Leon’s villa was silent as a grave once Minerva, Alix, and the rest of the knights took their leave. Neither Elise nor Naiad wanted to break the silence, they simply remained quiet and waited for Leon to say the first word. After all, neither of them had just lost a mentor.

For his part, Leon slid back a little bit in his chair and closed his eyes in thought. Trajan had been remarkably good to him, helping him to train and even trying to teach him to be better than he was, to remember that mercy had its place in battle and that violence wasn’t always the best option.

From the way Leon handled the Tiberias situation, he was well aware that Trajan’s lessons didn’t really take. With the Thunderbird on his other shoulder advocating for more violent, more permanent solutions to his problems, Trajan’s more idealistic teachings didn’t stand much of a chance.

Still, Leon greatly respected the Prince. Much of what Trajan preached, such as ensuring that peace and justice reached every citizen of the Bull Kingdom, resonated with Leon’s own values. Leon didn’t like seeing people abusing their power, though he didn’t go out of his way to do much about it or to even examine himself through that lens too deeply. What Leon wanted was for everyone to just respect each other and to keep to their own business, to not pry into their personal lives or force themselves and their own beliefs upon other people.

Much more cynical than Trajan’s own values, but hardly dissimilar on a fundamental level.

What was more than that, though, was that Trajan and Leon had struck up a genuine level of trust and friendship during Leon’s time at the Bull’s Horns. They trusted each other, with Trajan going so far as to open an investigation into a potential threat on Leon’s word alone, and Leon performing the tasks asked of him by Trajan.

Now that Trajan was gone, Leon felt a pit in his stomach that had opened when Artorias had been killed grow just a little bit larger. He was hungry, and the only thing he could think of that might satisfy that urge was the blood of his enemies.

And yet, he languished there at the dining table, paralyzed by indecision. He wanted to rampage through Octavius’ ranks in retribution, but he knew that neither Trajan nor Artorias would’ve approved. He doubted that any of his other friends and family members would approve much, either.

Elise supported him killing Tiberias, but he was sure that that support wouldn’t extend to killing innocents. Naiad, though, Leon felt was probably comfortable with just about anything, though he wasn’t planning on testing that.

On a more practical front, he doubted it was even possible without Naiad’s assistance, and while he wasn’t averse to getting her to help him, he needed to clarify their relationship first. Such a drastic action as killing a Paladin and a Prince wasn’t something he wanted to do without absolute certainty in those who would accompany him.

‘No, it’s better to sit and wait, think of some other, better plan, one that doesn’t rely on Naiad,’ Leon thought to himself as he desperately tried to stop himself from doing something stupid.

He didn’t give the law a shot when dealing with Tiberias, but if Minerva and the rest of Trajan’s retinue wanted to try the law right now, Leon would go along with it, even if it lacked the catharsis of running Octavius and the rest of his people through with a sharp piece of metal.

Leon opened his eyes and glanced at Elise and Naiad, his golden eyes meeting their emerald and lazulite eyes.

Elise smiled at him, appearing to Leon’s eyes like the sun. Naiad, on the other hand, was quiet and stoic, but she radiated the confidence of the ocean as it slowly ground the rocks on the shore into sand. Whatever lingering ambiguity may have existed in their relationships with him and with each other, both were a great comfort to Leon, even if they said nothing. He’d descended into a shocked stupor in the wake of Artorias’ untimely fall, but with these two here with him and the weight of almost four years of experience behind him, Leon wouldn’t fall into the same state again.

“Things are going to get hectic around here very soon,” Leon said, slowly enunciating each word as if it took great willpower to break the room’s silence.

“We’re ready for it,” Elise said. “Whatever comes, we’ll get through it.”

Naiad nodded in agreement, the corners of her lips even turning up in anticipation, which Leon noticed. He may no longer have the backing of a Prince, but he still had Elise and Heaven’s Eye. Naiad, though, he was less sure about, despite her seeming confidence.

“Naiad…” Leon began, pausing for a moment as he searched for the right words to use.

Naiad leaned forward, her attention fully on Leon. She clearly anticipated that he would ask her to spill some blood with him, which she was more than eager to do.

After a few moments of thought, Leon decided that since she was so blunt and forward, he would act in kind. Besides, with Trajan dead and further violence almost guaranteed in the near future, Leon didn’t have the time to dance around the issue. He needed to know where they stood after a year of sleeping together and little else.

“What are we?” Leon asked, his face set with uncharacteristic determination. “Are we lovers? Are we friends? How far does our relationship go? In ten years, what will we be to each other? What am I to you?”

Each question hit Naiad like a sack of bricks, and by the end, she was sitting back in her chair almost as low as Leon was, any trace of anticipation that had graced her face moments before crushed beneath Leon’s questions.

“Love, I don’t think we need to-“ Elise began, but Leon glanced at her and silenced her with a quick shake of his head.

“We need to hammer this out,” he said. “No more remaining quiet and simply enjoying the way things are. Nothing remains the same forever, and I expect that the civil war that Trajan’s been trying to avert for the past year will break in a matter of months. We can’t… I can’t continue on this course if I don’t even know where we stand.

“So, Naiad, I need to know, what am I to you?”

Leon stared at Naiad, his eyes seeming to bore holes into her. However, he didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he decided to give her a few moments to think by answering the opposite question.

“I think I love you, or at least, the potential for it is there. I mean, after so long being together, how could I not feel something for you? If we were to work at it, I think I could love you as much as I love Elise, and that the three of us could be happy together. But I need to know what you want, what your plans are for the future, if you’re willing to give this a shot. If you want us to be more than just base mates.”

Naiad remained quiet in the wake of Leon’s words. She dropped her gaze down to the table, all confidence that she exuded now gone. Her heart felt tight, and while she definitely felt something for Leon, she had no way to put it into words. Whether it was love or a more mundane sense of attachment, she didn’t know.

But she couldn’t explain anything to Leon, not when the shock and panic of him dumping all of this onto her so suddenly had caused her mind to lock up.

“I would like an answer, but I can wait until you’re comfortable enough to give it,” Leon said, alleviating some of Naiad’s sudden anxiety. “Just, please think about it. I… If possible, I would like it if we could be more than just sex partners, but it’s entirely up to you.”

With that, Leon stood up and immediately turned around and made for his enchanting workshop. He wasn’t intending to do any work, he just needed to get away for a few hours, to mourn in private for a little while. Besides, the shock of Trajan’s death may have emboldened him to ask Naiad those questions, but he was still shaking from nervousness about how she would respond. When she seemed reluctant to answer, Leon had happily jumped on that excuse to delay her response for at least a little while.

For her part, Naiad numbly sat at that table watching him exit through the backdoor.

“I…” Elise hesitantly began, not quite sure what to say after all that Leon had just said. However, she was still the daughter of the Heaven’s Eye Tower Lord, and she quickly recovered. “I think I would like it if you joined our family,” she said with a tone of unmistakable seriousness. “I think Leon put it quite well when he said that he wasn’t sure if he loved you or not, but that he could love you if you two put in the work. I would like to echo that sentiment. I like you, not quite to the point of love, but I don’t want you to go. If we were to try, I think I could love you, but it needs to be reciprocal. We need to know what you think, how you feel about this. We’re patient, though, and we’ll be ready to hear your answer whenever you’re comfortable enough to give it.”

With that, Elise got up and started to get ready to head over to the Heaven’s Eye Tower to help her mother get ready to deal with the firestorm on the horizon. Leon had a great deal of work coming up, and so did she.

Naiad was left alone at the dining table, almost paradoxically lost in deep thought and unable to focus her thoughts enough to come to an answer.

Barely even realizing what she was doing, Naiad rose from her seat and quickly retreated to the privacy of her guest rooms. She needed to think and right in the middle of the living room was not the place to do so.

Upon entering her room, she turned off all the lights, drew the curtains, and threw herself down upon the bed. Not even five seconds later, she was so completely lost in her own mind that she had practically checked out of reality.

What did she think about Leon and Elise? She didn’t know for certain, beyond the simple, base pleasure that being with them brought. It was sexually fulfilling to be with them, and for Naiad, that was enough to stay.

However, Leon and Elise made it clear enough that that kind of relationship wasn’t enough for them. Fun for a while, perhaps, but they wanted her in their family—or, at least, they didn’t think they could continue as they had been for the past year without more open commitment. For all the fun they had sleeping together, for all that Naiad was willing to kill Leon’s enemies, it still wasn’t enough for them.

To an extent, Naiad thought she could understand, even with her inexperience with human culture. She treated everything casually and primally. Leon was her mate, and he had to be protected until he provided her with a child. She had killed for him, but it wasn’t out of love or genuine concern for his wellbeing—as far as she could tell, at least.

She didn’t love either of them, at least not in their eyes. She didn’t know where she stood on that front herself, as she had never taken the time to really examine her own thoughts on the matter. She was getting a child and having fun doing it, beyond that, she hadn’t bothered to think about her situation.

When she thought about Leon, her heart beat faster and she felt happy. She loved to watch him work and reveled in the passion he showed when training and studying his enchantments. She had never felt such passion for anything before, and it was exhilarating to experience it vicariously through him—and to experience it physically when they slept together.

But love? She didn’t know if she loved Leon. Her symptoms seemed like love, but she had never experienced it before, nor had she ever had real friends or good acquaintances. Her relationships thus far had been solely with her subordinate river nymphs, and they weren’t intelligent or self-aware enough to be truly close to her, despite their human-seeming appearance.

All of this was equally true with Elise, though without the added benefit of the reproductive instinct. Wanting Leon’s blood was an important part of her attraction to him, and that element was missing with Elise. Still, the young woman worked very hard at Heaven’s Eye, from what little Naiad could see when she was out of the enchanted walls of the tower—not to mention the work the young woman put into the study of nature enchantments in the villa’s garden. Elise gave her work her all, and she genuinely enjoyed working there.

Again, Naiad had never felt so passionate about anything before, her life up to the point of her lesser nymph bringing Leon to her was spent largely in Saron or in the underground lake where she and Leon met. Nothing, save for perhaps the borderline mania she had when Leon was brought to her and presented as a desirable partner to stave off gorgonism with, had aroused the same enthusiastic passion in her that enchanting did for Leon, or Heaven’s Eye did for Elise. Not even training on her island, which while beautiful, had little in the way of entertainment or amenities that even Leon and Elise’s relatively small villa possessed.

At the very least, Naiad didn’t want to go home quite yet, not after getting a taste of human material culture, and especially not after everything that Leon and Elise had done to her in their bed over the past year.

Still, she’d have to work out what she felt about Leon and Elise before she could stay, that much was made clear enough to her. However, she didn’t feel like she could do so alone. She needed to consult with someone who wasn’t involved, someone who had more experience in these matters than what she had.

She needed to go and speak with her mother. She needed to return to Saron, the city of the water nymphs, and see the Empress of her people.