CH159

When he awoke he didn’t immediately get up. Thera was using him as a pillow again, and since he didn’t know how she’d be feeling he wanted to be there for her in the morning if she needed to talk, so he wordlessly rubbed her head while staring up at the ceiling.

His mood was better at least after having talked it over with both Sachel and Myriad, what mattered though was how she felt. Now that he’d accepted a gift from Jagal, he felt obligated to see through her statue, but he wouldn’t force Thera to stay if she wasn’t comfortable. If she wanted to leave and Sachel couldn’t change her mind, then so be it.

It only ended up taking an hour, but eventually she slowly came to consciousness. With the way they were situated, as soon as she opened her eyes she was staring directly into Bens.

“Morning,” He said, trying to sound cheerful for her. “Are you feeling a bit better?”

She jumped with a start, not expecting to find herself in the same position as when they went to sleep and broke into an embarrassed blush. “Sorry about that. I, um, must have forgotten to move before I went to sleep.”

“Don’t worry about it,” He told her, neglecting to mention that it was how he’d found her the first morning there as well. “Are you maybe ready to talk about what happened?”

“They just managed to piss me off more than I expected. I feel better after getting a bit of rest.”

He stared at her, waiting for more, but it seemed that was all she had to say on the matter. “You know, if working with them is too much there’s no shame in going home. I don’t want you making yourself miserable for my sake.”

“Really, I’m fine. Things may be a bit more awkward while we deal with this, I’m pretty certain I broke Skoe’s knee, but I can’t just run away from working with people I don’t like. Thanks for worrying though.”

“Of course,” He told her, giving her hand a squeeze before getting up for the day. There was still a mountain of stuff to do and not nearly enough time to do it.

They left their room as he was still trying to plan things out, only to find both Sachel and Ralia prostrated at their door, as Delair watched from the side, quietly trying to understand what was going on.

It wasn’t just her though, despite being cloaked, he got the distinct impression that Thera was put off by the display and wanted to return to their room immediately, the only thing that stopped her was Sachel speaking up before she could.

“Thera, we owe you an apology. We’d seen Roan’s harassment just as much as any other woman in the guild, we should have taken your side at the time. I know this isn’t enough, but I want to work to make up for it in the future.”

“Likewise. While I still think hobbling Skoe was a bit much, I didn’t consider how it must have felt for him to mess up like that after everything you’ve dealt with,” Ralia said as well.

Thera stared down at them, not sure what to do as she sighed. “Very heartwarming. I’m sure it would be even more so if you didn’t actively need my help.”

“We do need your help, but I’m apologizing because it’s the right thing to do and we’ve put it off too long. As much as I hope you’ll keep working with us, I understand if you don’t want to, but we needed to say this eventually to try and make a better relationship with you, right?”

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“We spent the last while trying to figure out the best way to go about it and figured this was the best way to show our sincerity.”

“Gods, enough get up,” Thera told them, not able to handle it anymore. “I already told Ben I’m going to stay and help so let’s just focus on getting this done as fast as possible.”