Relationship

Kye was laying down in bed, groaning in pain as he restlessly tried to move around to find a comfortable position to sleep in. The room they were in was a state-of-the-art hospital room with round the clock nurse and doctor care in the inner city of Alioth City. Kye was taken to the hospital after the failed assassination attempt at the behest of King Glennor and Elenor so that they could visit Kye once he had recovered slightly as to express their gratitude. While Alicia had insisted on staying with Kye when he was in hospital, Frey convinced her to leave him for a few days so he could rest peacefully. Vanessa, however, refused to give up on the point and demanded to stay with Kye even if she was outside of the room. To her, she had failed to protect him from near-death twice now and she would not let it happen again.

Frey gave up trying to convince a greater angel that their opinion was wrong and trusted that Vanessa cared about Kye enough to let him rest properly. This caused Alicia to sulk heavily toward Frey but he pushed it aside and tried to go about business as usual. While he knew that injuries were part of a warrior's lifestyle, seeing his son get shot in front of him left a pain in Frey's heart that he had never felt before. Trying to stay away from alcohol as he recovered mentally, he made sure to spend enough time with this family to keep them all sane through this trying time. He was the pillar of their family and it was his job to make their burden the least it could be.

With his family staying in their residence and only coming to see him for a few hours at a time each day, before the pain and discomfort, Kye hated the boredom the most. All he did was stare at the white ceiling and look around the white room for hours on end until either his family, the staff of the hospital or Vanessa came in to check on him. His arms worked fine, even though his shoulder had been grazed and still occasionally throbbed with pain, the lower back injury was the most egregious. It made even laying down unpleasant but Kye could put up with it. His request to Vanessa for his notepad and pen was met with a sharp glare and a soft chop to the head with her saying 'You need to focus on getting better, not making things'.

Kye generally agreed with the sentiment, but there was a limit to what he could do with just the power of positive thinking. He had managed to pass the last few days by forcing himself to sleep but now he felt like he was rested enough to go several days without sleep. The bullets he was hit with were shoddily crafted and used low-level gunpowder in the casings and didn't pierce too deeply in his body, so even though he bled a lot and was in pain, the overall damage to his body was minimal. He was informed that they would leave scars but they would be faint and all but disappear with time. Kye sunk further into the mattress of the hospital bed as he tried to will sleep to claim him to pass the time when suddenly there was a knock at the door.

"Come in."

The door opened to reveal Vanessa, Elenor and Natalia. Kye motioned for them to come in despite knowing that Vanessa was not happy with them disturbing him. Elenor immediately went to his side and clasped both of her hands over his.

"I am so truly sorry that this happened, Kye."

"There is no reason for you to apologise Elenor. That man is the one to blame so you should stop feeling guilty over it. I will survive, it's not that big of a deal really."

"But it is! You have to value yourself more Kye, you being hurt is not something that I would call 'not a big deal'!"

It was at this point that Natalia spoke up.

"Young master Kye, I must express my gratitude to you for saving my lady when I could not. I have failed in my duties but was spared the worst outcome thanks to your intervention. I truly cannot thank you enough."

"That's okay Natalia. It's nice to meet another angel, especially one from a different goddess. You and Vanessa might get along."

Natalia gave an awkward smile and glanced out the side of her eye at the stone-faced Vanessa who couldn't remove her eyes from the princess holding hands with Kye.

"I will certainly try to be cordial towards her."

Kye chuckled and looked back at the princess who hadn't stopped looking at him.

"Um... Kye, may I talk to you in private?"

Kye looked at Vanessa.

"Just for a moment, please?"

She bit her lip in frustration at the knowledge that Kye would be alone with her but ultimately didn't go against Kye and left with Natalia following close behind. Now that the two of them were alone, Elenor become bolder and hugged Kye's head to her pillowy chest, slowly stroking his hair as she did so.

"I need to be truthful with you... now that you know Natalia about our bond, there is something I have to tell you about it. The love goddess told me that the person who shared the bond with me would be unable to feel love until they looked at me and established a relationship with me. I want you to know that, while we haven't started a proper relationship yet, If you hold any romantic feelings towards anyone now that you have met me, I want you to listen to those feelings. I am okay with sharing you with others if that is the path you want to walk. I will accept you no matter what."

Kye stayed silent and wrapped his arms around her. After several moments of silence, Kye began to talk to her about his confusion about the feeling of love that he had and how he was socially inept when it came to such feelings.

"So, I am thankful you said those words Elenor. While I'm still unsure what being in a relationship entails completely, I have three women with whom I hold similar unfamiliar feelings. You, Vanessa and Nadiya, an elven girl I met a year ago. I was told by a friend of mine that I would never learn about relationships unless I was in one so... I would like to start one with you Elenor."

Kye raised his head and looked her in the eyes.

"While we won't see each other for some time, if you go to the Runewalker house here and tell my father that I want to give you the device in the locked box in my room, he will understand what I mean. In that box, there will be a device that will allow us to contact one another no matter the distance. I know it probably isn't what you wanted but it is the best I can do for the moment."

"No, Kye, it's more than what I wanted. Thank you for accepting me even though my blessing caused you so much confusion. I would be honoured to enter into a relationship with you."

With that, Elenor wrapped Kye in a gentle hug that Kye returned in kind. With this, Kye opened the curtains on his romantic life. He vowed that he would do everything he could to make sure that the women he loved would lead the best life they could. The next step was to bring it up with Vanessa.