“Do you think they’ll like it, darling?” Subaya asked while shifting a basket full of sweets and drinks in her arms.

“I’m sure they will,” Rikio responded, carrying a box with a cake in it.

The two walked down the snow covered streets under the mid-afternoon sun, walking towards the house of their friends and neighbours.

“I wonder what they have been doing this whole time,” Subaya wondered aloud. “It’s been a couple of months since anyone has seen them.”

“They’re probably just staying out of the cold,” Rikio commented. “This winter has been harsh. Arylos definitely seemed like an older guy; maybe it’s not good for his joints.”

“Maybe we should take them on a bathhouse visit,” Subaya suggested with a smile as they turned and continued down the walkway to the front of the house.

Rikio chuckled under his breath as the two approached and he knocked on the door.

Silence.

Rikio knocked again with a little more intensity.

“Maybe they’re asleep; their rooms are upstairs,” Rikio commented.

“It’s the middle of the day though,” Subaya cut in, starting to become concerned.

After a moment, the door opened and in the doorway stood a robed Arylos with his chest exposed and bandages covering portions of his body and his right hand with old cuts in his face and exposed bruises on other parts of his chest.

“Ah, I wasn’t expecting you two to come by,” Arylos commented with a plain face, as if the whole situation was normal.

The Dariki’s looked at him with a dumbfounded expression for a moment before Subaya shook herself out of the shock.

“By the gods, what happened to you?” She exclaimed.

Arylos rubbed the back of his neck with a nervous chuckle. “This is nothing, really. Just a little scuffle.”

“Scuffle my ass, you look like you got out of a fight,” Rikio commented with concern.

“Are things okay at home?” Subaya pushed forward. “Did Iris do this to you?”

“Do this to him?! I’m the one trying to fix the asshole!” Iris called out as she approached the doorway. “The big idiot here got himself into another fight so now I have to be the one to fix him.”

“You look like shit, man,” Rikio lamented, continuing to find new wounds in new places.

Arylos let out a laugh followed by a slight cough due to chest pains. “If you think I look like shit, you should have seen the other guy.”

“Come on in out of the cold, guys,” Iris commented and pulled Arylos out of the doorway. “We weren’t expecting you today.”

The Dariki’s came in and closed the door behind them. “It’s almost the new year!” Subaya called out in a cheery voice and offered her basket of goods to Iris. “We brought sweets, wine, and even some candies”

“Oh, thank you!” Iris called out in a big smile as she looked through the basket.

“And here’s a cake Subaya made for the two of you,” Rikio offered the box in his hands to Arylos, who accepted it with a bow.

Iris could not contain her smile as she admired the gifts. “We don’t have much, but Arylos was trying his hand at some rice cakes if you two would like.”

“That sounds good!” Subaya exclaimed as the two walked over to the torotsu while Arylos and Iris retreated to the kitchen.

“How much longer until you’re fully healed from your fight with Baldr?” Iris asked quietly.

Arylos lifted his hand and Iris could see the skin and muscles still moving and pulling over old wounds. “At this point, your guess is as good as mine,” he commented.

“Please tell me you have a way to stop it,” Iris responded, realising the others can’t see this.

Arylos set the cake on the counter. “I can, but the process of healing this body is also what’s keeping it alive.”

“What do you mean by that?” Iris wondered aloud.

“Remember, this is a three millennia old corpse,” Arylos reminded Iris. “I’m only puppeting it; that’s all.”

Iris rubbed her chin, deep in thought. “So, we really can’t have them seeing your wounds. Good thing I’ve been putting bandages on you.”

Arylos scoffed and reached for a bag and started filling it with some of the rice cakes. “What is this even about the ‘new year’?”

Iris slowly turned to face Arylos, not quite believing her ears. “I know you come from another world and all, but don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the new year?”

Arylos tied off the bag of cakes and shook his head with a dumb expression.

Iris rubbed her eyes as she processed this. “Do you know what a year is?”

“Roughly,” Arylos answered. “I know what it is, but not really how long a year is on this planet.”

Iris felt a nerve snap in her. “So you’ve been saying that your body is three thousand years old but you don’t even know how long that is?”

“A year is different on each planet,” Arylos explained. “And the last time I was here for an extended period of time, it was plunged into war so I’ve never heard about this.”

Iris sighed. “It’s how long the seasons take to change. We consider the new year to begin the day after the first snow melt.”

“That is not very precise,” Arylos commented to Iris’s shock. “Templarians consider a year when Templarius completes one revolution, and that takes precisely 400 Templarian days which are spaced out into–”

“That’s enough!” Iris cut him off. “That’s too specific.”

“We’re talking about time here,” Arylos commented. “It needs to be measured precisely. Most planets tend to use orbital period.”

“Orbital…period?” Iris asked, the alien words confusing her.

“How long a planet takes to orbit around a star,” Arylos explained.

Iris stared at him for a moment, trying to process what he was saying. “I’m done with the questions,” Iris remarked with a deep sigh while taking the bag of rice cakes from Arylos. “Just do your best to pretend you know what’s going on, okay?”

“Kind of hard to pretend when I don’t know what’s going on,” Arylos responded in a snarky voice as he made his way out of the kitchen, leaving Iris to fume in the kitchen.

I hate him, Iris thought to herself as she went back to the living room. “Here’s the rice cakes Arylos made,” Iris said while offering the bag of small cakes while trying to hide her frustration from recently.

“So, how have you two been?” Subaya asked with a big polite smile while accepting the cakes with a bow of her head.

Arylos sat down in the torotsu with Iris sitting down next to him. “Things have been…interesting to say the least,” Arylos answered with a smile of his own.

“When Arylos can stop getting himself into fights, it's alright,” Iris remarked while nudging Arylos.

“It certainly sounds like you have a handful with him,” Rikio laughed. “Reminds me a lot of how Subaya and I were when we met.”

“Yeah, you’ll have to teach me some tricks,” Iris whispered to Subaya.

“Well, by that point we were already a couple so I had my ways of twisting him around my finger,” Subaya answered with a wide smile.

“That would make things so much easier,” Iris commented with a frown.

Subaya’s expression changed to a sudden glare that pierced Iris’s soul. “Wait, are you two not together?”

Silence filled the room as the question hung in the air. Iris could feel her palms sweat as she really didn’t have an answer. She snuck a glance over to Arylos who had a smile on his face for the guests, oblivious to the question.

Don’t act like you didn’t just hear her ask that! Iris screamed in her head, wanting to give him a solid punch to the face.

“No no, we’re just friends, that’s all,” Iris responded with a smile, expertly hiding her internal struggle.

“Really? You two seem close for that,” Rikio chimed in.

Arylos chuckled nervously but expertly formulated a response. “I was there when her village was destroyed and I tried to help. I promised her father that I would protect her and here we are.”

“So he’s your knight in shining armour?!” Subaya squealed while clasping Iris’s hands.

“Eh, old black and red armour more like,” Iris commented, trying to shake the image of Arylos in shining silver armour with a rose in his teeth like all of the stories. The idea seemed so outlandish compared to the real Arylos. Something about the creature that ripped apart and ate six men after he was awakened doesn’t really fit the idea of a romantic silver-clad knight who fights with honour and dignity.

“Plus, I failed either way,” Arylos added, banishing the image from Iris’s mind. “Her village was destroyed and there was nothing I could have done to change that.”

“Yes, but you still tried,” Rikio chimed in with a solid nod. “That says a lot more than most people who would just watch and not do anything. You at least tried to change the outcome, even if it was hopeless.”

Iris thought back to Arylos in Nageki, how Eir ran him through the chest with her spear and he pushed onwards, insisting on saving who he could and burying those he could not. The village was already lost by the time he got there, but he still fought, able to take on the pain if it meant at least trying to stand up.

“I appreciate your approval,” Arylos responded with a deep head bow.

“Either way, I could totally see you two together!” Subaya continued her forward march.

“Darling, I’m pretty sure Arylos is too old,” Rikio commented before turning his gaze to Arylos. “Just how old are you?”

Iris felt the silence come from Arylos and when she looked to him, he looked calm save for sweat coming down the side of his face.

Right, they don’t know what you are, Iris realised, followed by a horrifying thought. He has no idea how old I am! That’s why he’s hesitating!

She had an idea come to her. Below the blankets, she reached for his knee and tapped his knee twice followed by a pause and then once more again.

“Twenty eight,” Arylos responded once he got the hint.

“You certainly look much older than that,” Subaya commented while looking at him closer.

“I didn’t age well,” Arylos laughed while rubbing the back of his neck.

“But you’re so pale for being so young,” Rikio pressed.

“I grew up a shut-in, what can I say?” Arylos continued laughing.

A part of Iris agreed. He should have said he was thirty, but that would make him too old. Was he playing younger to make the idea of them being together less foreign? Why the act?

“I guess Iris likes older guys,” Subaya whispered to Rikio.

“I do not!” A flustered Iris jumped in, trying to maintain her reputation while her red face was calling her bluff.

Arylos and the Dariki’s laughed about the embarrassed girl and Iris did all she could to contain it. She couldn’t tell what she was more embarrassed about; Subaya’s older guys comment or the idea of her and Arylos being together. She glanced at Arylos and saw him smiling, laughing, and she felt happy that he was experiencing some happiness after what she learned about his people. She gave the idea some consideration, but she had to remember that he isn’t human.

Would the concept of love even make sense to him?

Iris shook the thoughts out of her head, deciding that the thought process was not someplace she wanted to go.

“So, what will you do for the new year?” Rikio asked.

Iris took the moment to jump in before Arylos could say anything. “We’ll probably have dinner and go walk around the festival for a bit.”

“Will you be visiting a shrine?” Subaya chimed in, liking the idea.

“You bet!” Iris practically leapt with excitement. “It will be my first time going with Arylos as well so it’s bound to be fun!”

“That fun, huh?” Arylos asked with a laugh.

“It’s an important part of the new year,” Iris explained to Arylos, the idea of him being there building her excitement.

Arylos laughed and patted her head like she was an excited puppy. “Alright, I’ll have to get things for dinner anyway.”

“Provided you don’t find any fights to get into,” Subaya commented with a smirk.

“It’s less I find them and more they find me,” Arylos laughed.

“Well, I think we’ve kept you two long enough,” Rikio added with a clap of his hands. “It looks like Iris needs to finish her bandaging work in any case.”

“But I hope you two have a happy new year!” Subaya squealed.

“You too!” Iris added in with a big smile. The idea of the coming new year being around the corner filled her with excitement.

Arylos smiled, but he found himself lost in his own thoughts. He didn’t understand much of this, but he wanted to. Seeing Iris’s excitement was enough to tell him he wants to take part, in any case just to see more of her smile.

He was in uncharted territory now, and he was going to be thrashed out by the waves in the storm that is Iris.