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"Sunflower, what's wrong with you? You look like hell."

The vulpin saying this didn't look much better. He had a forked scar across the side of his muzzle, dark flesh showing through. Golden teeth glinted in the dim, dim light. Rain was falling all around, and he was soaking wet and caked in mud. They both sat in a muddy hole in the hungry darkness of the forest in a horrible late season storm. Nevertheless, the muddied, ruddy vagabond vulpin named Reive Giltfang wiped a fleck of mud from Sunflower's black furred snout.

"Is now really the time, Reive?" Sunflower asked. He didn't pull away, however. In the cold and the dark, the other vulpin was a source of sorely needed warmth. It was just those two, together in a hole, the other boys scattered throughout the wood. The orders were 'no fire', so they could avoid detection, but with the wretched rain there was nothing dry enough to take spark anyway. It was just their fur and their cloaks to keep them warm, all soaked through, and their rapidly spoiling dried fish and hard tack to eat. No fires meant no tea, just cold rainwater to drink, and it was the same cold rainwater that drenched them to the bone and seeped through the oiled leather of their pouches and packs and rusted their blades and armor and spoiled their dried goods.

"I'm just trying to keep you looking presentable. I'm trapped here in this shallow muddy grave with you, and have nothing else to look at, so..." Reive licked his thumb and smoothed out some of Sunflower's silver-grey cheek-fur. Their eyes met and lingered. Napes would've bristled, if not weighed down by water.

"Less than three days ago you challenged me to a duel over that vixen at camp," Sunflower said in a voice that didn't have the edge he intended. It was hard to maintain composure in this situation. Reive laughed, but it was a sorry and tired laugh.

"Kesta? Oh. Politic, it's all politic. I can't let you show up and take everything you cussing well please! You're still my junior." Reive pushed against Sunflower, who did not move away this time. The ruddy fox had been a bandit since he was old enough to cuss, and Sunflower had only joined fairly recently, fresh off a farm, only knowing bladework from tutoring, drunk on stories and fables of the old Coalition. Both of them were caught in the orbit of Cyrus Krauley, the band's leader, vying often for renown and favor, coming to blows often in camp, publicly disagreeing, drawing and clashing blades over a myriad of little issues. Two young, ambitious todds of the same age were bound to buck heads, and these two were no exception. Cyrus Krauley encouraged competition and ambition in the ranks under him, and had paired the two up together to have a regular lark. This was not the first time they'd been on a raid together.

It was just the first time they'd been on a raid together that had gone so wrong.

Reive slipped his arm under Sunflower's cloak, and into the relative warmth there. Sunflower blinked and his head was resting on Reive's chest. He was too weak to bother. Shivering in the cold, they listened to each other's hearts beat for awhile, cloaks doubled up, trying to be as warm as can be until it was time to move again. It was a moment of weakness, Sunflower chided himself, but he was too weak to pull away.

That was years ago, and so much had changed. Winds howled against hundred foot stone walls, whipping the cool, thin air on top of the mountain. This conventionally impregnable fortress, once so far away and a subject only of speculation, now belonged to Sunflower. Cyrus Krauley was dead, the subject only of painful and confused memories now. Sunflower had killed him, usurped him, and now wore his magic bracers, now held his correspondence in his paw, now was wreathed in a dry, clean cloak of his. Now, Reive Giltfang swore allegiance to him from bended knee, to be his Second, the champion of his honor in his stead, the sword of his right hand when he had to be away.

And now, it was after the speech and after dinner, the last night in the keep for a long awhile. Reive's reappearance wasn't surprising, and though reluctant, Sunflower had to admit he had no other choice than to take this vagabond as his Second. No one else was alive around here who had the experience and the history to be entrusted with the care of this fortress, and everything had been settled. In the morning, bright and early, Sunflower and the ragtag band who took the fort from Krauley would depart back down the mountains, and return to prior business, leaving Reive as steward.

Brooding late into the night, as he often had during the days after killing Krauley, Sunflower held his snout in his paws and searched his soul for anything to tell him he'd ever done the right thing. Sitting in one of the fort's towers, he had an old ledger and letters spread out under candlelight, trying to pinpoint when things went so wrong.

Absorbed as he was, he jumped when he felt a paw on his shoulder. He'd failed to notice Reive's footfall on the stone stairs.

"Sunflower," he began, "what's wrong with you? You look like hell."

Time had rendered both of them sharper. Sunflower saw it in Reive's face, and knew Reive could see it in his. Though, the former hadn't had a moment to look at himself in a mirror in awhile. Was he really that disheveled? "Is now really the time, Reive?"

Reive smoothed the fur on Sunflower's snout and gently cupped his chin. "I'm just trying to keep you looking presentable," he said, smiling. "Ah, this is familiar, isn't it? I have a sense of deja vu."

Sunflower let his eyes close. He was so tired. He didn't trust Reive fully, despite the sworn oath. It was no way to treat an old companion, but besides one moment of weakness and tenderness in a hole when they thought they were going to die, they'd done nothing but be at each other's throats for many years. It was only with his back to the wall that Sunflower accepted him. Still, the warm, rough paw on his face was a worrisome comfort, foreign after all this time, dredging up all kinds of forgotten feelings and raw, wistful wounds.

Reive continued, "You have bags under your eyes, your fur is all disheveled and burnt up, and your whiskers are gone away. It's funny. There I was, the one wreathed in Flame, and you're the one who came out singed."

This made Sunflower pin back his ears. "Maybe the Flame will light in me yet."

"If so, maybe you'd cheer up and be fun again! That rodent was right, you're so dour. With due respect, my lovely lord, I think you're a sad, frumpy, strange, shortsighted and queer fool." Reive turned away and paced the room, gesturing with his paws up. His bright gold eyes, however, hitched on the bronze bracers and cloak Sunflower wore. "Mark what I said earlier; don't be trapped in that old wraith's shadow."

Sunflower finally turned around in his chair and dropped the papers. "You're really getting on my nerves. Why did you come all the way up here? Just to torment me further?"

"The inner keep is a mess, and I wanted to ask you about that box in there. I've long been curious of it, but I noted the Wards on it."

"I wouldn't open it. Neither would I try to move it. Besides, everything that was in it is here on this desk, or tied up in pay."

"Ah, curiosity sated." Reive stepped over to the wall and leaned against it. Silence reigned for a second. Each vulpin looked a different way; Reive downwards at the floor, and Sunflower out the slit window at the clear and crisp night sky. The stars burned so much more brightly up here in the mountains. To anyone far away, the small light at the top room of the tower might as well have been another star.

Loneliness, at length, crept to the forefront of Sunflower's mind.

"Do you remember all those years ago?" Reive asked, pausing only briefly to fiddle with a gold ring on his finger before continuing. "That night we came back to camp, and that surly old butcher made us a mushroom stew that felt like heaven? That week in the cold and rain, fighting for our lives, running from the Perchguard?"

Sunflower nodded. "We were soaking wet, muddy, and cold. It was the coldest I'd ever been."

Reive looked up and, for the first time in memory, he had a sincere look in his eyes. "I'm that cold right now."

Sunflower blinked. Reive moved over and slumped on a bench at the far end of the room. A moment of weakness, behind closed doors. No other would have to know. This vulnerability would never leave this place, and was not to be spoken of again. Outside this room, they would be Warlord and Second.

Just for now, just in here, though?

They dared to be something else.

Sunflower stood from his chair, and approached Reive. This time it was he who brushed his paw pads against Reive's face. He lifted his chin up, and ran his thumb across his whiskers, and then felt the smooth skin of his scar. It was the first time he'd ever actually laid paw upon it. Then, he looked down at himself and realized how the tables had turned, and how once he was a nobody, just Reive Giltfang's charge. Now, he was Reive Giltfang's sworn liege, commander of this keep, a forefront name in the Coalition, and Reive was his Second, his sworn subordinate. Years ago, he blinked and hadn't realized how he'd come to rest his head on Reive's chest. Now, he blinked and Reive's head rested on his chest.

Sunflower reached down and grasped the worn and weathered leather of his sword-strap. First he undid the knot that tamed the excess length, and then he undid the buckle. The sword he used to kill Krauley clattered to the floor, still in its scabbard. Then, he withdrew the second sword he kept in his sash, coup counted from fighting a fearsome assassin, and dropped that to the side as well.

It was the first time in forever he'd taken these blades off in front of another person. It might've been the first time Reive had ever seen Sunflower divested of arms.

"You're a fool," Reive said, and reached for his own sword belt. He gingerly rested his sheathed blade against the wall so that the stone would not scratch the pommel or guard.

"I've been a fool again and again and again," Sunflower said. He grasped Reive's hands and looked over them for a moment. Reive wore a gold ring on every finger, and on one of them wore three. "I'm starting to realize something, however."

"What?" Reive almost whispered.

"I should tell people when I love them."

Reive got a funny look on his face. It was almost fear, it was almost surprise. It was far from the sardonic mirth he usually wore, that Sunflower thought maybe was just how his face was now, like maybe whatever had left that scar and knocked out half his ivories left him with some kind of convenient nerve damage. This sudden unmasking dispelled that theory.

"Worry not," Sunflower said at length, and guided Reive's gold laden hands to the buckles of his cuirass. "For once, you don't need to say anything."

Just a minute of service extracted the vulpin from the cuirass, the shoulders from his pauldrons, the upper arm from his brassarts, the elbows from his couters. Sunflower stopped him at the bracers, which rekindled the mirth of Reive's countenance.

All at once, Reive grasped and unhooked and splayed open the padded jacket which made the under-structure of Sunflower's armor. He hungrily grabbed at the silver-gray furred hips he uncovered underneath his trousers and shirt. He relished the strong scent from beneath the well worn padding. Had he ever really smelled it before? Had he really ever felt this man without the barrier of armor between them?

Their lips clashed, muzzles wrinkled in some snarl. Sunflower barely had time to spread the cloak on the floor before he was on the ground on top of it, and Reive was on top of him, stripping away his own armor and tossing it carelessly aside with a loud jingling crash. The way the candlelight was cast across him for a moment, wreathing his ruddy fur in yellow glow, made Sunflower wonder what it would've been like to hold him when the Flame had him. Would he have been unbearable to hold, like a coal from a flame? Would he have taken this moment to rip his throat out with his bare teeth, strangle him with the gold laden fingers?

Reive was warm to touch, but he shivered still, and he sought the warmth of Sunflower's body. He shoved his arms under the padded coat and around Sunflower's back. Though still snarling, he jammed his nose against Sunflower's ruff.

Things stopped for a moment. One or the other was marveling at the feeling. A shudder passed through Reive. He glanced upward. Their eyes met. Was this doubt?

Was it a request?

After a long and heavy sigh, Sunflower grasped Reive's shoulders and muscled him onto the cape and rolled on top of him. He pushed him into the ground. This was funny, since he knew Reive had been stronger than him when they were younger. Sunflower could never best him in holds or wrestling. This informed him that Reive was allowing this all.

His black furred and unadorned paw traced down Reive's cream underbelly. He drew deep of Reive's scent, relishing what he could through the sooty burnt ash smell that hung like an olfactory curtain in front of Sunflower's nose. His pads drew across something slick, the impassioned tip of Reive's prick.

He couldn't help but joke to himself that he should've figured this fox kept a hidden dagger on him.

"What's so funny?" Reive asked.

"Nothing."

Sunflower kissed him again. He pushed his own passion against him and let out a strangled huff. The sensation was tangled with apprehension on his part. This vulnerability made him worry, but, oh, he was always so worried these days. He worried about everything and was fretting and now was the time to stop it and enjoy this moment no matter what would come in the future. Even if Reive went on to betray him later, this moment right now?

It was worth it.

His touch made the vulpin under him grasp at his fur. He was demanding more, and Sunflower graced him with more. His paw held their hilts together and Reive's hips drove up against him. Their tails curled about each other.

"Oh," Reive sighed between panting gasps and groans, "You smell like a fire."

"You huff like a vixen." A squeeze at the swelling base of Reive's dagger made him demonstrate again.

"Ah! Only for a lord like you."

Fevered and yearning grinding gave way to a yip. So close, Reive withdrew his arms from Sunflower's coat and grabbed onto his shoulders. They pressed and Sunflower's snout curled again. Reive, feeling Sunflower's fever pitch, decided to help things along, and pushed himself up from the ground and parted his jaws and bit a toothy embrace into Sunflower's neck. The cold rush, the sudden pinpricks of sharp fangs through his fur, the momentary ice-spike of fear welled into a shuddering spill. Sunflower grasped Reive's nape with one hand and held him close until the flood receded.

As he huffed and panted, Reive hadn't finished yet. Slickened by Sunflower's passion he worked himself up into a brief frenzy against him, then slumped. Sunflower rolled back to his side on the cape, head resting on Reive's arm while they caught their breath.

"Do you feel warmer now?" Sunflower asked at length. They had plenty of time here to lay with each other while waiting for the swelling to abide, the knots to untie.

"Well... It's not the same, but it'll do."

"I know this doesn't change anything between us," Sunflower said. Reive looked away. "But I just-"

"Just shut your maw. Today I have done you every favor, and you have had your way with me however you wanted. What else must I do to get you to trust me?"

Sunflower looked up at the ceiling and relented.