“Ser Cline, I don’t care what will happen, or what anyone will think of us. If we are not able to carry this love forever, then let us carry the memory of it.”

Magdalene and Cline kissed. Longer, more deeply, and more passionately than any couple had ever kissed before.

As night fell over Rodehills, Dave snuggled into bed with his new book. It was book seven of the popular romance series “Affair Above the Sky,” about the princess Magdalene Nightshade, who had been betrothed in an arranged marriage to Prince Lothard, heir to the floating kingdom of Aramore. But Magdalene didn’t love Lothard- her true love being the strapping young knight, Ser Cline of the Sky Riders. The two constantly had to find ways to meet in secret, as Lothard became more and more suspicious.

The books were cheesy and by far the most technically poorly written romance novels he’d read. He routinely found basic plot holes, items of importance would appear and disappear at random, there were occasional vaguely misogynistic moments, and many of the love scenes were just plain silly. Still, whenever he read these books he couldn’t help but put himself in the far-too delicate shoes of the protagonist. It was a feeling he enjoyed- the thought of being someone who would give up the world to fall into the arms of her lover.

Arin, Dave’s housemate, was the only person who knew Dave read romance books. They were really the only person Dave thought would understand. If anyone else saw him reading something so cutesy, or fluffy, or feminine, then he’d never hear the end of it. Everyone already had their opinions on “Big Dave.”

There was a rumbling as someone came sprinting toward the door. Dave shot up in bed. 

“Big Dave,” said Chad, bursting through the door to Dave and Arin’s cottage. “Dave, we need your help, get your big butt out here.”

Dave groaned and blew out the candle next to his bed. Apparently his new book would have to wait until he’d solved whatever problem the lads had. They always needed his help with something; maybe this time they’d gotten themselves hurt and needed someone to carry them home, or maybe they needed someone to scare wolves away from the sheep, or move something big and heavy that was inconveniencing them somehow. Whenever there was a problem, they always came to “Big Dave”- a nickname he very much wished would go away. He was big, strong, and therefore useful. And “Big Dave” liked feeling useful, so he always lent one or two of his massive hands to their cause. Even when he didn’t really want to.

He walked outside and shut the big wooden door behind him, slowly in order to not wake Arin- a courtesy he now realized Chad had not bothered to give. Fortunately, Arin still looked like they were sleeping soundly in their bed. 

The night sky over Rodehills village looked gorgeous. The stars, nearly infinite in both expanse and glory painted themselves across the same vast fresco as always. But the moon was as full, as bright, and as large as he’d ever seen it. The moon was a playful being, prone to shifts on whatever whim she carried. It’d been full for a while now. She’d seemed to enjoy being full, and wanted to see how far she could push it and how long it could last.

Dave enjoyed the night both for its own beauty and for the way moonlight illuminated the white stone of the buildings of Rodehills. The buildings were short, but wide. Dave had to duck under many entranceways when entering them. They lay aimlessly through the town, placed simply wherever someone wanted to place one. The town was small and far outside of the advancements in technology that he’d heard other villages were making. But its size and structure made it very cute, and the stillness and quiet of the night hid many of the flaws.

“Big Dave! Get over here, you turd,” shouted Chad. Chad was a scrawny dude with greasy hair, who seemed to think that just because he commanded people they would have to do what he said. Distressingly, it seemed to work.

Speaking of the flaws, thought Dave. He sighed and walked over to where Chad was. 

“What do you want?” Dave sighed. “It’s like midnight.”

Chad rolled his eyes. Dave remembered when Chad had learned how to do that when they were eight years old, and he’d never learned to stop. “Don’t get all snotty, we got a real problem here. Look!”

Chad pointed past the town, over to the forest in the valley. Dave didn’t notice a thing.

“Wolves again?” Dave asked. Rodehills mostly sustained itself on raising sheep and selling wool. When there was a problem at night, it was usually wolves. On full moons they could be heard howling miles away. “Big Dave” was large enough and could shout loud enough that he could scare them away pretty easily, though he never thought it was completely necessary. The local wolves never wanted to hurt people, Dave found, and the only times they did the person attacked first. They just wanted food, same as any other creature. He just had to remind them sometimes that this food wasn’t theirs.

“No, not wolves. Don’t you see it? See the smoke?”

Dave peered closely at the piney woods. Sure enough, a thin column of smoke rose up above the center of the trees.

“Oh. Do you think it’s a wildfire?”

“Nawh, I know what it is. I asked the lads to check it out. Big Dave, that’s a witch’s hut.” Chad was close enough for Dave to smell his breath.

“Please stop calling me Big Dave. You know I hate that.” Dave had always felt awkward about being called big. He knew he was tall and muscular, and he knew that came in handy, but it never felt good to have that pointed out.

Chad looked wide-eyed. “That’s what you’re worried about? Big Dave, there's a witch down there! It could turn us all into frogs, or kill us, or kill our sheep. Start trying to teach the town’s kids dark arts, I mean, who knows? Larry saw it with his own eyes. It’s got red hair, and glowing green eyes, and fangs. It looked right at Larry, man.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” Dave asked, not believing any of it.

“Go kick her ass! Or do something to scare the thing away.”

“No!” Dave shouted. 

“Come on, you coward. Get her out of those woods. Go save the village and be a big hero.”

“If you want to go punch someone, someone who I might add is probably just a defenceless old lady, you go do it and you go face the consequences for it. You coward.”

Dave turned to walk back to his cottage. This was the worst and most asinine thing Chad had ever requested. He’d known Chad ever since they were little, he reminded himself, and Chad wasn’t always a bad guy. But he made rash decisions, stuck with them after all evidence had proved him wrong, and was usually really obnoxious about it the whole time.

As Dave walked back, he noticed Chad hadn’t moved at all. He turned back to see what was wrong.

“Dave,” said Chad with a small hint of tears in his eyes, “I’m just doing this ‘cause I’m worried. You’re big and tough, and I’m just not. If something goes wrong, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do anything at all.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d turned on the false cry for sympathy, but Dave never knew how to ignore it. “I guess I’ll go down there and check it out, but only to stop you from doing something you’ll regret.” 

“Yeah, go beat her up, Big Dave!”

“I’m not going to beat her up!” Dave said. “Not unless she is actually an evil witch, who actually wants to hurt people, and even then I’ll try talking it out first.”

“That sounds like a good way to get cursed,” Chad sneered.

“Whatever,” Dave said as he continued to walk back towards his house.

“Hey, aren’t you gonna go tonight? What if it does something tonight?” Chad looked genuinely terrified.

“Witches are more powerful at night, I’ll go tomorrow morning.” Dave had absolutely no way of knowing if that was true, but at the very least it might shut Chad up.

Sure enough, Chad nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, that makes sense. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, see you then.” Dave slinked back to his house and back into his bed. The worries about what he had just promised to do slowly began to set in. There likely wasn’t a witch. The most that would happen is he’d waste his morning. But it wasn’t impossible that the witch was real- magic users were pretty common in the big cities, but Dave had gone his entire life without seeing one around here. As risky as it seemed, the thought of being able to encounter magic was exciting. Maybe he could even convince them to give him a bit of magical assistance?

From the bed on the other side of the room, he heard Arin shift around.

“What did that asshole want?” Arin mumbled. It seemed like Chad had probably woken them up after all.

“To get me to go punch a witch.”

“You told him no, right?” At this point Arin sat up and looked at Dave through sleepy half-open eyes. Arin usually tossed in their sleep, and it hadn’t taken long for them to get their short, curly hair scrunched and messed up.

“I did, but I’m going go see what he’s talking about anyway. That might make him stop.”

“You know it won’t.” Arin flopped back down onto their pillow.

“Yeah. I know.”

“And you remember what we’ve discussed about him and the lads, right?”

Dave rubbed his temples. “Say ‘no’ and leave it at that.” 

“Right.”

“But I promised him this time, and he seemed really worried. I’ll just say no next time.”

Arin rolled over on their stomach. “That’s what you said last time.”

Dave didn’t have a response. Soon enough, it seemed Arin had fallen back asleep, so Dave again lit his candle and picked his book back up. Dave read well into the night, thinking about how wonderful it would be to lie on a cloud next to Ser Cline. He tried not to think about how much Cline looked like Arin- their tight, short curly hair, their muscular but thin frame, their neatly maintained beard that looked like it’d feel amazing to have brush against your face as you went in for a long, slow-

His heart sank. He tried not to think about that. They’d been down that road before, and could not go down it again. Dave blew out the candle before he drifted to sleep, book still in hand.