(Thursday, 29/10/1058, before dawn)
(3rd person PoV)
Henryk stirred awake and felt a familiar weight on his chest. It was Shira's leg. She tossed and turned in her sleep often, ending up in that weird position.
'Is she gonna be back to hugging my chest later?' Henryk thought as he drifted back to sleep.
After what he did the day prior, Henryk's body was sore. There was little the potion could do to heal muscles that were almost completely torn from their attachment points, which some did. Minor tearing from average muscle usage; the potion could mend that easily. What Henryk suffered needed an elixir, which Loki did not give to force him to rest a little.
If it was truly needed, Loki would have given it to preserve his life.
(A bit after dawn)
Henryk woke up to find that Shira was, as he expected, hugging his chest. What he didn't expect was for her to be drooling.
'And she defiantly tells me to stop calling her cotton candy' He smiled and silently wrapped his arms around her.
In her sleep, Shira's face formed a goofy smile in response. Her tail flicked once while her four ears twitched. The tail somehow ended up slapping Henryk across the face.
Henryk eyes the antagonizing appendage, unimpressed by its attempt to elicit him to scream. Henryk tried to grab it with his hand, with the tail evading it while Shira wriggled herself into a tighter hug. Well, her tail failed its escape when Henryk's tail ambushed it from the other side, wrapping around it to hold it still.
"Shira, wake up" Henryk whispered gently. He could see the first rays of sunshine coming through their room's curtain.
Shira slowly stirred awake, not staying in that state for long when she felt her drool spilling out. She snapped awake with embarrassment and a bit of shame. She did not want to show Henryk something like this.
"Be yourself. I wish to know you, not your social mask. Show me as we live together, at your own pace" Henryk said, picking her up and setting her beside him as he sat up himself.
Henryk subconsciously reached for the space between her top pair of ears, rubbing it. That elicited a purr from Shira, who promptly snapped out of it when she heard herself and jumped away, clearly startled.
"Did I just purr?!" She asked, face starting to lose color. Catfolk and weretigers were the closest to cats, and yet they never purred no matter what.
"Pay it no mind" Henryk maintained a poker face when he wanted to laugh a little at her minor distress. "You don't mind your natural ability to speak or the way you walk. Treat purring like that" Shira still found it somewhat unpleasant to hear. "Not to mention, it is cute"
Now, that changed her mind. Just a teeny, tiny bit.
"You did tell me to be myself, not what I wanted others to see me as, and this is the second time you do, right?" Shira lowered her gaze, partially hiding her eyes from view.
"Yeah, I said that" Henryk confirmed with a nod.
Hearing that, Shira burst into tears. It took lots of comfort and care for her to calm down. At that point, they barely had time to sit down in front of the vanity table for Henryk to request something.
"We don't have time!" Shira urged him with a panicked expression. Attendance of breakfast was mandatory, after all.
"Just make a small braid somewhere in my beard" Henryk said.
Shira looked at his beard to check if that was at all possible. True enough, his beard grew long enough to make small braids from it. The beard itself reached his chest, while his hair reached the middle of his back.
Shira briefly remembered hearing him whispering his chant when he thought no one noticed and make his hair grow quicker.
"Why all of a sudden? Gained a new interest?" She hurried over to do her magic.
"Well, not a new one" Henryk said, reminiscing old times. "Every now and then, I saw my dad with one more section of his head hair or beard turned into a braid" He smiled happily. Being reminded of his parents brought him a palpable peace, one that Shira could outright smell in that he was losing alertness of his surroundings and relaxing.
"Mom was the culprit" He chuckled. "It turned out that dad just went along and then told me a grandiose tale, totally made up, about a tradition in his side of the family for the mother or wife of a member of the family to give their male children and spouse this treatment, respectively" Henryk said the last part feeling like a hole was forming in his heart. 'I truly wished to have that as a shared memory with mom back then. Heck, even now'
"Done!" Shira did her job well, producing a bright and proud smile. When Henryk opened his eyes, his self-pity was overshadowed by the feeling of admiration of Shira's beautiful expression.
Shira smirked before giggling as she ran out of the room, leaving him behind. She continued to giggle as she ran all the way to the mess hall. Messing with Henryk's hair unlocked a part of her she did not know she had, and that made her forget what made her cry a moment ago completely. She was now amused and delighted by Henryk and his braided beard.
"I ought to be more transparent with her regarding my reactions" Henryk said while shaking his head. He was feeling a newfound lightness in his chest after witnessing one of Shira's real sides. He thanked Loki, as inappropriate as it was, for the fact it was a happy side he saw.
(At the mess hall)
As Henryk approached the door of the hall, he started hearing what became their stable morning chaos. He also saw Shira awaiting his arrival outside. He noticed her eyeing a nearby vase with great restraint. Her hands were twitching slightly, wishing they could reach out and knock the vase down from its pedestal. Her ears were pulled back as she pursed her lips. She shook her head while muttering something about how the vase would be broken then.
'I might have a heart attack soon. Send help' Henryk thought as he felt his heart pound for a moment. As cute as it was to watch her from afar, he needed to step in to stop her from stressing herself like that. Stress was one of the things he would not subject her to no matter the price he pays, if he could pay it.
He approached her from behind, relying heavily on the fact she still focused nearly all of her attention on the vase. Before she could notice him, he sloppily attempted to wrap his tail around hers. It was a messy try, but he succeeded.
"NYAA?!" Shira's everything was on guard. She turned around only to have all her alertness vanish into a flustered blush when her brain caught on to Henryk having seen her little episode there. Also, the way she had that catfolk verbal tick as a surprised reaction.
"Henry!" She was about to pound his chest when her eyes caught Fey covering her beak with one of her wings while staring at them.
"Fey's gonna leave~!" Fey left as suddenly as she appeared.
"We should go in as well, dear" Henryk gave her his arm to hold onto, which she accepted while pouting away from him. It was a last resort protest that failed to achieve its purpose, not when Henryk found it absolutely adorable.
'I don't know if this amount of adoration is healthy or not, but I'd rather be this fond of her than not' He thought contentedly to himself. That lasted for all of a few seconds before he got goosebumps looking at a certain werewolf.
Bete was forced to avoid Henryk for some days, and Henryk could feel the man's hateful gaze sometimes, especially when he sparred with Ais.
Henryk ignored him and went to what became their usual table, where he found none other than Gareth waiting.
"To what do I owe the honour?" Henryk sat down opposite him.
"Curiousity" Gareth said while combing his own braided beard, his eyes lingering over Henryk's for a moment, a recognition of sorts. "You said that your technique uses a longer spear, but wouldn't that put you at an awkward angle if you wanted to redirect a downwards slash in a similar way while still striking with the spearhead?"
"That is because the slash at the end was supposed to be a blunt slap in the face, using the shaft instead of the spearhead" Henryk said, nodding in thank for the familia member bringing them their food.
"And that's why you directed a sharp edge to your fellow familia member's face like that?" Gareth raised an eyebrow, his expression calm.
Henryk could feel the shift in the conversations around them. The voices shifted in a way that let them listen in on their conversation while maintaining the appearance of not paying attention.
'Sly bastards' He thought.
"You could be open about eavesdropping! You sly bastards!" He shouted for all of them to hear, calling them out on what they were doing. That made some turn away in shame while some glared at him.
"Daring, are we!" Gareth laughed at that.
"Returning to the point" Henryk turned back to Gareth as Shira bashfully pried his arms to sit on his lap, wrapping herself in his arms once she achieved her goal. That came with the price of her face feeling as if it was burning. "I was relying on the assumption that she was still holding back, or that someone could interfere whenever it became too dangerous"
"Once you get a proper weapon, come and fight me the same way you did with Ais" Gareth left the table with a burning passion, anticipating a fight based purely on skill and nothing else.
After waiting to be alone... Well, as alone as someone could be in a hall full of people, Henryk addressed his wife.
"What brought about this blessing?" He said in a teasing voice. He felt her tail try and flick to slap his back, yet his tail was coiled around it still, preventing it from doing so.
"I feel pressured to not act this way normally, but I have to be braver about making myself seen as just myself" Shira said. She miraculously said it all without a single stutter, though she was on the verge of having one the entire time.
"Here" Henryk hand-fed her a piece of bread, soliciting a choked cry of defiance from her. It was useless when her body was more honest and swallowed the piece of bread for her.
Their meal went more or less the same the whole way, with Henryk testing the limits of how much he could tease her before she snapped and started meowing loudly at him. Not that he would have minded it if she did.
(Somewhere else)
Artemis found her way to the guild's headquarters as early as she could. She spent the previous day catching up with Hestia, but that was enough for now. She needed to hurry and reach him before things developed such that she never has another chance.
Artemis approached one of the clerks, who bowed in reverence when she noticed the holy aura surrounding the goddess of the hunt.
"How may I be of service, goddess Artemis?" The guild employee was knowledgeable of who Artemis was, of course, as it was Eina Tulle, the guild's most professional bookworm. She remembers all the familias that ever entered the city, with the Artemis familia being one of them.
"I wish to know where a previous member of my familia resides. Is that possible?" Artemis brushed it aside, as she expected it. It started to make her the least bit uncomfortable, being seen as divine, yet she still held to hope. Hope that at least Henryk would see something other than the divine in her. Lante made sure Artemis felt that way, assuring her that most mortal men wish to have equal footing with their marriage partners instead of feeling inferior to them.
"Depending on who they are, I could be liable to remain silent" Eina respectfully replied. She raised her head when Artemis prompted her to.
"Henryk Williams" Artemis said. At the mention of the name, Eina and a few others flinched. While she was not in charge of him, she heard how a newbie of the Loki familia, one who was accompanied by animals, got gravely hurt whenever he got into the dungeon. It was a hot new topic since he had to be carried out, unconscious, for most of the times he went into the dungeon.
"Henryk Williams and his wife are alive and are familia members of goddess Loki, in the Twilight Manor on North Mainstreet" Eina said. After the shock of remembering Henryk's news passed, her thoughts wandered on how he was a familia member of Artemis at any point in time, or why on the lower realm Artemis came herself in search of him.
'No...' Eina was under both shock and denial. She forgot proper conduct for a moment and looked at Artemis in the eyes, looking for any trace of a hint, observing for a specific set of emotions. 'It couldn't be...'
In the goddess's eyes, she glimpsed an emotion found in maidens fallen in love.
Her reality came crashing down, knowing that a goddess famously known as a sworn virgin has fallen for a man, a mortal at that.
Eina's mind went blank as her body's instincts and years of professionalism took over. She subconsciously bid the goddess farewell, barely holding it together as she dealt with a few adventurers before snapping back to reality.
"... Wait..." Her mind blanked again. This time, falling unconscious from sheer shock. As if a virgin goddess falling for a mortal man was not enough of a shock, it had had to be a taken man.
For the first time since her employment at the guild, Eina Tulle lost consciousness on the job.