The night was cold enough that Foofy had abandoned Val’s side in favor of Arius’s supernatural body heat. She was left in the grass, shivering alone across from him.

“Don’t worry,” Arius said. “I have another way to keep you warm. I can generate heat from within a person, too, if they let me have that power over their body.”

“How would you do that?” she asked.

This power that he referenced reminded her of what he had done to Tavras, sapping away his energy. Giving Arius control of her body would carry some risks if he had any desire to harm her. Already, he could harm her if he wanted to so the thought was just paranoia. Val dismissed it.

“It requires a slight physical transfer,” Arius explained.

“Oh.” Indeed, this seemed like the venomous power that Past Insight had informed her about. It had worked through his saliva.

Sitting up, Arius called to Foofy. “Hey Foofy.” He stuck his finger close to Foofy’s snout to get him interested in sniffing it. Then, he also moved his face close to him as well as pressing his finger to his lips. “Give me a kiss.”

That big tongue lapped at Arius’s face, right on his lips. A few more licks later and Arius shoved him away.

“Good boy!” he swiped the dog saliva off of his face.

Foofy, with his ears newly perked up and his shoulders up in pride, went bounding off to explore the surroundings once more. Evidently, Foofy now felt warm enough to go off on his own.

Val just stared at Arius, awestruck. All of that had happened before she could stop Foofy or Arius for that matter.

“What?” he asked. “You look disgusted. Have we indirectly kissed through Foofy now?”

“No. I don’t let him lick my face. That’s disgusting.”

“Aw, well you’re missing out,” Arius said, leaning back with a smile. “You just saw him. Foofy is such a good kisser.”

She sneered. “Yeah, I did see that.”

“Do you want to feel warm too? You would not have to kiss me,” he said, adding on, “unless you want to.”

“No.” Val shifted away out of discomfort. “No, thank you.”

“All right, suit yourself.” Arius lay back down with his arms folded over his head. “Let me know when you change your mind.”

In silence, Val sat against the cold ground. The miniscule amount of heat coming off of Arius only served to taunt her. Just barely, she could feel the promised warmth that would be hers, if only she would accept the influence of his power. At last, she moaned meekly, “Fine. I’m cold.”

Sitting up at once, Arius seemed unduly happy. “Great. I mean, not great, but I can fix that.”

To clarify, she snipped, “I am not kissing you.”

“Oh, don’t worry. For my power to work, my saliva just needs to enter your body—not necessarily a kiss. My gun makes for a compelling alternative. I lick all of the bullets beforehand, and my saliva does not burn away with the heat. Because of my Fire Immunity, the bullet is not sterilized of my saliva when the gun is shot. Isn’t science cool?”

Val just stared at him dumbfounded. “You’re not shooting me.”

He burst out laughing. “Come on! Then, I could give you so much heat that I could even cauterize the wound. That is the closest thing that I’ve got to a healing ability.” When that received no laughs from Val, he added hastily, “I’m sorry. I’m taking this too far. I was just joking. I would never hurt you.”

Her eyes darted away while her teeth were still chattering. Val just wanted to feel warm already. “Can you just lick your hand or something.”

“Sure thing.” Looking at her the entire time, Arius tilted his head and licked up the length of his hand.

Dare she say that he did it more suggestively than needed? Val shifted in shame by that fact that watching him lick his hand had gotten any sort of reaction out of her.

Holding his wet palm out to her, he said, “Now you just need to lick my hand.”

“Excuse me! No, I don’t.” Val stuck out her hand towards him. “Just like, wipe your hand on mine. I can lick my own hand, thank you very much.”

After a pause, Arius determined to say, “No, that would be too much transference.”

“What?” was all that Val had to say too that.

“It spreads my saliva too thin, preventing me from working with it. It is too much transference.”

“Is that really a thing?” she asked, her voice high-pitched. “Did you make that up just now?”

A tentative, suspicious laugh came from Arius, but he doubled down on his position. “Trust me. I don’t want you to lick my hand no more than you want to lick my hand. If you want to feel warm, this is just what you have to do. I am being very generous in my offer.”

Scowling at his hand, slightly shiny, Val determined that she would never lick him. If she had to do something humiliating with Arius, she at least wanted the inactive roll over the active one. “How about you lick my hand.” Turning her face away, Val stuck out her palm.

Arius placed his hand over hers, the wet palm of his hand against the back of hers. Did he really have to hold her hand with the one that he licked?

After waiting a while, a smug smile crept onto her face. “See? It is not so easy, is it?” Val’s attention turned back to see the likely grimace on his face, but instead, she saw his eyes pinched up alongside a sly smile.

Arius tightened his hand so that she could not pull away. Then, he traced his tongue against her hand, oddly slow, from the base of her wrist to the lower half of her middle finger. Her entire palm was left with a tingling sensation where his tongue had touched.

That jerk had been waiting until she was looking at him to lick her hand.

“Ah!” When he let go, Val drew her hand in towards her chest. Her other fingers would have rubbed at the back of it tenderly, but Val could not touch her own hand thanks to Arius’s saliva.

“There you go. All you have to do is lick your own hand, and you will feel warm in no time.”

She really hated Arius. Grumbling, she lashed out at him. “Your ability sucks. For the god seated second on the Pantheon, I would have expected more from you.”

He just laughed softly and shook his head. “Go ahead and lick your hand. I won’t watch.” His attention turned innocently off to the side where Foofy was wandering around.

Val looked the other way and tried to hide behind her shoulders. Carefully, she placed her hand up to her lips and poked out her tongue. Without even having Arius’s power over her, she felt warm from embarrassment as she licked his saliva from her hand. Before she had even finished, her body started to feel warm in an entirely different way.

An external energy filled her, gathering in strength alongside its mounting temperature. Arius’s power surged through her, and it felt invigorating.

“Now, we just kissed indirectly.” As if he were quite satisfied with that, Arius lay back across the grass.

Val grabbed up a fistful of grass blades and threw them over him. “You really are a bastard.”

“Yeah, yeah. Suvier isn’t married, I know.” The grass never reached him because Arius sliced the grass in the air with tiny razors of his ability. Red and green fell away to the rest of the grass, invisible as one disappeared to the air and the other merged with the turf.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Val said dumbly. While she knew that permanent unions were not common among the gods, she had not meant to call him a bastard in that way.

“It’s fine.” Though he might have said that, a silence fell between them. Arius’s mood worsened even under Keep the Peace at the mention of his father—the one who he clearly took great issue with given the recent fallout with Evalaite.