An Explanation is in Order
"Oh. Oh hey Zelos."
Claire pulled her head out of her hands and sat up on the cot. She tried her best to smooth out her hair, to make it look like she'd been doing anything but pulling on it in frustration, but the static from her fingers only made it worse, more chaotic.
She gave up when she realized he was just standing at the front of her tent, awkwardly staring somewhere to the side of her like he usually did.
"Is, uh, is something up?"
"I think I need to talk to you," he said. There was no way of telling if he was more uncomfortable than normal, even if his face was a lot more visible without his hood on. His mouth and eyes were as blank and unreadable as the shadow he seemed to expertly cast over his own face, though it only became more unnerving with his child-like features in view.
Maybe he wasn't feeling any more awkward than normal, but Claire certainly was.
"Sure, yeah, totally."
He made no moves.
"Like, come in, close the flap."
Zelos complied, finally stepping all the way inside and letting the flap fall closed and shutting out the twilight outside. It left the interior a little darker than Claire was comfortable with, even if Zelos was capable of seeing through the dark.
"Hey, Z, if we're going to be talking, can you light one of the candles?"
"Oh, sure."
There was a loud snap, and then a row of candles at the end of the tent caught light. The glow of them was plenty for Claire to see clearly, but they only served to make Zelos gaunter, leaving his eyes like hollow sockets. When he crouched down across from Claire's cot, at least, his face came into some focus.
It took him a moment of just sitting there before he found the words to say. Claire was used to this.
"I've noticed you're pretty upset about Taleya and Tessa sleeping together."
Oh. Oh!, shit, that's right on the nose. Okay.
Claire swallowed, scratching the back of her head where her shorter hair was coming in. "I mean, not really, it's whatever."
Zelos's eyes fell to the floor for a second, concentrating as if the mat her tent stood on was a map, but then they shot back up.
"Okay, I lied. I noticed you've been pissed about it, and you can't get it out of your head."
"What? I-" Claire started, defensive, but Zelos's look sharpened into a hard stare that left her taken aback. How?
Oh wait.
He can read minds.
Fuck.
And Claire's face fell back into her hands.
"Fuck, dude, that's not fair. How was I supposed to know you'd be lurking when it crossed my mind?"
He shrugged, as if that were an adequate enough answer to resolve this quirk in their professional relationship. "Keeping it from me seems like it should be low on your list of priorities."
He folded his hands together and rested his chin on the back of them. "Definitely lower than not getting upset with Taleya and Tessa. Especially Tessa, actually. What's going on? I thought you two were getting along surprisingly well."
"God." Everything about that was repulsive. Him knowing how she felt. Him picking up on the feelings of betrayal and finding them so weird he couldn't figure it out even with access to her mind. Plus, it was all in this innocent, condescending tone that felt like a parent even though he didn't look old enough to be out of high school (or magic academy or whatever they had in this world).
Zelos only tilted his head curiously. Claire ran her fingers through her hair in agitation, then looked up. Her hands met in front of her mouth, eyes wide while she tried to figure out how to explain this to her simultaneous child-parent mind-reading friend.
"Look, okay. Yeah, Tessa and I were getting along surprisingly well or whatever. So well, in fact, that I didn't expect her to hook up with Taleya out of nowhere. I didn't even think Tess liked her! I thought . . ."
Zelos's eyebrows shot up in question as Claire trailed off, too humiliated to continue the thought. Whatever she had thought, she'd been wrong. She'd misread. She knew that. It just fucking bit.
"You thought what?" Zelos asked.
Claire sighed, annoyed but unsurprised that she had to spell it out.
"I mean, I thought she liked me."
"Well-" Zelos started.
"-well, I know it's stupid, all right?" she interrupted. "Electric skin. I'm not dumb. Liking me is a waste of time."
"That's . . . that's not what I was going to say."
Claire let out another sigh, dropping her hands down to her lap. "What then?"
Zelos shrugged, but started up again quickly, "Well, I just think you are really missing the point of why they had sex. And, honestly, it's making everything weird and tense."
"Well sor-ry for having feelings," Claire pouted, initially missing the first part of what Zelos said.
Except, then she did a double take. "Wait, what do you mean 'missing the point'? The point is to fuck. What am I missing?"
It was Zelos's favorite question, and his face immediately brightened upon hearing it. In any other conversation (usually a tactical one), Claire would have groaned in complaint just seeing that look, but he was off before she could muster the resentment.
"So, you know how Taleya and Tessa both serve Calistria?" he started.
"Yeah, they've mentioned."
"And how much do you know about her?"
Claire pushed herself back on her cot, grumbling, unappreciative of the pop quiz.
"Well, she's an elven goddess. Her herald is Menotherian, a giant wasp thing and Taleya's mom. Her weapon is the whip. Her portfolio includes passion, revenge, and insects. And . . . all of the art of her is really yellow?"
Zelos nodded, though his eyes betrayed his disappointment. When he finally started talking again, it was clear he was trying to redirect from what Claire could only assume was a huge personal failing on her part.
"Right. Well. Anyway, you've never read the Book of Joy?"
Claire blinked. "I mean, no. We've been pretty busy killing shit since I got here."
"Well, I highly recommend it. It's an incredibly influential work in eastern poetry and-"
Claire held up a hand. "Stop. Please." She then gestured out with it. "What's so important about this book and what point am I missing?"
It was Zelos's turn to sigh now, and it was clear he was getting aggravated at being interrupted so much, kept from his tangents and endless bounds of knowledge that no one ever asked for. Or, well, rarely.
"What you're missing is the customs of Calistrian disciples. You're missing the chapter of that book that recommends sexual relationships between workers, between teacher and student, between warriors. You're missing the context," he outlined a small rectangle with his fingers as he said this, "of a world you've only just become part of."
Claire recoiled, her face pinching as she tried to sort that out. "So what? People just have sex if they work together?"
"Essentially."
Claire only offered a stare as dead-eyed as she could muster.
Zelos returned a similar look, but something about it read as a challenge.
"Try to understand, Claire. In the Calistrian faith, that sort of intimacy is important. Sacred."
It's not like I've never heard that one before . . .
"It brings people closer. It helps make another person feel real. Important. Valuable."
Now Claire was getting confused. "I . . . don't . . ."
But Zelos steamrolled on ahead. "Do you know how that relationship has benefited this team? Tessa is charging ahead less. Taleya is quicker with her shots in close quarters. They're having less and less trouble maneuvering around each other. They know each other, and it's made them better fighters. Meanwhile, you've been so distracted you've nearly electrocuted us a half-dozen times. You're out of sync."
"Well I'm SORRY, okay? I'm sorry I'm getting in the way. But I just . . ." although Claire's anger had flared up so fast, it was dying away even faster, replaced with a familiar embarrassment. "I just . . . wanted her to like me. That's all."
Claire fell down, laying her head at the foot of her cot. Her hair was finally getting long - long enough to block Zelos mostly from view, though the coppery gleam of his hair in the candlelight refused to be cast out.
Stupid.
"Claire, that's exactly what I'm trying to tell you."
"What?"; at this point, she was barely listening to him.
"I'm trying to tell you that how you feel about Tessa is almost exactly how she feels about you."
When Claire swiped the hair away from her face to look at Zelos a bit better, her eyes were wide open.
"Explain," she commanded.
Zelos starting futzing with his hair, as if suddenly disinterested in the conversation. "I thought I'd already explained it. Tessa and Taleya sleeping together is ritual. It's custom. It's for the sake of us staying alive and keeping each other close. But what Tessa feels about you has nothing to do with that. She . . ."
Zelos trailed off, descending into a weak sigh while rolling his eyes. Claire wasn't sure she'd ever seen him so aggressively dismissive of something.
"She 'is excited by the warmth of your soul.'"
Claire sat up immediately, leaning closer to Zelos so suddenly that he recoiled (as much as he might while crouching).
"Did she say that?" she demanded.
"She thought it," he replied.
Claire sat, paralyzed by her own thoughts as the seconds ticked by.
Then, in sharp contrast, she suddenly stood.
"I have to go," Claire said, again running a hand through her hair in a futile effort to make it lie flat.
"I see that," Zelos said, only managing to rise before she was out of the tent.
With a snap, the candles were extinguished, leaving Zelos to emerge from one darkness to another. In the distance, he could hear the steady rhythm of wood chopping, and of Claire's hurried footsteps right towards it.
Despite himself, Zelos broke into a shallow smirk.