Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Watcher is different these days. 

It’s to be expected, given that whole ‘missing part of his soul’ thing, Edér supposes. 

No matter how big he smiles or how often he jokes, the Watcher, Qwyl, has always had his more subdued moments — which is understandable for a man haunted by the dead. Hel, he was like that even before witnessing Eothas bursting out from the depths beneath his home. 

Qwyl saw so many of his friends and vassals die horrible, terrified deaths; their souls sucked into the god’s adra body until all that was left were the ashen shells of their mortal flesh. The few surviving witnesses said that Qwyl tried to save as many as he could, but there was only so much he could do before his own soul was torn apart as well. 

Edér saw the destruction too close for comfort, but not close enough to help. It’s probably what saved him in the end. The Defiant — a dhow he chartered at the Steward’s request — had only just made it up river when the earth shattered a mere league away. Edér didn’t wait for the ship to weigh anchor before he leapt off onto the docks. With everyone too shocked or panicked to mind him, he mounted the nearest horse and sped off towards the keep. The only other passerby along the road were those running away. All the while, he watched his dead god’s retreating form leaving his friend’s home and everything he had built with him broken in his wake. 

Besides those who managed to flee, Edér didn’t think he’d find anyone alive; that is, until he spotted a familiar stag stepping gingerly through the devastation. 

Del had been Qwyl’s loyal companion ever since the former merchant found him as an injured fawn. They were inseparable ever since, and it was a pleasant surprise to see that the stag somehow managed to flee the destruction. Knowing how stubborn Del was, there might’ve been some magic involved on the Watcher’s part to make that happen, for no amount of convincing had ever torn him so far away from Qwyl’s side. 

Overwhelmed with emotion, Edér was already plenty grateful to reunite with the stag. But Del clearly had places to be, and Edér followed him all the way to Qwyl’s comatose body. 

Edér would have barely recognized him underneath all the ash. Without Del, he might’ve stepped right over him as one of the many casualties. Still, it was a miracle that physically the dwarf was not in worse shape. He was battered but breathing, and for the days spent tailing Eothas across the sea towards the Deadfire Archipelago, that had to be enough for Edér to cling to.

The crew of the Defiant kept calling him ‘Captain.’ He told them, “Naw — that lazy lump of dwarf is your real captain. I’m just the big dumb muscle.”   

“You gotta come back, Watcher,” he then murmured to Qwyl. He was laid out on the bed like a corpse at a wake rather than a man asleep. “You can’t leave me responsible for all this. I ain’t built for it.”

He woke up that very night, saving Edér from yet another awkward discussion with Irrena about pay. Thank the gods.

Literally, in this case.

Ever since he bounced back from death, broken soul aside, Qwyl has seemed far more energetic and focused than he’s been over the past few years. As much as Edér knows that he mourns Caed Nua and all the souls taken from it, captaining a ship has done him some unexpected good in the wake of all that loss. It suits the restless ranger more than managing an old keep and the surrounding village. As soon as he got his sea legs, the Deadfire Archipelago and the pursuit of Eothas brought a renewed spring to his step and a healthy glow to his cheeks. He even went from humming along with the crew’s sea shanties to belting along with them. On top of that, the numerous pets they’ve accumulated over their travels are worlds less tiresome than kith, and have given the Watcher plenty to dote on as well. 

But as invigorated as he is by his duties, he’s not a happy man. No one expects him to be, least of all Edér. He’s at least heartened that the Watcher still seems to have his sense of humor and a compassionate heart. 

It wouldn’t be Qwyl without either of those. 

Most days, he seems perfectly normal. Other days, he wakes up from disturbing dreams almost as often as Xoti does. By the way the priestess of Gaun describes hers, Edér certainly hopes that Qwyl’s are at least not the same flavor.

On those days, he always seems more contemplative than usual. Edér often catches him sitting or standing off to the side, gazing out over the city of Neketaka, the endless horizon, or his crew manning the ship. Sometimes, Edér catches the Watcher watching him, a secret smile faint upon his lips. He often takes it as an invitation to stroll right over to Edér’s side, ribbing him with bad jokes or pulling him into a serious strategic conversation that goes way over the veteran’s head. 

The tropical atmosphere and the strange tides bring them stranger tidings, and yet every day that passes on this wild-god-chase, Edér swears he sees more and more of his pal coming back. 

Even Aloth is back to complete their little gang, and Iselmyr with him. Edér has mixed thoughts about the uptight wizard, but when it comes to Iselmyr, he’s sure missed the old bird. 

And speaking of birds, Pallegina unexpectedly falls in with their crew as well. She’s an even more stern and passionate patriot than before, but hey, a friend of Qwyl’s may as well be a friend of Edér’s.

Although everything is different all around them, things start to feel blessedly back to normal — at least between Edér and Qwyl.

—

…until it’s not. 

It happens when they are standing together at Periki’s Overlook, surveying the surrounding sea and the city below. Del loiters nearby, munching happily on the grass. It’s their last day on solid land before they head west, so they may as well enjoy the view.

Edér takes the opportunity to light his pipe, leaning with a groan against the wall. Hel, his exhaustion is bone-deep. But that’s what happens when you’re fighting for your life in the ruins of the Old City, he supposes. 

“What a week,” he mutters. 

Qwyl hums in agreement. 

“Are you alright?” he asks. 

Edér blows out some smoke. 

That’s better.

“I should be askin’ you that. You been awful quiet… for you,” he snorts. “More of this and you’ll turn into Aloth.” 

“Give him some credit,” Qwyl reproves him. “I think I’m getting through to him.”

Edér grunts.

“You ‘got through to him’ five years ago. Now he’s all strung back up as high as that tree back home. And besides, you’d think after all we been through, a friend would open up a little. Hel, he’s been back with us for weeks!”

“He’s been through a lot,” Qwyl reminds him. “We all have.”

Edér puffs out more smoke. 

“Yeah,” he sighs. “You got that right. Still, I miss the old Aloth.”

“So you’ve said.”

The wind whistles in their companionable silence, dulling the clamor of the city behind them. Edér turns around to lean back against the wall, blowing a ring of smoke up towards Arkemyr’s manor. It occurs to him that he’s actually looking forward to heading back out to sea. Maybe it’s not too late for a career as a sailor after all…

“Edér.”

“Hm?” he blinks over at Qwyl. “Yeah?”

Qwyl’s eyes remain fixed on the horizon. For a long moment, his mouth moves without sound. 

“Have you ever thought about us?” he asks into the wind. 

“And why we keep endin’ up in this shit?” Edér chuckles. 

“Sure,” Qwyl fiddles his sword belt. It’s amusing, in a way; the Watcher is never one to get tongue-tied. “But I meant… After all these years, have you ever considered us becoming… more?”

“Than…?”

“…friends.”

“More… than friends,” Edér repeats slowly. “Oh, you mean… uh…” 

He feels his heart sink; though not really out of his own displeasure. Like everything these days, it’s more complicated than that. He’s flattered at the notion, really, but he already regrets how awkward this otherwise pleasant moment is about to turn. 

Does he have feelings for Qwyl?

Sure, he’s got a lot of feelings — respect, curiosity, and confusion among them… but not the ones Qwyl’s asking after. 

Edér puffs out his cheeks in a ponderous breath. This isn’t anything like deflecting Xoti or Tekēhu’s flirtations. This is Qwyl, for gods’ sake. 

“Well, I’m real fond of you, case that wasn’t clear,” he begins carefully. “But in terms of stronger feelings… I only ever really think about girls that way, is the biggest part of it. Since I was old enough to chase after ‘em.”

It’s the truth. Qwyl had to have figured that out by now during all their years together. They even ogled at some of the same women, from time to time. 

Other than that, Edér can’t really place Qwyl’s tastes. The dwarf tends to flirt with every other kith regardless of gender — a habit picked up from his younger days as a merchant. For a while he seemed fairly taken with Aloth during their romp through the Dyrwood, but Edér still doesn’t know if that went anywhere. They both sure were quietly pleased to see each other at the dig site, at least. 

More recently, Edér thought Qwyl seemed awfully keen on Maia. Despite appearances they had a lot in common with both hailing from Rauatai, though they would’ve made a funny looking couple given their dramatic height difference… and their difference in opinions when it came to what role the Royal Deadfire Company has to play in the archipelago’s power struggle. 

Too bad they still haven’t gotten around to smooching it out. Their former companion — Maia’s brother, Kana — would’ve gotten a kick out of it if the two of them had. Maybe it would inspire even more poetry out of the big guy. 

Now that would piss Maia off. 

Anyway, if the Watcher is the type to cast such a wide net, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Edér would end up in it eventually. He might’ve even taken offense if he didn’t catch Qwyl’s eye at least once. 

Attraction is one thing. Flirting is another. But whatever the Watcher is tentatively alluding to now is a whole other beast; one Edér would rather not provoke. 

“Then… there’s the fact that I’m still stuck on some things that happened a long time ago,” Edér continues sheepishly. “I wouldn’t be much good to you anyway.”

He doesn’t need to mention Elafa. The pain of her loss is still fresh on his mind, despite his old friend being long dead. 

To his credit, Qwyl seems to take this all in stride. At least, that’s what Edér assumes. All this time, the Watcher has only looked up at him once. 

“Don’t be silly. Whoever wins your heart would be the luckiest kith alive,” Qwyl smiles tightly. 

Alive, Edér thinks wistfully. If only.  

“Just…” Qwyl’s fingers drum upon the wall. “If anything changes…”

He trails off, his mustache twitching as if chewing back his words. 

“You’d be the first to know. But… yeah…” Edér mumbles. “Maybe in another life.”

Honestly, whoever gets Qwyl’s affection and attention would be lucky too — girl, guy, or anyone in between. Hel, maybe they’d even be a furry little orlan. The Watcher seems fairly indiscriminate, unlike Edér. 

“For what it’s worth, I’m awful flattered,” Edér tries to lighten the mood a little, but Qwyl’s smile doesn’t look right. Edér knows the real one — one that crinkles around his brown eyes and dimples his cheeks beneath his short black beard. 

Edér groans to himself. He’s gotta fix this. 

“Hope you don’t think less of me,” he mutters, raising his pipe back to his lips. “I like what we got going here. It’s closer than I’ve been to anyone in, I dunno, ages.”

He wishes he was any good with words. There is so much more he wants to say. Things like — 

‘That moment I thought you died at Caed Nua was the worst of my life.’

Or more complicated things like —

‘I do dream about you, just not in that way.’

At the end of the day, as much as Edér loves Qwyl, he can’t give his friend what he desires or deserves. Edér knows himself, and he isn’t built that way. Sweet as Qwyl is, he isn’t built in the way Edér takes them, either. 

Edér considers himself a pretty independent son of a bitch. Yet somehow, he can’t bear the thought of once again being away from Qwyl for years, let alone days, at a time. After holding vigil at a catatonic Qwyl’s side — talking to him, reading to him, conferring with the Steward, and having one-sided conversations with an unimpressed Del — he knows only one thing for sure as time ticks inexorably on around them:

He needs the Watcher. 

He needs Qwyl. 

And maybe — just maybe — Qwyl needs him, too. 

He at least needs Edér’s shield and sabre at his side as he takes his sweet time reloading his pistols or picking his ass up from the battlefield. For a dwarf, he sure falls hard despite being closer to the ground. 

“I’ll tell you what, though,” Edér says in earnest. “I’m not one for big promises…”

He puts his hand on Qwyl’s shoulder, this time making sure to look his friend dead in those brown eyes. It vaguely occurs to him that the dwarf’s lashes are as long and dark as his stag’s. 

“…but I’m gonna beat up as many people and monsters as it takes to get you your life back,” Edér concludes. “You got my word on that.”

He gives his friend’s shoulder a rough, affable pat. It earns him a real smile, though Edér notices how much wetter those brown eyes are at that moment. 

—

Things continue as normal after that. They have to, for the sake of the crew. But despite Edér’s worries, Qwyl sure makes it easy to pretend that conversation never happened. Neither of them mention it again during the rare peaceful evenings spent together playing chess or simply complaining about the madness of their situation to each other. 

For a while, nothing changes. 

And then… it simply does. 

It starts with Edér’s heart skipping in his chest every time Qwyl appears at his side or visits the crew’s quarters. It continues with jealous twinges upon seeing Aloth leaning in close to him, the elf’s long dark hair falling in a curtain close to Qwyl’s bearded cheek. Much to Edér’s annoyance, they’re always stifling laughter and speaking furtively while paging through big old books together. 

“Can you keep it down over there?” he calls reproachfully one time. “Some of us are trynna sleep.”

The tips of Aloth’s ears go pink. 

“Shall we continue this in my quarters?” Edér hears Qwyl ask him in a low whisper.  

“Oh,” Aloth’s voice cracks. “Well I really should be — aye laddie, he cannae wait to see ye bare as a bairn’s — I am so sorry.”

He flushes even more in the wake of the gleeful Iselmyr. That doesn’t stop Qwyl from chuckling and beckoning the mortified wizard to follow him. 

An hour later with his thoughts still stormy, Edér gives up on sleeping and leaves to smoke above deck.

“Ahoy there!”

Serafen is perched precariously nearby, moonlight reflecting off of his mane of blue hair and fur as he eyes Edér.

“You got a lot on your mind, chum.”

“You dunno how to keep your grubby little mind-paws to yourself, do you?” Edér grumbles, lighting his pipe.

Normally he’s got a decent rapport with Serafen. He's not bad, for an orlan. They fight well together; after all, cutting down an enemy is child’s play after a cipher has melted their brain. Outside of that they typically enjoy exchanging jokes and jabs at the expense of themselves and others.

But tonight, he’s not in a mood to humor him.

“Man alive, you’re as testy as a maid on her moon!” Serafen guffaws. “No one need be a cipher to know something’s got your funsack in a tizzy.”

Edér groans, pushing himself off the railing to find another spot to smoke.

“You thinkin’ they be having fun in there?” Serafen asks slyly. “Uptight little goody elf and our Watcher?”

“I don’t care much to know,” Edér shoots back.

“Like Hel you don’t,” Serafen guffaws. “Would it be a boon to know yours truly just came from there?”

Edér scowls at him.

“Now I really don’t wanna know.”

“Those booky little blighters got their hands on an old cipher’s scribbles,” Serafen continues nonetheless. “Called lil’ old me down to get my take on it. None of it made any damn sense, of course. Felt like my fur went gray just listening to them drone on to each other about highbrow magic things, so I saw myself out. Far as I hear, they’re still at it.”

Edér blinks at him. 

“What, reading?”

Serafen grins knowingly, “Well if they’re fucking, they’re being real prim and proper about it.”

“Effigy’s eyes…!” Edér chokes on his own smoke, fanning it irritably away. “I didn’t ask!”

“Again,” Serafen taps on his hairy blue temple. “You show as plain as a knocked-up whore.”

Edér waves him away, “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

“And I’m the Queen of Neketaka,” Serafen nestles back into his uncomfortable seat. “If everyone were like you, I’d be out of a job.”

Edér gives up on his pipe and dumps the ashes into the sea.

“And you left, huh?” he drawls. “Sure they didn’t just kick you out?” 

Serafen shrugs.

“It be a blessing either way.”

—

This dawning madness all comes to a head when the Defiant docks at a small island village to trade. 

Their scouting party stumbles upon the local Huana having a friendly swimming competition in honor of Ngati, and Qwyl has the bright idea to join in the tradition. Even Maia, who normally rolls her eyes at any mandatory interactions with the Huana, perks up at the challenge. Soon the two of them are cheerfully stripping themselves at the behest of their grinning, naked competitors. 

It’s a whole lot of ochre scales and hairy brown flesh to take in, and it isn’t until Qwyl meets his eyes that Edér realizes he’s been gawking at the scene for a full minute. 

“Well?” Qwyl calls to him merrily, shamelessly bundling up his clothes and handing it to a beet-red Aloth. “Are you joining in?”

Edér gazes out over the sparkling blue water with a longing groan. He’s sweating like a pig in his scale mail, and taking a dip does sound good. Not to mention that this competition should be pretty funny; their party has no chance against a handful of native Huana, but Qwyl and Maia at least won’t drown given their Rauataian upbringing, and Edér’s athletic enough to survive some relatively calm water. 

“Sure,” he shrugs, looking around for a rock or something to change behind into… well, nothing. “Gimme a minute?”

All things considered, he’s proud of how well he’s kept his aging body in shape over the years. He’s never had reason to feel self conscious before, but now he’s painfully aware of their companions’ and the locals’ gazes on him. 

“Oh Gaun…” he hears Xoti utter under her breath. Between Qwyl, Maia, and Edér, she doesn’t seem to know where to cast her eyes. “…I thank you kindly for blessing me this day…”

—

Ever since that merry visit, Edér still can’t figure out what’s changed about Qwyl that has him acting so stupid. 

As a consolation prize one of the natives gave him a fresh shave along the sides of his scalp, sure, but otherwise he is as bearded a dwarf as before. He is as much a man as before. He is as much a friend as before. 

Funnily enough, none of those things seem to be obstacles in the face of a newer, warmer rush of affection that hits Edér every time he catches sight of him. They are simply facts about the man before him who somehow shines brighter than even Eothas’s new shiny ass. 

Edér had been truthful when he told Qwyl his reasons why they wouldn’t work out. He couldn’t return his feelings back then, but now he can’t help but wonder if it was because he never considered more before Qwyl brought it up. And now that he has…

…why not?

Why hasn’t he considered the idea before?

It goes without saying that Edér always has the Watcher’s back. He’d take an arrow for him — and he already has. Blades and spells, too. Qwyl has done the same. There were more times than Edér could count when his heart had pounded in terror as he shook Qwyl awake, tipping a healing potion between his bloody lips. When the dwarf finally roused, Edér would blink back tears of relief even when scolding his dazed friend. 

All this time, he simply thought what they shared was a love for a brother-in-arms. But Edér had a brother. He knows what it was like to love, admire, and lose someone like that. 

But Qwyl is different. 

He’s always been different. 

Five years later, Edér can no longer imagine a life without him. He tried going to Aedyr to be with his parents again, but the tides brought him back to Caed Nua for a reason. 

Warm smiles. 

Sharp, mischevious wit. 

That full, buoyant feeling of no longer being alone. 

When Edér thinks of ‘home,’ he no longer pictures his parents in Aedyr, nor the complicated memories of the Gilded Vale. He doesn’t even picture Caed Nua. 

He pictures Qwyl.  

It’s been him for years, hasn’t it?

The revelation hits him while nervously watching his friend clamber into a dinghy with a few others, heading out to an unknown shore. It bubbles up inside of Edér almost as discomfitingly as bad gas. 

Could he care for Qwyl that way?

What does it even mean to care for a man that way? Is it any different than with a woman, besides the typical… difference… in parts? 

Not to mention, how does one cross that invisible, complicated boundary between friends? Copious amounts of alcohol helps with anything, he supposes, but Qwyl deserves better than an ill-advised tumble if they have any chance of becoming lovers. 

‘Lovers’ — what a strange, mushy word even when not spoken aloud. It evokes an image of a gallant knight handing a lady a flower, or two youths canoodling beneath a shady tree. When Edér thinks of the word, he thinks of his younger self with Elafa — bright and funny and so incredibly alive. He remembers her twinkling eyes, her sharp mouth, and her loud laugh… not to mention her breasts full and weighty in his hands as she wailed his name…

He also remembers the bitter and brutal side of love. He remembers that pang of longing as he watched Elafa tenderly rocking her hollowborn child, humming a tune the poor babe would never hear. 

He remembers how hopeful he was mere weeks ago after hearing that Elafa might be in Hasongo. How grateful he was when Qwyl promised to set sail for the settlement that very next day. 

He remembers how horrified he was to see the state of the place in the wake of Eothas, littered with bodies and infested with Naga. 

He remembers that strange mix of relief and disappointment upon finding Elafa’s son Bearn among the survivors… only to learn that he wasn’t his. 

Then, he remembers how much grief sank his heart to learn that Elafa had been dead for years. Like so many things, he’d been too late.

He tried his best to do right by her, saving her impressionable son from the grip of the Dawnstar death cult. He did it to help the kid, sure, but mostly he did all of this out of love for a ghost. 

He was only able to do it because from the moment Edér stumbled at the edge of the docks — doubled over, panting, and too late to reach the Dawnstars’ ship with the kid on it — Qwyl didn’t waste a moment. He immediately whistled for his crew on the Defiant, shouting orders to cast off and go after the sloop headed to certain death. 

That fateful day, they fought their way together to the bowels of the ship. The air was filled with the cloying, foul miasma of poison, vomit, evacuated bowels, and blood. But unlike the rest of the vanguard, Bearn was still alive, standing alongside the cult’s leader. The kid was only one swift gulp away from joining his brethren — and mother — in death. 

Thankfully, he hesitated. 

Edér’s voice shook with his desperation, but Qwyl kept calm for both of them. Together, they somehow talked the kid down. 

Edér could barely articulate his relief afterwards, but Qwyl didn’t need him to. He understood that even if Bearn wasn’t his son, he could still see Elafa in him. Hel, he could see himself and his brother in him, teetering on the precipice of abandoning their god. 

Elafa is long gone around the Wheel. And that Edér who was with her has been gone, too. The Edér of today would be a stranger to that bumbling idiot. 

He should have stuck by her. Maybe they’d get a few more happy years together, to spite the world. 

But then… he probably never would have met Qwyl. His best, most loyal friend. His weirdest, most improbable friend. At this point, the idea of that feels unfathomable.  

He had told Qwyl the truth. He hasn’t been this close to someone in over a decade. The friendship they have is already special and precious. 

And yet, the question remains in Edér’s heart of what they could become. 

He wonders if he already knows the answer. 

He wonders if he’s simply been too afraid to admit it. 

Chapter Text

A quiet evening spent aboard the Defiant is a precious one. There are thankfully no ghost or Crookspur slaver ships on the horizon — merely a couple passing trader vessels who keep a polite distance away. The sea has been calm for the most part, but tonight the wind picks up enough to turn the water choppy with the warping white lace of sea foam swirling into the darkness. 

Still growing back his sea legs, Edér staggers up to Qwyl’s door. 

“Hello Edér,” the Steward greets him pleasantly. As usual, the broken marble bust of Caed Nua’s guardian stares unblinkingly forward. 

Edér tilts an invisible hat. 

“Ma’am.”

“You have been looking quite well,” the Steward observes. “There is a healthy color upon your cheeks.”

“Well, I’m not made of stone,” Edér winks at her. 

“As I am very well aware,” the Steward lowers her voice. “I must warn you — the Watcher seems to be troubled by the missive he received.”

“You sayin’ I should leave him be?”

“On the contrary,” the Steward hums. “I believe your company will be a welcome distraction.”

“That bad, huh?” Edér raises his brows. “Thanks for the warning. Should I go grab a cat?”

“One has already found her way in there,” the Steward assures him. “Now, do not let me keep you.”

Edér salutes her once more before rapping on the captain’s door. He doesn’t bother waiting for an answer before letting himself in. 

It’s all become part of his evening routine while at sea. One of these days he’s going to walk in on something horrifying or hilarious, but Edér usually takes furtive inventory of where the rest of their companions are before heading over. This evening he had already spotted Aloth alone having an argument with Iselmyr, which was reassurance enough for him. 

First he spots Del bedded down in his own corner of the room, lovingly piled with hay that makes Edér sneeze. As mentioned by the Steward, curled atop the unbothered stag is a calico cat they picked up somewhere in the Gullet. Both animals look over at Edér as he enters, their ears flicking above sleepy eyes. 

As expected he finds Qwyl at his desk, engrossed in his work. It’s typical of him to take advantage of the relative calm to catch up on correspondence. Right now, he’s frowning down at a certain fancy-looking missive he received an hour or so earlier. Even from here, Edér can get a whiff of the perfumed paper. 

That poor bird who delivered it sure fought mighty hard to find them. Edér and Maia had a good-natured squabble over who got to take care of the tired little guy, but in the end the latter won out… though Edér didn’t like that hungry look in her hawk’s eye. 

It at least kept Edér free for his rematch with Qwyl, who brightens up at once when he notices his friend letting himself in. The animals do too — especially after Edér produces an apple as an offering to Del. 

“Hey buddy,” Edér greets Del fondly, patting at the stag’s neck. “Ma’am.”

The cat closes her eyes into her share of chin scritches. 

“So you came after all!” Qwyl’s voice has to carry over the groan of the ship and the low rumble of waves outside. 

“Whaddya take me for?” Edér huffs. “I ain’t no coward. You challenge me, I’ll take you up on it.”

He nods at the letter in Qwyl’s hand. 

“Secret admirer?”

The Watcher huffs a laugh, glancing down at the paper before holding it out to Edér. 

“It seems the esteemed Captain Aeldys of Fort Deadlight wishes to meet us,” Qwyl says blandly.

Edér takes the note and skims it with a raised brow. Alongside the perfume, the paper is also redolent with smoke and something suspiciously like wine. 

If it weren’t for the whole Skaen-worshipping pirate thing, he might’ve liked this girl. 

“She… lookin’ for a new boy toy now that we blew her other one up?” 

Qwyl sniffs, “More likely she’s looking for revenge.”

“I dunno,” Edér taps on the paper. “The way I’m reading this, she wants to parley. Maybe even hire us to scuttle someone or something.”

He grins cheekily at his friend. 

“Do I sound like a real sailor yet?”

“You’re not a real sailor,” Qwyl smirks, plucking the letter out of his hand. “But you do have a point.”

He sighs, walking back and tossing the missive onto his desk. 

“Shall we?” he drawls, retrieving a hinged box from a shelf behind him. 

“Depends. You done working?”

Qwyl shrugs as he deftly assembles the chessboard. “Captain Aeldys will have to wait until her bird is well to get a response. Until then, you’ll forgive me for using my time as I please.”

With a flourish, Qwyl sets down the black queen. 

“Well come on, then!” he beckons Edér over. “If you're so eager to lose the rest of your dignity.”

“At least take a fella out to dinner first,” Edér plops down into a seat. 

Qwyl playfully shoves his friend’s head on his way towards a cabinet, retrieving a bottle of spirits. 

“I’ve got the next best thing,” he assures him with a waggle of thick, dark eyebrows. “Don’t tell the crew.”

“Aw, ain’t I a lucky, lucky man.”

Edér means it. He doesn’t know what earned him the luck to survive the Saint’s War and that insanity in the Dyrwood; not to mention barely missing being sucked up by Eothas thanks to his delayed arrival at Caed Nua. 

Or maybe he’s as unlucky as Qwyl with the gods once again pulling him into their petty shit. How many times does he have to clean up after his god’s mess? 

Not enough times, apparently. 

But it’s hard to feel truly unlucky right now, especially with Qwyl’s cheerful humming in the background. He hands the bottle to Edér to serve while he continues to set up a new game. 

This weathered chess set has become something of a treasure to Qwyl, and rightfully so. The crew had ‘liberated’ it from a slaver ship they raided a few weeks back, presenting it to their captain as a gift soon afterwards. That combined with the dozen slaves they rescued from the ship’s hold had Qwyl positively misty-eyed that whole evening.  

He was also delighted to realize that each battered chess piece had a little magnet inside to keep it stuck to the board, which was sure handy any time the ship pitched one way or another. It blew Edér’s mind at the time, and after that inaugural game they continued a ritual of playing together ever since. He was a little rusty, sure, but so was Qwyl — at first. 

Maybe the Watcher was doing that spooky thing where he’d peer into someone’s soul. That would be the only explanation as to how the damned dwarf got so good so quickly. That or Qwyl was simply being his usual self; always learning fast, unlike an old dog like Edér. Always thinking on his feet, practically charming the pants off their ragtag crew and the Huana queen herself. 

Edér can’t blame any of them. With a dense dark beard, a smooth voice, and an almost disconcertingly bright smile, Qwyl’s got a look about him. It’s unusual to see a boreal dwarf in these parts, let alone one so disarmingly articulate. He may be just over half Edér’s height, but Qwyl has a certain gravitas around him that makes him seem so much taller to everyone he meets. 

His big ol’ stag friend and jaunty feathered hat helps with that too. 

Edér supposes that he and Aloth are the only ones who get to see the Qwyl beneath the hat and fancy titles. Although Pallegina also traveled with them back then, they have known Qwyl since before he got his keep; back when he was a recently-awakened merchant flying by the seat of his pants right into the Dyrwood’s latest crisis. 

Here in the creaky boat that has become their new base, Edér counts himself lucky he gets to see this real and relaxed version of his friend now. 

“The winner in white goes first,” Qwyl says a little too smugly, making his play.

An hour into their game and the two have drifted in and out of conversation and concentration. Qwyl goes quiet, which Edér hopes means that he’s giving his friend something of a challenge. It gives him time to let his eyes linger on Qwyl while he is preoccupied with studying the chessboard. 

Without his armor, Qwyl’s clothing falls into soft folds around his stocky body. After a maddening week of getting pulled every which way by every faction’s interests, seeing him relaxed like this is a victory in itself. That said, judging by the shadows beneath his eyes, the man could clearly use some sleep. 

But not too much sleep. Edér won’t forget the time he sat vigil by the Watcher’s side in this very cabin, waiting as his friend slept like the dead. 

He felt terrible back then, but now? He feels an odd twisting in his stomach. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s enough to preoccupy him until Qwyl asks —

“Still with me?”

“Huh?” Edér blinks over at him.

Qwyl eyes him with amusement as he relaxes back onto the bench, a hand running absently through that thatch of black hair. 

A lock of it falls out of place, curving over his brow. 

“Your mind is elsewhere,” Qwyl observes. “We don’t have to keep playing.”

“Nah, nah that’s not it,” Edér scratches at his flushing face before taking his turn. 

Qwyl frowns and leans towards him as he examines the board. Unhelpfully, his shirt has fallen open to expose the dark curls of his chest hair and a pillow of soft, russet skin. 

Since when has Edér ever cared for details like those in another man?

“I… had been wondering,” Qwyl admits awkwardly as he moves his knight. “Did I embarrass you with that swimming competition the other day? I certainly put you on the spot…”

“That’s not it either,” Edér waves him away, moving his knight back in response. 

The image of Qwyl bare-assed and grinning is not helping him think straight in the slightest. 

The Watcher in front of him is much more serious as he waits for him to find his words. Qwyl has always done that, hasn’t he? Ever since they met by the hanging tree in Gilded Vale, he’s been a man who thinks before he speaks; as if every word is as deliberate as the steps he and his stag take while hunting in the woods.

They could sit there for an hour and Qwyl still would seem comfortable in the silence — and Edér with him. 

Usually, anyway. 

“Curious strategy you’ve got there,” Qwyl remarks. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you—”

“What you said before…” Edér blurts at last. “I mean, what you asked me. A while back.”

He leans back in his seat, arranging himself into what he hopes is a nonchalant pose. Qwyl’s brow furrows as he considers his next move. 

“I’ve asked you many things,” he says slowly, eyes still on the board. “You’ll have to be specific.”

Edér may be big and dumb, but after five years of friendship it’s safe to say that he knows most of the Watcher’s tells. 

“You asked if I ever thought about ‘us,’” Edér reminds him. In response to Qwyl’s foolhardy move, he plops a lowly little pawn down to threaten Qwyl’s knight. 

A surprised — and then guilty — expression passes over Qwyl’s face. He recovers in time to take his turn. 

“Edér,” he huffs a laugh. “Truly, it was a mere passing thought. A flight of fancy. I didn’t actually want it to change anything at the time.”

Edér gives a dubious snort. Qwyl is more than capable of bluffing, but he is failing miserably at it now. 

“I mean, alright, I did,” Qwyl amends. “But only if you wanted it to. And you made it clear to me that you didn’t think of me that way, so look…”

He gestures down at the board between them. 

“…nothing has changed.”

After moving his queen into position, Edér occupies himself with a sip of his drink. 

“I dunno, Watcher,” he drawls. “If you ask me, everything around us is changing.” 

“That doesn’t mean we have to.”

Magran’s flame, is Qwyl talking himself out of it this time?

It has been three weeks since that awkward conversation between them. Qwyl’s right — nothing important has changed. They have still acted like old pals joking around with each other. They still spend these evenings smoking on the deck, or playing games in the captain’s cabin as they debrief any of the Deadfire powers’ latest errands. 

Despite the subject, Edér feels remarkably at ease now, here alone with Qwyl in his cabin. He doesn’t at all feel uncomfortable like he did when Xoti shook him awake with a bottle of rum and a sly smile. He doesn’t feel heated and stupid like he did when Elafa gazed at him through long lashes and with her slender hands sliding up his chest. 

When he looks at Qwyl now, he simply feels full. Contented. 

“Perhaps we should call it a night,” Qwyl suggests gently. “We can pick this up tom—?”

“No,” Edér blurts. 

Qwyl blinks at him, taken aback. 

“I wouldn’t mind staying longer,” Edér continues awkwardly. “If you’re… not gonna sleep.”

He couldn’t stop those words from coming out. 

Not when Eothas might step on them any minute now.  

Del huffs in his corner, beady black eyes appraising Edér as well.  

“Oh. Alright,” Qwyl frowns. “We can still put the game aside. Whatever you wish to discuss, I shall stay up as long as you need.”

A discussion? Edér’s not sure of that. Nothing that comes out of his mouth is eloquent or appropriate sometimes. But something needs to be said. 

Or done. 

“I… I’ve got poor manners,” Qwyl stands up abruptly. “I neglected to pour us any water. Let me get you a—”

Before he can pass him by, Edér’s hand lands firmly upon his shoulder. 

The air grows tense and still. If there are chatting crewmates or crashing waves outside of this cabin, Edér can’t hear them. 

When their eyes meet, he feels himself lost in the dark depths of Qwyl’s gaze — nearly hidden beneath furrowed brows. 

Those very brows jump up in surprise as momentum carries Edér forward. 

With the steady rocking of the boat, the kiss ends up harder than he intended. Qwyl’s lips part in a soft, surprised gasp at the bold contact. Bristly mustache aside, his lips are surprisingly plush and warm against Edér’s. He almost laughs at how ticklish the dwarf’s facial hair is against his skin, though everywhere else their respective whiskers rasp together. Qwyl’s beard is far softer than Edér anticipated — almost like whenever he would nuzzle his face into the sheeps’ wool growing up… except it smells a lot better, for sure. 

That must be the beard oil he keeps talking about, Edér recalls vaguely. Maybe he will take him up on the offer to share…

Recovering from his shock, Qwyl closes his eyes and presses his lips back into his with dizzying intensity. An actual laugh fully bubbles out of Edér at that, fueled by a thrilled giddiness he hasn’t felt for years now. Relief loosens a knot of uncertainty in his chest as his hand relaxes, sliding slowly down Qwyl’s arm.

“What’s so funny?” Qwyl murmurs against his lips. 

“Nothin’,” Edér chuckles. “Just not used to, um…”

Another brush of lips momentarily steals his breath away. 

“…beard,” he finishes gruffly. “Don’t usually smooch ladies with ‘em.”

“I suppose there’s a first for everything.”

In reply Edér’s other hand flies up to cup the back of Qwyl’s neck, pulling him back in close. Edér vaguely recalls that there's a whole choreography to this dance, but he doesn’t remember any of the routine. All he knows is how to greedily grasp for more of the man in order to bring him closer and taste him deeper…

A hearty groan erupts from them both as Qwyl’s tongue flicks against his. Clumsily, hungrily, they indulge in the heated push and pull of their mouths — tugging, sucking, and with each thrust of tongue nearly fucking between ragged breaths.

At some point Edér grasps hold of Qwyl’s hips, pulling him down to a seat upon his thigh and holding him there until he can feel the press of the firm, hot line of his —

Only then do they jerk apart; Qwyl falling unsteadily back on his feet while a reeling Edér pants and slumps in his chair. 

For their part, Del still watches with mild interest from his corner while the cat grooms herself without much care for the proceedings. 

Even having sprung apart, Edér’s hand still clings to Qwyl’s sleeve.

They are still so, so close… 

“Ah… damn,” Edér breathes after a moment. “You… do that often?”

“Kiss men?” Qwyl’s voice is rough, his eyes still penetrating into Edér’s. “Not often enough, clearly.”

“Women, then?”

“Edér,” Qwyl’s voice breaks with his laugh. “Does it matter?”

His face is bashful, but there is also a telltale hunger in his eyes. 

“I’ve dreamt of doing that for years,” Qwyl admits softly. 

His body is solid and warm — far more muscular than Edér is used to embracing as he collides back into him. Qwyl’s calloused hands slide over his back and up his nape, squeezing into his short flaxen hair as he kisses him with a relentless, almost suffocating fervor. 

All this time?

Damn. 

Edér falls back in his seat beneath Qwyl’s weight, legs spreading open to allow him to crowd closer between them. In a rare moment of being eye to eye, Qwyl braces himself against the desk as he continues to press forth and kiss Edér silly. It’s a surprise the dwarf hasn’t outright climbed into his lap in his enthusiasm. 

Despite his fervor, for some reason Qwyl hasn’t tried to use his tongue again since that first time. Edér knows that if he wants to hear those thrilling little sounds again, it would be up to him. And so he angles his mouth against Qwyl’s, daring to thrust and slide his tongue against his. The Watcher practically melts into him, breathing hard through his nose as he staggers in place — scattering some of the chess pieces even from their magnetized bases.  

Edér’s heart pounds like a drum. Good thing he’s sitting, otherwise he might collapse completely with the way Qwyl’s touch is undoing everything he knows about the two of them. 

Them. 

‘Us.’

There’s hardly any air left between them — just layers of cloth and belts catching on each other, tightening and constricting the fronts of their —

It is a loud chuff from Del that shakes them from their shared reverie. But even after they both pull back once more, they still remain there — limbs entangled, clothing rumpled, and tense bodies pressed together and panting. 

Edér is uncomfortably aware of the straining, aching tightness trapped between them both. Even the smallest movement threatens to send him right into an unwise, unfettered madness that is sounding better and better by the second…

“…whoa,” Edér breaks the silence at last. 

Qwyl lets out a ragged breath. 

“Did you… mean to do that?” he asks. 

Well it’s not like Edér tripped into the kiss. 

Still, like the cautious ranger he once was, Qwyl pulls away. Uncertainty returns to the man who had been moving so confidently with Edér mere seconds earlier.  

“Maybe?” 

Edér’s voice is still hazy, his tongue heavy with the phantom sensation of Qwyl teasing it with his own. 

But Qwyl no longer looks as happy as before. 

“Why now?” he asks.

Edér blinks lazily up at him, his mind sluggish and unsated, “I dunno, it just felt… right.”

Surprisingly — for a man. 

Damn it, why did Edér never think to try it sooner? It could have saved him a whole lotta lonely nights…

Except that’s not what he wants from Qwyl — or at least, not all he wants. He doesn’t know if sex is something he’d ever want from him. He wouldn’t even know where to begin when it comes to making love with another man. 

And Hel, what if he’s bad at it? He’s always been decent with the ladyfolk — or so they told him, at least. If he turns out to be shit at this and disappoints Qwyl of all people, he’d never be able to show his face in here again. 

Qwyl continues to retreat. 

“Hey,” Edér’s hand twitches out in an aborted gesture. “Listen, I—”

“Yes. You, ah…” Qwyl closes his eyes. “Before anything goes too far, you should really think about this.”

Edér’s done nothing but think. Every night, ever since that conversation at Periki’s Overlook. 

He wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. 

With some difficulty, Edér stands up with a groan. “Qwyl—”

“You should think about whether this is something you want,” Qwyl comes back around, gesturing agitatedly between the both of them. “Whether… I’m someone you actually want.”

Yikes, and right when it was getting so good…

At least Qwyl is closer now, temptingly back within reach. Edér’s done this sort of song and dance before. Whether lady or not, all he needs to do is reach out and —

He freezes. Despite being so far down, Qwyl’s hand has somehow reached his cheek first.

He was always quick to the draw. 

The Watcher’s smile is sad and small as his thumb brushes hesitantly against the blond bristles lining his jaw. Edér gawks down at him, shivering despite the warmth of his friend’s touch. 

“You’ve had a lot to drink,” Qwyl murmurs. “Sleep on it, alright?” 

He really hasn’t. Unlike Aloth, Edér’s got a high tolerance for alcohol. Hel, he and Qwyl haven’t even finished that first bottle together.

But Edér’s not that thick-headed. The fact is, Qwyl wants him to leave. 

“Yeah,” Edér manages. “I’ll… go do that.”

Maybe he should put up more of a fight against Qwyl’s assumptions, whatever they are. 

Maybe he is a coward after all. 

But just as he begins to turn towards the door, the room begins to tilt. Like Ondra’s idea of a practical joke, a rogue wave chooses that moment to rush the ship, sending him stumbling right back into the sturdy Watcher. 

Somewhere above deck, he can hear Little Leuca cursing and Chiputec laughing.  

Here in the cabin, Edér looms over Qwyl now. He doesn’t miss how a blush spreads across the dwarf’s cheeks as they steady each other enough to regain their sea legs.  

It breaks enough tension for Edér to crack a smile.

“...one for the road?” he quips.

Qwyl’s eyes sparkle despite everything.

Maybe not all is lost after all. 

“The long, hard road to the bunks?” Qwyl drawls.

The way he enunciates a couple of those words has Edér feeling a little dizzy. But before he can figure out a witty reply, Qwyl goes up on tiptoes, pulling him irresistibly down by the shoulder. He presses those plush lips to Edér’s cheek, his beard again tickling at his ear. When he pulls away, the dazed Edér can’t help but follow after a little, his hand floating up to his own cheek. 

But Qwyl is already pulling open the door, his expression unreadable as he motions for Edér to leave. 

“Go on,” Qwyl smiles tightly at him. “It’s late. Get some rest.”

Edér feels an uneasy twisting in his gut. 

“Watcher…”

“We’ll revisit this,” Qwyl assures him — wearily. “Soon. I promise.”

The door closes a little too forcefully in Edér’s wake. 

—

Edér can barely sleep that night.

How can he, with the memory of Qwyl’s warm, solid weight between his legs, pressing and moving against him?

How can he, when he knows how those pillowy lips feel and taste against his? When he knows how eagerly they part for his tongue? When he can’t help but imagine them stretched tight and slick around his —

Edér’s eyes fly open. 

Oh. 

Well… that’s a first. 

Why does there have to be so many of the crew around him? Why does he have to think of this now, of all times?

With a soft groan hopefully lost beneath the creaking of the ship, he fumbles with his trousers, adjusting the unhelpful state of himself.

His hand lingers. 

Gods.

He’d laugh if it wasn’t him. 

It’s gonna be a long, hard night for sure.

‘Soon,’ Qwyl had promised. 

The way things are going out there, that could mean days. Weeks. Months, even. 

Just a few hours earlier, Edér was simply thinking up a strategy to get back at the Watcher for chess. Now, he wonders if they’ll be having any more games at all. 

Why was Qwyl so upset? Wasn’t this what he wanted before, or did that change over the past few weeks? With Edér’s rejection, maybe Qwyl took that as a cue to move on to other prospects. Edér wouldn’t have blamed him… even as the idea of it makes his blood chill in dismay. 

Or did he only change his mind as soon as he finally experienced what Edér was actually like? Was it that bad? He thought it went pretty well, considering his previous hangups about the idea of it, but maybe he was far rustier than he originally thought. 

When he kissed Qwyl, it did admittedly feel different than with any girl he was with before. Not necessarily better, but different. The beard was one major difference, but another was the soft, low sounds Qwyl breathed out that resonated into Edér’s lips. His hands were broad and strong, kneading into his muscles like he wanted nothing more than to rub away every ache and strain from these days of fighting and traveling. 

As the ship sways his restless body to sleep, Edér spares a thought or ten for his dear friend. 

In his dreams, he remembers the tickle of a beard and the gleam of blissful eyes from beneath long, dark lashes. He feels the drum of their hearts and the duet of their breaths and whispers.

He revels in this strange new song in his heart, rocked by the sea and his dearest friend’s smile.

Chapter Text

A week later, Edér finds himself squinting through a spyglass at the skiff full of liberated slaves. He knows that he’s not the only one holding his breath that they’ll depart unaccosted by an imposing fleet of Royal Deadfire Company ships. 

“Huh,” Edér grunts. “This Aeldys gal might not be half bad.”

“How we be knowin’ she’s not keeping ‘em for a new kind of slavery? Or slicin’ ‘em up for Skaen?” Serafen scowls. “No one does anything out of the goodness of their hearts.”

“No, but she wanted to sabotage Furrante, didn’t she?” Maia chimes in evenly. “She’ll need them to be grateful, loyal, and living. Anyway, what matters is that they’ll be better with her than in that dungeon or on the auction block.”

She had reunited with her brother on one of the Royal Deadfire Company’s suspiciously well-armed ships. They exchanged the good-natured ribbing of siblings, and the normally self-disciplined Maia is practically vibrating with nervous pride as she watches the RDC move in.  

While Qwyl looked like he was longing to jump ship and catch up with his friend after years apart, his expression has also been somewhat drawn. After all, this sudden military presence was a surprise — and not a pleasant one. 

“I tell Maia I miss the rough country once,” he mutters to Edér, nervously drumming his fingers upon the Defiant’s railing. “Then twice now we walk outside to find an entire Rauataian fleet.”

“Maybe they missed you,” Edér jokes. 

“Who can blame them?” Qwyl replies blandly. “I’m simply irresistible.”

You don’t even know, Edér thinks silently to himself. 

But Qwyl is preoccupied. 

“Where the Hel were they waiting?” he wonders fretfully to himself. “And how did we not see them?”

He glances over to the Wahaki natives glowering at the passing Rauataians from their deck. 

“Better us than slavers, trencher,” Maia says, clapping him on the shoulder. 

“Yes,” Qwyl sighs. “…I hope.”

It takes a couple days of sailing to return to Ori o Koīki. Their welcome is far warmer than the first time. Though there are still a bevy of arrows trained on them from above, they are eventually greeted with smiles and cheers that light up the painted faces of the fierce and normally wary natives. 

Even Ruāsare embraces Qwyl, literally lifting the surprised dwarf off his feet. 

And just like that — the alliance between the Wahaki and Queen Onekaza has been secured at last. To what end? Edér has no idea. 

Whatever the consequences, in what feels like no time at all the village prepares a feast to welcome home their people, the crew that freed them, as well as the other former slaves who on board. The celebrations kick off just before sundown, torches and the sunset casting a warm glow over the village. The scents of roasting meat, freshly-cut fruit, and spices fill the air along with the sound of laughter and music. 

It’s a completely different village. Even the warriors’ animal companions let Edér scratch them behind the ears without risk of losing his hands. 

But despite the cheer in the air, Edér hasn’t yet found the man of the hour. 

“You haven’t seen the Watcher, have you?” he asks every other person. “About yea high, black beard, big hat?”

“Watcher?”

Edér turns to see one of the newer members of the crew — that redheaded man who spoke gibberish and hit hard. He was awful pretty and funny for someone they fished out unconscious and dehydrated from the flotsam.  

“Hey,” Edér greets him. “Uh… Rekke, was it?”

The man grins, a flurry of incomprehensible words babbling from his lips. 

“I’m looking for the Watcher,” Edér enunciates, awkwardly miming an approximation of the dwarf’s height and firing twin pistols with his fingers. “Have you seen him?”

“The Watcher?” Rekke nods enthusiastically. “Aye — there!”

He points in the direction of the beach below the village. Of course Qwyl is doing that thing he does, wandering off to contemplate alone — with Del nearby, of course. 

Edér’s hardly familiar with this island, but intuition brings him to a relatively remote corner of the beach. He spots Del first, resting upon the ground with Qwyl reclining against his side, his bare feet and fingers buried in the fine sand. The pink glow of sunset illuminates his face in the falling darkness. 

“What’re you doing all the way over here?” Edér calls. “Party’s that way.”

Qwyl lets his head fall lazily back, a hint of a smile on his lips as he watches Edér approach.  

“I made my appearance,” Qwyl shrugs. “I simply wished to… think… somewhere away from the action.”

Edér hums, taking out his pipe and absently packing in his whiteleaf. 

“Thinkin’ of taking over Crookspur?”

Qwyl huffs a laugh, shaking his head. 

“I have no interest in challenging the RDC,” he says dryly. 

“I dunno, I think you deserve to treat yourself after clearing out the fort for them.”

Qwyl nods back in the direction of where a couple of the Wahaki are teaching some of the crew and former slaves how to do some kind of dance. 

“That there?” he murmurs. “That’s a reward in itself.”

Edér follows his eyes. 

“Damn. You really are thinking.”

“I know. Dreadful, isn’t it?” Qwyl drawls. 

He grasps hold of Del’s lowered antlers, letting the stag pull him to his feet before wandering away to snack. Qwyl lets out a groan, dusting himself off and shuffling down towards the water’s edge. A gentle tide surges over the sand, whispering away before roaring back. 

“Join me for a drink?” Qwyl murmurs, holding up a bottle of spirits.

Edér glances down at his unlit pipe. 

Eh, it can wait, he supposes. 

He follows Qwyl towards the water’s edge that rolls serenely upon the shore.   

“What're we drinking to this time?” Edér asks. 

“To slaves,” Qwyl says simply. 

He uncorks the bottle and takes a deep swig from it before holding it out to his friend. Edér takes it, watching the gulp ride down Qwyl's throat before taking a drink himself. 

Then, he returns the bottle only for Qwyl to tilt it over the wet sand. 

“One for those who escaped…”

The trickle of spirit glitters in the meager light. 

“Another for those we saved…”

Those drops form a smoother stream. 

“…and the rest for those of whom we were too late.”

He upends the bottle, watching as the remaining liquid drains into the sea. It must have only been half-full, for it doesn’t take long. 

“C’mon,” Edér ducks his head to catch Qwyl’s eyes. “Now’s not the time to get down on yourself. You did some real good back there. Freeing those slaves. The natives.”

“Cutting down slavers?”

Qwyl shakes out the last drops and scowls at the bottle as if considering whether to let the whole thing fall before thinking better of it. 

“What?” Edér chuckles darkly. “Don’t tell me you’ll shed a tear for them now.”

Qwyl scoffs, “Do you see any?”

“Naw,” Edér takes the opportunity to light his pipe. “I’m only surprised you stood back and let Master Kua bleed out slow.”

It was a tense moment back there. Though he was an orlan in every bit of his appearance and stature, Master Kua was the cold and calculating brains behind the Crookspur slavers. For a moment, Edér thought those brains would get splattered against the wall by one of the Watcher’s pistols.  

But Qwyl simply stepped back, holstering his pistols with an almost indifferent air. It was their own orlan — Serafen — who ran the slaver through. 

Master Kua’s rolling eyes, nose, and ears were already bleeding from whatever vengeance the cipher was exacting in his mind. 

Now, the former slave made sure his dying body would feel it too. 

Qwyl shrugs, “He was Serafen’s kill.”

“Yeah, but…” Edér eyes him. “You don’t usually like to let 'em linger.”

Qwyl absently raises the empty bottle to his lips before lowering it. 

“I already had the privilege of taking down the taskmaster and his toys of torture down in the dungeons,” he says bitterly. “I wouldn’t deprive Serafen the satisfaction of gutting the man running it all.”

He sighs, scrubbing at the side of his face. 

“Who am I kidding,” he grouses. “I didn’t stop anything. Crookspur was but one stop for the slave trade in Eora. The reality is that it’s so much bigger than them. Someone else will take their place, if not on Crookspur Island, then somewhere else in the archipelago.”

“Maybe,” Edér shrugs. “But you stopped something. And that made a world of difference to those fellas over there.”

He gestures with his thumb back at the clumsy dance circle further up the beach, but Qwyl barely cracks a smile as Edér nervously goes back to puffing on his pipe. 

“Now, call it a hunch…” he hesitates. “But this whole thing seems awful personal to you.”

Of all things that causes Qwyl to let out a cheerless bark of laughter. 

“…sorry,” he mutters, rubbing at his neck. “It’s not as if you would know. I never told you much about the B.D. era.”

Edér blinks at him. 

“‘B.D.?’”

“‘Before Del,’” Qwyl clarifies. 

Edér always thought he knew his friend pretty well. But it occurs to him now that after five years of friendship and more nights than he can count of chatting that he never really quizzed Qwyl about his past. At least, not beyond the fact that he used to be a merchant traveling between Rauatai, the Living Lands, and Aedyr. He cut, sold, and appraised gems and other precious stones until bandits made off with his entire inventory, leaving him keen to attempt a new start in the Dyrwood. 

Qwyl never volunteered much beyond that. Hel, Edér didn’t even know if Qwyl had family somewhere, even when Qwyl asked so often about Edér’s. 

It doesn’t sit well with him now. Or maybe it’s something he ate earlier at the feast. 

“Now’s as good a time as any,” Edér says merrily, blowing out some smoke. 

Qwyl glances up at him, his smile tight and rueful as he begins.  

“You don’t see many boreal dwarves in Rauatai. Ocean aside, there's an entire continent between there and Naasitaq. But anyone can make it to the rough country by sheer will. Or, rather…” he sighs, “…against their will.”

Edér lets out a hacking cough.  

“I’ll be the effigy… You sayin’ you were a slave?”

“No,” Qwyl replies curtly. “But my mother was.”

He gestures vaguely towards the ocean. 

“They must have captured her somewhere around these waters,” he muses. “She was, what, seventeen? Young. Strong. Pretty. Ended up being sold to some old jeweler in Old Vailia. He was alright but his son, well…”

Qwyl grimaces. 

“…let’s just say that he couldn’t keep his damn hands to himself.”

Edér grunts, kicking at the sand. 

“Then only a few years in, her master passed away, leaving that piece of shit to inherit her. He promptly ran the family business into the ground and took her along with the rest of his retinue when he fled his creditors. They had to stop in Tâkowa for business, but it must not have gone well, for he took it out on his slaves for three nights. Even his own apprentices didn’t make it out unscathed by his drunken fury, but at least they could leave. 

“And yet, even with a broken arm my mother managed to drug the bastard and help the other slaves escape with her. His headman sent the guards after them, but by the time he found her, the city’s guards were waiting.”

Qwyl chuckles, “As you saw, they don’t care much for slavery in the rough country, so when they arrested him and ‘confiscated’ his belongings, they freed the slaves in the process — and won my mother’s loyalty. 

“She stuck around in Tâkowa after that, claiming all of her former master’s tools and inventory. I think she started out trying to earn enough coin to charter transport back to Naasitaq. But… then she got cozy with one of the local dwarves.”

He motions down at himself. 

“Five kids later, she’s one of the best lapidarists in Tâkowa. She can spot a fake gem from a mile away, so I’m sure you can imagine how hard it was to get away with any kind of mischief.”

“What a lady,” Edér chuckles, puffing out smoke around his pipe. “She still kickin’ around over there?”

Qwyl smiles fondly. 

“Oh yes. She takes orders from no one — except her clients, I suppose.”

He shrugs. 

“I grew up a bratty child who didn’t understand what she had gone through, or why she was so loyal to the Ranga Nui. We were lucky that even if we didn’t go into the family business, we still got to pursue the apprenticeships that we did. Dream as we did.

“Though to be fair, she didn’t sit my ungrateful ass down to tell me her story until I was all packed up, ready to hawk my wares and see the world,” he huffs ruefully. “At first I thought it was to get me to stay, but no… she said that she wanted me to enjoy the freedom of youth that she never had. See everything she never got to see. 

“So yes,” he concludes. “I suppose you could say that Crookspur was personal.”

Edér nods slowly. 

“Damn.”

He holds his pipe out.

“Now don’t go pouring this stuff into the ocean,” he warns Qwyl. “I ‘borrowed’ it from Kua’s study.”

Qwyl appreciatively accepts the offering. As he raises it thoughtfully to his lips, it occurs to Edér that smoking the pipe together has been the closest they’ve been to sharing a kiss ever since that one time in the captain’s quarters...

He shakes himself.

Now's not the time.

“I meant it, you know?” Edér says. “You. Me. All of us. We did right by the people there. Well, the Wahaki and slaves anyway.”

Qwyl exhales some smoke towards the starry night sky. 

“I know everyone else will be happy, but what about those damned Vailians?” he makes a face. “Furrante. Castol. I’m not going to act sorry that I destroyed their side business.”

“I don’t think you should either,” Edér assures him. “Anyway, that’s a problem for later. Tonight? You should celebrate. At least you should check in on our new friends. Bet they haven’t had full bellies in a long time.”

They had rescued dozens. Some of them went with Aeldys’s smuggler, but Qwyl offered some of their remaining space below or above deck to the rest. Among them was the death godlike from the auction block that he had purchased and subsequently freed. This kith, who referred to himself as ‘Handsome Eliam,’ had spent the voyage as a newly-freed man considering his possible directions — among them offering his services to the Temple of Berath or remaining on board as a paid member of Qwyl’s crew. Long, curving horns and spooky face plate aside, he’d fit in just fine among the other Dyrwoodians. 

“Maybe I should,” Qwyl says. Holding the pipe back out to Edér, his eyes flick shyly up to meet his. “But... could I steal a moment longer with you?”

Edér’s heart lurches a little at the cautious invitation. 

“Steal away,” he says.

It would be so easy to lean down and kiss him. 

Edér imagines that the pipe would slip from his fingers. There would be a soft hiss as smoldering ashes scatter into the sand. 

Meanwhile, Qwyl would shudder into the kiss, fingers curling over the nape of Edér’s neck, pulling him down to him. It would be hard to tell who started it, but neither of them would be eager to be the one to end it. 

Even when they pull a little away to catch their breath, they will remain there — standing together with the pipe forgotten in the sand at their feet.  

Instead of taking another drag of his charring whiteleaf, Edér breathes in deep the night’s sea air; the scent of smoke and cooking food; the sound of joy and relief floating amid the whisper of the tides. 

“I was hoping to get your thoughts on the RDC,” Qwyl mutters. “Especially now that we’ve been getting friendly with the Huana. All things will come to a head in time, and when it does…”

Edér nods along, very aware of the warmth of Qwyl’s body beside him and his hand so close to his own. 

His heart thrums with a hopeful sort of anticipation. The Wahaki’s celebration seems so far away now. As far as Edér cares, they have the beach all to themselves. 

“Well?” Qwyl prompts him after an expectant pause. “What’s your take?”

Edér wants nothing more than to smooth those troubled lines between his thick, dark brows…

“Huh. Well, I think… um.”

Edér fumbles. 

Qwyl sighs, “You weren’t listening to any of that, were you?”

Edér lets his free hand drift closer. 

“Nah, not at all.”

“I don’t blame you. I can’t even sort out my thoughts in my own… head…”

Qwyl trails off as Edér’s fingers brush and curl against his own, lingering with a question.  

When he looks back up at Edér, there is only cautious curiosity in his eyes. 

But he doesn’t move away. 

So maybe Qwyl still wants him after all?

Edér imagines letting himself fall forward to pin him down against the sand, rocking into him as he helps his friend release the doubt entangled in his shattered soul —

“Uh, Captain?”

Qwyl’s fingers slip free as the dwarf turns around, smiling at the death godlike awkwardly wringing his hands a few paces away. 

“Eliam!” Qwyl greets him. He straightens his hat and billowing shirt, leaving Edér’s side to approach the former slave. “Have you eaten yet?”

“Yes, mast—sir. Sorry, sir,” Handsome Eliam doesn’t have discernible eyes beneath that bony face-plate, yet still Edér can somehow see his gaze flicking between the two of them. “But I was thinking…”

Qwyl shoots Edér an apologetic smile as he walks over and beckons Handsome Eliam to follow him further up the beach. 

Edér groans softly, his empty hand flexing. He takes another moment for himself before dumping out the pipe’s ashes and rejoining the celebrations. 

He’s always felt lucky for anything he could get. It seems selfish to try to demand more privacy with the Watcher, especially when he seems to be the most in-demand kith on all of Eora. Even the gods seem eager to vie for his time. 

How’s Edér supposed to compete with that?

—

“We’ll want to personally deliver the news to the queen,” Qwyl announces to his crew the next day. “Provided no dragons decide to swoop down upon us again, we’ll have two days of shore leave before setting sail once more.”

Half of their crew are visibly hungover, while the other half — judging by their squinting eyes and their wincing at the ringing bell — are simply pretending not to be. All the same, cheers erupt from the crew at the prospect of some much-needed freedom. 

“But before then, we’ll need to make a supply stop in Fort Deadlight,” Qwyl continues, a little less enthusiastically. 

That’s where they’ll be leaving the rest of the former slaves, as well as meeting with Captain Aeldys to collect their reward for a job well done. 

Edér only hopes their reward won’t be found at the bottom of the sea. 

As the gathering disperses, he realizes that Qwyl is making a beeline right for him, the feather in his hat buffeted by the wind. 

“Shore leave, huh?” Edér greets him. “Does that mean that the crew spends all their coin and you run around doin’ more work?”

Qwyl grins with a small shake of his head. 

“I intend to relax for at least one of the days,” he assures him. Then, in a much softer voice he adds, “If you would prefer to save your coin, we could split a room at the Luminous Bathhouse.”

It’s a casual suggestion that sucks all the air out of Edér’s chest. 

“Well… you know. Money’s tight,” he says, as if they didn’t just plunder all of Crookspur. Most of the coin they distributed among the slaves, but they also gathered a bevy of weapons that threatened to sink the ship, as well as some cut gems — the majority of which Qwyl declared genuine after squinting at each of them through his loupe. 

Even if that weren’t the case, the idea of a private room for… whatever reasons… sounds worth its weight in gold. 

“Dunno about you, but I could use a real bath that’s not a river or, well, Tekēhu,” Edér adds. “No offense to the big guy. Or you and your... captaining.”

“None taken.” 

Qwyl’s eyes do a once-over that stirs something funny in Edér’s core. 

When the dwarf smiles, it’s something unexpectedly wolfish and thrilling.  

“I can’t wait,” he breathes. 

—

Typical of their luck, the best-laid plans often go astray. 

Edér should have figured that an easy sailing to Neketaka was unlikely. Given the distance, it was always likely that something would come up to divert their course. 

This time, it’s an attack from a ship disguised as a merchant vessel in need of aid. Too helpful for his own good, Qwyl ignores his boatswain’s warning and orders their ship to pull up right alongside them —

— right into their trap. 

Though it flies no colors, the fact that the ambush comes soon after defying Captain Furrante’s ‘request’ is no coincidence, in Edér’s opinion. 

They spot the hidden gun ports too late, possibly hidden by magic until the first volley that sends splinters flying over the Defiant’s deck — swiftly followed by the pirates emerging from the veil of smoke to board their boat. 

Luckily they’re old hands at this by now. Qwyl’s crew leaps into action, fending off the intruders and launching an assault of their own from the gun deck. 

Alongside the kith crew, Del does his fair share of knocking aside the pirates who clearly did not expect to encounter a pissed-off full-grown stag at sea. 

But that all changes when Qwyl is tossed aside by some hulking bastard with a sword, separating him from his companion’s side. 

It’s far from the first time this has happened, and after a minute of the two of them fighting separately Edér hears his friend’s telltale whistle that means —

“Del! To me!”

On command the stag barrels through the unsuspecting enemies between them, bludgeoning and knocking them aside with his antlers. But some of the pirates think fast. A weighted net tangles around the charging stag, tripping him and sending him crashing into the chaos of the deck. A moment later, Del lets out a deafening screech as a spear skewers into his side. 

“Bastards!” Qwyl howls over the chaos. 

He manages to send a couple bullets through two pirates’ heads, but the damage is done, worsening as Del struggles to free himself from the net. He’s gushing too much blood and screeching, screeching, screeching —  

Next thing Edér knows, he’s crashing into the two spearmen about to finish off their quarry. Two slashes of his sabres across their throats and bellies, and soon they fall away, souls sent on their merry way to the Wheel. 

“Hold on, boy!” Edér beseeches Del. The stag breathes rapidly, the whites of his agonized eyes visible as the man puts pressure around the spear’s wound — fighting the urge to pull it out from his suffering friend. “I know it hurts, but your daddy’s gonna be here real soon to fix you up…!”

True to his word, Qwyl arrives seconds later ashen, bloodied, and unfocused. That’ll have to do — at least Edér is free to stand up and defend them both while Qwyl tends to Del. 

"I've got you," he can hear the Watcher babble. "I've got you...!"

And I've got you too, Edér thinks to himself.

—

In the end, none of their crew are killed in the attack, but besides Del there are plenty of grievous injuries among the crew and damage to the boat. 

The enemy ship fared far worse, of course. The Defiant was crawling with their spell-casters and ciphers, and on top of their marksmen and swordsmen, the scuttlers didn’t stand a chance. Any survivors more or less confirmed Edér’s suspicions — those who didn’t take the first chance to leap into the sea, at least. 

Clearly Furrante didn’t pay these fellas enough. 

While the prisoners are being dragged to the brig and their ship sacked and sunk, Qwyl is going hoarse shouting orders to get the injured into the surgery. With all the healers occupied, he continues to tend to Del’s wounds personally. With help he managed to extract the spear from Del’s side, but the stag is breathing rapidly where he lies, eyes dulled by some potion as Qwyl frantically examines and sews him up. 

Edér stretches his arms nearby, strained from hauling all the injured below deck. When Qwyl finally sits back on his feet, bloodied up to his elbows and sighing, he nearly fears the worst. 

“Shit,” Edér utters. “Del — is he…?”

“He’ll pull through,” Qwyl rasps, wiping at his sweating brow. “No vital organs hit. But he won’t be able to walk for a couple days — he shouldn’t, I mean, even after we get a real healer to him.”

He strokes a hand over Del’s long face. 

“Sorry, love,” Qwyl murmurs down to him. “You’ll have to sit this next one out.”

The way Qwyl fights, Del is often at his blind spot ready to gore anyone who tries to flank him. Now, Qwyl will have to be extra vigilant. But on the less utilitarian side, Edér knows better than most that their bond is far more than that of someone’s pet. 

Qwyl almost lost a part of his heart today — maybe even another part of his already broken soul. 

Edér places a hand upon Qwyl’s shoulder. It’s a small gesture of reassurance, and Qwyl doesn’t hesitate to reach up his own hand to hold it. 

It’s a moment’s respite before duty summons Qwyl back to being a captain to his crew. Edér takes over Del’s vigil, cleaning up the dried blood on the stag’s fur and changing his bandages. 

The sun is almost down when another familiar voice clears her voice nearby. 

“Gentlemen,” Xoti greets them with her Readceran twang. 

Edér sits back with a groan, his lower back aching something awful. 

“Took your sweet time,” he grumbles.

“Aw, you think I’m sweet?” Xoti smiles coyly. 

She’s joking. At least, Edér hopes she is. 

“Depends how well you heal up this mangy nag,” Edér snorts. “All yours. Del, I mean.”

As Xoti crouches down, Edér gets a whiff of the battle — blood and musk, but also that Dawnstar incense that was so pervasive in the bowels of that shop they rescued Bearn from. It takes away any appetite he had gathered while waiting with Del. 

“Looks like your daddy fixed you up nice and proper,” Xoti coos to the stag, who chuffs sleepily at her shimmering touch. “Now let Auntie Xoti take a look at you.”

Edér lights his pipe nearby and smiles to himself. Xoti is sweet, of course. Then again, he can’t think of anyone who dislikes the stag. Even the grouchy Fassina, who complains loudly about the smell of Del’s hay, still sneaks him apples when she thinks no one is looking. 

“All done,” Xoti runs a hand along Del’s sleeping form before standing up with a full-bodied yawn. “Gaun alive, all that healin’ makes a lady wanna swoon.”

“You’re no lady,” Edér grunts.

“I beg to differ,” Xoti pouts, stretching luxuriously. “I’m just a lady with needs.”

Edér rubs at his brow. Not this again. 

“Xoti…” he groans. “You’re a real nice girl, you know? But I’m not—”

“Oh hush, you,” Xoti giggles. “No offense meant, but I like ‘em taller these days.”

Her dark-eyed gaze flicks meaningfully over to where a flustered Maia is pretending to watch the horizon. Ishi lets out something like a cackle from his beak. 

“Besides,” Xoti adds airily. “I’d never deprive our handsome Watcher of your bullish company.”

Edér gawks at her. 

“You must be drunk off that healing,” he sputters. “There ain’t nothin’ between me and the Watcher.”

“Uh-huh,” Xoti winks knowingly. 

Edér finds himself flushing like an abashed teenager, and prays to whatever deity deigns to listen that the moonlight will hide it well. 

“We’re pals,” Edér insists lamely. “Brothers.”

“I ain’t ever seen any brothers look at each other like that,” Xoti wrinkles her nose. “Not… many, anyway. But Hel, if you haven’t already…”

She smushes her pursed fingers together demonstratively. But at Edér’s expression, she lets out a scandalized gasp. 

“Oh Gaun,” she breathes. “You have, haven’t you?”

“Now you really gone crazy,” Edér preoccupies himself with a much-needed smoke. 

“What was it like? Not that I care,” Xoti adds at Maia’s raised, amused eyebrow. “Oh come on, not like none of us ever wondered!”

With a final grunt, Edér excuses himself from the conversation.

It’s none of their business, after all. What happened between him and the Watcher is something that he wants to keep special and close. 

Speaking of which, he wonders why the Watcher hasn’t returned to his companion’s side. He knows that Qwyl would sleep curled up with him if he could. He just might, too. Who knows? The night’s young. 

Damn. Edér never thought he’d envy a deer. 

Qwyl returns eventually. By then Xoti and Maia are long gone doing whatever it is the two women do.

For his part, the Watcher is worn and listless, cleaned of blood and generally smelling fresher than before, but with somewhat swollen eyes and a dour expression. He sits down wordlessly next to Del, leaning back against the crates and canvas tethered beside him. After draping a blanket over his sleeping form, Qwyl pulls his cloak over himself and moves to slide his hat over his face. 

“You really gonna sleep out here?” Edér asks incredulously. 

Qwyl shoots him a peevish look. 

“Weren’t you a farm boy?” he asks. “Haven’t you ever slept next to an ailing animal?”

“I’m still a farm boy. And… yeah,” Edér shrugs. “Still, you gonna be alright on your own?”

Qwyl strokes Del’s neck, a fond smile on his lips that tugs at Edér’s heart. 

“I’m never alone,” he murmurs. “Goodnight, Edér.”

Edér leaves — but only for a bit. 

The benefit of having a water shaper in their party is that they have an abundance of clean water and better access to bathing than most ships. Politely turning down Tekēhu’s coy offer to help rinse him down, Edér takes some time to scrub himself up from the filth of the sea and battle as best he can. When he returns above deck, it’s with a much-needed change of clothes, a fresh helping of white leaf packed into his pipe, and another ratty blanket — one he promptly tosses onto the fading dwarf. 

“W-What…?” Qwyl startles, peeking from beneath his hat. 

Edér falls into a seat beside him, wincing. 

“Del’s out for the count,” he explains. “Someone’s gotta have your back.”

Qwyl’s smile is hesitant, but soon he relaxes back against the crates, eyes closed and arms crossed. 

“What would I do without you?” he whispers into the wind. 

He’d probably still be stuck beneath the rubble of Caed Nua, flattened by a god. 

That or he’d be shark bait. 

But the real question is, what would Edér be without him?

Some bloated corpse, hanging from the tree?

Some drunk in a backwater tavern, who couldn’t even remember his brother’s face?

Or worse, one of those Dawnstar cultists swallowing poison in the belly of a ship, whose only hope for salvation was to be absorbed by a wandering god?

He guess it doesn’t matter now. 

With Edér at his side, Qwyl’s at least the slightest bit warmer. 

Edér is, too. 

—

Not much time could have passed when Edér feels someone gently shaking him awake. 

“Huh?” he blinks up at Qwyl’s shadowed face. 

“Wind picked up,” Qwyl informs him. "It's getting cold out here."

“Where’s Del?” 

“The crew took him down to the menagerie,” Qwyl replies softly. “Our furry friends will keep him company.”

Edér winces as he straightens up. His ass is numb and sore from the deck, and true to Qwyl's words, he's shivering from the chill. 

“Let’s get below deck,” Qwyl rubs at his own arms — and then Edér’s. “You’re freezing.”

Teeth chattering, Edér doesn’t have the willpower to argue that. 

But when they have gone down the stairs below deck, they don’t part ways at the landing outside the captain’s quarters. 

Not this time. 

They both linger there, uncertain and perhaps quite self-conscious of the Steward being present as well. 

Fortunately, she doesn’t say a thing. 

Neither does Edér or Qwyl, at first. 

“You don’t have to stay,” Qwyl tells Edér.

“Yeah,” Edér replies, gaze steady upon his face. “Sure would like to, though.”

The door creaks open and Qwyl flashes a tight smile at him before entering first. 

Edér watches as he tosses his hat on the table, eyes never leaving his friend as he follows behind. 

The door thuds closed. 

Despite being fully clothed and several heads taller, Edér feels naked and awkward standing there before the Watcher. Maybe Qwyl feels the same — he rarely sees him look so timid.

Qwyl stops just out of arm's reach.

“We can just talk,” he suggests softly.

“Sure could.”

“Play cards,” Qwyl continues. “Share a drink.”

Edér has to laugh.

“Keep going like that and I’m gonna think that’s what you’d rather be doing.”

Qwyl grins, shaking his head.

“You know that’s not true,” he breathes.

He is so close that he had to crane his neck to look up at Edér. 

Still, how does he manage to make him feel so small?

“So…” Edér clears his throat. “We’re alone here, huh?”

Qwyl raises a brow, “One hopes.”

“Good,” Edér says, closing the gap between them.

Chapter Text

Edér vividly remembers the first breath Qwyl took upon waking up from his coma. It was as if he had been dragged from the depths of the ocean rather than the shadows of his dreams. 

By comparison, the breath Qwyl takes now crashes like a wave upon the rocks. There is a sharp inhale, yes, but then he is exhaling with a shudder, eyes falling shut. When he begins to kiss Edér back, it’s with the ferocity of a storm. He clings to his arms and presses up against him, their beards rasping together in their clumsy eagerness. 

The few thoughts in Edér’s head are pleasantly sluggish. He debates taking advantage of his position to pick up his friend; after all, time after time has informed him that he is perfectly capable of it during battle or traversing hazardous terrain, though Qwyl often complains despite his gratitude. Besides, Edér has been with women roughly Qwyl’s height, so it can't be that different…

But despite his stature, Qwyl's strength and stocky build feels noticeably different than anyone Edér's been with before. The dwarf's broad hands grasp firmly at the small of his back — anchoring the taller man down just above his hips and stroking circles over the cloth of his shirt that suddenly feels far too thick.

It doesn’t help his brain any, that’s for sure. 

“Well, I... I dunno what to do from here,” Edér admits with a chuckle. “Been a couple decades since I been new at this, ya know?”

Qwyl takes one of Edér’s hands in his own.  

“It’s not so different,” he murmurs. 

He presses an unhurried kiss to the hand and — heart fluttering — Edér can feel a blush rising to his scruffy cheeks as his voice all but abandons him. 

Damn. Suddenly he understands why girls get so flustered and giggly at little shows of chivalry like this... 

Qwyl then curls a finger of his other hand into Edér’s belt, tugging him flush and startling out a sharp grunt of surprise. From here the advantage he has in height would have been all the more apparent, but the authority and swiftness with which Qwyl manhandled him has Edér plenty off balance. 

"Whoa!" he pants. “Hey, uh… Qwyl?”

Qwyl’s face tilts expectantly up at him. At Edér’s tentative interruption his grip loosens, though he doesn’t let go completely. 

Edér hopes he doesn't. He might just fall right back onto his ass with how dizzy this is all making him...

“Look, I really like ya," he waffles. "I like where this is going. I’m just…” 

His face heats even more as he fumbles for the words. 

“I… I’m just not sure I’m up for you to be… stickin’ anything… up there?"

Qwyl chokes out a surprised guffaw. Then, after releasing his hold on Edér’s belt, both of his hands instead drift up to rest reassuringly upon either side of his shoulders. 

“I was not planning to,” Qwyl tells him — not unkindly. “That kind of thing takes preparation to be... palatable? At any rate, we don’t have to go there any time soon. Or ever, if it suits you.”

He guides Edér to lean down to him, all the while standing on tiptoes and craning his neck to meet him in the middle. 

“I’m in no hurry to, anyway," Qwyl breathes.

When he speaks, his lips and ticklish beard brush tantalizingly against the shell of Edér's ear. Qwyl's last words are soft and breathy, and when he settles back down onto his feet his lips are still parted; his eyes still sparkling with unabashed affection. 

“This is already a dream come true, believe it or not,” he confesses. 

Edér snorts, “You gotta have better dreams.”

“I have other ones,” Qwyl replies, his thumb now stroking over his friend’s cheek. “As you know, not all of them are nearly as sweet.”

His beard is soft, and his lips softer and warmer still.

In this moment, it feels like nothing can be sweeter than the Watcher’s kiss. Edér had thought all of this embracing between men like them might be rough — like wrestling. But it is really something else how pliant Qwyl feels against him now, his muscles shifting beneath his shirt in a way Edér never got to appreciate before. Standing upon his toes, Qwyl’s back has a gentle arc that makes the curve of his ass all the more apparent as Edér’s hand drifts lower and lower…

“Do you think we could move this somewhere else?” Qwyl suggests sheepishly. “My neck aches something awful. And I imagine your back isn’t doing you any favors either.”

Edér grins. No arguments there. His posture wasn’t exactly a priority given all the buzzing in his blood, but now that Qwyl mentions it he is beginning to feel the tightness in his lower back, among… other… places. 

Besides, the sudden image of Qwyl braced against the bed, that firm ass pressed back into Edér’s aching front has obliterated any further line of thought. 

“You callin’ me old?” he teases. 

“We’re both old,” Qwyl guides Edér without much resistance into the window seat, rather than the bed. A moment later he is straddling his lap — bringing them eye to eye as his arms encircle Edér’s shoulders. 

“That’s better,” Qwyl breathes. 

It is. 

Kissing him was already fun. This is even better. Edér can relax more, his hands settling back over his friend’s hips. As their fervor builds, it isn't long before they're clutching handfuls of him.

But it doesn’t all feel good. After all, there are those straining, aching bits crushed between them, rubbing against each other through their trousers. 

“It’s a bit…” Edér pants against Qwyl’s gulping throat. “Can I…?”

Qwyl nods silently, and together they both reach down to tug at the front of their respective trousers. After a moment of fumbling, Qwyl manages to free himself, his hand briefly enclosing around his length as he groans in relief. 

Glancing down and abandoning himself, Edér’s hand instead drifts between the two of them, hovering over Qwyl’s swollen cock. This at least he is familiar with. He knows how to relieve that ache for himself, so surely it won’t be any different for someone else. 

Perceptive as ever, Qwyl notices his hesitation. 

“This already feels good,” he begins. “You don’t have to — ah..!”

He is hot and hard inside of Edér’s palm when he replaces the dwarf’s hand. Qwyl arches into his touch, a flurry of emotions passing over his face as his eyes flutter shut. 

“That’s… that’s good,” he squeaks, hips pulsing subtly into Edér’s grip. 

“Yeah?”

“Mm… tighter?”

Qwyl’s wanton groan melds with Edér’s. His needy weight against him is reminiscent of the rocking of the ship. It is making Edér's situation a little more painful honestly, still sitting here and straining against his loosened trousers. 

“Edér…?"

Qwyl’s mouth is warm and insistent as it covers his. Lips tug upon lips, sucking briefly as Edér exhales a groan. 

“Sorry, but…we’re a bit dry here,” Qwyl winces. 

“Oh — right, uh…”

Edér spits unceremoniously into his hand before returning it to task. 

“How's this now?”

Qwyl opens his mouth to reply, but all that comes out is a feeble groan. Edér finds his pace, his slicked hand pumping over him — steady and tight. 

“You feelin’ better?” he pants. 

Qwyl lets out an anguished little sound as his hips roll into Edér's long, slow pull.

“Where’d you get… that idea?” he manages.

When Qwyl’s fingers settle upon the line of Edér’s straining cock, it practically leaps at his touch. 

“Can I…?”

“Yeah.”

Edér's approval is a shuddered breath between them, and Qwyl’s nimble fingers waste no time in tugging at the laces of his fly. It's not with nearly as much precision as when he disarms traps or picks locks, but it still frees Edér in seconds. He groans heartily as Qwyl’s spit-slicked hand encloses around his shaft and eases down from leaking head to throbbing base. Edér thrusts up into his fist, groaning as Qwyl proceeds to pump him with a steady and tight grip.

Soon they are both strained and tense, breathing ragged and hands bumping clumsily as they work at each other. 

Then, with a frustrated growl, Qwyl knocks Edér’s hand aside. He encloses his own around both of their lengths, squeezing them together as he moves with determined fervor. 

Oh gods... that…!

“...feels… good…!” Edér gasps. 

It's the understatement for the age. With a hum too smug for his own good, Qwyl swirls his thumb over the beads of salt at their tips, slicking them even more as he continues. 

Their shared pleasure coils tighter and tighter. Blood pounds in Edér’s skull and in his cock as it throbs against Qwyl’s. They've been close before — emotionally as well as physically — but this is close-close...!

He can hardly bear it. He is going to make a mess over them both, and that would be hard to hide and explain when he leaves the captain’s cabin…

Qwyl’s hand slows and Edér inadvertently lets out a disappointed growl, thrusting needily into his grip. 

“Hey,” he whines. “Why’d you…?”

“I want to taste you,” Qwyl breathes.  

Edér huffs a laugh, leaning in to collect a kiss and leaving him flushed and sheepish. 

“…ah,” Qwyl croaks. “Not… what I meant…”

Oh. 

“Oh,” Edér manages. 

“Wanna try?” Qwyl’s normally prim voice is hazy and slurred as if drunk. “We don’t have to…”

“But you… want to?” Edér asks incredulously. “With me?”

“That’s what I said,” Qwyl wets his lips. “Speaking plainly, I want to feel you in my mouth.”

The image alone nearly pushes Edér right back to the edge. 

He gulps as another bead of arousal leaks from him. 

Well. It’s a good thing he washed up after all.

It's very hard to think anything else, but then again... maybe he's better off not thinking. 

“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “I’d like that.”

The secret smile he gets in reply sends a pleasant tingle through him. He watches — enraptured — as Qwyl carefully dismounts and sinks to his knees, running his hands up to brace against either side of Edér's spreading thighs. 

"If it gets too much," Qwyl murmurs. "You need only tell me to stop."

Edér only has time for an affirmative grunt before Qwyl then lowers down and licks a searing stripe that obliterates any remaining trepidation in his mind. Edér falls back with a groan, a shiver running through his body as Qwyl’s hot, wet mouth laves unhurriedly upon him. Then, his eager tongue is swirling against him like he’s some kind of treat, and the sensation has Edér’s eyes rolling up into his skull. Each pass of his friend's mouth draws out a grunt of pleasure he could never stifle even if he wanted to. 

He really isn’t going to last now. Qwyl knows what he’s doing to him, as shown by his pleased hum around his cock. One of his hands slides indulgently up the hem of Edér's shirt, revealing the trail of soft hair along his twitching belly. 

“Gods… dammit…!” Edér pants. 

He's half the mind to shed that damned shirt completely, but really he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. They started by resting uncertainly on Qwyl’s shoulders. Now, when a particularly tight, drawn out pull sends a searing, maddening jolt through him, they leap to the back of Qwyl’s head. He grips that swoop of hair and pulls him harder. Deeper.  

Qwyl’s throat catches and chokes, and tears of strain leak onto his cheeks. But even after pulling off there is a gleaming heat in his eyes before he dives back on, taking him eagerly as Edér whines and writhes beneath him. 

Oh gods… he’s going to—!

Edér chokes out a warning too late, unable to stop himself from hurtling over the edge.

He lets out a strangled shout as his cock surges back into Qwyl’s throat, his release spilling with it. He is still gripping Qwyl’s head to him by his thatch of hair, holding him against his thrusted hips as if for dear life as Qwyl moans around him, eyes flicking up through long lashes.

When Edér finally remembers to release him with an apologetic mumble, Qwyl seems in no hurry to pull off. That has Edér groaning heartily as an aftershock and a breathless laugh shudders through all his senses. 

Whoa.

What the Hel just…?

Helplessly, he ogles down as Qwyl swallows. Then, that incredible tongue of his snakes out to lick up a stray drop from his lips.

He… they... did that, didn’t they?

A sudden rapping on the door barely breaks through his daze. 

“Watcher!” Xoti’s voice is urgent and muffled from outside the cabin. “You alright in there?”

Qwyl’s half-lidded eyes barely have time to widen before Xoti bursts in behind him — brandishing her lantern. 

“I heard a—!”

She freezes at the sight of Edér — red-faced, sweaty, and disheveled where he slouches in his seat. Nothing naked of his is visible, thankfully, though that’s only because of the ship’s captain still kneeling between his legs. 

...the same ship's captain whose hair is currently still standing up where it was gripped in Edér's hands.

For his part, Qwyl doesn't bother standing up or turning around. He simply closes his eyes and sighs.

"Do you need something, Xoti?" he asks blandly.

Edér wonders if it would be appropriate to pray to Eothas to suck them up right now. 

“Oh… Gaun,” Xoti utters, her cheeks flushing bright pink in an instant. “Ah, no, I didn’t… oh my… oh my Gaun…”

A flurry of conflicting emotions pass over her face until she seems to remember herself at last, ducking back out and slamming the door shut behind her. 

Alone once more, the two men remain frozen for a silent moment. 

Qwyl clears his throat apologetically. 

“I… should have locked the door.”

Edér’s hands fall limp to his sides.

"I, uh... I thought you should do the same," he muses. "Back when I thought you and... uh..."

Qwyl wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Me and...?

Edér remembers to close his gaping mouth.

"Nah, well," he clears his throat. "...nevermind any of that."

Slumped and panting, he takes another good long look at his friend. 

His friend who had swallowed every drop of him, and whose smooth voice is now hoarse because of him. 

“I can't believe you… I mean, where’d you learn to do a thing like that?” Edér marvels.  

“That’s classified,” Qwyl intones in a spot-on impression of Maia. 

They chuckle listlessly together as Qwyl winces and pushes himself to his feet. From here Edér can see plainly that he is still at half-mast, his cock dark and heavy.

Well, then it would only be polite to…

Qwyl intercepts Edér’s reaching hand with his own. 

“Want me to go catch her?” he asks him gently. “I understand if you don’t want rumors flying around the crew.”

Edér blinks back at him. He hadn't even considered such a thing with his lizard brain in control these past few minutes.

“…huh,” he frowns. “I guess that... might get awkward.”

Before Edér can stand up, Qwyl steps back from him and begins to tuck himself into his trousers. 

“Wait,” Edér reaches for him again. “You didn’t get to—”

“I’ll be fine.”

Qwyl’s voice is blithe but short. 

Shit, not even a minute into the afterglow and Edér is already pissing off another lover. 

“Nah, don’t do this with me,” Edér grumbles.

And in a moment of bravery, he grabs a fistful of Qwyl’s rumpled shirt, dragging him back in for another kiss. 

It sure is something new to taste himself on another man’s tongue. But the way the man in question melts into him has him melting in turn. 

“Edér…?"

Despite the uncertainty in his voice, Qwyl’s mouth is still smiling into the kiss. 

“We don’t have to…" he stammers. "Oh g-gods…”

His voice sunders as Edér’s hand closes back around him.

“Always goin’ on about the things we have to do,” Edér drawls. 

He wraps his other hand around the back of Qwyl’s neck.

“What about what we wanna do?” he murmurs. “And you treated me so nice… ‘Least let me return the favor.”

He won't be sucking his friend off. That would be too new for him tonight. But palming and working Qwyl back to a full erection is no problem at all. 

“Edér…” Qwyl whimpers, tensing into his shoulder as his mouth falls open in sharp pants. “Edér…!”

His compact, sturdy body is shaking as Edér hauls him halfway into his lap, working at him with vigor. Though he can’t share in Qwyl’s senses like a cipher could, the memory of his mouth on him isn’t far behind, fanning the flames of his task. 

Yeah, Edér thinks smugly to himself. I'm gonna get him back.

“W-wait…!” Qwyl chokes, his eyes suddenly flying open in panic. “I’m going to…!”

He lurches up with a sharp gasp and spills over Edér’s hand, turning his grip slick and sticky before he finally remembers to stop. Even after Edér releases him, Qwyl continues to shudder and whimper unintelligibly, clinging to his friend as he spasms with the last aftershocks of his climax.  

When Qwyl’s eyes finally blink back open, they are wet with tears of exertion beneath a sweaty brow. 

It’s a mighty fine sight. 

“That good, huh?” Edér asks hazily. 

Qwyl’s breathless laugh breaks with another full-bodied shiver. 

“You’re a natural,” he pants. “Are you sure you haven’t done that before?”

“What, rubbing one out? I mean, I’ve had a lotta practice,” Edér points out wryly. 

“But with someone else?”

“Naw,” Edér winks at him. “You’re my first.”

That seems to please Qwyl. His sweaty head tips forward, briefly resting against Edér’s.

Then, they pull unsteadily apart, halfheartedly tucking themselves away and adjusting their clothes.

Funny how they never got around to undressing fully. Now, they’re soaked in these rags — not that either of them care right now. But when Edér carelessly wipes off his hand on his shirt, it earns him a scandalized look from his friend.

“Gods above,” Qwyl grimaces. “I don’t envy your mother on laundry day…”

“Hey, I'm a big boy — I do my own laundry now,” Edér grins at him. “But you didn’t seem to mind cleaning it up.”

Qwyl huffs a laugh, and despite the two of them being spent, he is already back in Edér's embrace. 

“You’re a miracle,” Qwyl breathes. 

Edér’s arms tighten around him, his head falling into his shoulder. 

“I’m not the one who came back from the dead,” he points out. 

“No,” Qwyl shrugs. “But you are the one who stayed by my side the whole time. You didn’t give up on me while I was out, drifting in the Beyond.”

“Not once,” Edér hesitates. “Though, to be fair, it’s the Steward who was sure you weren’t really dead. So you mostly got her to thank.”

“Oh I have,” Qwyl assures him. “But you were the one who brought Del treats…"

He tilts Edér's chin up with a smirk.

"...and I can now confirm that you’re far more fun to kiss.”

The demonstration that follows has Edér again feeling all sorts of unwise. 

“Huh, well…” he hesitates during a breather. “Let’s... do this again sometime?” 

“Perhaps with less clothes,” Qwyl suggests, before adding coyly. “And no interruptions.”

His hands curl into Edér’s damp, open collar. 

“Stars above,” Qwyl practically growls. “The things I’m going to do to you.”

Still hazy with the afterglow, Edér grins at the heat behind his words. 

He’s always been in awe of Qwyl’s passion throughout their adventures. Being on the receiving end of it sure is something else entirely. 

“You’re gonna make a man nervous," he quips.

“Nothing you don’t want,” Qwyl steals another kiss. And then a second. And then a third. “Everything you do.”

Edér’s hands tighten appreciatively around Qwyl’s ass.

Spent as he is, it’s a promise that has him giddy in anticipation. 

Chapter Text

Edér doesn’t stay the night. 

To be fair, Qwyl doesn’t ask him to… which is just fine. 

After sleeping alone for years — so long as no one counts wilderness camps or the crew’s quarters of the ship — it just doesn’t feel right for Edér to overstay his welcome. Besides, stumbling out of the captain’s cabin in the morning after probably won’t be a good look for either of them. He knows he’s more than just any crewmate to the Watcher, but well-liked as he is, Qwyl deserves respect as captain. 

No one seems to be the wiser when Edér crawls back into his own bunk, proud of himself for not stumbling and making a ruckus with the rocking of the boat. 

—

A few hours later and he’s already drinking a mug of bitter murkbrew on the quarter deck. But just as he’s finally starting to wake up, he gets a familiar whiff of incense in the sea air. 

“Mornin’ to ya!” Xoti chirps from beside him. 

Edér sputters and chokes on his drink, glancing reproachfully at the priestess who looks too pleased with herself for her own good. 

“Had a nice night?” she drawls. 

Edér scowls.

“Now if you got somethin’ to say—”

“Del’s looking good,” Xoti interrupts blithely. “Still limping and trying to follow his daddy around, but he’s a little tender is all. I checked on him with the Watcher.”

“He’s up?” Edér looks down towards the main deck, his hand flying up to his untidy hair. 

Xoti takes a loud slurp from her mug. 

“Oh, he was up and about for a good two hours before you.”

The dwarf in question is currently chatting with Handsome Eliam closer to the forecastle. That nervous kid has become more relaxed around the crew over time, and now he’s positively animated as he recounts something to the Watcher who throws his head back with laughter. 

Gods, he looks happy, doesn’t he?

Both of them do.  

“If you don’t mind me saying…” Xoti murmurs, “…it was about darned time.”

Edér cringes, vividly remembering how they had made full eye contact over Qwyl’s head. It was like a bucket of icy water had been tossed over him. 

“From the moment I met you both, I knew something was up,” Xoti recalls. “At first I thought the Watcher was always watching me. But then I realized it was because he was watching you, and probably laughin’ about what a fool I was making of myself.

“Remember the time I… um… woke you up?” She clears her throat. “I ended up sharing that bottle with him instead. And good thing, too, ‘cause he was mighty fun to drink with. Funny. Flirty. And a good listener to whatever I might’ve said out of childish frustration.

“But even now I remember how kind he was when we talked about you. I remember thinking, ‘Sakes alive, he really does care about his friends.’ He got you, and helped me get you too. Enough to leave you in peace, at least,” she adds. 

“Huh,” Edér grunts around his pipe, fumbling for a match. “He must’ve said a lot to manage that.”

“He didn’t have to,” Xoti hums. With a flourish of her hand, a single flame manifests at the tip of her finger. There’s a question in her raised brow, and Edér gratefully leans down to let her light his pipe with a single touch. 

“You know,” she says casually, “that was the same night I kissed him.”

Edér chokes, nearly dropping his pipe into the sea. 

“Oh, so he never told you about that?” Xoti rubs at the back of her neck, a blush high on her cheeks. “Not my proudest moment. I was a little tipsy and just… misread the signs. As I did with you, I guess. But being him, he was gentle with me. And I remember him telling me, ‘Sorry, dear. I’m afraid my heart dwells on another.’”

She giggles at her poor imitation of his accent. 

“I thought, ‘What a fancy way to say a thing like that!’ Couldn’t forget it after, because I always wondered who. He never talked about her. Or him. I tried to ask Iselmyr one time, but Aloth interrupted. So I thought, hm, yeah, maybe it’s that stuffy Aedyran fella. 

“But then, thanks to Maia, I started noticing things. She's so good at that, you know?” she bites her lip, momentarily distracted. “Anyway, he’s always looking for you in a room or in a fight. He always takes you with him whether it’s dungeon-diving or braving a bustling market. And he’s always touching you; dusting off your cloak, patting your shoulder… reaching for you like he does with Del. Like it’s an instinct. 

“And the way he looks at you? I never thought I’d see him so darned… content. Then of course there were other times when I caught him staring right at your backside,” she adds as Edér chokes on his smoke. “Always looking away real fast when you’d turn.”

She appraises her flustered companion. 

“Sakes alive, I haven’t even begun talking about the way you look at him! The way you talk about him. It’s like something in you gets… lighter? You go from acting like a grumpy old man to a lovesick youth. And when I cast protection spells, the links of essence between the two of you are always the fastest to form.”

Huh. That is kinda interesting. Mortifying as her observations are, still her words manage to spark a bloom of warmth around his fluttering heart. 

“Well, we’ve been fighting side by side for a while now,” Edér points out. “And more than that, we’re…”

There’s no point in denying anything. She saw it herself, after all. It should be easy to say. 

“…we’re… more… than we’ve been,” Edér finishes meekly.

Right. Maybe not so easy. 

Xoti fights back a smile as she arches a brow. 

“And how long you been doing more?”

“Well… what you saw…” Edér scratches nervously at his beard. “It was just a thing that… just a spur of the moment thing. Between… close… friends.”

“So you were, what, picking lice from the Watcher’s hair last night?” Xoti nudges him. “You’re foolin’ no one, Edér.”

“I mean, sure, it’s nice to have a friend who can loosen you up a little,” Edér waffles. “Keep you company and all that…”

Xoti snorts with laughter. 

“Oh Gaun,” she breathes, eyes shining. “You’re in love with him.”

It isn’t a question. 

“W-what?” Edér scoffs. “Naw, that’s not… What’d you pour into that murkbrew of yours anyway?”

“Whiskey. But that’s not the point,” Xoti huddles conspiratorially closer to him. “Edér, you know better than I… you’re not just two fellas foolin’ around. You’re in love with the Watcher.”

“I don’t… I mean…” Edér puffs nervously on his pipe. “I dunno if that’s…?”

“Aw, come on,” Xoti groans. “I know you’ve been in love before!”

Edér shushes her. 

“Not with a…” he looks furtively around. “...man.”

Xoti tilts her head. 

“How’s it any different? You fellas have feelings the same as the rest of us. And you have seen the Watcher, right?”

She smirks knowingly, nodding in the direction of where Qwyl is now conversing with Tekēhu. The towering godlike preens, tossing his head of anemone hair as Qwyl humors whatever flirtatious overtures he has for him this time.  

“So does everyone else,” Xoti says slyly. “Count yourself lucky, Edér.”

He follows her eyes, chewing on his pipe. Qwyl lets out a hearty laugh at something Tekēhu says, and rather than feeling the burn of jealousy, a smile tugs at Edér’s lips instead. 

Fish boy’s barking up the wrong tree.

Lucky?

Yeah. 

He is, isn’t he?

Xoti hums to herself. 

“You should tell him.”

Edér scoffs at that. 

“Don’t need to,” he shrugs. “He knows.”

“Does he? I know I’m younger than the both of you, but take it from a Dawnstar,” Xoti’s teasing lilt turns solemn. “Life is short. And sometimes the doubting voices on the inside of our heads are so much louder than that of our hopes. He should know how much he’s loved, and he should hear it from you — loud and clear. 

“Oh!” She brightens up. “Here he comes!” 

Edér whirls around, coughing on smoke as Xoti guffaws. Qwyl isn’t anywhere close, but rather departing from Tekēhu with an affable pat on the godlike’s bicep. 

“Damn you,” Edér groans, rubbing at his brow. “Anyway… I’m no good with words.”

“You don’t have to write a love poem,” Xoti wheedles. “Just… tell him the truth. Your truth.”

The truth, huh? With everything they’re learning about the gods, there are a lot of things Edér doesn’t know whether to believe. 

But whatever he’s got with Qwyl — whatever anyone wants to call it?

It’s the most real thing of all, these days. 

Together he and Xoti watch Qwyl make his way along the main deck. When he finally looks up in their direction, his eyes crinkle with a smile that makes Edér’s heart flutter.

“For what it’s worth, I didn’t tell no one about last night,” Xoti murmurs, warming her hands around her mug. “Not even Maia. So your ‘secret’ is safe with me — and all these fine folks, I suppose,” she adds, gesturing down at her lantern. 

“That’s decent of you,” Edér grunts.

Qwyl ascends the steps two at a time, merrily greeting the helmsman, Beodul, before making his way to his companions. 

“Good morning!” Qwyl tips his hat up at Xoti. “You’re looking radiant as ever, my dear.”

“Aw, you flirt,” Xoti winks at Edér before draining the rest of her spiked murkbrew. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to it.”

With that she departs, leaving Edér and Qwyl alone together with Beodul whistling strides away at his wheel. 

“I take it she apologized to you too?” Qwyl asks wryly.

It’s hard for Edér to look his friend in the eye, even standing beside him.

“Apologized?” Edér scoffs. “Nah. But we sure spoke.”

Qwyl silently removes his feathered hat, holding it to his chest as he closes his eyes and breathes in deep the sea air. Having it on gave him a few more inches of height and made him appear every bit the captain he was. Without it, he looks far smaller and softer. 

“Hey,” Edér begins. “So…”

“I feel terrible,” Qwyl blurts at the same time. 

Edér blinks at him. 

What? Why?

Does he regret last night?

Seeing his confusion, Qwyl hastily continues, “I meant — I feel terrible about Neketaka. We won’t actually have time to stay in port. We’ll change out the crew; switch out the injured for the healthy. And then we must head straight for the Ashen Maw.”

Oh right, Qwyl mentioned that place before after Hasongo, didn’t he? Edér’s blood still chills at the idea of what awaits them there among those volcanic isles.  

“He’s there, then?” he asks quietly. “Eothas.”

The god of life who has left death in his footsteps for far too long.

His god. 

Qwyl nods. Having shed his cheerful mask, he now looks troubled and tired. There are creases and shadowy bags under his eyes as he shuts them once more. 

“I was foolish to think we had more time,” he grouses. “I thought it was enough to let him wait there for… I don’t know… all time until we could muster the forces of the Deadfire. But…”

He clutches briefly at his chest and grimaces. 

“…the other gods grow impatient,” he says. “By stalling, I’m not holding up my end of the bargain. And I fear if we leave him there any longer, they’ll be forced to destroy him before I can get any answers from him. And then all this will have been a waste.”

There’s something else he left unspoken.

“Or they’ll destroy you,” Edér surmises. 

Qwyl huffs a laugh, “Berath might decide to take back what’s theirs, yes.”

“But you’re not theirs.”

Qwyl meets his eyes with a rueful smile. 

“As much as I’d like to believe that, they can decide to break that ‘chime’ within me at any given moment,” he says bitterly. “I’m only alive because they gave me a second chance. Thus, I must prove to them that I deserved it.”

“Damn right you do,” Edér grumbles. “You’re the one doing all their dirty work. They got no right to punish you for wanting to do things the right way.”

“If only I could be sure it was the right way in the first place,” Qwyl tugs distractedly at his beard. “All this effort to mediate between rival families, reconnect tribes, stop slavers, and gain the trust of each faction… will it ever be enough to convince them to unite against Eothas?”

He sighs. 

“I do hope it will. But sometimes I wonder if I’ve put too much faith into leaders who only want to further their own interests and ambitions. And I don’t even know what it will take to stop Eothas. I don’t understand what he wants, so how can I convince them to put aside their petty squabbles until I do?”

Edér blows out a ring of smoke as he digests all this. 

“So… no shore leave, then,” he quips. 

“Not for us, no.”

Qwyl’s hand alights tentatively upon Edér’s arm. 

“Listen, last night was…” Qwyl begins. “You have no idea how much I…”

He trails off when Edér’s other hand lands upon his, holding him in place as he finally summons the courage to meet his eyes. Once he does, there’s clearly nothing to be afraid of. The Watcher’s gaze is as soft and warm as ever — if a bit cautious. 

“Do you regret any of it?” Qwyl asks him meekly. 

In reply, Edér only tightens his hold as a gust of wind buffets them both. 

“None of it,” he answers. “Only…”

“…only?”

Edér curls his fingers into Qwyl’s. 

“Only… I wish I’d done it sooner. Known all this, sooner,” Edér confesses into the wind. “Saved us both a lot of lonely nights. Lonely thoughts. We could have had…”

“…years,” Qwyl finishes for him. “I know. But I can’t regret that — not when I didn’t know anything like that would happen between us at all.”

He clears his throat.

“You know, when you all first left Caed Nua, I thought that might be it. That you’d all go on with your lives without me. And I was happy for you. Proud of you. But Edér…”

His voice quavers. 

“…I missed you so ardently that first year. I wished I had someone to complain to about all the petitioners and day to day troubles among my vassals. The Steward was a constant friend and advisor, yes, but she’s… well, I could only hold so much of her,” he chuckles sheepishly. 

“But then you came back to visit after that long, difficult winter,” he recalls. “Your face was all pink and chapped from the cold. But it was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen — which, as you know, I’ve seen quite a lot. And later as we caught up over food and drink, all I could think was, ‘Gods, I missed this,’ and, ‘How the Hel do I convince him to stay this time?’”

“Well, it stuck eventually,” Edér grins at him.

He remembers that first day back too.

His nose was dripping and his beard was a ragged mess from travel. It was a wonder anyone could recognize him beneath a snow-encrusted fur cloak. Still, Qwyl practically leapt from his throne to race towards him — dragging him down into a tight embrace.

“Oh good gods,” Qwyl gasped in delight. “You stink to high Hel!”

Edér had been so tired that he collapsed right onto his knees.

“Really?” he grumbled. “That how you greet an old pal?” 

Qwyl held him away by the shoulders, tears of mirth shining in his eyes.

“It’s how I greet you,” he grinned. “Stars above… I could kiss you.”

Huffing, Edér shoved his head away as the lord of Caed Nua laughed and laughed. 

In the present, Qwyl stands just as close.

But everything is different now, isn’t it?

“You made the darkest days brighter. The most tedious of times all the more bearable,” Qwyl’s voice breaks. “You know I love… loved the kith of my keep for all their gifts and all their flaws. And we certainly weathered trials and tribulations together. But they didn’t go through what we did together. After everyone else had left, I needed you to remind me that it was all real. That this peace — however temporary — was earned.

“If I thank the gods for anything, it’s that you were gone when Eothas awakened beneath us,” he continues sorrowfully. “I lost nearly all of my people that day. I almost lost Del. But if I had lost you too, I’d…”

His voice has grown thick, and Edér watches as a fat tear rolls freely down Qwyl’s weathered cheek. 

“Hey, hey,” he fumbles around in his pockets for something of use. Qwyl manages to dig out his handkerchief first, which Edér takes to dab furtively at the tear while Qwyl gusts out a sheepish laugh. 

“Can anyone see?” he mutters.

“Nah,” Edér assures him. “Just… keep facing away.”

Qwyl nods grimly, placing his hat firmly back upon his head. 

“Whatever happens in Ashen Maw, if it all goes badly…” he wets his lips. 

“I know. I got your back.”

But Qwyl gives a vehement shake of his head. 

“No,” he asserts. “You take the others and run.”

Edér tucks the handkerchief back into the Watcher’s pocket and pats it firmly — right over his heart. 

“Nuh-uh. Not happening,” he says cheerfully. 

“Edér.”  

“Look, we'll send Tekēhu or someone to launch the ship. But I’m sticking right by you.”

Qwyl opens his mouth to argue, but Beodul chooses that moment to whistle for his attention. 

“Our bearing, Captain?” he asks. 

Qwyl continues to stare up at Edér even as he replies, “Still Neketaka.”

“Aye-aye.”

—

Much to Qwyl’s relief, Del recuperates quickly over the next few days. He spends most of his free time leading the stag around, cooing encouragement and showering him with treats of apples and Palohe nuts. He’s earned it, of course, though Edér has the sneaking suspicion that Del is actually faking his limp and taking advantage of the Watcher’s sympathy. The healers in their crew are skilled, after all; though perhaps Qwyl spoils him because he also feels guilty about relegating Del to the menagerie while he recovers in the cozy company of the ship’s cats. 

Every time Qwyl not-so-subtly summons him into his cabin, Edér wryly wonders if his company is a poor substitute for Qwyl’s real best friend. 

The first night’s purpose is apparently to talk strategy with a few of the ship’s officers — as if Edér has anything to contribute. 

The second night has Qwyl pouring tea for both him and Xoti, entreating them to answer everything they can about Eothas — as if the Watcher hadn’t already wrung them dry of conversation on that topic. 

Xoti excuses herself with an exaggerated yawn, and at last Edér’s worries that Qwyl had changed his mind about him are proven unfounded. 

At last, a grinning Edér is fumbling behind him to bar the door while Qwyl is dropping to his knees before him, eagerly undoing his fly. 

It’s strange to go from playing chess to doing this in the Captain’s Cabin. It’s strange to think the captain in question is not only willing to get on his knees for him, but also that he apparently enjoys it. 

Edér can’t complain — especially not when Qwyl has his hand clamped over his mouth to stifle his moans, working him to completion with a fervent, enthusiastic hand. 

—

On the last night — even with the ship on alert for any more Rathun ships and the glow of Magran’s Teeth stretched across the horizon — their rendezvous feels far more frantic and preoccupied. It’s clearly more for a release of nerves than anything else, which Edér is happy to provide for them both. This time, there’s no playful teasing, lusty praises or filthy promises. 

Afterwards, with his trousers hanging low upon his hips, Qwyl leans against the window of his cabin, scrutinizing the Ashen Maw through a spyglass. 

“Look here,” he beckons Edér over. 

He grunts, sitting up and wincing from where he had been lying upon the window seat. He takes the spyglass and squints through it. 

“Yep… that sure is a lot of lava and rock,” he mutters. “What am I lookin’ for?”

“The largest volcano,” Qwyl gently guides the spyglass to the right position. “See that strange shadow? It’s something massive — and moving.”

“You thinkin’ that’s Eothas?”

“I know it is,” Qwyl’s hand lifts in an aborted movement towards his chest. “I feel that stolen part of me waiting with him.”

Indignant fury burns in Edér at the idea of that enormous shadow holding part of his friend captive. And it seems like he’s not the only one with a grudge — through the spyglass he can make out tiny pinpricks of light moving up the dark sides of the rocks that are likely the glowing heads of Rathun warriors. 

“Think he’ll give it back?” he asks.

“He didn’t seem so generous at Hasongo. Though perhaps he simply wanted to make sure I came in person to see him. A bargaining chip of myself,” Qwyl muses bitterly. “By the flames, how many Rathun died throwing themselves at him at Magran’s bidding? While I… dawdled.”

Edér lowers the spyglass, turning to look at him. Qwyl’s dark hair is damp and ruffled, his cheeks flushed from exertion, and his lips swollen from their eager embrace. But his eyes that had been hazy with pleasure are now hard and troubled as they contemplate the horizon. 

“You probably saved just as many lives ‘dawdling,’” Edér reminds him. 

Though he tugs doubtfully upon his beard, Qwyl at least mulls this over. 

“Thank you for being here,” he whispers. “Not sure I could ever face him without you.”

Kissing him right then and there is easy. 

That doesn’t mean it hurts any less to know it might be the last time. 

—

To describe the air of the Ashen Maw as sweltering would be an understatement. 

When they descend on the platform into the depths of Magran’s temple, it’s like they are being lowered into an oven. Xoti hurriedly conjures a protective spell around the five of them, but still the air burns the party’s eyes along with the gas leaking from the unstable earth left in Eothas’s wake. The shattered structures and the very ground beneath them rumbles from the simmering volcano — an imminent manifestation of Magran’s wrath itself. 

But for his part, Eothas calmly stands before the monolithic pillar of luminous adra, his glowing features shimmering as he siphons essence through the touch of his enormous stone hands. 

Although they are now at eye level with his towering, crystalline body, his true size is incomprehensible. When Eothas turns his enormous, ornately-carved head to stare at the new arrivals, the ponderous movement of him has Edér awed and weak in the knees. 

At least Eothas keeps to his word that he simply wants to talk, not fight.  

But it seems like the god only has glowing, opaque eyes for the Watcher. Despite the dramatic difference in size between the two, the god-possessed statue converses with Qwyl as if they are merely sitting at a table together, discussing philosophy. 

Is this anything like what Saint Waidwen saw in his dreams? Edér muses to himself. 

Everyone else here are mere ants to Eothas. And the more Edér listens, the more that fact becomes clear.

The god of dawn claims to want to free kith from the gods and their literal machinations by revealing them for who they are — the constructs of ancient Engwithans given power over mortals. To do this he’ll stop the cycle of souls; starving the gods of their sources of power while also slowly starving the living world of souls. Those who depart will be trapped in the Beyond, unable to reincarnate. 

Eothas explains all this to Qwyl patiently — as if this act is all so simple. 

It leaves Edér dumbfounded and delirious in this heat. 

For a moment, he’s back in Elafa’s home, watching her attempt in vain to breastfeed her Hollowborn child. 

In the next moment, he’s cleaving apart wichts and telling himself their shrieks are the furthest thing from kith. 

And in the next moment, he’s looking up at the hanging tree where the corpse of Gilded Vale’s last midwife rots — punished for her apparent failure. 

Edér stares in disbelief at Qwyl, wondering if the Watcher is also thinking upon all those early days spent uncovering the truth of the Leaden Key, the Engwithans, and the gods themselves. It seems like just yesterday that they stopped Thaos from stealing these souls. Why should they willingly allow Waidwen's Legacy to return and grow until there are no more souls left to be born?

How many of those souls has Eothas already reaped during his march from Caed Nua through the Deadfire Archipelago?

If he cares so much for mortal kith, then how dare he destroy so many?

He may claim to love kith so much that he’d sacrifice himself for them, but he is still just one of the gods — uncomprehending of what it truly is to be mortal; what it is like to grieve the loss of lives and be haunted by the gruesome horror of war and other acts of mass destruction.

Like Xoti offering up her soul-filled lantern, Edér can’t keep himself from vying for Eothas’s attention. Unlike Xoti, he’s far less eager to please, and he’s the furthest thing from happy to be facing him now. 

“More destruction?” Edér exclaims at some point while Qwyl is digesting one of the god’s answers. “You’re tearing the whole world apart because you gods can’t make peace among yourselves!”

And yet Eothas replies so calmly, so gently that it feels utterly condescending. 

“Edér,” he intones. “There will never be peace among mortals so long as they are unwittingly manipulated by the gods.”

There in the oppressive heat, Edér wants to keep cursing his god to his adra face. He has dreamt of doing so for years now — demanding recompense for all he and the rest of the Eothasians suffered. 

For his brother. 

But right now, the plan Eothas reveals to Qwyl is far bigger than even all his past sins. And enraged as he is, Edér won’t take away the precious time that Qwyl needs to get answers for them all. 

If the world as they know it has to be broken, then kith at least deserve to know how to fix it. 

But their time is limited. Even if the gods weren’t hastening them along now, Xoti’s protection spell can only last so long before she’s drained. 

Before long, the ground shakes so violently beneath them that they collectively stumble and fall to their knees. The shattered ground cracks and crumbles, threatening to send them into the pool of lava below. 

“Once again the gods have put you in a precarious position, Watcher,” Eothas tells him. “Considering all the troubles I have put you through, the least I can do is protect you from the wrath Magran has intended for me.” 

Qwyl stands shakily, his hat gone and likely fallen right into the lava below. 

“This doesn’t make up for the horrors you have wreaked upon the archipelago,” he declares. “Let alone what you did to Caed Nua. My home.”

Eothas studies him impassively. 

“I am sorry for destroying your castle, Watcher.”

“I’m not talking about the fucking castle!” Qwyl snarls. “The heart of Caed Nua was its people. And you took their souls. Whole families. Parents. Children. Young and old kith who deserved to live long and love well. I vowed to protect them, and you left their bodies as ash!”

While there are tears in his voice, they evaporate before they can fall down his grimy cheeks. 

Eothas’s expression does not change. As a statue his features have never appeared to be moved. 

“I regret the grief I have left in my wake,” he says softly. “Know that when all has come to pass, the sacrifice of a few will have been worth the freedom of generations to come.”

He briefly turns his face away — back towards the pillar of luminous adra he had been siphoning with enormous hands. 

“Watcher. Our time has come to an end.”

“Hey! Eothas!” Edér barks. “We’re not done here, you and I! Don’t think you can just move me aside like all the rest!”

"Edér!"

Alarmed, Qwyl grabs for his arm, but something possesses Edér to shake him off and step recklessly, defiantly forward.

"Maybe we can’t stop you like this. But on behalf of everyone you've trampled, betrayed, and ignored — how can we trust a damn thing you've said?" he demands. "From what I've seen, you're no god of life. You're not even a god of death! You're a coward, again leaving all your people behind to clean up your damned mess! To be punished for your sins! And again you'll let them torture us — purge us — without sparing us a blessing, let alone a thought!'

Eothas slowly turns to face them once more. 

"Sakes alive!" Xoti squeaks. "Gaun — great Gaun! He didn't mean it!"

Looming closer, the glowing eyes of Eothas nearly blinds Edér where he stands.

"Do you truly think yourself so small?" his god asks curiously. "I think of you, Edér. I think of them all."

Edér scoffs and spits vehemently at the ground.

It, of course, evaporates before it can land.

"Did you think of Waidwen when you left him to die?" he retorts. "Or did you stand by and watch as the Godhammer ripped him apart?"

Maybe Eothas sighs, or maybe it's simply the rush of wind as his massive arms reach towards their precarious position.

“Perhaps we will meet again, Edér,” Eothas replies serenely. “Until then… take care of the Watcher.”

And before Edér knows it, the god has scooped the entire party into his green hands, carrying them away from Magran’s erupting volcano and Ondra’s tsunamis.

Still boiling with anger, Edér hollers and curses until he realizes the cage of Eothas’s adra fingers is the only thing protecting them from lava and the churning sea as the god leaves the chaos behind. 

He first sees Xoti, breathing fast and eyes manically wide in the glow of the adra. Her lantern adds extra illumination to their crystalline enclosure.

“Gentlemen, we are literally being touched by the hand of Gaun right now!” she squeals despite herself. 

He then spots Aloth, frantically shaking a limp figure as both he and Iselmyr seem to bicker with each other. 

It’s Qwyl. 

He lies motionless in Aloth’s arms, eyes half-lidded and breath shallow. Del stoops beside him, legs unsteady as he anxiously nudges the dwarf’s body with his snout. 

“No no no!” Edér stumbles on his way to them. “What happened?”

“Laddie faintit au cauld!” Iselmyr bawls before Aloth continues, “He’s alive! But he seems to be in a trance of some kind.”

It’s almost like how Edér found him in the ruins of Caed Nua months ago, hovering between life and death. 

Back then he had braced himself to mourn the loss of a friend. That was agonizing enough. Now, with his heart hammering painfully in his chest and the blood buzzing in his ears, losing Qwyl might just kill him. 

Oh Hel... did this happen because he angered Eothas? Did he go too far? What was he thinking?!

“Last time this happened, he said he was talking to the gods,” Edér desperately tries to assure himself. “Maybe he and Eothas are still having a chat?”

Without him and Xoti to interrupt this time, he thinks resentfully. 

Aloth nods, mouth a tight line. 

“I certainly hope so,” he frets, arm tightening protectively around Qwyl’s torso. 

Hunched over and braced against the adra, all Edér can do is stare at their unresponsive friend. 

“Ach, let him hold the lad,” Iselmyr chides Aloth. “Yer in the way!”

“Ah,” Aloth flushes pink and looks guiltily up at Edér. “Yes. Perhaps you… I see.”

He lets out a high, somewhat hysterical laugh. 

“My arms are falling asleep anyway.”

And from then on, from the moment Edér pulls Qwyl’s body into his arms, he doesn’t let go. 

When Eothas deposits them back onto the Defiant and sends the ship speeding away with a gentle nudge, Edér waves away a stretcher and takes it upon himself to carry Qwyl into the captain’s cabin — followed closely behind by Del and the ship’s surgeon. 

While Qwyl is short in stature and light of foot, he’s still broad and dense with muscle. But now, he seems unnervingly light. 

Edér hopes that it’s just the adrenaline. 

After laying Qwyl out onto the bed and slumping into a seat beside him, the scene is all too reminiscent of the beginning of their time in the Deadfire. 

“I’m not liking this habit of yours,” he mutters to Qwyl, lighting his pipe with shaking hands. “So don’t you go making me wait that long.”

He hesitates, making sure Del is the only witness before leaning down and resting his head into the hollow of Qwyl’s neck; feeling his warmth, counting his heartbeats, and breathing in his scent. 

“We got things to do, you and I,” he reminds him. “C’mon, Qwyl… don’t leave me hanging.”

—

They are summoned to the palace as soon as they dock in Neketaka. The Mataru are heavily-armed and speak sternly enough that it doesn’t seem to be a request. 

“Will you all hold your darned horses?!” Xoti exclaims, brandishing her lantern as if to ward them away from the gangplank. “The Watcher is—! He’s…!”

“Ekera, the Watcher needs rest, I say!” Tekēhu attempts to help, his large hands held placatingly before the guards. “What happened at Ashen Maw—”

“—will be of great interest to the Queen, I say,” one of the Mataru intones. “If the Watcher needs rest, he can rest in the palace. After he meets with the Queen.”

Her eyes flick over to Maia and Pallegina watching from nearby where they conspicuously guard the door that leads below deck. 

“It will be of great interest to the Royal Deadfire and Vailian Trading Companies too,” the Mataru adds pointedly. “The Hazanui and Director are on their way to the palace. Perhaps they are already there.”

“Someone managed to get all the leaders into one room?” Ydwin deadpans from a dark corner. “These truly are the end times.”

It’s impossible to move the comatose Watcher from Queen’s Berth all the way to the palace without drawing unwelcome attention. Onlookers ogle at the sight of the Mataru-escorted party and the Roparu servants carrying the stretcher that contains him. 

“Is he dead?” Edér hears a woman ask curiously. 

By the effigy, he better not be. Edér’s already got a fight to pick with one god. He’d rather not have to confront Berath as well. 

—

Fortunately, true to his dramatic fashion, Qwyl finally decides to gain consciousness right as they enter Queen Onekaza’s throne room. By the time they arrive, it seems like the leaders have already been deep in a spirited debate, but they fall silent at the sound of the Watcher’s voice. 

“…U…kai…zo.”

As soon as Qwyl begins to stir, Edér finally lets out a deep, relieved breath. 

“Hey,” he grins. Who cares who’s watching? He strokes a hand over the Watcher’s disheveled hair. “Knew you’d come back.”

Qwyl’s squinting eyes take a while to focus on him. And when he does speak —

“Eothas…”

Edér lets out a low whistle, “Yeah, pretty crazy wasn’t it?” 

“He’s… he’s going to…” Qwyl seems to be in shock. “He’s going to destroy it.”

Edér tries to hush him, “Yeah, maybe let’s keep that part quiet—?”

Qwyl pushes himself to a seat before Edér has the chance to steady him. He clutches at his own chest, wincing. 

“Eothas is going to Ukaizo,” he utters incredulously. “He’s going to destroy the Wheel.”

There are mutterings all around them from companions, faction leaders, and court observers alike.

“Yeah,” Edér relents. “I heard him too. So we’re gonna have to stop him, right?”

Qwyl’s mouth twists as he finally seems to notice the court all around them.

“…right?” Edér prompts him uneasily. 

Qwyl groans, massaging at his temples. 

“We need to do… something,” he mutters.

“What else is new?” Edér rubs his back, still reeling with the news himself. “Well, I expect it’ll take the big boy a few steps to get there. So we’d better get you started on your own.”

After he helps Qwyl out of his stretcher, it’s with great reluctance that Edér relinquishes him to the leaders of Neketaka. He watches as the leaders — their mouths agape in disbelief — listen to all Qwyl has to say. For someone who was catatonic moments earlier, he still manages to command the attention of all in the room.

But no matter how eloquent he is — even recovering quickly from the boisterous intrusion of Captain Aeldys of the Príncipi — Edér sees it plain as day: 

If they’re going to make it through the stormy seas to confront a god in a land of legend, Qwyl needs more than rest. He needs rejuvenation.

Lucky for him, Edér knows exactly where they might find it.

Chapter Text

“Now?” Qwyl huffs a tired laugh at Edér’s suggestion. “But the Director — not to mention the Hazanui…!”

Edér waves him away. 

“They can wait.” 

“But—!”

“No, I mean it,” Edér prods him down a side street of Periki’s Overlook. “They all said they’d need time to talk to their people about what you told them. So if they’re not gonna let you leave anyway, then you may as well make the most of your time on land.”

Qwyl eyes him from below.

“Edér?” 

“Yeah?”

He’s grinning as Qwyl latches hold of his arm, pulling him aside.

“I’m curious — what is it you would like to do there?” Qwyl asks him pointedly.

“Sample the facilities, for one thing,” Edér shrugs. 

Qwyl raises a brow.

“That’s all?”

“I dunno,” Edér drawls. “Maybe I’ll try out one of their rooms. Just so I can remember what a bed feels like, you know?”

Qwyl hums dubiously, but there’s a secret smile on his lips as they finally come within view of the Luminous Bathhouse.

—

The interior is as humid as ever. It’s strange that this time, they’re here to enjoy the baths themselves, rather than to spy on anyone or sneak through any secret passageways. 

Of course, the atmosphere will be far more pleasant once they have shed all of their armor and clothes. Just like the time they disguised themselves as attendants to spy on some agents, the less they wear, the more they’ll fit right in.

Edér undresses alone in their allotted room while Qwyl remains below, negotiating arrangements for the bathhouse’s laundry services. 

For a minute Edér sheepishly examines his naked reflection in the mirror, making a face and rubbing at his pudgy stomach and unkempt beard. Maybe he should fix it up a bit before going down to join Qwyl…

It takes a bit more time than he intended, mostly due to his hands shaking from nerves. And then he’s checking his scruffy hair, his old and new scars, the pink burns on the back of his neck and on his grimy face, his breath, and…

Damn it, how long has Qwyl been waiting by now? 

Hurriedly, Edér wraps a towel around his hips and pads down towards the public pools. From there he goes to rinse himself off in one of the side fountains. His bruised and filthy state earns him some funny looks, but by the flames, he’s tired. He sits on the stool while the water pours over him, transfixed upon the stream of ash, blood, and grime sloughing off and draining away. 

He’s wiping the water from his face when a curvy aumaua with coppery skin approaches him.

“You are with the Watcher, yes?” she greets him. 

Edér recognizes her… minimal… uniform as that of one of the bathing attendants.

“I’m… yeah. Yeah I am.”

Her smile is as sweet as candy.

“He awaits you. This way.”

Shivering from his first rinse, Edér’s stomach squirms anxiously as she leads him away from the public pools. Down this hall are the smaller private baths. 

When the attendant pulls aside the first layer of a doorway’s curtains and motions for him to enter, part of him irrationally hopes that the bath is empty behind the next set. While it’s awful nice of the Watcher to spoil him like this, these private rooms don’t come cheap, and no one books them for the Hel of it. They book them with intentions such as covert business negotiations or liaisons with partners and the bathhouse’s courtesans alike. 

It was Edér’s idea to get them both a fancy bath and a cushy room for the night, but is he ready for this? Whatever it is? 

Inhaling and exhaling deeply, he waits until the attendant leaves before pushing past the second curtain. 

As expected, Qwyl is already lounging in the steaming pool, facing the entrance. The water laps at his russet skin, which has grown rosy from the heat. His lazy gaze is heavy above the heat of the water that only slightly distorts the very naked body beneath its surface. 

For a long moment, they simply stare at each other. 

Edér gulps, mouth dry. 

“How long you been waiting for?” he asks, still clutching the towel around his waist. 

“Not too long,” Qwyl shrugs, sitting up more and stretching with a groan. “Enough to get relaxed. You should too.”

They’ve bathed together before. Alone together, even, during their earlier days traveling along the river in the Dyrwood. But things were different back then. They were different.

Not to mention there’s something about the heat, the dancing light reflecting off the surface of the water, and the heady, fragrant oils dripped onto the sconces. Collectively, it’s a sensory feast that charges the humid atmosphere with a certain kind of magic. The water being imbued with luminous adra probably helps, too. 

“You don’t have to get in yet, if you don’t want to,” Qwyl assures him. “I’ve already been in and out a few times. There’s some fruit here, some wine…”

He noticeably doesn’t address the elegant set of oils nearby. 

“Aw, Watcher…” Edér chuckles as he picks up some kind of stone fruit. “You trynna seduce me?”

He bites into it, humming happily at the sweet and succulent ripeness of it. He’s intensely aware of Qwyl watching him as he swallows, letting a stray trickle of nectar escape into his beard.  

“Perhaps,” Qwyl lilts. “Is it working?”

Smirking, Edér takes one more bite before setting down the unfinished fruit. 

Then, he finally drops his towel and kicks it aside. He gets a smug jolt of pleasure as Qwyl’s eyes flick conspicuously downward, his lips parting and expression hungry to see him already half-hard. 

“Like what you see?” Edér asks wryly. 

“Do I ever,” Qwyl breathes. “Get in here.”

The pool is about waist-deep for him, which means Qwyl must be perched upon a bench of some kind along the edges. It could be Edér’s imagination, but as he descends into the bath, the adra really does seem to work some kind of magic. As soon as the water engulfs his calves and heats through his aching muscles, he lets out a long groan of relief. 

“I’ll be damned,” he mutters. “I think I finally get it.”

Qwyl laughs quietly. 

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

Edér looks back up at him — 

— and then he has already crossed the pool, crowding Qwyl back against the tiled edge and reveling in how their bodies slide weightlessly together in the water.  

“It’s real nice,” he growls into Qwyl’s ear. 

“Edér…” 

Qwyl gasps, eyes fluttering when Edér’s hand closes around him beneath the surface. 

“W-wait…”

Edér grins at his stifled whimper. He begins to stroke him, enjoying the soft, frantic words in his ear and the velvety sensation of his growing —

“Are you ready for us, my lord?”

Edér recoils at once, falling back into a seat at the sound of the attendant’s voice. 

Qwyl stifles a breathless laugh. 

“One moment!” he calls out towards the curtain. And then, apologetically to Edér, "Forgive me. I thought you might appreciate a massage while we’re here. I should have warned you, but it was a spur of the moment addition.”

Again, spoiling him. 

“A massage also sounds real nice,” Edér admits. 

It’s with great reluctance that they exit the bath and tie flimsy towels around their hips as some suggestion of modesty. Then, at Qwyl’s invitation, two attendants enter the room — the aumaua from earlier and a willowy elf with hair that cascades in long, dark curls. 

Like all the other attendants, they’re scantily-clad and pretty. Their dulcet voices are warm and gentle as they take both men by the hands and guide them to lie face down upon their respective tables across the pool from each other. If Edér turns his head, he can see Qwyl’s prone profile from here, especially the curve of his shapely —

“Ask me if you are in need of anything. And do tell me if my touch starts to hurt you in any way,” the aumaua says. “I can always do less. I can always do more as well.”

“That’s mighty kind of you,” Edér replies. “Miss, uh…?”

“Jade.”

Not her real name, of course, but that’s good enough for him. 

“Will do, Miss Jade,” he mumbles. 

“Ekera. Your man asked that I give special attention to your needs,” the attendant murmurs. “Rest assured, you will leave this place as good as new, I say.”

Well, that’s awfully vague. 

Edér warily hopes that Qwyl only booked them standard massages. He’s in no mood for any additional services. 

At least, not from the nice ladies. 

“Ohh…”

Having already begun, Qwyl’s soft groan stirs something inside of Edér’s core.

…and another something unfortunately pinned beneath him and the cushioned table. 

The Watcher’s soft breaths and sighs certainly don’t help matters, nor does the heady scent of the oil that ‘Jade’ begins to massage into the knots in his shoulder muscles. Except…

…oh. 

Wow. 

That… tingles? 

It’s no ordinary oil, that’s for sure. Its cooling sensation permeates deep into his flesh. Even his burns are no longer smarting at every single bit of contact. Which is good, because she’s got some strong hands. Or maybe Edér’s a lot more achy and bruised than he thought. Either way, it does feel nice — great, even — and soon he’s groaning as well into her touch, letting her hands and whatever ointment she’s using melt away his tension like butter. 

During a lull in a furtive conversation with his own attendant, Qwyl gives a pleased hum and turns his head to face Edér. His dark eyes are blissful and half-lidded as they blink slowly at him. 

“That’s divine,” Qwyl sighs. 

“Is this pressure good, my lord?” Edér’s attendant murmurs into his ear. He almost jumps, having been too caught up in the view before him. 

“Um, yeah,” he grunts. 

“Try to relax your shoulders,” she urges him. “Soften your jaw. Breathe into my touch, I say.”

Well, he tries. To her credit, she is clearly skilled as she works her fingers and elbows into his knotted back and breaks his muscles down into jelly. 

He had expected that the hot water, let alone the attendant’s firm touch, might irritate his tender burns, bruises, and cuts. But it seems that the luminous adra, the ointment, or whatever magic is apparently happening really is working miracles on healing him. 

Damn, they really should have done this earlier… maybe even gotten all of their party in on it too. 

Another soft groan from Qwyl catches his attention, electrifying his nerves once more. As Jade’s clever fingers begin to massage into his scalp, Edér keeps his eyes open to admire Qwyl in an utter bliss of his own. 

It’s odd to feel jealous of a woman, but as he watches the elf murmur into Qwyl’s ear, Edér finds himself agonizingly impatient for them to finish up and leave. He spies how her fingers brush down the slope of Qwyl’s shoulders, he hears how she giggles with her pert breasts right at his eye level — 

Hel. He wishes it were his hands on him, drawing out those noises. The other way around, too. 

Jade’s firm grasp is warm upon his shoulders. 

“Ekera. It is time for you to turn over now.”

Turn… over?

Edér closes his eyes, praying to something, anything, to give him strength. 

—

By the time the attendants have finished and helped them back into the pool, Jade’s masterful work has left Edér relaxed and boneless in the water. For a while, both Qwyl and Edér simply sit where they had been left, murmuring lightheartedly as they find use for their limbs again. 

“Lovely girls,” Qwyl remarks at some point. “Though I suppose I should have expected nothing less from the illustrious bathhouse.”

Edér grunts. 

“Yours seemed awful chatty.”

“Ah, yes,” Qwyl smiles, eyes still closed. “She was telling me about her son. Two years old. Utter chaos and yet the brightest blessing of all.”

Edér halfheartedly nods along. 

“She got married earlier this year, actually,” Qwyl continues. “I think she said her wife works in the adra mill? So I suppose in a way they’re both in the business…”

Oh. 

Married, huh?

It does help… though thankfully Jade’s handiwork has already tempered the raging need from earlier into a low, simmering hunger.

Arms braced along the edge, Edér exhales deeply and lets his head fall back onto the poolside cushion.

This is nice. 

Really nice. 

…and getting nicer. 

There’s the soft sloshing of water before a solid, heavy weight settles over his lap.  

Qwyl’s bristly mustache and lips meet his own before he has a chance to open his eyes. Still he doesn’t waste a moment as his arms immediately wrap around the dwarf’s waist, pulling him flush as they kiss in languid delight. 

Despite Qwyl’s coarse black hair, his skin beneath is velvety soft as Edér runs his free hand over him, squeezing him greedily closer. 

“I’ll be damned,” Qwyl murmurs amusedly. “You were jealous.”

“Shut up,” Edér grumbles, pressing his mouth to the side of his throat. 

Qwyl’s laugh is stuttered, his voice vibrating beneath Edér’s lips. 

“I’m touched,” he continues to tease him. “After all, you were the one being manhandled by a seven foot tall—ah!”

He’s hard beneath the water as Edér takes him in hand, and the small, stifled sounds he’s making are intriguingly delicious. 

And speaking of delicious…

A half-baked idea flits into Edér’s mind. 

“Get up,” he growls, though he doesn’t give Qwyl much of a choice as he stands up and hauls him to the pool’s edge. He yelps against the rough movement and most likely the sudden chill, but he’s not complaining for long as Edér crowds in to slot himself between his legs, pressing kiss after kiss all the way down from a tightened, goose-bumped nipple to the sweltering flesh inside of his thighs. 

Gods, he’s delicious. And if he’s delicious now, then what if…?

He drops down, and without dwelling too much on it, he slides his tongue up the length of Qwyl’s cock. 

“Oh!” Qwyl shudders and jolts in his seat, eyes wide. “Gods. Edér…!”

Another pass nearly has him thrashing, and Edér has to wrap his arms under his thighs to keep him still. His skin tastes clean and warm from bathing, but at the tip of him is a heady bead of desire that has Edér watering for more. 

What kind of other stuff did Qwyl do whenever he went down on him before? To be honest, Edér wasn’t exactly paying attention to technique at the time. He was too busy feeling every bit of it. The stuff Qwyl would do with his tongue alone would scramble Edér’s brain and leave him a gibbering mess. 

Ah, so he’ll have to improvise. 

He can do this. It’s different, yeah, but the way Qwyl physically and vocally reacts makes it worth every bit of effort. Fortunately it seems like anything Edér does seems to be working fine. More than fine, even. 

And then it’s clear what he really likes. 

When Edér takes him into his mouth, Qwyl sobs at the wet heat of him. 

He knows vividly how that feels. And the fact that he can make Qwyl feel that way himself? It has him swelling with pride and arousal. 

He’s definitely not perfect at it, given that it’s a new and awkward movement for him. Qwyl doesn’t look that big — proportional for a dwarf, really — but Edér’s mouth still struggles to take all of him in. It’s hard to keep his sore jaw open and his head moving at a steady pace. While he tries not to bump his teeth against Qwyl, he’s still unable to completely avoid it. But aside from a few winces and hasty apologies on Edér’s part, Qwyl doesn’t seem to mind the rest of it at all. 

Damn, is this what it’s like? Edér thinks for an incredulous moment. How does anyone do it for so long?

And with him, for that matter. Edér’s not the vain sort, but he’s well-aware that he’s on the larger side for a human. The idea of a thing like that getting stuck in his throat makes him dizzy. 

But with Qwyl’s wanton moans and stammered praises in his ears and his hands in his hair, Edér starts to get the appeal. It’s worth every bit of effort to make the Watcher feel so good… even if it makes him gag a little while tears of strain gather in his eyes. Edér takes breaks to catch his breath, replacing his mouth with his hands to caress Qwyl from tightened balls to swollen tip, but he doesn’t wait long before diving back in. 

For Edér, feeling the throbbing weight and smooth glide of Qwyl’s warm, succulent head and hard length along his tongue scratches an itch that he’d usually sate with his pipe of whiteleaf. Now, his mouth is full of him, barely able to make a sound with his lips tight around him. Even just the feeling of Qwyl resting upon his tongue has Edér getting all worked up. 

If anything his aching cock is protesting more than his jaws. 

“If… if you keep going I’ll…” Qwyl warns him breathlessly. “Gods… I won’t be able to stop myself… I’ll…”

The way he shudders and bucks at the mercy of Edér’s mouth only strengthens his determination to finish him like this. He groans around him, picking up pace until Qwyl’s hands are clutching at his hair, his ears, the back of his head…

“Like… that…!” Qwyl utters under his breath, tightening his grip and urging Edér to keep up his pace. “Oh you look so fucking beautiful like this…!”

With the pressure in his skull and the pounding of blood in his ears, Edér is only vaguely aware of the rest of the filth babbling from Qwyl’s gasping lips before —

“…damn it!” Qwyl tries unsuccessfully to push him off. “I’m going to…!”

With his shuddering cry, he lurches forward as a bitter and salty warmth floods Edér’s mouth.

Oh.

Wow.

That’s also different. 

“Sorry, so sorry,” Qwyl pants, reaching over towards something. “Here, you can—”

He stops and stares as Edér pulls off, wiping his mouth. 

“Did you just…?” Qwyl blinks at him incredulously. “You… swallowed?”

Edér shrugs, rubbing at the hinges of his jaw. The massage probably would’ve been better after something like this, but seeing Qwyl completely undone is plenty worth it.

He didn’t taste bad, either.

“Was I not supposed to?” 

“No, I mean,” Qwyl stammers, pulling his hand back from the emptied bowl of fruit. “You didn’t have to.”

“Huh. Guess I’ll remember that for later.”

Edér braces his arms on either side of Qwyl as he leans in to collect a stunned kiss. It’s hard not to feel smug, seeing him so astounded and wrecked.

It’s hard not to feel other things too.

Qwyl chuckles knowingly as Edér presses himself eagerly against his leg.

“Oh don’t worry…”

There’s a splash as he clumsily re-enters the water, right into Edér’s arms.

“...I’m more than capable of spoiling you, too,” Qwyl assures him. He reaches below the surface — 

— only to be intercepted by Edér’s hand. 

“Sorry,” Qwyl says, taken aback. “I thought…?”

With a soft groan, Edér thrusts slightly, having angled himself just right between his legs.  

“Oh… dear,” Qwyl gasps. “You… want that?”

Edér can’t really think of any reason why he wouldn’t want to. 

“Yeah. I do,” Edér murmurs against his skin. “Right now.” 

He’s hungry for more than that fruit from earlier, regardless of the mere two curtains separating their little private oasis from the rest of the bathhouse. And as much as Qwyl tried to muffle his own voice, his frantic moans did echo in the chamber and likely carried down the hall as well. 

But that’s not their problem. This is a bathhouse, after all.

He enjoys how Qwyl shivers at the tickle of his mustache against his sensitive skin. 

“Here? I would, but…” Qwyl pulls away just enough to rest their foreheads together. “I don’t know about you, but being in here for so long has got me dizzy.”

That’s true. Any more exertion in this heat and Edér would probably pass out right here in the water. 

“Then…?” he croaks, unable to draw away his gaze from those heavy brown eyes. 

“Perhaps we should give that bed upstairs a try?” Qwyl suggests. 

Hel, Edér would scoop him up and sprint right out of this bath and back up to the room if he weren’t so afraid of slipping. 

But… he’s not quite ready to leave. 

“Give me a few minutes to… calm down,” he gestures helplessly at his own state beneath the water. 

Qwyl huffs a fond laugh. 

“Take your time,” he plants a kiss to the top of Edér’s head before exiting the bath completely. “You know where to find me.”

Chapter Text

To Edér’s disappointment, Qwyl is no longer naked by the time he enters the room. He has wrapped himself in a kimono that would have been short on anyone else, but on a dwarf goes down past his knees. He sits in an armchair, a book in hand and a leg propped casually over his knee. 

When Edér opens the door, his eyes snap up from his reading.  

“Why, hello there,” Qwyl greets him. A smile illuminates his relaxed mien. “Feeling refreshed?”

Still holding his towel over his hips, Edér shrugs. 

“Nothin’ like a good soak and a massage to remind you how bad it’s gotten,” he grumbles. “The aches and pains, I mean.”

“Jade didn’t work her magic on you?”

“Oh, she sure did,” Edér motions at the faint pink of his healing burn — one that had been left by a fire blight. “It’s the only reason I can turn my head now.”

He watches — enraptured — as Qwyl stretches languidly, that flimsy kimono slipping open to reveal a broad chest of swarthy hair. 

Hel. That fabric drapes real nice on him…

“Well, I had a lovely time cleaning up all our travels,” Qwyl murmurs. “Very thoroughly.”

Edér cocks a knowing eyebrow at him. 

“That right?” he drifts closer. “No wonder you smell like flowers.”

“As charming as life at sea is, the perfume of a sailor is hard to shake,” Qwyl says. “But give me a good soak and some of those Vailian oils…”

He tilts his head meaningfully towards a table with several amber bottles arranged upon it. They’re different ones from before. 

“…and I think I’m ready to take on the world,” he finishes breathily. 

Edér grins. 

“That all you wanna take on?” he quips. 

Qwyl’s eyes are dark; his tongue pink and wet as it slips fleetingly over parted lips.

“Depends what’s on offer,” he says loftily. 

There’s still caution in his voice, even as his legs unfold. 

“As fun as this is, let’s… speak plainly,” he chuckles sheepishly, dropping his salacious drawl. “I’m ready for any way you might want me tonight — even if that’s fully clothed with our hands to ourselves.”

Edér scoffs. That’s not very likely. 

“I get the feeling sitting behind a book isn’t your preferred position.”

“I don’t generally have a preference in position,” Qwyl shrugs, setting the book aside. “I can go either way. Over. Under. As the giver… or the taker.”

Edér’s breath catches at the idea.

All of them, really.

“I imagine one is more familiar to you,” Qwyl continues. “But if you’d prefer otherwise…”

“Being straight with you, I’m more partial to the giving,” Edér smirks. “This time, at least.”

Qwyl smiles at him, his legs spreading ever so slightly and ever so invitingly. It parts his kimono further, revealing his dark, stiffened state. 

“Then I’m all ready for you,” Qwyl breathes. “And I’m all yours.”

Edér drops the towel, pleased at the hitch in Qwyl’s breath as his eyes rove hungrily over him.

Well, if he's enjoying the show...

Edér takes himself in hand, stroking lazily and fighting against a bashful impulse to look away. 

“Say that again?” he steps closer. 

Qwyl tugs at the belt of his kimono, letting it fall completely open with a whisper. 

“I’m all yours.”

Edér falls to his knees before him, uncaring of how noisily they crack as he shuffles in between Qwyl’s legs. The lingering fragrance on his skin — of his skin — has still got him feeling all sorts of unwise. 

“Again,” he croaks. 

“Edér.”

Qwyl cradles his face in his hands. They’re calloused but still as warm and gentle as his eyes. 

“Why don’t I just show you?” 

Edér pushes a grin past his nerves. 

“Showin’ me a Hel of a night?”

“Not only for tonight,” Qwyl whispers, “but for however long you’ll have me.”

An emotion so much stronger than lust overwhelms Edér as he leans into his touch. 

—

It feels like a lifetime ago that he first spotted Qwyl staring up at the hanging tree in nauseated dismay. Edér could’ve kept smoking his pipe and minding his own business, letting another sorry bastard move on to whatever trouble found him next, but given how long he proceeded to stare vacantly — maybe even unblinkingly — at one of the bloated corpses, Edér instead caught the newcomer’s attention. 

It was, in retrospect, yet another joke in bad taste. 

“Seventeen and a half,” he called blithely. “Could be eighteen, depending on how you count the dwarf woman.”

The stranger turned to him — a pair of dark eyes over an untidy dark beard staring warily from beneath his purple hood. 

“I beg your pardon?”

His accent was hard to place. At first it sounded Aedyran, but it had an odd affectation to it too. 

Not that it’ll matter for long. An outsider’s an outsider. He’ll move along soon, if he knows what’s good for him. 

“The dwarf woman,” Edér gestured up at the tree with his pipe. “You were trying to figure out whether to count her as a full person.”

The stranger descended the twisted roots towards him — pointedly revealing his true height. 

“Well… I just think you oughta,” Edér finished lamely. 

He extended his hand and introduced himself. Then, because he couldn’t shut his mouth —

“…though to the people around here, I may as well be ‘Nineteen.’”

He appraised the dwarf before sparing him a sympathetic grimace. 

“Don’t think I’d put you much higher than Twenty-two. Twenty-three tops. You look like the sort that likes to get involved.”

“Oh, so not Twenty-one-and-a-half?” the stranger shot back sardonically. 

Honestly it was a miracle that Qwyl didn’t walk away from him then and there. 

Actually, he did walk away, didn’t he? But something made Edér call out to him again. He invited himself along to prevent his own town from turning on him and stringing him up for being an Eothasian. 

Former Eothasian, that is, but it didn’t matter during the Purges. 

It wasn’t like he had anything better to do besides wait for his inevitable arrest and execution. And this uppity dwarf seemed awful lost and sleep-deprived — an easy target for a guard having a bad day… which was every guard at the time, really. 

Anyway, he probably needed a big guy’s protection. And for his part, Edér wanted to kick Lord Raedric’s ass, which Qwyl was more than amenable to do after what he had seen of the Gilded Vale. 

Call it fate, call it divine intervention, but it worked. 

It worked so well. 

By the time they commandeered Caed Nua, it was clear to Edér that Qwyl wasn’t merely half a kith. Even half-crazy and haunted by horrifying visions, he showed himself to be far more than any kith Edér had ever met. 

And now, who would’ve thought they’d ever hold each other like this?

Become as close as… this?

He certainly didn’t think so. Not back then. 

—

And now?

All he wants is to be closer. 

A kiss is easy now. He’s right there, after all, a mere breath away. 

Edér lets his hand wander down through Qwyl’s chest hair, over his soft belly, and down, down into that hot, solid junction between his legs. 

Qwyl’s cock leaps into the sensation, and a guttural gasp escapes him as his head falls forward to rest against Edér’s shoulder. 

“Look at that,” Edér teases. “I got the magic touch.”

Qwyl mumbles something in reply, fingers curling into his back. 

“Remember when we met?” Edér murmurs into his ear. 

Qwyl huffs a laugh. It catches as Edér presses his lips to his neck, trailing lower. 

“All too well.”

“Did ya think we’d ever end up here? Doing… this?”

“Back then?” Qwyl shudders, his hips thrusting up into his grasp. “Maybe I fantasized it. When you were being… mmh… frustrating.”

Edér blinks. 

“Huh. Really?”

“I wasn’t proud of it… back then…” Qwyl protests, breath ragged. “But when you became a f-friend I… ah…”

Edér grins and nuzzles in to collect a kiss from his panting mouth. He crowds against the armchair, aching for more contact. 

“Best friends?”

“The best,” Qwyl whimpers, his arm flinging around his shoulders. “Gods, like that… like that!”

Edér’s mouth is back on him, licking Qwyl up eagerly. He lets out a series of helpless little sounds, his hands clenched into Edér’s hair. 

It isn’t long before Qwyl pushes him back — eyes practically aflame. 

“Bed, if you would.”

“Yes sir.”

But before Edér can gather him up, Qwyl stands. Then, with an insistent strength that Edér has no desire to resist, he pushes the stumbling taller man backwards. It’s not a large room, so all he needs to do is fall, letting Qwyl press him down onto the bed. As it’s one in the Vailian style, it’s worlds cushier than the captain’s quarters. Sleeping in it must be incredible — but that’s not what they’re here to enjoy. Not yet. 

Edér rolls them both over and straddles Qwyl’s hips, his hot, panting mouth seeking his. Their skin upon skin may as well be creating sparks as they work each other up to aching attention.  

“It won’t be too different from your partners before,” Qwyl adjusts them both. “Except…”

He nods over to the vials of oil, one of which Edér dutifully retrieves from the nightstand. He unstops it and warms a few drops between his fingers before slicking himself with a groan. Qwyl watches him in anticipation, his lips parting around a shallow breath. 

Edér eyes him, “Fantasized, huh?”

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?” Qwyl replies faintly. 

“And how were we doing this?” Edér asks. “In that little dream of yours?” 

For the first time, Qwyl looks shy. 

“Well, we… I…”

For someone who seemed the more confident of the pair earlier on, it’s funny to see him flushing and hesitant as he turns over to brace himself on all fours. 

“Huh,” Edér runs a hand down the length of his back. “Right.”

Qwyl sheepishly begins to turn back over, “Or I could just…”

He falters as Edér crowds in behind him, his length hot, heavy, and pressing along his spreading cleft. 

“This way ain’t new to me,” Edér points out wryly. 

“Of course,” Qwyl repositions himself. “As you would.”

A few more drops onto Edér’s fingertips, and he finds Qwyl’s entrance startlingly soft and relaxed, giving way to his tentative touch. 

He hums in approval. 

“‘Thoroughly.’”

“What can I say?” Qwyl groans softly as he pulses another finger in. “Wanted to be prepared for…!”

He lets out a squeak that seems more pained than pleasured, and Edér pauses. 

“Too much?” 

“I suppose it’s been a while,” Qwyl sighs, forcing himself to relax once more. 

“How long’s a while?”

Qwyl groans at the sensation. 

“Long enough,” he pants.

Edér can’t resist. 

“Aw, am I?”

Qwyl chokes on a laugh and whimpers as Edér adds another finger and continues to work him open.   

“O-oh. Stay there,” Qwyl shudders. “Right… there…”

Edér raises a brow at his expression. Then, on a hunch, he curls his fingers with the next thrust. 

Qwyl’s arms collapse beneath him as he lets out a loud, debauched moan. 

Right on target, Edér commends himself. 

For a while Qwyl only manages to whine and babble as Edér fingers him, massaging against that spot that is currently undoing him. But eventually with a growl Qwyl shoves aside his hand, impatiently pressing his hips back into his. 

“Now,” he beseeches him. “Please!”

Edér grips fistfuls of his ass, lining himself up until he can push himself into him — slowly. When the swell of his head breaches his entrance, Edér can feel how Qwyl’s muscles protest as they both let out strained, guttural groans. 

“Oh gods,” Edér pants, now bracing himself against the bed. “Oh gods.”

Desperate and hungry as he is, he tries to control himself as he eases himself in. But any remaining thoughts evaporate with every incremental movement and ragged breath against Qwyl’s neck.  

Qwyl’s cursing is a little less intelligible, and Edér can’t blame him. The tightness and heat around him already has him dizzy. If he thought they were close before, it’s nothing compared to being able to feel Qwyl around him with every breath. 

“You alright?” Edér pants, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. 

“S-start there,” Qwyl manages. “Can’t… take all of you. Not yet.”

Experimentally, Edér flexes his hips ever so slightly and Qwyl’s shout sends electricity straight into his core. 

“Ohh that’s perfect. Right there… keep… going…!” Qwyl urges him. 

“Hang on… I’m too close already.”

It’s like Edér’s some inexperienced, hormonal youth. But by miraculous sheer will, he’s able to wrest away from the edge — breathing deeply — before rolling his hips again and groaning at the searing pleasure. 

Qwyl might have said something, but when Edér leans forward to hear him, he merely gasps as he feels the heat of the taller man settling flush against his back. 

“You need it that bad, huh?” Edér growls in his ear. 

In reply Qwyl whimpers and grinds himself back — deeper. Again they fall into a steady, relentless rhythm. 

“Shit, Qwyl,” Edér shudders. “You’re so… tight…!”

He reaches around, grasping Qwyl’s hard cock and stroking at him as he lets out a desperate, agonized moan. The more of Edér he gets, the less Qwyl seems able to hold himself up. 

And so Edér takes over setting the pace. Mouthing at his shoulder and neck, it isn’t long before he’s spearing the entirety of himself into Qwyl’s heat. He grips his hips in both hands as they fill the room with the creaking of the bed, the percussion of their skin, and their wanton voices praising every movement. It all sends sparks flying through Edér’s body, winding his core tight with throbbing pleasure. 

Upon taking one particularly hard impact, Qwyl collapses down onto the bed with a strangled whimper. 

“Still good?” Edér smooths one of his hands down Qwyl’s flexing back. 

His hips are canted up as he looks over his shoulder with some difficulty. Hands clenched into the sheets beneath him, his eyes are wet, as are the corners of his groaning mouth. But slowed and savored within, Edér can feel his friend’s breathless, delighted laugh — all around him and in his very soul. 

“Best I’ve ever been,” Qwyl whispers, almost in disbelief. 

Still locked in Edér’s grasp, he manages to kneel upright again, craning his neck to collect a sloppy and eager kiss. Edér moans at the thrust of his tongue into his mouth, timing it with the roll of his hips as he chases it back for more. He braces his arms around Qwyl’s chest, and he holds him there as he massages into him — deep and slow. 

Nothing exists outside this room, the air of which they fill with their pleasure and catharsis. Despite the madness all around them, time stands still here. After everything they’ve endured, not even the gods can take this blissful victory from them. 

As he teeters on the edge of searing ecstasy with Qwyl’s frantic and wordless voice in his ears, Edér decides that if he should ever say it in this last turn of the Wheel…

It should be to him. 

—

It’s not long at all before both of them have climaxed and collapsed onto the bed — gasping, groaning, and sticky with sweat and release. Soon, there is only silence aside from thundering hearts and ragged breathing. If Edér listens really hard, he can make out the music coming from a tavern somewhere outside the bathhouse’s shuttered window. 

Qwyl mumbles something, his fingers curling feebly against Edér’s chest. As his breathing slows, it’s clear he’s fading fast. 

“Sweet dreams,” Edér murmurs down to him, tucking a lock of dark hair away from his damp brow. “I hope.”

It would be a cruel thing for the gods to bother him now, but it would be just like them, wouldn’t it?

Edér gets out of bed with a groan and another crack of his knees and back. Woozily, he stumbles over to the washbasin and carefully cleans them both as much as he can. 

In a way it’s what he’s always done:

Stay by the Watcher’s side. 

Be his candle in the night. 

…clean up his messes. 

Edér chuckles as he tosses the rag aside. 

He’ll have plenty to tease Qwyl about when the Watcher eventually wakes up. Until then…

He sinks back into the bed, fumbling for the blanket and tugging it partway over both of them. 

He’s not quite sure whether Qwyl is the type to cuddle, so he doesn’t bother snuggling up to him before dozing off. 

But hours later, he rouses to find the gently-snoring dwarf’s warm body nestled firmly against his side, his arm slung over Edér’s waist.

“Your man,” Jade had called him.  

“Huh…” Edér breathes, turning his head to rest against his friend’s. “Now isn’t that somethin’.”

Chapter Text

The bed feels softer than any Edér’s had in well over a decade. It probably won’t be good for his back in the end, but for now it affords him blissful, dreamless sleep. 

It helps having Qwyl’s warm and solid body beside him. The first time he awakens during the night, Edér finds himself curled up inside the protective curve of Qwyl’s embrace. While much shorter, the dwarf is still broader than him in the chest and shoulders. Being the little spoon to him sure feels different — though not in a bad way. It vaguely occurs to Edér that he hasn’t felt this held since he was a little kid. 

But the next time, he rouses only to find himself alone in bed, a conspicuous chill at his back. 

Groggily, he reaches out over the rumpled sheets. They’re still warm, which at least means what happened earlier was all real…

“I’m right here.”

Qwyl calls quietly from where he leans beside the window, arms crossed and staring out over the surrounding neighborhood of Periki’s Overlook. It’s still dark out, but his face is somewhat illuminated by moonlight and the glow of the dying fireplace. He’s wearing that kimono again, tied loosely around his middle. 

“Can’t sleep?” Edér grunts, pushing himself to a seat. 

“I think I’ve slept enough for a lifetime these past few days, haven’t I?” 

“Yeah, but you weren’t resting,” Edér points out. 

“No,” Qwyl relents. “I don’t think I’ve felt well-rested for quite some time.”

And Edér knows the Watcher won’t be resting any time after this either. They’ve had a few hours of respite from the real world, but the Deadfire and the world’s doom as they know it is waiting with bated breath just outside. In a few hours they might step out of the bathhouse doors and straight into some messenger from the Hazanui, the Director, or the Queen herself. Hel, maybe even Captain Aeldys might pay a personal visit. 

By the haunted look on Qwyl’s face, the gods might’ve already paid him one too. 

With a soft groan, Edér leaves the warmth of the bed and shuffles towards him, retrieving his towel and securing it haphazardly around his hips. He can’t trust his body not to react to Qwyl’s proximity, but now’s not the time for any of that. 

The Watcher needs a friend — one who’ll listen. 

“What’s gnawin’ at ya? Anything I can do to help?” Edér offers. 

“I…” Qwyl looks up at him. “You already have.”

“But…?”

“No ‘buts,’” Qwyl huffs a laugh. “None except our own.”

Edér humors his deflection with a chuckle. It’s the same kind he’d try himself. Cute.  

“You know, you were snoring for a bit,” he points out cheekily. “So you must’ve slept a little.”

Qwyl balks at that. 

“Was I now?”

“Uh-huh. Like a lil’ baby bear.”

With a welcome grin, Qwyl elbows him as Edér snickers, nearly losing his towel in the process. 

“Well. I suppose it’s good I managed to catch a little bit,” Qwyl sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I spent the rest of the time playing audience to another of the gods’ squabbles.”

“Had a feeling that might happen,” Edér gestures vaguely out the window. “So… what do they make of… all this?” 

Qwyl’s brow furrows. 

“I’m still trying to make sense of all of it myself. But there was one thing they mentioned that I can’t stop thinking about…”

Even in the low light, he looks almost nauseous as he meets Edér’s eyes. 

“They spoke of ‘recalling their children,’” Qwyl recalls in a hush. “Absorbing their essence to strengthen themselves.”

“Callin’ them to… the Beyond?” Edér gawks. “But then they’d… oh. Shit.”

He could use a smoke right about now. 

Tekēhu. Pallegina. Vatnir. Handsome Eliam. 

To be so full of life and dreams, only to be extinguished just like that on the whim of the gods?

It would be so typical of them, honestly. 

“I won’t let them do it,” Qwyl asserts. “I told them I’d find another way. Talk Eothas down. Something. Anything but that.”

“And if…?” Edér trails off. He lets the rest go unspoken.

If they fail?

But Qwyl still hears it loud and clear. 

“Then I’ll never forgive myself,” he whispers. “So long as I draw breath and they don’t.”

His hands clench into his kimono, wadding up the fabric fretfully as he stares out the window. 

“Then I guess we gotta find a way to make him listen,” Edér says blandly. He remembers the awe, anger, and fear he felt staring up at the expressionless adra face of Eothas — its features burning brighter than Waidwen’s head. He can’t imagine something like that heeding the words of tiny mortals like them. 

But they sure can try. 

“After Ashen Maw… you were out a long time,” Edér murmurs. “I… almost… thought the worst.”

Qwyl huffs a bitter laugh. He relaxes his grip and turns fully towards Edér. 

“You’re sweet.”

“Aw, I’m sweet?” Edér snorts. “Aloth was almost in tears. You really missed out.”

He goes to prod a poker at the embers of the fireplace a little, tossing in another log with a hiss.

“And you missed out on the volcano erupting, the tsunami, all the krakens stickin’ to Eothas like leeches…” he lets out a low whistle. “That’s what I kept hearin’ about, anyway. I didn’t see most of it until the last part.”

“Did he talk to you?” Qwyl asks curiously. 

“Nah,” Edér scoffs. “He ain’t got time for little old me.”

“He’s missing out.”

Edér turns back to wink at him over his shoulder, only to be disarmed by the look on Qwyl’s face. It’s impossibly soft, warm, and unquestionably fond. 

That’s the Watcher, he supposes. 

Too bad Edér’s got to ruin the moment. 

“Say, uh… what happened while you were out this time?” he asks tentatively. “Did he talk to you?”

Qwyl frowns to himself. 

“No.”

“No?” Edér startles. “Then why…?”

“I… I talked to me,” Qwyl recalls slowly. “The part that was stolen.”

“Oh. Uh, wow.”

The Watcher shrugs, but as casually as he tries to stand he’s tense once more — nails digging into his folded arms. 

“It found me inside of Eothas,” Qwyl explains. “And before that, among thousands of souls, I felt those of Caed Nua closing in all around me. Calling to me. Anguished. Scared… Though strangely enough, some of them actually seemed… relieved? They were simply happy to see me even though I could do nothing for them. I couldn’t fix them. I couldn’t give them their lives back. 

“But I was also distracted, because among the crowd I felt the rest of me drifting as well. I finally found it at last, but…” 

He shudders, and Edér has rarely seen him so troubled. Not since they defeated Thaos. 

“‘But?’” he prompts him. 

“It… wasn’t me,” Qwyl finishes. “Not anymore. We wanted to merge, but it… hesitated. And for a while we tried again and again to come back together but it wasn’t working. It was like…”

At a loss for words, his solid weight collides right into Edér’s middle, arms wrapping around him. 

“Oof…!” Edér grunts. 

Qwyl holds him tight, his head pressed to his chest. 

“Like this,” Qwyl quavers. “As if we could get so close, fit together so well, and hold so tight… but still not fill the same space. We both wanted to keep trying, and I think it somewhat worked? But even when I woke up, we weren’t yet… one. That piece of me was back and I was apparently mostly whole but it didn’t… I didn’t…”

He again clutches at his chest, his breath short and ragged. 

“…I’m supposed to be more of me than I’ve ever been since Caed Nua, but I still feel the same as when I was broken. Why?”

When he looks up at Edér, there are frustrated tears shining in his eyes. 

“Aw, Qwyl…”

Edér drops to a knee and wraps his arms around him as well. With a shudder, the Watcher’s head falls forward into his shoulder. 

“I just want to feel whole again,” Qwyl whispers. “I want to not be alone with myself — always feeling that restless pull to go wherever Eothas is, rather than being here — where I want to be fully. Completely.”

He lets out a bitter chuckle, pulling away to pace before the fire. 

“But then again… I felt that way long before Eothas, didn’t I? Long before I was awakened, too. I left Tâkowa because I was restless. And then I left Rauatai. Aedyr. Ixamitl. But wherever I went, I couldn’t stay. 

“And then, as you know, I went to the Dyrwood; as if without the weight of those damned rocks I was finally free to find purpose in the Eastern Reach.”

Expression stormy, he tugs at his beard. 

“There was a woman in my caravan — Calisca. The night I was awakened, she asked me what I was looking for, but I didn’t know what to say to her. Beyond growing my collections and inventory, I never truly knew what I wanted. Until Del, I suppose, and then… you.”

His pacing slows, and Edér takes the opportunity to pull him back in without much resistance. His breath catches as Edér nestles his chin atop his head, breathing in the scent of his hair. 

“We really were two wandering souls, huh?” Edér murmurs. “Wanderin’ even when we had a common purpose. Chasing down Thaos. Eothas.”

He sighs, pulling back to gaze down at a wet-faced Qwyl. 

He wonders if anyone else has ever seen the Watcher cry like this. 

Probably not. 

“We’ll get the rest of you back,” Edér vows. “And while I can’t promise to complete you…”

He tilts his friend’s chin up, a thumb stroking briefly over quivering lips. 

“…I sure can hold you,” he murmurs. 

And then —

“I love you, Qwyl.”

It’s as easy as breathing. 

A muted squeak of sorts catches in Qwyl’s throat as he ogles incredulously back at Edér. 

“What?”

“I…” 

Edér hesitates, wincing at himself. Maybe it’s too early. Maybe it’s stupid of him to say it now of all times. He got caught up in the moment, just as he did when he raged at Eothas in that molten keep. 

“I mean, I dunno, I just…”

“No,” Qwyl interrupts him, his hands cradling his face as he crowds closer to him. “No, just… say it again.”

“I love you.”

Qwyl exhales sharply as he nuzzles their foreheads together, eyes squeezing shut. 

“Again?”

Edér laughs but it comes out choked. 

“Effigy’s eye, I’m no good at—”

“Please,” Qwyl is pressing against him now, his hands in his hair and their lips barely brushing. “Please.”

Edér grasps his shoulders, holding his friend back and leveling his gaze to meet his — heavy with unshed tears, disbelief, and ablaze with a hunger that goes far deeper than any carnal desire. 

“Hel, I’ll say it as often as you want, and mean it every time,” Edér murmurs. “I love you, Qwyl. And I think I’ve loved you for a long time before.”

A lump forms in his throat, catching upon the words that creak out of him now. 

“…I think I’ll love you for a long time after, too.”

Qwyl lets out a soft sound when Edér finally pulls him back into the kiss he has been longing to give. One full of all the life that had been absent when Edér fought to resuscitate him after he had been absorbed into Eothas. One full of all the love he thought he might never be capable of feeling and sharing again. 

But one kiss isn’t enough. A simple phrase isn’t enough. Not one thing can fully express the relief Edér feels to fall together with Qwyl like this back in their borrowed bed. To intertwine their fingers, their limbs, and join their warmth in between the sheets. 

For hours they stay there together — drifting in and out of conversation, wordless embraces, and sleep. Around the time the sun begins to glow behind the shutters, Qwyl startles them both out of their companionable silence. 

“Oh damn it,” he curses softly. “I’m so sorry, I should have said — I meant to say…”

He laughs sheepishly.

“…well, that I love you too.”

Edér hums, rolling languidly back over him. 

“I forgive you,” he says cheerfully. “And I know.”

Just to be sure, Qwyl says it again later — breathlessly — when Edér is once more thrusting slowly into him. He’s laughing it as Edér’s beard tickles at the curve of his neck; then groaning it with his mouth hot against his skin. They wind each other tighter with each pulse and every tantalizing word breathed between them. 

It’s an awful lot of promises and praises — some of them even made out of intelligible words. 

Edér can’t contain his enthusiasm for long and comes first with a hoarse shout, collapsing back down into the bed as Qwyl continues to ride atop him. Then, with the last iota of his remaining energy he works Qwyl with his hand, drawing out his ecstatic whines until he’s bucking and whining, spilling over his fingers in a spectacular release. 

Qwyl is the one who goes to clean them both up this time, slipping out of Edér’s arms despite his protests. His touch is gentle as he draws the rag over Edér’s skin, through the curls upon his chest and trailing down to his groin. 

Edér watches him all the while, a dopey grin on his face. A profoundly thrilling ache begins to fill his belly, but somehow, it’s far more soothing than scary. 

“What?” Qwyl eyes him in amusement. 

“Have I ever told you how handsome you are?” Edér asks hazily. 

Qwyl tosses the rag aside, curling back up against Edér’s relaxed body.

“Hm, no, actually,” Qwyl drawls. “What is it? The hair? No, surely the height,” he adds sarcastically. 

“Yeah, yeah, and more,” Edér chuckles. “It’s… you. All of you.”

He pulls Qwyl back over to hold him against his chest. He exhales deeply, happily, melting on top of him once more. 

Tonight, the Watcher — the Herald of Berath himself — is simply a man. 

No, not simply. One of the best. 

One who he loves. 

“Yeah,” Edér sighs contentedly. “It’s always been you.”