Heinrich Kissinger escorts his daughter Hilde to get warm and bathed once she joins Zeletzyn in the Sakla castles' co-ed bathhouse chamber. Relieved, Heinrich goes to quell Lucius' suspicions in the meantime. Preparing the next phase of the plan for growth to overtake Von Bosch's Britannia in regards to how they shall build up their industrial prowess to overtake Charles' royal army. Meanwhile, at the other end of the corridor from the Grandmaster's quarters. The relieving temperance of the steam and hot mineral waters permeates and clears Hilde's mind, wrapped in her smooth bathing linens. The therapeutic feeling of great warmth washes over her, releasing the tension in her serenity. A great deal of time passed before she wondered where Zeletzyn had gone. "Wait, wasn't Jordyn supposed to be here? He hadn't shown up yet, but what was he rushing off for then? He was shivering like crazy. Could it be that he's in the sweat lodge? I should check (wait, what am I saying?!) *she thought, blushing heavily.* Hilde tried to get a hold of her rushing thoughts. "I'll just be here and let him be. I shouldn't get too worked up," she says with a strongly beating heart.

  Although she would be right, Zeletzyn, after removing his damaged carbon-steel prosthetic arm, him wrapped in his bathing linens, had gone to attempt to center himself. His emotions were exhausted from his being in that very sweat lodge, sitting with the steamed lava coals, meditating in the sweltering and humid heat at over a hundred and fifty degrees; he continued to have his eyes closed as he collected his thoughts on the events that had carried on not long ago. His subconscious is driven by the inner voice of his persona, Kyeshmahkt, which permeates his essence. "WHY DID YOU COWER?! Hmph, to think I must share my power with your limited body is infuriating. "Yes, but I am still the master of this body and actions; I'm not going to let you senselessly murder innocents." "Haven't you ever heard of a merciful killing? Oh, your highness?" "Don't dare to mock me, Kyeshmahkt, and no, Hilde would've seen it as an act of evil. I'm not like the ones who murdered my father." "Oh, that girl, please, waste of time and effort; you're going to be Fuhrer of the new age to come; you'll have all the concubines you wish, licking from the palm of your hand. Why bother when she'll be nothing but a burden?!" "I'm not like the kings before this age to come, and I am not one for such trivial flings either, so I warn you again, watch your tone; you don't know her like I have grown to know her." "Acting as your nurse doesn't mean a thing; I don't see what worth she could mean to you; you don't want a fling, then what do you want from her? What purpose is she to you?! To me, she's just another wench to plow." "Don't you dare, Kyeshmahkt!" "Or what?! What can you do to convince me? You're stuck with me; unfortunately, I must be dragged by your warzone of a subconscious.

  Tell me what worth she is to you; have some cock, go to her yourself. Or else, I'll have to morph myself back on the scene in your body and plow that fine wench myself while you watch within your conscience like a cuckold." "FINE!! If you want a reason not to infringe on me or her, I'll give you a fucking reason! Because she's... special to me, damnit!" "Pfft, hahaha, really, Zeletzyn, that's pathetic!" "Try me, Kyeshmahkt!" "Okay, then tell her that, yourself, and I won't question your vexing loyalty towards her."

  In these moments of dialogue unfolding within him, Hilde herself continues to ponder, "Is he... just going to stay in there? Must be doing his meditation; I shouldn't disturb him then. There's no reason to keep these linens on, but I doubt he's coming out soon. I'd probably be off to the women's barracks before he bathes alone. There's no use in stressing about it; I hope it works for him to be in that thing; I could never; I'd rather bathe to get warm." She confidently unwrapped her bathing linens, believing she would likely not need them, given Zeletzyn was not bathing along with her. As is the strictly kept rule when bathing between men and women simultaneously. "Aah, that's so much better; not gonna be in here much longer anyways, might as well enjoy it to myself!" Letting out a deep and gleeful sigh of relief once doing so.

  Zeletzyn, meanwhile, then opens his eyes, and an echoing silence emerges from his stalling. "Well, should I take over then? You cuckold." Kyeshmahkt speaks within him mockingly in a smug tone. Zeletzyn then quickly storms out from the sweat lodge in anger and annoyance to prove himself to his inward persona. Murmuring to himself while doing so, "You want to fucking test me, fine, I'll show you who the cuckold, i- i- i- is?" Zeletzyn stopped in his tracks and was stunned, wide-eyed, his face flushed red in a gobsmacked daze, "Hilde? Why are your linens lying out of the bath?"

  Hilde looked up at Zeletzyn in shock and hurried to cover herself in embarrassment as she screamed. "I thought you weren't going to bathe with me! So I went ahead and took it off! Why are you out here all of a sudden?!" Turning around, trying to avoid frontal eye contact in her flustered exclamation. "What do you want, storming out like that, Jordyn?!" Zeletzyn, turning his gaze back towards her, pleads, "Look, don't go. Sorry, I should've announced myself. Is it too late to bathe together, or are you about to leave?" "Well, not since this is happening! I can't leave without my linens, you dunce!" "Oh... uh, sure, here, take them back." Zeletzyn steps down into the water to give Hilde her linens to recover her composure in his presence. Meanwhile, in doing so, he looked closer at her back and the nape of her neck. "Wait a minute, are those... deep... burn scars?!" Hilde reaches out and swipes away the linens in his hand. "If you saw them, I might as well not keep it hidden from now on, so go on, but since they're so undignified of me to show you, go ahead and laugh then!" Wrapping herself back up in modesty. "I'm sorry, I never knew." Zeletzyn, now no longer flustered but seeing endearment in her, steps forward and beckons. "Can I touch it? It looks painful to bear." "Why does it entertain you to mock my disgusting scars so much you want to rub it in how gross it is?!" N- No! It's just I never expected you to have something like this about your body, the appearance you wish you could have again; my arm, my face, your back, and your neck; we're both gruesomely scarred; I don't know what may have had to happen for you to get them... but, as you wish to heal and help in my pain, I'm asking if I may do the same by scrubbing it. These scaling peels and calyces look like they hurt. I don't want you to hurt because, well..." Hilde peered her head behind her with her face completely blushed and frustrated embarrassment, glaring eyes like sharp blades of ice into him, "Well... what then? Go ahead, say it!" "Damnit, you're not going to make this easy, are you? *"Neither am I," says Kyeshmahkt in his head* *sigh*... It's just... I see you as... special to me, and like you said back there at that encampment, I've grown to... l- lo- love... y- you too... and I want to protect you... as much as you wish to protect me, in your own words, how you said, like it or not. There, I said it." Hilde disarms her glaring eyes, turns away from him, and asks, "Why?" Zeletzyn, dumbfounded, tries to find the words to say, knowing the importance of how she wishes to be viewed by him and vice versa. He states plainly without jest, "I guess it's... just that, well, I see you as an angel compared to me, The way you cared for me every night for those four months, the way you cared to race to me to protect my essence of being from doing something I could never take back. Being with me, I never knew what it meant to feel love, but when I saw you do that back there. I felt it pierce me, in that sliver of time, able to take in the moment and recognize that what I do matters greatly to you, that you bear the pain, anger, hate, and fear when I feel that weight of such emotion. But still, you chose what I couldn't: to love, hope, and have faith in me to do good; that made me realize just how much you mean to me and what it meant to feel love when you told me to listen, breathe, and look into your enchanting eyes. That's why I know it sounds dumb and all over the place like my mind is, but I'm honest when telling you that you are my serenity, not this meditation; hell, it's not even when I'm in this trivial bathhouse, it comes from knowing you are near to me that I finally in this damn existence can feel a sense of calm and could stand without fear. I accept now that when I see the pain you bear, in the midst of you still desiring to heal mine despite it. That's why I must say that I insist on caring for you and your well-being, protecting you and your view of me, because... I love you in your scars as much as you love me in mine. So... is that a good enough reason as to why?"

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  Unknown to Zeletzyn, Hilde's eyes were opened, and her ears perked up when she heard this onslaught of raw honesty with a genuine love and care for her honor. Her eyes gleamed with unbridled joy in a tearful display. However, she closed herself off and her eyes, trying not to fluster herself further in the unrelenting rapid beating of her heart; she felt the need to cut the interaction short, not from being mad at him for earlier, but because she worried about looking undignified in receiving such treatment of unadulterated affection. "I- I need to leave; enjoy the bath to yourself; I'm... tired and... need to go to my quarters. So... goodnight then, sir fuhrer." She kept herself covered and promptly left the confines of the bathhouse. Leaving Zeletzyn to his own devices. He plops down in the steaming mineral water and broods. "For fuck sake, she must start hating me now that I saw her like that. Damn you, Kyeshmahkt!!" His persona promptly responds, "I'm surprised you had the cock to do so, you showed valiance, and I bestow unto you my respect." "I don't care; just leave me alone already and go plow yourself!" "Fine, wenches, am I right? "Shut it!" "Eh, don't worry yourself. She'll have to come around at some point or another. You showed grit, and I'm just saying you gained my commendation. I'll take my leave. So go ahead and enjoy your... bath, Sir Zeletzyn."

  Hilde was stunned at his display as she stood outside those chamber doors, her heart racing. But not long after, she began hearing noise from the other end of the corridor; Lucius was walking with her father, Heinrich. Her father was still following through with his promise to stall the Grandmaster. Snapping out of her daze when hearing their voices get closer, she rushed down the castle stairs to return to the maidens' general quarters. Lucius glances at where the noise of rustling feet is coming from and sees the back of Hilde's head before being enveloped in the sight of the stairs. Wincing his eyes, he looked upon her father, Heinrich. "You should be concerned with what your daughter does this late; it's past curfew for the maidens to leave their quarters." Heinrich, stunned, quickly turns behind him and back again, "I- I'm sorry *cautious laughter* I- I believe you may worry for nothing, sire; I know my daughter better than anyone in saying she often prefers bathing alone. She must've known the time and made sure not to be a burden in upsetting the rules of your castle, Grandmaster." "Hmm, alright then, just tell her not to do this so late. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and trust your instinct as her father. But please do warn her." Heinrich's mind was now put at ease that he bought his cover for her and Zeletzyn, "I'll be certain to discipline her as I see fit, sire. Now, as I was saying-" Zeletzyn spent the next hour alone, relaxing in the bath before heading to his private quarters. "Fuck me, I guess I can't go back on it now; I just have to go to bed and accept the deed that's been done. Can't believe it had to go like this... Thanks a lot, Kyeshmahkt! Anyway, no use in worrying about it now. At least my wounds are cleansed in these minerals, and I finally got some warmth in peace." Zeletzyn, after sulking at these circumstances, reluctantly left the bathhouse and went to bed in his quarters to finally get some much-needed sleep from this wave of mental strain and physical exhaustion he felt after the sweat lodge meditation and mineral bath. He didn't waste any time, simply falling upon his bed once dried, falling to a deep slumber like a tumbling tree, and not moving once during his rest.

  Meanwhile, back with Hilde in the maidens' general quarters. She was restless, pondering upon what he said to her in full view of her vulnerability, unable to quell these thoughts and relax these emotions to fall asleep. She began to feel guilty, specifically for leaving him behind in her fear of letting her heart be open to his vow to her when she pressed the same emotions and views about him unto his conscience. In the dead of night, three hours after Zeletzyn's slumber, only the skeleton crew of Skeligaer's Ivaerian militia roamed the halls to guard the premises. However, the emotions and sense of longing to be with him and to repay the genuine love he struggled to show but gave despite his trouble finding what it means to feel love, as her father has expressed to her. She felt an unrelenting and irresistible longing to be with him, and these emotions now churned within her essence. She woke up, left the maiden's quarters, and kept herself silent like a mouse in a lion's den as she snuck past the pacing guards; the stress upon her was a great weight on her shoulders as she moved. Knowing the implications of what would happen to her and her father if found and thwarted in her efforts. Eventually, through her arduous march, she made it to his private quarters and bedchamber. In Zeletzyn's exhaustion, he forgot to bar the door shut from being opened.

  Hilde crept, trying her best not to wake him. Slowly creaking open the door to his bedchamber, she stood and looked upon a naked Zeletzyn. She whispered, "Wow, he was so tired he didn't even bother putting on his bedrobes; it must be cold for him, though." Hilde, slowly, without Zeletzyn's knowledge of her presence watching over him, ever so slightly in her movement not to be heard. She strips herself of her bedrobes, underwear, and stockings. Shuffling closer, ruffling the thick and smooth blanket and sheets, trying not to wake him, she slowly and cautiously covers him in its warmth before sliding into his bed. Once doing so, she wrapped her arms and a leg around him under said blanket and sheet. She stared into his slumbering face, him breathing softly; she whispered again now toward a slumbering Zeletzyn, "That was the kindest and most loving thing you could have told me; it melted my heart; thank you, and never forget how much I love you, Jordyn, more than you can fathom, for you're a blessing to me." Slowly, she crept her forehead to touch his and kissed him in his deep and heavy sleep. They stayed in their slumber, physically bonded, skin to skin, through the night.

  Hilde was the first to wake up in the late morning; when doing so, she gave him another kiss, slowly rolled from his bed, dressed back in her clothes, and left the same way she came to him. Running into Branolk as she left, she was startled, "I thought you were someone else (implying Lucius) Branolk, Zeletzyn is sleeping. He had a hard night." "Huh, I- I see... well, I was just going to leave his prosthetic in his quarters since repairing it. Say, why were you in there anyway, Hilde?" "It's nothing you need to worry about, but I swear if you ask him or mention it to anyone else of this encounter, I will make sure your foreskin is to blame and cut it off." "A- ah, okay. Well then, I'll go ahead and leave this in his quarters, and don't you worry, I don't want my reputation to be put down by your father for this. Have a good rest of your morning, Hilde!" Hilde left, was calm throughout the day, and was cheerful once Zeletzyn awoke. The day carried on, and all was well between them; he was still unaware of what had occurred and chalked it up to a pleasant yet vividly lucid dream that he had. Hilde, however, knew to keep this to herself and go about their business as usual. With newfound confidence in their connection, she stated, "Apology accepted and forgiven" towards him once he woke and prepared his coffee and breakfast. All was well upon his sense of self, and he continued as he was as the unionist confederacy movement's Fuhrer.

  (*Filler Concluded*)