Chapter Text
“Hey, um, d’you have a minute to talk?” Chessur joined Malroth on his patrol, her twin nowhere to be seen.
He smirked at her, “I guess. Where’s the other one?” She shrugged, unsheathing her sword when the chittering of skeletons and gremlins reached their ears. He rolled his own weapon into his hand and settled into a comfortable rhythm of violence as the horde reached them.
Chessur whirled away from the biggest skeleton just as he moved forward to take a swing at it; months of working together made the swap instinctive. Malroth felt the feral joy of victory as bones crunched beneath the blade of his axe.
He laughed, swinging harder and taking out three at once. That left Chessur with the last gremlin, which she took out just as he came up behind her. Malroth slung his axe onto his back and grabbed her up in a hug, feeling like he had to do something with all his leftover energy. She squeaked, dropping her weapon in favour of clutching at the arms circling her waist.
“That was fun!” He set her down again, and smirked when Chessur rounded on him with a mock frown on her face. “So what’d you want to talk about?”
The builder stuttered to a halt, then ducked down to grab her fallen sword. That didn’t stop him from seeing the anxious look on her face though. “R-right. Um…”
“Is everything okay? It’s not like you to be this shy, Chess.” He offered her a hand, so they could continue the patrol while she gathered herself.
“It’s about some stuff you talked about on Khrumble-Dun,” she began, lacing their fingers together. “How much do you re—know about love? And what usually comes with it?”
Malroth frowned. That explained why she was nervous about asking. The last time anyone had asked him how much he really remembered (in a tone saying he was making it up), Malroth had nearly bashed their head in before the twins brought him back to himself. He had no idea why he reacted so badly, but they’d agreed maybe it was better to accept things as they were, and leave it for the time being. It must be fairly important for Chessur to consider even just talking around that rule.
“A bit. I know it’s an emotion, and that it makes people do stupid things for dumb reasons. It makes people argue and fight, but it also makes them smile and gives them hope. It’s like Rosie’s dream, right? Except instead it’s a person. And when you love someone that makes you want to be close with them, and make them happy, and keep them safe.”
Malroth was pretty sure his face was doing something strange, as he kept thinking about love but stopped talking. There was some other stuff he’d figured out, but it was… weirder. He didn’t want to talk about it if he didn’t have to. All the times other people had mentioned it was in private. His hearing was a lot better than everyone seemed to think it was, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone that either.
“Okay, well, I guess you’ve got a pretty good idea of what love is,” Chessur mused, her unoccupied hand stroking over a pigtail. “But… mmm… you know how there was that book of blueprints on Skelkatraz? And Lulu mentioned a mucky magazine way back when you were first asking me about Hatter and I’s books? Those also have something to do with love, sorta.”
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