Haalfrin and Frey (1/2)

And so, after Haalfrin's intervention, Faylin finally gets to enjoy her days of peace again...

Well…, her days include being sent out to secretly murder people, so peace is a bad word... Rather, her days go back to NORMAL again.

While she's busy stabbing inconvenient people in their sleep, Fhulk spends most of his days training his tail off and being on the brink of death constantly – all while being sent on supervised missions every now and then.

By "supervised", that means he's being watched by Haalfrin; there's literally nobody else in the fortress who could take care of the dragon singlehandedly if the boy gets out of hand.

Since Haalfrin is the only person with a physique strong enough to handle the dragon, he became the de facto trainer of the young dragon... and Haalfrin has no mercy for his trainees.

Needless to say, he teaches the dragon the meaning of fear for the second time (the first being from his father, Lord Fheldin).

What confuses the most about his time spent training Fhulk is that no matter how harsh or cruel he is in his training, the boy seems to get more and more attached to him.

Every day, instead of bothering Faylin, he tails Haalfrin around the Threshold instead like a loyal puppy. Whenever Fhulk tries at anything, he looks to Haalfrin afterwards for approval.

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As time goes on, even Haalfrin realizes that Fhulk is treating him like some father / mentor figure that he wants to gain recognition from.

At first, Haalfrin was a little annoyed at a dragon (who happens to be older than him) acting like an insecure child who's trying to be recognized by the adults.

One night, Haalfrin and Frey are both sitting on his bed and having one of their frequent chats – "frequent" meaning once or twice a day. There, Haalfrin expresses his frustrations at Fhulk, calling him a "needy man-child".

However, instead of agreeing, Frey shakes her head and says, "No, Haalfrin. I don't think him following you around is annoying. It's sad."

"…Sad?"

"Let me explain," she says. "So, dragons normally don't have a lot of children; conceiving is normally incredibly hard for them. However, as you know, Fheldin was able to have so many because instead of giving birth conventionally, his wife uses her alchemy to combine both their genetic material and create a child's body out of scratch. They can pump out children at will."

"…Yeah…," Haalfrin concedes, "so what's your point?"

"My point is," she explains, "is that Lord Fheldin never had time to properly spend time with any of his children or teach them much of anything; the only thing he ever did in raising them was offer himself as a challenge to overcome during their adulthood ceremony."

She takes a deep breath and thinks over her words some more. "Didn't you see how all of Fheldin's children are afraid of him? Do you really think he's actually there for any of them? What valuable lessons has he actually taught them other than the difference between victory and defeat?"

As if to hammer her point home, she keeps talking, "Plus, the very fact that the boy was willing to block off his sibling's escape route when he fled through the air vents proves that he wasn't very close with any of his siblings. He's never had any mentor figures, and nobody has ever looked up to him before."

Haalfrin raises an eyebrow. "So, you're saying he's just a lost little boy who needs looking after?"

"What I'm saying," she corrects him, "is that he's had people to slap him upside the head before, and he's had people to call him out on his crap before. However, you're probably the first person to be thoughtful enough to lecture him and offer up some decent advice without being judgy."

She finishes her thought, "Since he thinks of you as someone wiser, stronger, and more mature than he is, then it only makes sense for him to measure his actions against you and seek your approval. Just humor the boy and teach him when you can."

"…"

"…"

Frey and Haalfrin are silent for a few minutes before Haalfrin suddenly reaches into his space bag and pulls out an extra cake. "Here."

"I thought you were rationing them out?" Frey asks hesitantly… though she does snatch the cake up WITHOUT hesitation.

"Mhmm…" Haalfrin mumbles before smiling. "I just thought you were pretty cool right there."

In all their years spent together, Haalfrin had never heard Frey talk so much in a single sitting. Hearing her speak unrestrained in front of him… Hearing her speak up for Fhulk and calmly diagnose his thoughts…

… Whatever it is that she did, something changed inside of him.

…As Frey is sitting next to him, calmly eating her cake, Haalfrin can't help but glance at her lips and want to kiss them. Then, he glances at her bare neck, and his gaze travels down until he's staring numbly at her slim, bare feet.

He starts breathing in deeply and slowly to suppress the fire in his heart, and he starts thinking of random numbers to distract his naughty thoughts.

Indeed, Haalfrin had been aware a long time ago that Frey probably likes him… A LOT, and all these years, he did like her back. She's been with him a long time, and he has a lot of fond memories with her.

Though... he was never madly in love with her or anything; in his mind, she'd be at the top of the list if he HAD to pick somebody else to marry. If it were her, he was always sure he would be quite happy.

However, his feelings were never strong enough to tempt him to do something stupid or ignore logic.

So, Haalfrin's complex (but simple) feelings as he looked at Frey really did come as a surprise to him.

He shifts uncomfortably and props his leg up to hide the stiff feeling in his pants. 'Yeah,' he thinks carefully, 'It's not a good idea to impulsively obey what your body is telling you to do. I'd better keep calm and think this through carefully at a later time.'

"Is anything wrong?" Frey appears concerned as she notices Haalfrin fidgeting uncomfortably and having a staring contest with the floor.

"Nothing!" Haalfrin abruptly stands up and announces, "I need to get outside and get some water. I'm thirsty."

"But Haalfrin!" she calls out while holding up his space bag, "You've got some water in here!"

However, the door is already closed, and he's long gone.

So, Frey just sits up and nervously swings her feet in the air. Being an extremely powerful Spirit mage, she could naturally see what kinds of emotions Haalfrin was struggling with; it's just that it was such an unusual thing to see from that man that not even she could react properly.

The more she thinks about it, the more Frey can't help but smile. 'Huh… Well that's new.'

She flops her back onto the bed and starts laughing aloud.

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Several hours pass before Haalfrin slinks back into his room. To his surprise, Frey is still there, patiently waiting. "I thought you'd be back in your bottle by now," he remarks.

"Hmm…," Frey grunts, "We need to have a talk."

Haalfrin was actually planning on keeping quiet, but now that Frey brought it up, he suddenly realizes that he wants to have this talk too. It's like the act of her asking broke down his final bulwark of resolve.

So, he sits down on the floor – this time not on the bed with her. "What's up?"

Frey looks down and fidgets a little before asking, "What was… Why were you so agitated earlier?"

Haalfrin looks up and replies, "You're a powerful spirit mage; don't you already know?"

Frey nervously crumples a piece of paper and throws it at him. "Aiya!" she hisses, "do you really need me to say it!!??"

'Why can't you just say it out loud!' Frey thinks in frustration.

Seeing Frey nearly have a nervous breakdown, Haalfrin finally bursts out laughing, "Girl! If you got over your shyness, your life would be a lot easier."

"Heh," Haalfrin chuckles, "you don't have to be shy about your shyness. It's kind of adorable, actually."

Frey looks down again, and her head looks like it's about to explode.

Ignoring her strong reaction, Haalfrin takes a deep breath and abruptly announces, "Well, to answer your question… I do care about you more than anyone else in my life, but I realized yesterday that the kind of affection I have for you is a lot more specific than that."

"So…," he asks, "I do love you. Do you love me?"

"S-should you r-really be saying it so bluntly?!" Frey protests while looking away.

"…" Haalfrin is resisting the urge to laugh at her while he says, "What? Am I supposed to stutter and skirt around the subject? It is what it is. What's so shameful about having feelings for someone?"

He then shrugs, "If my feelings aren't reciprocated, then you can just take it as a compliment to your charm, and I'll just move on with my life. If they ARE reciprocated, then only good things can come of talking about it. So, why be shy?"

'Besides,' he thinks with confusion, 'Why're you getting agitated over me bringing this up? Isn't this what you wanted?'

He leans forward, "Anyway, you didn't answer the question."

Frey shuts her eyes tight and nods furiously. "I do." Oh. She said it.

Haalfrin expects Frey to get even more embarrassed after that, but instead, her face relaxes, and she looks up with a serious gaze, "What about Freyya – the Crow goddess? Do you care about me more than her?"

She'd seen Haalfrin through the bottle talk with Freyya all the time on his missions. She's felt his spirit threads, and the strong bond he has with that Reaper. The bond he has with that woman seems to be as strong as the bond with her.

Isn't this concerning?

So, she had to ask about Freyya, and what Haalfrin's relationship with her is.

Haalfrin almost blurts out, "Is there a difference?" However, he has to take into account that he knows a few things she doesn't know; those words would only hurt her, since she doesn't actually know the truth.

Instead, Haalfrin responds with his own question, "You know, the Crow goddess had been keeping something from me about my future for a very long time; she KNEW I would meet you since the day we met, and she knew what kind of future we would have. Why do you think she kept that from me?"

"…I don't know?" Frey is a little confused by this line of question. "I mean, how would the Crow goddess know about me and you meeting?"