“Hey - Gods- watch the ribs!” wheezed Cooper, jerking back from helping hands. Iarden let out a melodic chuckle, hands held up in surrender. Cooper writhed in her armour - leather, not sabrian, a new batch that Lindys Industries had put out, although Cooper wasn’t sure how much you could change leather armour.

“Relax,” grinned Iarden, “you’re such a wimp. God, I thought you were a Templar.”

“I am.”

“You’re a wet napkin.”

Cooper rolled her eyes, unbuckling her breastplate with a sigh of relief. She breathed in the cool gym air. Empty, for once. Stykes Academy may have finally played in her favour. One last real day with her fiancée. Her very loving fiancée, who used her as a lab rat to test products.

“Tell your dad his sizes suck,” Cooper managed to groan, “felt like I was in a damn trouser press.”

“Oh, the luxuries of the modern world,” laughed Iarden. She leaned against the desk, she grinned without a care in a world, a rare sight for the young heiress. “It’s not his fault you’re a big bastard.”

“A decade of training would do that, maybe you should try it.”

“Maybe I will.”

Cooper flashed a grin, rolling her eyes. “Can’t say I understand why he’s still selling armour, especially leather armour. Thought it was only the Temples that still wore it.”

She watched as Iarden pulled a cig from the little pocket square on her crisp white shirt, lighting it with a flick of her wrist. Smoking was absolutely not allowed inside Academy walls, but it never seemed to bother Iarden. At least, it didn’t around Cooper. Maybe something about her triggered that recklessness, much like how Iarden brought it out in the Templar. Like together they were finally allowed to be twenty years old. Just two dumb students, unscarred by trauma or military life. Iarden blew a plume of smoke out of the side of her mouth. “You think you’re the only Temple of Omera?” Another drag. Another plume of smoke. “Besides, it goes down well with the war re-enactors.”

Cooper snorted. “Which war exactly? Don’t remember leather being all that big in the War Of The Twins.”

“Any,” shrugged Iarden, “all, I guess. The damn city loves war, practically built on the stuff. Still, it keeps my father in business.”

Iarden took another drag, the unsaid ‘you keep my father in business’ hanging between them. Unbothered, she smoked down half the cigarette before offering the rest to Cooper, who took it gingerly between her fingers and took a long drag. The smoke burnt as it filled her lungs, flowing out her nose with an exhale. Screwing up her face, she passed it back, earning herself a smirk that faded as quickly as it came.

“So, when are you leaving?”

Cooper grimaced. “End of the week.”

“That soon?”

“I think Queen Frax is desperate.”

Iarden snorted. “Then she can go find her pissbaby son herself, it’s not your fault she can’t parent.”

Cooper couldn’t argue with that logic. Still, she liked her head attached to her shoulders. Her fiancé sighed, body deflating. She rubbed at her arm, avoiding all eye contact.

“Then I’ll suppose I’ll see you in a few months?”

“Sure,” smiled Cooper, lying through a strained smile. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Truthfully she had no idea if she’d ever return. Not by choice, of course, but she was certain that if the quest didn’t kill her, Hawkins sure would. Cooper swore down that that woman was itching to throttle her after everything they’ve put each other through, and ultimately Cooper might let her. For fun, of course. Being inches away from death was an exciting game for Templars, and Cooper was no stranger to it. To bleed until you pass out, or to hold your breath underwater until you can no longer. They were pastimes and competitions. Nothing malicious. None of this she could tell Iarden. She’d only worry and Cooper quite frankly didn’t have the time for it.

This was her life, and she had turned out fine.

She didn’t know of any word that could comfort her future wife(if things went to plan, at least), opting instead to wrap an arm around the shorter woman’s broad shoulders, careful of the smouldering stick in her hand. Iarden caved in her embrace, leaning against her and hiding her face in Cooper’s ribcage in a rare show of vulnerability as if that would change the outcome. She breathed deeply, composing herself and standing straight once more. Cooper pretended not to notice the wetness in Iarden’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said, though she knew the sentiment didn’t quite reach. The tactless militaristic tone she used would never give way to empathy, even if she tried. It wasn’t in her nature.

Wasn’t allowed to be her nature.

“I really can’t stop this, if not the Queen then the Temple will have me killed for cowardice.”

Iarden didn’t, couldn’t reply, looking up at Cooper with her lips pressed into a thin line as if that would hold back the inevitable. Silence fell over them again, leaning back against the wall. Falling back into old patterns as they looked at anything but each other. They had loved each other once, for certain. They still did. A different kind altogether but enough to hold them tight. Gone was the fluttering need of teenhood, and the butterflies that ate them away. They were adults now, freshly twenty, and each other’s stability in the whirlwind of their lives, groomed to be the greatest soldiers they could. Love was a weakness they fought hard to keep.

Thoughts were banished with the squeal of the door. The pair jumped away from each other, hands frantically flattening clothes and taming hair. Or at least Iarden tamed her hair, Cooper brushed her hands over her buzz cut with a hiss at the reminder of her loss.

“At ease,” laughed the newcomer, the sound warm and comforting and home. Cooper let out a breath. The woman, Raelyn Godrick, tall with the lithe body of an athlete, a charming smile already tugging at her lips. She looked between the fiancees with a raised eyebrow. Cooper might have been seeing things but she swore that Raelyn’s easy expression faltered for less than a moment - a flicker and it was gone. “look, I’m not going to ask, or rat you out, or-”

“It’s okay, Godrick,” said Iarden, voice tight, “there’s nothing to say.”

Cooper wasn’t sure why those words stung.

“Alright,” nodded Raelyn, not attempting to hide the disbelief in her voice. “well, I booked the room out for the wolves. You can stay, of course. If you want I mean. Just a warning that it’ll get pretty loud in here.”

“What, you want a rematch, Godrick?” groaned Iarden, hopping from the table with an eye roll that made Cooper surprised that the shorter woman hadn’t just had a good look at her brain. “You coming, Cooper?”

“Uh,” said Cooper, intelligibly. She glanced between both women; her fiancee and her best friend who hated her fiancee. “I think I’m gonna stay? Little more training never hurt anyone.”

A lie. It was a lie and Iarden absolutely knew. Iarden bid them farewell, in the way that she always did when it was only Raelyn and Cooper there to keep her company. Cooper hastily made plans to see her that night only to be brushed off as her partner rushed out. Raelyn looked between Cooper and the empty space where Iarden had once stood, looking back up at Cooper with a questioning look.

“Is… Is everything okay with you two?” she asked carefully as if treading tumultuous waters.

“Of course,” answered Cooper instantaneously, no hesitation needed after many years of practice. “why wouldn’t it be okay?”

“Because you’re leaving and now you’re avoiding questions.”

Cooper pulled her lips into a tight grin that made her look more like a ventriloquist’s doll than the confidant woman she let everyone believe she was. Raelyn had never believed her act. The two had been dorm mates long enough to know each other well. Too well. How Cooper wished that her act was never broken.

“I’m fine. We’re fine.”

Raelyn looked at her with her dark, round almond-shaped eyes, completely mesmerizing and unbelieving. “You know you don’t have to lie, right?”

“I’m not,” lied Cooper.

Raelyn rolled her eyes, crossing two strong arms over her chest. Dark eyes dawdling over the empty room, anywhere but at Cooper, before she sprung into action; pushing herself off of the desk and crossing over to the towering pile of crash mats.

The mats were placed with care and ease, an art in itself. Each hit the ground with an airy thump, gently pushed until they slot into empty spaces until no floorboards were visible. It was then that Raelyn settled back besides Cooper, satisfied.

The air should not have hung so heavy between them. Between friends. Heartbeats audible, or perhaps only Cooper’s, racing between its cage of bone. Everyone was a little in love with Raelyn Godrick, a fact that damn near haunted the young Templar. It was impossible to not be, with her sharp mind and sharper tongue. Damn those awful feelings; a horrible side effect of teenhood left over, clinging to her psyche. The fact that she was an adult meant nothing.

Cooper let out everything, the feelings, the thoughts, the only way she knew how.

“I hate your stupid fucking boyfriend.”

Raelyn laughed. Damn her too. A grumble made its way out of her throat without her permission, escaping before Cooper could swallow it down.

“He’s like fifty,” continued Cooper, keeping her voice level. Trying to keep her voice level. Raelyn watched her, amused, letting her have her little rampage with patience. “Hell, he’s my professor for crying out loud. You don’t think he’s weird?”

Her friend, her ever-patient friend, stared. Dark brown eyes bored into her, evaluating. Then, she nodded. A small smile curled her lips. A chuckle and an eye roll.

“Get your sword, Coop. We training or not?”

Cooper swallowed down her words like a pill, nodding and unsheathing the standard iron blade at her waist.

They formed in a blur of fists and bared teeth. Flesh connecting against flesh, sword against sword. A gloriously dangerous dance, a waltz of steel and skin. Familiarity with each other’s movements. Cooper felt off-balance without her shield, relying on dexterity rather than defence.

They could have been the only two people in the room, circling and clashing together on loop. Cooper backed away, blue eyes narrowed and shining bright like torches. Raelyn stood tall and proud, twirling her short sword with practised ease. It was an action that might have impressed her once, but Cooper could not feel surprised at the actions of a woman who once learned a dead language within a week to prove a point. She mirrored Raelyn’s smirk, finding a weak spot in the other woman’s defence and launching herself, only to find herself with a boot on her stomach and knocked back.

Raelyn picked up Cooper’s chin with the tip of her blade, grinning at her win. Cooper raised an eyebrow, glancing down at the blade and then back at her friend with a smile equally as big.

“Twenty-seven.” she breathed, words barely above a whisper.

Cooper swallowed against the sword, the blade gently nicking her skin. Her voice came out as a croak, mind barely caught up as she said, eloquently; “What?”

“Leon. He’s twenty-seven, not fifty.”

The sword dropped from her throat, Raelyn’s eyes darting to the thin streak of red forming at her throat. In one swift movement, she licked her thumb with her horrible dog spit and wiped it across the thin cut.

“I’m going to miss you, Alek.”