With a sigh, the knight reached up and pulled off their mask. Beneath was a face, tawny skin and a wide nose over a faint mustache. Short, straight black hair poked out from their hood. And piercing, green eyes stared back as Lamorak tried to memorize the features, tried to place them. Starlit, definitely, though the eyes ...

"My father was Hessian," they said, pushing back the hood and dropping the mask on a work bench. "The green eyes are his. All my siblings have them."

"And did he give you a name as well?" Lam asked.

A cold glare stopped him from pressing the issue.

"In the Starlit Lands, we value the names we take for ourselves above our fledgling titles," they said.

Lam put up his hands and bowed his head.

"I'm sorry for my ignorance," he said. "I will admit I've never been to the Starlit Lands, nor met many from there." There had been a woman who had worked the stables a few years before he left. She'd liked to sit on his face while he masturbated. Ainira. But she had never spoken of the life she had left behind, and they had never done much talking.

"My name is Safere," they said. "My pronouns are ey, em, eir."

"And I'm Lamorak," he said, bowing lower this time, which was good for a smile, at least. "He, him, his."

"I am aware who you are," Safere said.

Lam chuckled. "Does my reputation really precede me so far?" he asked.

"It does," Safere said, tone serious but there was the hint of a smile on eir lips, and a heat in the way eir gaze drifted down Lam's body.

"Well, I can tell you it's all false," he said, standing straight and puffing out his chest, "except the bit about being an amazing lover. That I will take full ownership of."

Safere rolled eir eyes and shook eir head. "I think it might have been a mistake to save you," ey said.

"Not that I'm ungrateful," he said, "but why did you save me?"

Safere paused, bit eir bottom lip, then turned to the work bench. The lights in the mask had gone out the moment ey took it off, but the memory of them made it look nearly alive.

"Well, if that's a secret, perhaps you'll tell me how you managed to make those eyes." He didn't want to push too hard, too fast, despite how fun it might be to --

"I built it custom," ey said. "The interfaces for suits have to be so large because the suits themselves are large, but for smaller devices, they can be rigged up very small." Ey picked up the mask, slid it onto eir face. There was a faint click and a whir and the eyes blazed green again.

"All it takes is a few new connections," ey said. "I can vary the intensity at will, and if I want ..."

The eyes flashed, a light so bright that Lamorak flinched back, shut his eyes. It was like staring into the heart of a fire, or an explosion, but he felt no heat from the burst of light.

"What was --" He opened his eyes, vision blurred but clearing, and gasped. Two green, glowing orbs hovered inches in front of his face, the black of the mask making the whole world seem consumed by those points of color, which flickered with intensity.

"It's something of a dirty trick, I admit," ey said, and Lam shuddered as he felt eir hand brush against his hip. "But it has helped me out of many difficult situations. And into a few ..."

Lam swallowed. "I bet."