During their walk to the mess hall, Kaldalis had done the best he could to suppress his thoughts. To bury the worry and anxiety, and to re-bury the memories. He was so distracted by them, even still that he was surprised to see the state of the mess hall in person.

The tent that had served as the mess hall on this side of town had undergone a serious upgrade. It had also become a brick-and-mortar building, though the large anchor that had served as one of the tent posts was now a decoration built into the front rather than a structural component.

It was also quite spacious, nearly a third larger than the tent had been.

The interior of the building was set up much like it had been before, though. There had always been a lopsided nature to the structure, and it was poorly lit all the way through. Now, though, it seemed like an intentional design decision. The place looked like a cliched set piece in a period action-comedy. It was a dimly-lit dive of a tavern, where cutthroats and pirates would gather to drink and discuss their wild adventures.

Despite the seedy appearance the place impressed upon him walking in, it took on an entirely different mood when he was sitting at a back table across from Heluna. As before, their table had additional lighting in the form of a candle, though it seemed different this time. He found his attention caught by the way the flickering light danced over Heluna’s gunmetal grey skin, and he wondered if that had been her intent the first time as well.

Dinner and friendly conversation with Heluna was oddly satisfying. He told her about his adventures in and around Panbu, and she told him about the sailors’ shipbuilding progress. When the subject turned to the reclamation of Panbu, Kaldalis called her out and made her admit that she was the one who got Garyung to come to the rescue. She tried to play it off, but the purple hue that colored her cheeks betrayed her embarrassment at being caught.

“I don’t know if I could possibly thank you enough,” Kaldalis said, finding her blush endearing. “If you hadn’t said the right thing at the right time, who knows how that might have ended.”

“I didn’t fuckin’ do it for thanks,” Heluna said, looking away. She looked like she was going to say something else, but stopped herself.

“I, uh, well,” Kaldalis stammered. He remembered the way she charged specifically to his rescue.

The way she smiled at him at the end when the fight was over.

He suspected that he knew what she had done it for.

It was for him. She’d approached Garyung and demanded his intervention for the sake of Kaldalis’s safety. He had been in danger and she knew it. She’d acted to support him, to protect him.

As much as he had the direct support of his friends who were physically present with him, Heluna was giving him support as well, despite how much harder her job or even physical location could make it. Sure, Balrim, Myrin, Reno, and SeventyEight had been at his side without hesitation, but Heluna had as well, despite how many more challenges were in her way of doing so.

He could have come to the conclusion that she was a true friend, but the flush in her cheeks and her reluctance to talk about it told him a lot more about her feelings.

Kaldalis had to bite back a sigh. The pair of them needed to have an open and honest discussion. Heluna deserved the truth about his traumatic experiences between Ara and Onirioago, and Kaldalis needed to piece together if her AI was complex and nuanced enough to consider a real relationship.

For now, though, he turned his attention back to his food. He’d rather have the conversation after a long walk up the beach, getting them far away from any curious ears and prying eyes.

That was, naturally, an ironic stance to take, given that he had an unknown number of unseen viewers hovering behind him. For whatever reason, the idea of the stream had faded into the background until he started considering a relationship with Heluna. Embarrassments like his groveling before the Panbu council and his catastrophic failure in the raid defense seemed minor compared to the idea of having hundreds - or even thousands - of people watching him stare at Heluna’s silvery lips wondering if they were as soft as they looked.

He found himself desperately wishing that they were having drinks with dinner, so that if his indigo cheeks were showing as much of a flush as Heluna’s grey skin, he could blame it on the alcohol.

When they finished dinner and Heluna invited him to join her for a walk on the beach, he almost said no. It was an irrational and childish desire to avoid the conversation he knew they would have. But he couldn’t refuse. The whole reason he’d sought her out when he’d arrived in Cotanaku was because he enjoyed her company.

Despite his reluctance and social anxiety, he liked Heluna.

This needed to happen.

He just wanted it to happen at some distant moment. Any time but now.

They walked up the beach in comfortable silence for a while. Kaldalis found the roar of the ocean waves against the sound therapeutic, and focused on the calming effect the sound had on him. Cotanaku fell farther and farther behind them, and with every step, the pair were more and more alone.

In his head, being alone with Heluna was nice, even if it set his heart pounding near to panic. Of everyone he’d been around since entering Rundan, she had always seemed the most chill. He’d never felt judgement or demands on him when around her. Even now, the demand for emotional vulnerability he knew was coming originated from within, not from her. He knew that if he just kept his mouth shut, held her hand on the walk, and gave her a peck on the cheek when they got back to Cotanaku, she wouldn’t say a word of complaint.

But he couldn’t live like this. The stress of keeping this buried was too much to bear. He’d nearly physically attacked a perfect stranger in town because they were wearing a shirt that reminded him of what he’d gone through. What would have happened if he’d made a scene? What would have happened if his emotional trauma caused him to see Ara’s features on someone else’s face? Demriv and Onirioago looked nearly identical for no good reason. What if Monsoon was just that lazy? What if he, personally, killed a random NPC because they had the misfortune of looking just like the monster that had assaulted him?

No matter how badly he wanted to bury it, it was only a matter of time before ignoring what had happened to him started having very real consequences.

“I-” His voice cracked immediately as he broke the silence. He flinched and swallowed hard, trying to gather his thoughts. “I don’t know how to start,” he said at last.

Heluna tilted her head and looked at him with obvious amusement. Her eyes glittered, and he knew she was holding back some comment.

“Go ahead,” Kaldalis said with a beckoning gesture. “Make your joke.”

“I didn’t want to assume-” Heluna began. Despite the obvious mirth in her voice, the corners of her mouth turned down in a look of concern. “I mean, we just-”

“We both know how we feel,” Kaldalis said, trying to sound as casual as possible. “Just make your joke. In a few minutes, we’ll be grateful to have started off with a laugh.”

“I was going to ask if this is your first fuckin’ time,” Heluna said, though her expression held onto the concern, “but now I’m not sure if this conversation is gonna turn to shit.”

“I’ve been on dates before,” Kaldalis said, trying - and failing - not to sound defensive. “I’ve had... girlfriends before. I know- I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry about that.”

Heluna tossed him a smirk. “I’m not worried about that. If I were going to be the first, you wouldn’t be my first time being the first.” One hand snaked around his shoulder, fingers touching the close-cropped hair just above the back of his neck. “There’s no shame in it either way.”

Her fingers danced along his hairline, and there was a gentle pressure in her fingertips.

Kaldalis’s body jerked away without conferring with his brain. He found himself remembering Onirioago’s aggressive forwardness in yanking him into a kiss he couldn’t pull away from.

Heluna immediately flinched back as well, holding up her hands where he could see them.

“I’m sorry-” Kaldalis said.

“No, I’m sorry,” Heluna said quickly, taking another step back. “I didn’t think… I’m a dumbass. I think I fuckin’ misunderstood what we were discussing.”

“No, well, yes, but not like that,” Kaldalis said. He reached out, taking one of her hands with one of his own. “Before we… Go any further - with anything - I need to tell you something.”

“O-okay,” Heluna said. She looked down at their joined hands, and the nearly hopeful look in her eyes tied Kaldalis’s stomach in a knot.

“You’re a smart woman,” Kaldalis began. He turned away and started to walk up the beach again, but didn’t let go of her hand. “The day of the expedition leader election, we spoke about my part in how Onirioago got removed.”

“Yes,” she said, walking alongside him. “I remember. I was there, after all.”

“You knew that there were parts of the story I wasn’t telling you,” Kaldalis said. It wasn’t a question, but Heluna still nodded. “I think, if we’re going to… If you want to pursue something, then you need the whole story.”

They walked in silence for a moment, and Kaldalis used the opportunity to try and get his thoughts in order. A part of him wanted to lie again. Tell the partial story with the grosser details artfully censored. But that was just a new way to lock the trauma away. He didn’t just owe her more than that, he owed himself more than that.

“I do,” Heluna said, interrupting his internal monologue. “I do want to pursue something. If that’s okay.”

Kaldalis took a deep breath, mustered his courage, and opened his mouth.

The story rushed out of him like it had been waiting for the dam to burst.