A/N: Uh… hi! I'm Rushido-san. And this is my first FanFiction! ...On this account, at least… Let's just say my first few forays into FanFiction were a tad embarrassing. I was young...

This is sort of an exploration of an interesting concept I've been wondering about for a long time now. Won't go into details, because that's how you ruin a story, right? XD The main characters are Teru Kandon and Saji, two Fire-Forged Friends sharing a room in Val Aureum. And the rest I'll leave to your reading pleasure.

So enjoy! W-Well, um… if you want to. If you d-don't that's perfectly fine, too! I hope. It's a free country, right? Heheh… well… I hope you enjoy, at least.

Five years after the Argon Invasion of Northern Shara

Tulufan, Val Aureum

"Hey, Teru…"

Teru looked up from his desk. His coworker was looking at him from across her desk expectantly. She twiddled one of her ink quills in her fingers.

"Can you, like, cover for me this afternoon? My brother's going to the recruitment office today and I want to… like… make sure he gets it all in order. And stuff."

"You want me to do your work for you." Teru's own hand stopped writing on the parchment midsentence. He knew she was lying; her brother had been recruited weeks ago.

"Err… yes."

Teru sighed. "Sure."

"Oh, really? Thanks, Teru, you're the best!"

"Whatever," he grunted.

"Teru!"

Teru snapped to attention. The regional officer was here? Something important was probably happening. "Sir?"

"Teru, we've just got word of a massive Argon movement to the north."

"I'm being deployed?!" Teru said, in a mix of fear and anticipation.

"No, don't be crazy, of course not!" the officer laughed, not noticing the younger man's excitement deflate before his very eyes. "Actually, since the logistical challenges behind the Federation's counter-attack are… to put it lightly, an absolute nightmare, the Federation bureaucracy is asking for a hell of a lot of paperwork for the coming week. We're going to be dumping most of that on this office. Hope you won't mind - hey, where's Rena?"

Teru glanced over at the empty desk besides him where his coworker was supposed to be sitting. Right now she was probably out in the city, talking, living…

"At lunch." Teru said. It was half-past six.

"Ah, OK. We'll be shipping the new paperwork later today. Get it down, ya hear?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"For the Federation!" the regional officer did a little salute. Teru returned it half-heartedly.

"For the Federation," he grunted.

"Oi, Teru!"

This time it was the Chief Logistician of Val Aureum, Teru's direct superior. Whenever he called, it was never good news…

"Sir?"

"I'm afraid our budget's been cut. Again. Listen, man, I hate to do this but we're going to have to decrease your salary for this week."

Teru moaned. "We just got a new workload from Velika, though… massive troop movement to the north or something.

"Sorry, Teru, can't do anything about that," the logistician replied sincerely. Teru liked him. He wasn't a bad person. "I can probably get away with giving you paid overtime, at least, in order to finish the new orders we'll be getting. No promises, though."

"No promises?"

"No promises," the logistician reaffirmed. "Velika's military budget's a bit strained at the moment. I think the citizens have petitioned for a massive tax cut or something and that's digging into our - Oh, and is Rena skipping work again?"

"She's… at lunch…"

The logistician laughed. "Well, that can't be helped. Awfully ditsy, isn't she? Just… do as well as you can, okay?"

"Got it, sir," Teru grunted.

"Ah… Teru, was it?"

The shopkeeper's face was old and round and kind. Her face sagged but still retained a crisp brownness thanks to the oppressive sun of Val Aureum. Under the orange sky her eyes practically twinkled. She seemed like a kind lady.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, dearie, but we don't have anymore apple tarts."

"What."

"We sold out pretty quickly today, actually!" the old lady laughed. "In fact, the last one went not long ago - maybe fifteen minutes earlier and you would have gotten it first. We'll have more tomorrow. For now, I can offer you, uh…"

She took a moment to look through the boxes underneath her stall. "Let's see…"

Finally she produced a small bag of sweet, prickly cactus-fruit slices. They looked old and a withered. No doubt they'd been collecting dust for a long time in her stall. "I'm afraid this is all I have, dearie. Ah… I can't ask you to pay for this! Just take it, free of charge. Tomorrow if you come early I'll have an apple tart waiting for you in the morning, I promise."

Gingerly, Teru took the bag. He forced his lips into a smile. He didn't want to be mean to the lady. "It's quite alright. Thanks for trying. It's the thought that counts, right?"

"No problem! And thank you. Please, come back tomorrow, dearie."

"Mm," Teru grunted.

Suffice to say, Teru was not having a fun day. He'd signed up for the Federation to be a soldier, and he was a pretty good one at that. Not two years ago his life was an actual battlefield, but it seemed now that the Federation had rewarded his combat prowess by putting him in an office block in the Val Aurean desert with an administrative job shuffling papers.

His new job paid very well, actually; very, very well. He thought that perhaps his commanders thought this would be a fitting reward, but he always felt it was a downgrade somehow. After all, he was stuck in a stuffy office with a coworker that "missed" work every other day and filled in the gaps by leaving early, a regional officer that keeps piling work on him, a Chief Logician that makes a bunch of promises he can't keep and a marketplace full of people that don't ever seem to have anything in stock past 7 o-clock.

Such was the life in Tulufan, the city in the middle of nowhere.

Teru trudged up the steps to his apartment - nothing too big, and it was quite homely, in fact - and the door swung open. He took a second to breathe the scent - wait… he thought, is that…?

"You're home! And late." Saji's voice was like a breath of fresh air. An oasis in the middle of this Velik-forsaken desert.

"So I am," Teru said, smiling. "Is that… rabbit stew? How did you find the rabbit? They don't come to the desert naturally."

"The Clothcrafter's Guild pays handsomely for my contribution to the local robe-making industry," Saji said. "As it happened, a merchant caravan from Arcadia was passing through today, so…"

Teru blanched. "They had a rabbit?!"

"Mhmm."

"How…" Teru mumbled. "How… whenever I go to the marketplace no one there can even manage to sell me an apple tart, but when you go you end up coming back with the most lucky finds! First those Velikan rugs, then the Poporian curtains and now you've brought back a Velik-damned rabbit…"

Teru was fuming. He had not had a bad day.

And Saji knew it.

"Hey, hey…" Saji got closer to her close friend and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You seem like the Federation bureaucracy hasn't been treating you too well."

"Oh, it's just the usual, "Teru said dismissively. "Just my coworkers not working and the commanders at Velika making our jobs as ridiculously complicated as possible. I mean, who the hell needs a form signed for each individual bloody piece of Federation gear that gets handed to each and every Federation soldier?! I miss being a berserker knight…"

Oh, he did. His silvery, shining krysteel armor now gathered dust in a back-closet behind the living room. His battleaxe was nothing but a mantlepiece now - a showy one, but one that wouldn't see action anytime soon. He missed the soldier's life, fighting demonspawn and corruption and cultists and -

Saji was giggling, Teru realized. "I miss you in that armor, too. I still haven't quite gotten used to you wearing civilian gear - you're very lithe, you know. Like a male Elin."

"Shut up."

"I can't even imagine how you could have possibly carried your battleaxe considering how thin your shoulders are."

"Shut up!" he practically shouted, but they were both laughing.

"I also miss…" Saji looked whimsical. "I miss being a ninja. That was… it was fun. I understand how you feel; all cooped up in a dusty city instead of fighting the good fight with your brothers and sisters. Robemaking is fun, but…" she glanced over to the warm chimney of their home. Underneath his battleaxe hanging on the mantlepiece, leaning against the brick, her shuriken sat unused and rusty. They never could find a proper metalsmith for it in town. "It's not like fighting."

"Yeah…" Teru slumped down at the small table where they usually ate together.

The apartment they shared was quaint and pretty, but it was nothing at all like the paradise that was the Pora Elinu garrison. When Teru closed his eyes he could practically see the exquisite flora and fauna there… the shimmering lake… the tall trees and curious Elin… the giant Pora Elinu capital…

But every time he tried to conceptualize it he realized little details flitted away. Like being so far away from the place he'd considered home for the better part of a year was slowly erasing his memory.

Saji probably felt it to, Teru realized. She'd lived there. It was probably a lot worse for her. He found himself gazing at his roommate again, while she was busy stirring the pot.

"Did you bring any contribution to the dinner meal, Teru?"

"Ah… I…" Teru fumbled a bit with the tiny package in his shirt-pocket. He set the dried cactus fruit on the table. Saji took one look at the pitiful sweets and burst out laughing.

"So, this is what that excellent Federation pay is amounting to, hm? Cactus fruit? Really?"

"All the stalls were empty…" Teru said dejectedly. "And they cut my salary for the week again so I couldn't afford to get anything from the Federation broker. This was the best I could find."

"Hmm… Is that so…" Saji came sauntering over and gazed at the tiny fruits. They were ugly and withered. She smiled.

"I can do something with this!"

"You sure about that?" Teru asked, frowning. "They've gone bad - that much is almost certain. Even the shopkeep wouldn't let me pay for that bag."

"Insolent human," Saji said, puffing up her cheeks and making her best authoritative voice. "I am an Elin. It is my duty to ensure that the elements of nature are not left to waste, lest we tarnish the generosity of her bounty."

"Indeed, indeed, but would one so innocent and pure such as yourself be so… be so repugnant as to take from the fruits of the earth and dissect them beyond recognition so a human, that dastardly, unnatural corruptor of nature, might consume them?" Teru replied, smirking as he put on his deep, soldier voice.

Saji laughed. "You of all people still think that way about humanity?"

"I do."

She stopped laughing, looking at her close friend worriedly. "Nn… regardless, I can make something with this. Gimme."

She grabbed the bag of cactus fruits before Teru could lift a finger in protest, and within moments Saji had them laid out on the kitchen counter, slicing them into thin pieces with a sharp kitchen knife. Teru watched with interest. Watching the finesse in her cuts and slices was like seeing her trace intricate patterns with her ninja blade again. He had the mental image of a venerable ninja gallantly fighting off a fangspawn, darting and dashing about with ease and agility, the tip of her shuriken glinting in the fair afternoon sun.

"Hey, Saji…"

"Nn?" The Elin turned to look at Teru. She was holding the dull end of the knife in her teeth as her hands fiddled with one of the cactus fruits.

"Do you think… Am… Am I a burden to you?"

"What?" Saji took the knife from her mouth and made another cut. "Do not be ridiculous. Of course you aren't."

"Well, it's just…" Teru tried to find the words. "If it weren't for me I'm sure you'd be much better off. I still… I still don't know why you chose to stay with me when I got assigned to Val Aureum. And as much as the Federation pays me, it's bronze coins compared to the money you get from the Clothmaker's guild here. I feel like… I'm only holding you back. You can't even by a ninja anymore if you're staying with me."

The sound of the knife cutting through fruit stopped. Saji looked down, frowning. "You are an idiot."

"Eh?"

She looked at Teru with a fire in her eyes. "Tell me: How many times have I had to save your life so far?"

Teru thought back. "Ah… one?"

"You're forgetting one..."

"Err… two," Teru corrected himself.

"Right. Two. Now, how many times have you saved mine?"

Teru scratched his head. "Wasn't it… one…?"

"Three. You've saved my life three times, you block-headed imbecile," Saji said. "Twice in the Blessed Woods, once in the battle for Pora Elinu. That's three."

"You're giving me too much credit, though," Teru countered. "At Pora Elinu it was Kirn who fired the shot."

"You're missing the point!" Saji said exasperatedly. "You humans - you can never quite get the point, can you? Everything's always so abstract and circular with your line of thinking, isn't it? Why can you not get over that?"

Teru slumped. "Sorry."

Teru heard a small sigh, and pretty soon she was standing right in front of him. Suddenly he felt her hands around his face, and they forced his face upwards, so he was at level with Saji's nose. Her eyes were cloudy. "No… I'm sorry. That was… that was harsher than I meant it."

"I kind of deserve it, though," Teru responded.

"Teru." Saji's voice was hard. "You cannot just keep on assuming that you deserve all the bad things that happen to you. You're a good person."

"But - " Teru's hand, instinctively, moved to wrap itself around the tiny ruby rocket around his neck, but Saji skillfully pushed it away.

"But nothing. Teru, you're no burden to me. I'm here with you because I want to be. I owe you my life, but that isn't all… you were - no, you are - my first friend outside of Pora Elinu. You're the first person I've ever dared to place my trust in, and… and you never betrayed me. And when you left I couldn't stop thinking about how you might get yourself killed somewhere in this desert. I had to find you; stay with you; because… because…"

Words never failed the small Elin, but just then they almost did. Teru looked at her expectantly. "Because…?"

"Because you are worth it, Teru. Your life is worth it. No matter what you might think of yourself, you matter to people."

Teru's fingers brushed against the arm that was holding up his face. "That comes from a position of bias, I think."

"You're only proving me right, Teru," Saji said, shaking her head. "Besides, we won't be staying here forever. You won't be in the Federation forever. And once your contract expires we'll be free to return to my home."

Teru realized he was smiling. He thought his cheeks were a bit red, too. "That sound nice… I haven't done sparring practice with your ninja clan in awhile. I've always loved those mornings I spent on that sparring ground."

Talking about it was like reliving a dream. Teru looked into Saji's cerulean eyes and found himself staring right at the clearing in the forest where he first met her - only in place of the jeers and the antagonism of their first encounter there was laughter and hearty conversation.

"Right?" Saji said. "The ninjamaster would love to see you and me again. And she'd probably let me renovate my old house there, too. It's right next to a big farm. That means apple tart everyday and Poporian wine every night. We'll never have to worry about food again."

"I'll get to walk inside Pora Elinu," Teru pondered. "I didn't get to do much last time I was there. Maybe we can walk together under those passageways, just to stare at all those frills on the walls. Dangle our feet from the edge…"

"Ohh, that sounds dangerous!" Saji laughed. "There are lots of places in Pora Elinu you've never been able to go to as a soldier. There's this beautiful academy for witches in the northern end of the forest - I've heard from Palwa that they hold all kinds of feasts and celebrations there. And a settlement called Popolion to the northeast of Pora Elinu with lots of wide, green, open spaces -"

She didn't finish her thought.

"I…" Teru started. "I… I guess it'll be like paradise, once I'm done with my Federation contract. Once I've got enough money for my little brother to live comfortably in Lumbertown… I wonder how long that'll be? Then I can walk among forest nymphs, maybe help the ninja fight off threats to the Kingdom, not have a care in the world."

Saji was smiling. But Teru wasn't finished. There was a wistfulness to his tone. "But then I'll get all wrinkly and cranky. I'll get old. I'll… I'll get boring and insufferable, and maybe I'll get arrogant or full of wroth, and I'll be just like all those other… like all humans. I won't be boyish anymore. You won't want to have me around then… I'll probably end up leaving someday, just so that you won't have to deal with me then. I don't… I don't want…"

The grip around Teru's face tightened. Saji was suddenly seized by a deep passion. Her voice trembled. "If you end that sentence with 'to be a burden on you,' I swear, I will crush your skull, Teru."

"Oh, uh, sorr -" Teru tried. Saji's grip tightened even more.

"And don't you dare apologize. You've done nothing to wrong me. You've never done anything to wrong me. Just because you're human doesn't mean - "

"Of course it means I can't stay with you!" Teru blurted. "I'll - I'll never be able to stay with you. Years will pass and you'll still be you, but I'll be… different. I can't - "

"TERU!" Saji was shouting. "I SAID -"

"SAJI, LISTEN TO ME, DAMMIT!" Teru matched her voice. "You know I won't be able to stay forever! I'm not like you! I'm not an Elin! I can't choose to stay young; I'll grow up eventually! I can't… we can't… I wish we could, but… I'm…"

Teru's voice faltered into a raspy whisper. Now he'd done it. He'd lost control and shouted at her. He didn't mean to - it just came out like that. Now she was staring at him, and her eyes were misty, and he could have sworn he saw tiny little droplets of water form on her face. He felt his heart drop. Saji never cried. "N-No… shit, I didn't mean it like that, Saji, I…"

He felt a punch in his chest - but this time it wasn't his heart. The Elin had collapsed on him, wrapping his arms around his back. She was trembling. Teru felt wet tears on his shirt. "...I know. I know, Teru, I know… I know you won't be able to stay with me… You're a human. I am an Elin. We're not… I…"

You're a human. I am an Elin. Between the man and the Elin was an inseparable divide that could never be crossed. The two could might become close; as friends, partners, or even comrades-in-arms. But while humans got older, Elin could not. Thus they would only be in the same phase of their lives for a brief moment; then one would leave the other behind into maturity. They both knew that; even before they'd fallen in love with each other, they knew that. Their odd relationship was, in a cruel way, doomed from the very start for reasons far beyond anything they themselves could have changed.

"Saji…?" Teru whispered. She was still shaking, her head buried in his chest.

"Teru…?" Saji responded. His eyes were glistening behind that messy tuft of hair.

"I just wish… that I could grow old with you."

The words left their mouths in tandem. They had spoken together, unanimously, for both knew exactly what the other was thinking. Saji's grip turned into a fierce hug, and Teru smiled. Through watery eyes he played a bit with a loose strand of Saji's hair.

"I wish so…" Teru said.

"Wishes are cruel things. They give blind hope, even where none is possible," Saji whispered through Teru's shirt. "But at the same time… I wish so, too."

"Let's… let's not think about the future for now," Teru said after a long, painful silence. "We're not quite there yet, now are we? We can worry about… that… when we get to it. For now… For now, I'm still young. You're still young. I want… I want us to stay like this, for as long as we can."

"Yeah…" Saji finally removed her head from Teru's chest. Her eyes were still misty. She found a way to grin nevertheless. "For a human, you can be very heartwarming. I'm glad I chose to fight alongside you that day."

"Likewise," Teru said. He moved to wipe a tear from his eye. "Ah… sorry for yelling at you."

"Elinu's foot, I told you to stop apologizing for everything!" Saji laughed. Teru joined in; soon they were a chorus of giggles, and their troubles were, for the moment, washed away. Then Saji seemed to click in Saji's head. "Oh! The cactus-fruit! I need to… ahahah! I know exactly how to complement it!"

Saji quickly rushed back to the kitchen, where the wrinkled cactus-fruit remained unfinished. She reached into a cabinet, and took out something wrapped in linsteel foil, blocking the view from the countertop from Teru as she worked the dish.

After a few minutes, Saji was finally done. She was beaming. The dish was placed on the table before Teru knew it. He looked at the dish. The cactus fruits were cut and neatly arranged in a circle around the desert item, and when he saw what was in the center… and started to laugh.

"Apple tart!" he chuckled. "You - you were the one who got the last apple tart from the vendor in the market square, weren't you?!"

"Nn," Saji nodded. "You've been trying to order apple tart from that vendor for weeks now. I am ever the inquisitive ninja, aren't I? And your wrinkly cactus-fruit - look, the sweetness complements the wholesomeness of the apple tart very well, don't you think? It makes a perfect match, yes?"

"Yeah…" Teru's mouth was watering. "The apple tart all by itself would have been… pretty bland."

"And the cactus-fruit by itself would have been pathetic for a meal, no matter how sweet," Saji finished. "But put those two together, and you have a dessert worth eating. Haha! My Elin mastery over the culinary arts is unmatched!"

She took a knife into her hand and rammed it into the pastry with vigor.

Teru flinched as he heard the plate underneath crack in two.

"Um… Okay. I am still rather strong, aren't I? The Elin cocked her head.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side," Teru said.

"Will do," Saji replied.

For the second time this evening, the two burst out laughing.

Saji looked endearingly at Teru. Teru blushed, and stared back. For this moment - in just this tiny space of time, they could have been a normal couple. Simply two people who shared mutual feelings for each other and knew it. The facade wouldn't hold forever, but for right now, neither of them cared.

"Teru," Saji said, scooting closer. "Know that, no matter where we might go in the future, I will never regret meeting you. I'll never regret fighting with you, nearly dying for you, letting you save me, or any of that. I…"

They were simple words, what she was going to tell him. But sometimes even the simplest words are the hardest to say.

"I love you, Teru, so I don't regret any of that. Or - most of all, this…"

Teru had interacted with Elin for a long time. His longest assignment was, after all, Pora Elinu, and coming into contact with so many Elin from the age of sixteen onwards meant he knew what they were like. Whenever you touched one, they felt cold, almost empty. When they shook your hand, or moved to adjust your stance with your weapon, or felt your neck to make sure you were still alive… it was like feeling air brush against your skin.

But when Saji leaned in, placing her hands in the back of his head and forcing his face forward; when she kissed him, he felt something he'd never realized he'd felt from her lips.

He felt warmth.

A/N: I always felt like there was a certain tragedy to the idea of a romance between Elin and humans. Naturally since Elin look a lot like human women, some humans might be attracted to them… But would then be devastated at the revelation that they'll never leave their childlike form behind, whereas the humans inevitably will.

Saji is unusually tall for an Elin. Teru is unusually short for a human (He's a bit of a shota XD). Since they both see eye-to-eye, they found that they'd formed a strong bond while fighting as comrades that bound their destinies together. Try as they might, they can't imagine being separate from each other, because they care about each other too much. That's how they end up in this situation: tragic, heartwarming, and tearjerking all mixed into one emotional blender.

Will they ever have a happy ending? Well... That is, like many things, completely up to interpretation.

I hope you enjoyed reading my little fanfiction! This was fun for me to write. I love fluff… but not mindless fluff. A bit of tragedy in the mix is good for the tension! I know not many people will be reading this, but I hope that whoever has will love it as much as I do. For now…

I am Rushido-san. じゃ ね,さよなら,ありがとう. I hope to see you again someday~