One of the cart's wheels hit one of the many rocks on the side of the road. The body of the demon groaned and squeaked as the cart rocked side to side. A living demon was a horribly terrifying entity which was nearly silent, but the corpse they were carrying had all sorts of damage and rust eating away at its joints so it was naturally quite noisy.
Finally, the little mage had enough. "Aaargh! That horrible noise is too much to bear! That's it, we're taking a break and cleaning that thing up!" She swung her staff around in the air as she yelled, causing the rest of the party to flinch. She always swung her staff when she was about to cast a spell, so they felt worried she might accidentally cast one in her tantrum. "Besides, it should increase in value if its clean. This is something we should have done when we first found it!"
"Okay, okay! Now please calm down!" The guardsman had his great shield ready, positioned tactfully between himself and the angry mage. He was the leader of the team, so his decisions were the official deciding factor... but the little woman was quite dangerous when she was angry.
Soon, the team had set up camp near a river. A few of them were a bit annoyed that they didn't make as much progress today as they wanted to, but they were also anxious around an angry mage, so they didn't voice their discontent. Instead, a few of them took the chance to bathe in the river while the mage had the marksman help her perform restorative maintenance on the demon's corpse so it would screech less when disturbed.
Each individual was a maintenance expert when it came to their own weapons and armor of choice, but no one had ever performed maintenance on something like the body of a demon, so no one knew exactly how to do so. The marksman was only there because his rifle was similar to the body of the demon in that it had a lot of moving parts.
The marksman started to work on cleaning the machine. He focused almost entirely on the joints since the goal was simply to make it less noisy, but he also took the time to wipe away the ash and rinse the surface of the machine with water. As he did so, he realized the corpse was in a slightly better condition than he originally thought. Perhaps it was worth even more than they gathered. In any case, he brought plenty of solvent and gun oil with him and this was a favor from the mage herself, so he didn't mind spending some supplies and time to clean the metallic beast.
Glancing to his side, he saw Elaine, the little mage woman who was vigilantly watching his work with alluring, green eyes. She had a very cute face which almost always seemed either thoughtful or stern. She didn't smile very often, but it was fantastic when she did. He could remember the time he heard her laugh, it was a melodic sound he longed to hear again. The marksman looked back to the task at hand and decided it was worth it to venture outside his comfort zone.
"Do- Do you want to help?"
The little mage looked up in surprise. She had only heard the marksman speak one or two words at a time and only on extremely rare occasions. He stuttered slightly just now, but his voice was beautiful and captivating. His brown eyes were looking away and there was a slight blush visible in his cheeks. Perhaps he wasn't completely uninterested in her as she had thought, but just incredibly shy. There was still hope.
"I'd love to help. Show me how."
The machine, of course, was facing them and had one massive eye-full of what had just transpired. It was apparent the shy man had feelings for the mage woman, but was too shy to make a move. The machine could also tell that the little woman felt the same, but she wasn't sure how the man felt and didn't want to overstep her bounds.
Now both of them were working to clean the machine, but few words were spoken. Every now and then, the mage would ask the shy man a question, but he would answer quickly and didn't have enough conversational skills to know that he should ask a question in return. The would-be couple worked mostly in awkward silence... It was painful for the machine to watch.
The mage moved up to one of the claws of the machine, but found it stuck. She struggled with all her might, but couldn't lift it.
"Um... Cole, I can't lift it. Can you help me?"
"I'd love to."
The awkward marksman tried hinting at his interest in her by using those words instead of simply saying 'yes' or 'sure', but didn't realize that the mage would never assume that was a hint of any kind. At the end of the day... he was conversationally helpless.
He reached down, planning to grab the arm of the machine a little higher up so as not to disturb the woman's hands. After all, he didn't want to overstep and didn't have the courage to do so anyways. But, at the last moment, an invisible force took control of his hands and moved them so they landed perfectly on top of Elaine's. He was shocked and was going to pull his hands away, but the invisible force held them there with adamant determination.
The little mage woman was equally shocked. Thrilled, but shocked. She wasn't aware of the invisible force that moved the young man's hand. Instead, she realized that he had gone against his shyness and made an incredible effort to express his feelings for her. She looked up at his face and found it beet-red. They stared at each other in shock for a few seconds, not knowing what to say or do. Then suddenly, the arm of the machine groaned slightly and finally budged from it's stuck position even though neither of them exerted any considerable force on the arm. Also, the pressure holding the man's hand was now gone, so he finally removed his hands from hers.
"Um, sorry about that."
The mage smiled cutely, "No, I actually liked it a lot."
Both of them were still a bit flustered, but sweet smiles played on their faces as they continued to treat the machine's joints. The machine silently chuckled to itself.
'Life is too short to worry about failure. Good luck buddy.'
It wasn't mentioned, but everyone else in the party saw what happened. They were surprised when Cole began trying to converse with Elaine. That was enough for everyone to eavesdrop, but no one could have guessed that he would have the guts to make a move. In fact, he himself seemed like he couldn't believe his own actions. It was beyond comical, but also very sweet.
The machine was finally in a better condition where it hardly creaked at all. Soon, the party returned to the path and resumed their travels. Cole slung his rifle over his shoulder and joined the duelist as the designated rearguard of the formation as usual. The duelist had a smug grin on his face, one side of his mouth curved a little higher than the other. He didn't say anything, but held his fist out pointed towards the brave marksman. Cole naturally returned the fist-bump, a silly grin appearing on his face as well. He had made his silent brother proud.
The expedition resumed and this time, the demon's body didn't creak even a bit. Everyone was in a good mood, but chose not to discuss the day's main event since they worried that talking about it would affect the courage of the shy marksman. Instead, they made an effort to discuss other topics and gave each other knowing smiles.
Through all of this, no one noticed the look on the blade caster's face. The cloaked man, like everyone else, was shocked when the marksman made his move. But his expression didn't transition from shock to happiness like everyone else. Instead, his shocked expression morphed into a dark stare. He seemed to be the only one there who wasn't happy about the recent events, but he hid his face and walked a little further ahead than normal, so no one noticed.