Lorenz stopped and sighed heavily before he said, “You do not have to call me that, amico. I have shared this.”

“You don’t like master,” Tedrey returned.

“I do not for I am not that either, until I begin to take your arse again, and you can call me that if you wish while I’m doing it.”

Tedrey pressed his lips tightly together and watched Lorenz take another two steps into the room and stop.

“This,” he said, lifting his heavy arm and indicating what Tedrey would understand was his lips being pressed together with what Lorenz said next, “is why I’ve come to speak to you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Faunus has called for you. You have declined.”

Tedrey looked back to the street.

“Tedrey, I will have your eyes,” Lorenz demanded.

He looked again to the warrior.

“You are healed and it’s my understanding that this is the fourth time Faunus has called on you and you have refused,” Lorenz stated.

Tedrey straightened in his seat. “If you wish to use me—”

“Stop speaking.”

At the annoyed disappointment Tedrey heard in his voice, he went quiet.

“Do you still have pain?” Lorenz asked.

Tedrey shook his head.

“Do you concern yourself with the appearance of your scars?”

Tedrey again looked to the road.

“Tedrey.”

His name came closer and it was said lower, with sadness, and warmth, thus Tedrey turned his head yet again, tipped it back, and saw Lorenz but a foot from him, gazing down upon him, his expression gentle.

“Faunus knows of your injuries, and he still asks for you,” Lorenz reminded him.

“It’s insignificant,” Tedrey replied.

He watched Lorenz’s brows draw together. “How so?”

“In all ways. It’s insignificant. Everything.” He lifted his hand and indicated the street in front of the manor. “All of it.”

Lorenz turned his attention to the window, then back to Tedrey.

“I sense we are no longer speaking of Faunus wishing to take you to the Heden District to get you inebriated and fuck you until you lose consciousness,” Lorenz surmised.

“There is nothing to speak of. We get up. We exist. It means nothing what we do, who we meet, what we say. We go to sleep. And repeat this until we die.”

“Nyx has decided she wishes me to give her a child.”

Tedrey stared up at Lorenz.

Lorenz carried on speaking.

“Zosime will give Guard a child any day now, and as it happens with women, she sees the beauty Zosime has become, the love that has grown between two lovers that were devoted to one another before, but this has bloomed beyond all imagining as her belly grows with proof of that love, and she wishes the same for her. For us. And I shall give this to her.”

“I-I’m most happy for you, my lord.”