“Your – are you sure you want to talk about it? I really don’t want to make you relive any old trauma…” Naomi continued, clearly thinking that this was enough to clarify her previous point.

  “Naomi, I don’t know what you’re imagining, but I can assure you…” just as June spoke those words, it all suddenly made sense. The crying, the occasional offhand comments, the caring, “Don’t tell me you only approached me because you pitied me?”

  “No!”

  “Then why?”

  “I – I had a crush on you.” She blurted out.

  “Before you came to this world? When I was just a concept, a book character?”

  Naomi covered her face, and made an embarrassed noise.

  “But,” Naomi spread her fingers apart, so as to maintain eye contact while hiding her blush, “If you had a happy and serene past, what was all that about not eating bread and hiding the scars on your hands?”

  “First of all, I never told you about the bread,” June argued. She loved making that comment, and Lude had pointed on more than one occasion that it was inappropriate. Up until this day, June hadn’t understood why. “And second, well, I’m surprised someone as smart as you hasn’t figured it out yet. I mean, you might have known about all the artefacts and the Cedar wanting to take back his throne, but you must have made at least a few educated assumptions during that speech of yours.”

  Naomi nodded, and moved her hands away. She looked at June expectedly.

  June sighed.

  “I guess it’s my turn to tell you about myself.”

  She handed Naomi the lie-detector artefact, and began her tale.

  ---

  June, born Juliette Vallen from a merchant woman and a soldier man, lived in a small village up the Northern cost of the Barclays dukedom. She hadn’t reached the age of 10 when Basil thew his little coup, and led hers any many other towns into disarray.

  It didn’t take that long for Basil’s guards to spread to the coast, and stop the vandalism and daytime crime, but by that time Juliette, now calling herself June, had become a homeless orphan. She joined a band a of similarly displaced kids, one of whom quickly became her best friend.

  Sword fighting came more naturally to her than to most, and soon adult mercenaries started noticing her. Her skill, combined with Lude’s magic affinity and vampiric nature allowed them to makegood money, and prosper in the business.

  They were approached by Cedar when June was around 15. The heir of the Barclays dukedom wasn’t that much older than them, but he had much more ambition, despite his misleading gentle nature. He offered them a long term partnership which eventually turned into a friendship. Afterall, they saw a common enemy in the face of self-proclaimed emperor Harvard.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  Years flew by, and June went from doing odd merc jobs to focusing on her main goal. She forged alliances, extorted favours, and occasional helped key people with well-planned ‘accidents’. The thought of revenge became more distant as she grieved and accepted the death of her parents. She never forgave Basil, but she’d moved on. Cedar hadn’t. That didn’t reflect on their friendship, but it reflected on the direction June’s work took. She didn’t know where Cedar kept getting the coin from, but when he suggested she play baroness for a few months, as an ultimate step in his plan of reclaiming the throne, she gladly accepted. She saw it as a sign of him finally shutting that book and moving forward.

  She never saw Naomi’s arrival or presence as any sort of threat to hers and Cedar’s plans. Well, not until the fiasco at the annual ball at least.

  ---

  “And that would be the long and short of it.” June concluded.

  She glanced over at Naomi, suddenly hyperaware of everything she’d just confessed to. It left right to be honest towards the woman, but exposing her past wasn’t something that she’d necessarily planned on doing. Most people didn’t take too kindly to fraternising with mercenaries, and even less so with those openly opposed to the Emperor.

  Naomi was deep in thought for a few minutes. Judging my the way her lips silently formed words, June assumed she was going over passaged from that book she’d mentioned, and was trying to piece them with the new information she’d just been given.

  “I really am an idiot.” Naomi eventually spoke. The words didn’t hit as hard as they might have, as June waited for the other woman to elaborate. “I assumed so much, made so many false connections. You must see me as some na?ve, childish person, incapable of seeing the full picture,” Naomi bit her lip, and turned her head away from June, as she continued speaking, “And at this point it’s not even worth it to try and explain myself. You’ve formed an opinion about me, and it’s unlikely we’ll ever be more than friends, if even that.”

  June blinked in surprise, taken aback. Not only had she not expected Naomi to bring up their relationship again, but the serious tone of her voice in this moment was so different from her usual upbeat one. June couldn’t help but wonder if Naomi hadn’t been putting up an act this whole time, even though the merc knew that hadn’t been the case. But then what would have caused this sudden shit from her Naomi to this serious and rational woman sitting next to her now?

  June put a hand on her shoulder. Naomi didn’t react, nor did she turn around.

  “I think- things don’t have to change.”

  “Well, I’m less inclined to work for free for a mercenary than I was for a my – for a woman I loved.”

  This time the choice of words did hit, and it hit hard. It was as if someone was swueezing June’s heard in an ice-cold gauntlet. She couldn’t look past the use of the past tense.

  “I’ll stop with the odd jobs.” June blurted out. “I have enough money saved up, we can try again,”

  “What do you think the nature of our relationship is?” Naomi suddenly turned around. Tears were pearling at the corners of her eyes, but she was somehow maintain her composure. “What am I to you?”

  “Oh please don’t cry,” June hastily spoke, her voice suddenly soft, as she reached out to run her thumb under Naomi’s eyes. “I like you, you’re the only one who gave a shit about me. Other than Lude - but it was different with you. I care about you. I don’t want you to think I was toying with your feelings,”

  “Were you?”

  “No!”

  June knew her sincerity had come across when Naomi leaned in and kissed her.

  “I guess this makes us official.” June said, in a tone that somehow simultaneously failed to convey both her surprise and joy.

  “Official?” Naomi smirked, as her tone returned to her usual joyful one.

  “Well, when you think about it, we have been going on dates for a good few weeks.”

  “I guess having tea on your balcony does count as a date.”

  “May I kiss you again?”

  “Yes you may.” Naomi blushed, as their lips met once again.