The morning sun sliced through the tall windows of Alistair's study, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air like tiny, undisciplined sprites. He stood by his desk, already dressed in simple, functional trousers and a linen shirt for his training, the more formal coat laid over his chair.

Amora was perched on the cold marble of his inkwell, swinging her legs as she polished a stray pen nib with a scrap of her petticoat. Shhhk-shhhk-shhhk.

Alistair's voice broke the quiet, calm and absolute. “I am for the training grounds. You will remain here.”

The polishing stopped. Shhhk—

Her head snapped up, pink eyes wide. “What? Why?”

“It is no place for a fairy,” he stated, pulling on his leather sparring gloves with a series of precise, familiar tugs. “It is loud, chaotic, and populated by large, sweating men who are paid to hit one another. The risk of you being stepped on, swatted, or otherwise grievously flattened is unacceptably high.”

“I can be discreet!” she protested, zipping into the air to hover at his eye level. “I am the soul of discretion! I'll stay in your pocket! You won’t even know I’m there!”

“A state of being I would greatly prefer,” he said. “But your definition of ‘discreet’ has, in the past, included humming weaving songs and attempting to reorganize my library by ‘the color of the books’ souls.’ You will stay.”

He turned to leave, his tone leaving no room for argument. It was a duke's decree.

Amora landed back on the inkwell with a tiny thump. She crossed her arms, a pout forming on her lips. Then, a calculated shift. Her wings drooped. Her shoulders slumped in a picture of perfect, dejected obedience.

“...Fine,” she mumbled, her voice a small, defeated squeak. “I'll stay. I'll just… polish something. Very quietly.”

Alistair paused at the door, glancing back at her. She looked so small, so utterly subdued. He didn't believe it for a second. He knew that look was the quiet before the glittery storm. And yet, a foolish, quiet part of him—a part he would never acknowledge aloud—hoped, just this once, that she would listen.

A faint, weary sigh escaped him. “See that you do,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

The moment the latch clicked, Amora's head lifted. The pout vanished, replaced by a glittering, determined grin.

“Oh, I'll be discreet,” she whispered to the empty room, her wings buzzing with renewed energy. “I'll be the most discreet, unseen, utterly-invisible-to-the-human-eye fairy that ever…”

Her eyes darted to the slightly open window, a sliver of morning light and fresh air beckoning, her wings a blur of pink-gold light that caught the sun like a guilty secret.

“…followed a stubborn duke to his training grounds.”

She zipped low across the eastern terrace, darting from one marble balustrade to the next, the morning breeze tugging playfully at her skirts. She ducked behind a stone urn overflowing with lavender, peeking out just in time to spot Alistair striding down the gravel path toward the lower fields.

“Stealth mode,” she whispered to herself, voice full of false gravity. “Target proceeding to the eastern perimeter. No detection yet.”

From there, she flitted along the ivy climbing the manor walls, using the leaves as cover as she advanced toward the stables. When the wind nearly dislodged her from a stem, she launched herself to the shadowed edge of a rooftop, crouching behind a weathered gargoyle shaped like a hawk.

Below, Alistair was crossing the courtyard, every inch the Duke in command of his domain—even when dressed for war instead of diplomacy. His stride was long, efficient, maddeningly self-assured.

Amora followed from above, moving between the high lantern posts that lined the path and occasionally landing on the thick rope that connected the banners between them....“Still unseen,” she murmured proudly. “Stealth rating: excellent. Grace level: superb.”

Alistair passed beneath her without so much as a glance, his path taking him straight past the stable block. He didn't even break stride as a groom, leading a massive, glossy black destrier out for exercise, dipped into a quick, respectful bow.

While Alistair's attention was forward, Amora made a split-second decision. She dropped from the rafters in a silent, pink blur, aiming for the one moving object that could provide cover—the horse.

She landed on the opposite side of the destrier from the groom, deep within the thick, tangled forest of the destrier's mane, just behind its ear. The long, dark hairs enveloped her completely.

“Still terrifying, still beautiful,” she murmured softly into the horse’s ear. “Hello again, Bramble.”

Bramble snorted, and her wings fluttered nervously as she realised what was about to happen. “If you do that again, I swear I'll hex your oats.”

And with that he just tossed his head violently, and the world became a blur of muscle and flying mane. For one heart-stopping second, she saw the ground spin below before she caught herself mid-roll and steadied her wings and thanks god she was still on the safe side.

The groom blinked, swatting at the space near Bramble's neck. "Easy, boy. Just a fly," he muttered, tightening his grip on the reins.

And in that moment of his distraction, Amora recovered in mid-air. Instead of zipping away in a visible line, she flew low and fast, skimming along the right side of the horse's body, using its bulk as a perfect wall between them until she was safely behind them both.

From the new safety of a water trough several feet away, Amora clutched her skirts, utterly indignant. "A fly?" she whispered furiously. "I'm at least moderately divine!"

She glanced ahead. Alistair was already nearing the gate to the training grounds, his back as straight as ever.

"No witnesses," she muttered with finality adjusting her curls, dignity somewhat restored, then she zipped after the Duke like nothing had happened.

The training grounds stretched beyond the manor walls, enclosed by a sturdy timber fence and the steady rhythm of motion and noise. As Alistair approached, two guards straightened and swung the gates open in one practiced motion. The hinges groaned — the long, familiar sound of loyal iron.

He passed through without a word.

Amora darted in after him, slipping through the narrowing gap in a shimmer of pink-gold light before the gates closed behind her. She landed on a wooden beam just beneath the fencing’s edge, peering out at the world beyond.

The grounds were alive. Steel rang against steel. Arrows thudded into straw targets at the far range. Horses snorted and stamped in the paddock while a sergeant barked orders that sent a cluster of squires scrambling.

Amora wrinkled her nose. “Yes, it's definitely what chaos smells like,” she muttered. “Sweat, leather, and bad decisions.”

Below, Alistair’s focus was absolute. He exchanged a few quiet words with the master-at-arms — a tall, scarred man with the kind of frown that could sour the air itself — before gesturing toward the sparring ring.

Amora flitted higher, peering down from her perch. “Honestly, I don’t know how his hair stays that neat in all this,” she mused. “If I were down there, I'd melt.”

Her wings buzzed faintly as she moved along the crossbeams, keeping pace. “Stealth level: still excellent,” she whispered to herself. “Though the smell may cause fainting.”

Below, Alistair finished his quiet words with the master-at-arms. The tall, scarred man—Gareth—gave a single, sharp nod. The two of them turned and walked toward the empty sparring ring, a circle of hard-packed earth.

Amora saw her moment. She abandoned her perch on the fence. In a silent, shimmering streak, she zipped across the open air and buried herself deep within the leafy canopy of the large oak tree whose branches stretched directly over the ring. She settled on a sturdy branch, completely concealed, with a perfect, unobstructed view of the ground below. Directly beneath her was a simple wooden bench.

Alistair and Gareth reached the ring. They walked to the bench. As Gareth began stretching his shoulders, Alistair stood before it. With the same efficient, unthinking motion he used to straighten a ledger, he gripped the hem of his linen shirt and pulled it over his head.

He folded it. Precisely. Into a neat, flat square. He placed it on the end of the bench, aligning it with the edge. The morning sun caught the defined planes of his back and shoulders, and Amora.. she didn’t even try to look away.

Both men picked up their practice longswords—heavy, blunted steel. They took their positions in the center of the ring.

Gareth moved first, a testing lunge. Alistair deflected it with a clean, sharp clang that echoed in the space between them. The sound was a promise of the intensity to come.

Swords met in the center of the ring with a shriek that tore through the air, a sound that was both beginning and declaration. They moved in a whirlwind of mirrored intent, a blur of sweat-sheened muscle and flashing steel. Gareth's powerful, battering chops were met not with resistance, but with fluid deflections, Alistair's blade a silver ribbon guiding force away from its target. The space between them hummed with transferred energy, each clang and shriek a punctuation mark in their fierce conversation.

Heavy boots churned the dry earth in a complex rhythm, one advancing, the other yielding, only to become the aggressor in the next heartbeat. The muscles in their backs and shoulders tightened into hard ridges with each blocked strike, then released into the fluid follow-through. A low swing aimed at Alistair's legs was leapt over with a powerful thrust of his calves; he landed already pivoting to deflect the blow meant for his unprotected side. Gareth drove him back toward the edge of the ring with a series of heavy, percussive blows, each impact jarring up the arm, testing grip and endurance.

Alistair gave ground, his defense an unbreakable, moving wall, his eyes calculating, waiting. Then, he was the tide coming back in. He pressed forward, his attacks becoming sharper, faster—a stinging lunge to the shoulder that forced a grunt from Gareth, a swift feint high followed by a slash low that nearly found its mark. There were no separate actions, only a continuous, breathtaking flow of attack and defense, a push and pull of two masters so evenly matched that their fight became a form of collaboration. The air grew thick with their ragged breaths and the sharp, clean scent of effort.

The climax was inevitable, the final note in their symphony. As a sweeping cut from Gareth over-extended his stance, Alistair was already moving beneath it, the motion so seamless it seemed preordained. He rose as Gareth stumbled forward, his own sword halting a breath from the exposed throat. The violent dance ended in perfect, frozen silence.

A slow grin spread across Gareth’s weathered face. “Took you long enough to use the Feinted Plummet,” he grunted, his voice raspy with exertion.

Alistair lowered his sword, a faint, satisfied smirk touching his own lips. “You left the line open. It would have been illogical not to take it.”

He walked back to the bench under the oak tree and sank onto it with a soft, weary groan. He leaned his head back against the rough bark, closing his eyes, the picture of a man reclaiming a moment of stillness after immense exertion. The din of the training grounds faded to a distant hum.

High above, Amora let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. The sheer, raw intensity of the sparring had left her a bit lightheaded. Her wings gave a tiny, involuntary shudder of relief.

A single, microscopic speck of pink glitter, shaped like a minuscule star, shook loose from the delicate membrane. It drifted down through the dappled light, turning over and over in a sunbeam, a tiny, betraying sparkle.

It landed softly on the back of his hand, resting there against his sweat-damp skin.

Alistair's grey eyes, which had been closed in rest, opened. They fixed on the glitter. He went perfectly still. His breathing halted. . He didn't startle. He didn't gasp. He simply… processed. His mind, so sharp and analytical, connected the evidence: the persistent, foolish hope that she had listened, the faint sweet floral scent that had teased his senses, and now this. A single, impossible, pink speck.

His gaze tracked slowly from his hand, up his arm, to the dense green leaves of the oak tree above him. His eyes narrowed. Then, with a practiced, discreet calm, his eyes flicked around the perimeter, ensuring no one was close enough to hear, that his dignity was intact.

Satisfied they were alone, his voice cut through the ambient noise, low, firm, and absolute.

"Get down here."