sit with us," he says sharply, "not just as far away." He jerks his head toward the space between them, which is large enough for one person.
Kain hesitates, but he goes, because he cannot think of a polite way to decline, and the idea holds appeal. He is close enough to feel the warmth from both of them as he settles down; not much, not touching, but enough.
The silence between them feels less brittle now, and it is foolish to ascribe it to his closer position, but he wants to. He has not felt this comfortable since...since the days when he and Cecil and Rosa were children, before Kain realized the different positions that he and Cecil occupied within Baron's hierarchy.
He has the sense that some communication is passing between Edge and Rydia, but he is unsure of its content. Because he feels like the worst kind of interloper spying upon them, he tilts his head back to look at the stars, tracing the constellations out in his mind. Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh--it sends a chill down his spine to realize that all the shapes in their sky are echoed beneath the ground, and that Rydia can call them to her hand as she wishes.
He is sufficiently distracted by the stars that it takes him entirely by surprise when Edge kisses him.
It is not a long kiss, rather a firm press of lips on lips and the feel of warm fingers against his hand, and then Edge leans back and smirks.
Kain has no words. He stares blankly until Rydia clears her throat, and then he looks to the side to see her with an expectant little smile quirking her lips.
"Well, what about me?" she asks.
Kain isn't sure he heard her correctly, and glances at Edge, who is grinning fit to crack his face, ninja veil having been abandoned at some point when Kain was not paying attention. Slowly he leans toward Rydia, half-convinced this is all a joke, but she comes to meet him and she smells of the forest and growing things and the dark places beneath the earth, and her magic crackles around her, sparks and shivers and heat, and when he leans back he finds himself promptly tackled by Edge.
"So we had this idea," Edge says.
Kain cannot help it; being pinned makes all his muscles tense and he must fight the urge to fling Edge bodily off him. Edge notices, which surprises him, and it surprises him more that Edge jumps fluidly to his feet and crouches next to him instead.
"Sorry about that," Edge says. "Anyway. We had this idea."
"We're going back to Eblan in the morning," Rydia says. "And we think you should come with us."
Kain sits up slowly, trying to think past the distracting remnants of his reaction to their kisses. "It is not that I am not grateful--" he begins.
Edge punches him in the shoulder, hard.
"This isn't about gratitude. Don't be an asshole," Edge says.
"What Edge is trying to say is that we want you there," Rydia says.
Kain studies her, the forest maiden growing from the stone, and then looks at Edge, crouched like a shadow at the edge of his vision. "In what capacity?" he asks.
"Does it matter?" Edge says, clearly exasperated. "If it makes you happy we'll call you a military advisor, since it's probably rude to say 'the guy hopefully joining me and Rydia in bed,' but why bother giving it a name? You're our friend, you're allowed to come for a visit, or an extended stay."
Kain doesn't doubt that Edge would have an interest, prurient or not, in that outcome, but it is Rydia he looks to, Rydia whose permission he seeks. "And for one who has done unforgivable things?" he asks.
She nods, slow and sober. "Then one should consider how to make amends," she says, "but this is not about that. Edge spoke for both of us, but don't think we did not discuss it first." She tips her head to the side. "Just as I am not being forced, neither are you. If you do not wish it, or if you are not ready, then the invitation remains open."
Cecil and Rosa will be angry if he goes somewhere else without going home, but where the idea of Eblan is intriguing, the thought of facing them again grabs his throat and squeezes like Barbariccia in her cruelest mood. He can't help the shudder that wracks him. "I should...at least tell Cecil and Rosa where I am going," he makes himself say.
"Well, obviously," Edge says. At Kain's disbelieving look, he rolls his eyes. "Look, I don't plan to explain to them how you wound up in Eblan without at least saying hello to them!"
"Then I would be honoured to accept your invitation," Kain says quietly, and leans toward Edge to seal it with a kiss. This one is longer, and hotter, and somehow he finds himself with his sword-hand twined tight in Edge's hair, holding the King of Eblan close while they kiss.
When Rydia bodily knocks Edge out of the way to claim her share of the spoils, Kain laughs unfettered for the first time in months.
Rating: PG-13
Contains: Endgame spoilers
Wordcount: 2999
Notes: Written for the FF Kiss Battle. This is entirely
seventhe's fault.Betas: None
Summary: Edge and Rydia arrive on Mt. Ordeals seeking peace and solitude; Kain finds in them rather more.
Kain hears them coming long before he sees them. It's not just Edge's inability to ever be quiet (for a ninja, he makes a lot of noise, although Kain is just fair enough to admit that when Edge wants to be quiet, he is absolutely silent), nor is it the fwoosh of Rydia's fire spells or the ear-splitting thunderclaps that echo when Rydia seizes lightning out of a clear blue sky.
It's the shuffling as the undead rush to fight something other than him, and the echo of boot heels on stone. Kain knows most of the mountain's moods by now, its sounds and its seasons. His own presence impacts it; theirs brings more change.
So he is not surprised when they burst onto the summit, but neither does he go so far as to move to greet them. He waits beside KluYa's sanctuary, his spear at his side and uncovered. He doesn't think he will need to fight them, but one never knows, or so he tells himself. In truth, he does not know why they are here. He would think Cecil would do his own dirty work, but the part of Kain that King Odin tried to train into Cecil's eventual left hand thinks it's more deniable this way, and thus more logical.
Edge must have noticed, because he suddenly is standing between Rydia and Kain, and while he doesn't have his swords drawn here in the safe zone on the summit, he also doesn't have his hands far from the hilts. Rydia looks entirely unimpressed at his efforts to protect her.
"Greetings," Kain says, when they are close enough that he need not shout.
Edge rolls his eyes, visible even behind his veil. "Greetings? Really? That's what you have?" he asks.
Did his spear not make it impossible, Kain would fold his arms. As it is, he sighs quietly. "What did you expect? I can hardly lay a festival table up here," he points out.
Edge splutters. Rydia, to her great credit, does not shove him down the mountainside. "I think Edge was expecting a more enthusiastic greeting," she says mildly.
The awkward silence spins out between them, until at length Kain sighs and gestures with his shield-hand. "I have no proper seats to offer you," he says, "but you are welcome to what I have."
"Oh, we've got that covered," Edge says, swinging down a pack heavy enough to make a thud like a dead body. From within it, he produces a marvelous little folding table and several of the flat cushions that the Eblanese and Fabulian people alike favor. In a matter of minutes, he has set a table with journey rations and wine. Kain watches, astonished and uncertain of what to say.
"Are you going to join us, or loom disapprovingly?" Rydia asks, sinking neatly into a kneeling position on one side of the table.
Kain hastily covers his spear and leaves it propped against his tent, along with his shield. He is wearing only light ringmail--he does not need full plate up here, not with the safe field keeping the undead away, and whether they had come in friendship or enmity, he had not felt the need to fully armour himself. He kneels gingerly on Rydia's left, with Edge at his own left.
Another silence falls as they all stare at each other.
"Food first," Edge says, "and talk later."
When they had all traveled together, mealtimes would often be silent from their sheer exhaustion. Fighting an ancient evil was no easy task. Yet that silence had not been strained; this stretches out thin as spun glass, and as sharp when shattered. The hard bread they brought is fresher than what Kain trades for with the Mysidians, who bring foodstuffs to leave at the base of the mountain and take the reagants he harvested from the undead in return. He does not recognize the spices in the jerked meat, but it is not unpleasant. Rydia even unveils slices of dried fruit, wholly unfamiliar to him but sweet and slightly tangy, vividly yellow in colour and chewy.
When the wine has brought colour to all their faces and the food is gone, Edge clears his throat. Kain has been observing, and there is a tension between Edge and Rydia, and more that they carry with them like Edge's pack. He mislikes it.
"We aren't just here to socialize," Edge says eventually.
Sick dread gathers in Kain's stomach. "Cecil and Rosa?" he asks, already dreading the answer.
"No, nobody's hurt or ill," Rydia hastens to assure him. She looks away, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. "It's more....I can't stand all the people, watching me."
"And I'm about done with being King," Edge says, and then glares at Kain. "Don't even say it."
In point of fact, Kain did not actually intend to speak aloud his thought that he is surprised it had taken Edge so long to declare frustration, but he is now perversely determined to speak it. Still, he respects the word of royalty, even potentially-abdicated royalty.
"We haven't left for good." Rydia says it very quietly into her empty cup. "I mean, we'll go back." She looks up and her green eyes are haunted and hunted, her shoulders curled inward. That isn't right. Rydia always stands tall. "Just not right now."
Edge doesn't say anything, but he's still--much too still. Edge has never been one to hold still when he can move.
Kain nods. "I am afraid my own accommodations are not suitable for multiple occupants," he said, "but there is much space here." It will be strange to have noise other than that he makes here. He is not sure that he likes the idea. On the other hand, he can hardly tell them to go when in fact they are doing much as he did. Traitor he may be, and a disappointment to all who know him besides, but Kain will not be a hypocrite--in this, at least.
"We brought tents," Edge says. "And sleeping bags."
Kain wonders how long they intend to stay, but says nothing. "Please, allow me to assist," he says instead.
Edge cracks a few inappropriate jokes as they set up the tents, but fewer than Kain might have expected; that, as much as anything else, speaks to the seriousness of the situation. Kain wonders what drove them here, but he is not boorish enough to ask.
Hours stretch into days, then a week; they speak little if at all, each caught up in their own thoughts. Kain finds it strangely comforting to have them there, reminders that there is a world out there that remembers him. Edge is an excellent cook, and Rydia and her chocobo are effective enough hunters to make sure that they never want for meat. They all avoid KluYa's sanctuary, and they all avoid speaking about anything other than basic necessities like food.
It is Edge who breaks first, ten days after their arrival. "It's not that I mind being King," he says abruptly, stabbing a bit of roasted hare with his belt knife. "It's that no one wants me to be King my way. They all want me to be my father."
Kain can think of several excellent reasons why Edge should not be allowed free rein, many of them including inappropriate suggestions, but however much sarcasm he might employ to the contrary, he is aware that Edge is capable of doing the job properly, if flippantly. "It is difficult," he says instead, "to be required to emulate someone with little thought to your own needs."
"Yes, exactly," Edge says. "I can be a good King. I know what I'm doing. I'm just not going to spend all day every day in a closed room talking to old men who think I'm stupid because they remember me in swaddling."
"At least they treat you like you're human," Rydia says, and gets up from their little folding table to walk away into the darkness.
Kain puts a hand on Edge's shoulder when he would have followed her. Rydia is quite capable of defending herself against anything that might attack her on the slopes of Mt. Ordeals.
Edge slumps a little. "That's it, too," he says. "They all treat her like she's a savage beast who will burn them all to death for an insult--which doesn't stop them insulting her when they think she can't hear--instead of a person. Who cares if she doesn't know the order of steps for formal court dances? It doesn't make her less of a person." He drains his cup of wine and puts it down with an exaggerated care that speaks volumes. "She doesn't want me to defend her, and they all think I'm abusing my power and womanizing when I want her to stay in Eblan--and I don't want her to stay if she's unhappy, but I can't leave."
Kain has no answer for that, and the silence spins out sharp and brittle until Edge gets to his feet and hurries into his tent, leaving Kain alone by the fire.
Three days later, he goes hunting with Rydia in the forest at the foot of the mountain, because she requested his company. He doesn't make small talk, simply goes with her and helps field-dress their spoils.
"I don't want to go back to Mist and be alone," she says, "but I can't stay there when they all watch me like I'm going to go on a mad rampage." Her grip is too harsh, and she snaps the snare she is trying to place. With an oath, she throws it aside. "I can't make them respect me, I know that. But being alone in a dead village is better than being alone in a castle of vipers."
Kain is at a loss. Even in Baron, and long before Golbez, black mages are feared; their power is destructive. "Do you want them to learn to respect you?" he asks. "Or do you merely want them not to insult you?"
Rydia stares at the branch she is bending. "I don't know. What is their respect worth?"
"I can't tell you that." He laughs, mirthlessly. "Why do you think I am still here?"
She looks up. In her green robes, she might be a forest spirit, found roaming free. Her face is thinner than he remembers, sharp planes and cheekbones like blades, and her eyes are dark as the shadows of the pine trees. She is beautiful and terrifying, a force of nature. He has the impulse to drop to his knees and offer her prayers, sacrifices, anything she would demand. He resists it.
"You have a home to go back to," she says.
He nods. "A home I tried to destroy--as I helped destroy yours," he points out.
She flinches. He would not blame her if she reached for her magic. She does not.
"It is not the same," she says, each word distinct.
He nods again. "I know."
They do not speak again for two days.
The three of them fall into a rhythm that needs no words; the chores are divided up without discussion, and there is a thin and fragile comfort in their silences, although he knows Rydia is still angry with him and Edge is still hurt that Rydia is not happy. He dares not speak to either of them again, for he has no comfort or aid to offer, only more reminders of the destruction he helped wreak upon their homes.
Two weeks after Edge and Rydia first arrived on Mount Ordeals, they are sitting by the fire as the stars bloom above their heads. Edge and Rydia are sitting almost close enough to touch, but not quite. Still, Kain envies them that closeness; something important enough to them that they came out here to think it out rather than let it go. They have spoken to each other as little as they have spoken to him, but it is there in the small movements, the way Rydia always knows what implement Edge is looking for next when he prepares food, or the way Edge is there with a helping hand when Rydia is dressing game. It is a closeness that Cecil and Rosa share as well, and one that Kain has ever envied.
Rydia looks back over her shoulder. "Come sit with us," she says, sounding tired. "There's no need to skulk."
Kain gets up and walks over to Edge's other side, away from Rydia. Edge grunts and reaches up to grab Kain's wrist. "Sit with us," he says sharply, "not just as far away." He jerks his head toward the space between them, which is large enough for one person.
Kain hesitates, but he goes, because he cannot think of a polite way to decline, and the idea holds appeal. He is close enough to feel the warmth from both of them as he settles down; not much, not touching, but enough.
The silence between them feels less brittle now, and it is foolish to ascribe it to his closer position, but he wants to. He has not felt this comfortable since...since the days when he and Cecil and Rosa were children, before Kain realized the different positions that he and Cecil occupied within Baron's hierarchy.
He has the sense that some communication is passing between Edge and Rydia, but he is unsure of its content. Because he feels like the worst kind of interloper spying upon them, he tilts his head back to look at the stars, tracing the constellations out in his mind. Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh--it sends a chill down his spine to realize that all the shapes in their sky are echoed beneath the ground, and that Rydia can call them to her hand as she wishes.
He is sufficiently distracted by the stars that it takes him entirely by surprise when Edge kisses him.
It is not a long kiss, rather a firm press of lips on lips and the feel of warm fingers against his hand, and then Edge leans back and smirks.
Kain has no words. He stares blankly until Rydia clears her throat, and then he looks to the side to see her with an expectant little smile quirking her lips.
"Well, what about me?" she asks.
Kain isn't sure he heard her correctly, and glances at Edge, who is grinning fit to crack his face, ninja veil having been abandoned at some point when Kain was not paying attention. Slowly he leans toward Rydia, half-convinced this is all a joke, but she comes to meet him and she smells of the forest and growing things and the dark places beneath the earth, and her magic crackles around her, sparks and shivers and heat, and when he leans back he finds himself promptly tackled by Edge.
"So we had this idea," Edge says.
Kain cannot help it; being pinned makes all his muscles tense and he must fight the urge to fling Edge bodily off him. Edge notices, which surprises him, and it surprises him more that Edge jumps fluidly to his feet and crouches next to him instead.
"Sorry about that," Edge says. "Anyway. We had this idea."
"We're going back to Eblan in the morning," Rydia says. "And we think you should come with us."
Kain sits up slowly, trying to think past the distracting remnants of his reaction to their kisses. "It is not that I am not grateful--" he begins.
Edge punches him in the shoulder, hard.
"This isn't about gratitude. Don't be an asshole," Edge says.
"What Edge is trying to say is that we want you there," Rydia says.
Kain studies her, the forest maiden growing from the stone, and then looks at Edge, crouched like a shadow at the edge of his vision. "In what capacity?" he asks.
"Does it matter?" Edge says, clearly exasperated. "If it makes you happy we'll call you a military advisor, since it's probably rude to say 'the guy hopefully joining me and Rydia in bed,' but why bother giving it a name? You're our friend, you're allowed to come for a visit, or an extended stay."
Kain doesn't doubt that Edge would have an interest, prurient or not, in that outcome, but it is Rydia he looks to, Rydia whose permission he seeks. "And for one who has done unforgivable things?" he asks.
She nods, slow and sober. "Then one should consider how to make amends," she says, "but this is not about that. Edge spoke for both of us, but don't think we did not discuss it first." She tips her head to the side. "Just as I am not being forced, neither are you. If you do not wish it, or if you are not ready, then the invitation remains open."
Cecil and Rosa will be angry if he goes somewhere else without going home, but where the idea of Eblan is intriguing, the thought of facing them again grabs his throat and squeezes like Barbariccia in her cruelest mood. He can't help the shudder that wracks him. "I should...at least tell Cecil and Rosa where I am going," he makes himself say.
"Well, obviously," Edge says. At Kain's disbelieving look, he rolls his eyes. "Look, I don't plan to explain to them how you wound up in Eblan without at least saying hello to them!"
"Then I would be honoured to accept your invitation," Kain says quietly, and leans toward Edge to seal it with a kiss. This one is longer, and hotter, and somehow he finds himself with his sword-hand twined tight in Edge's hair, holding the King of Eblan close while they kiss.
When Rydia bodily knocks Edge out of the way to claim her share of the spoils, Kain laughs unfettered for the first time in months.