AUTHOR'S POV
Stellan blinked his eyes several times after hearing Helena's confession. With those words echoing in his ears, he could hardly believe how she take him for. Then, he suddenly bursted in uncontrolled laughter as he roll over the bed, leaving Helena embarassingly clueless and silent.
"What's supposed to be funny?", Helena furrowed her brows wondering what tickled Stellan's funny bone. She turned to her side waiting for him to get a hold of himself.
Stellan tried so hard to settle down until he ran out of breath. Helena consistently bewilders him with her profound ways. "No-nothing, no-thing, I apologize for being rude", Stellan couldn't contain his laughter until happy tears came out. His feeling of tipsiness vanished on the spur of the moment. He was completely blown away with Helena's naivety that he find too adorable. Stellan then laid beside Helena and grazed the lines on her forehead.
"Are you done making fun of me?", Helena pouted her lips as she feels invalidated with how she felt.
"First off, it's not funny. Again, I apologize for my lack of manners. You're not funny, and and what you said was a completely an honest and innocent thought.", Stellan closed his eyes for a moment and tightened his lips into a fine line as he calm his jubilance. "So… so you think I like.. men?", he looked at her as he catch his breath.
"Well.. don't you?", Helena genuinely asked. She ultimately thinks that the paladin knight did showed interest in her while she's pretending as a man.
"Of course not", Stellan softly replied. "I am very well attracted to women only. Well not just any woman, but to you specifically", he clearly said. However, his answer doesn't seem to gladden Helena's satisfaction.
"How? Do you even know that I'm a woman in the first place?", Helena wondered when did she caught Stellan's eyes. She's been very careful to portray herself as a man, from the looks to the simple gestures and even when taking leaks or baths.
"Honestly?", Stellan sat up and pulled Helena right up in front of him as they both sit on the bed facing each other. "I wouldn't be so curious if only not of a hunch. My curiosity led to a confusion, until I found myself unable to pull away from you. There's one important detail that gave yourself away, and I held on to that one thing until I finally realized I was right", he held Helena's hands as he caress them with his thumbs. "I asked you a question before… I'm not sure if you heard me or not. But, I think, I already knew the answer given with all the hints and signs.", Stellan continued. Helena was all ears.
"I was young when I met this strange girl. When I first met her, she's nothing but an ordinary talkative lady, a few years younger than me, who speaks comfortably without the use of honorifics especially on the son of a duke as me. At first glance, she could be mistaken as a pauper, but the manner she carried herself tells me otherwise. She had this vibe that resembled a family from high regard and distinct civility. Her peculiarity left me weirded out that day, but I was more than surprised when she healed my wounds leaving no scars and pain after a harsh training day", Stellan continued to fondle her Helena's cold hands as they look at each other's eyes.
"The next day, another girl with the same name approached me the same exact way the previous girl addressed me. It was a different girl then, but, they shared the same sprightly smiles and bright gray eyes with flecks of green. She told me stories that connected the ones the previous girl have entailed.. I began to think I'm being tricked, so I kept my distance and stayed aloof. And again, she non-hesitatingly healed me even the tiniest wound visible on my skin.", Stellan continued that Helena leaves her mouth open trying to remember the past. Engrossed with his storytelling, Stellan started to become quite ditzy as he notice Helena's chest under her thin clothing. Her shapely breasts along with her erected nipples under her thin clothes has been distracting him a little. He cleared his throat as he focus on Helena's eyes instead. "Then on the next few days, another girl came again... with the same color spectrum of her eyes with the previous girls, and surprisingly, shares the same name again. She spoke of the same thing the previous ones talked about, like it was a story in succession, sequencing them like a quilt threaded together.", Stellan decided to pull the quilt over Helena's chest or else his virile urges will be provoked. "I- I was so dumbfounded on how those girls were connected. I was almost convinced that I was being played on, a trick that isn't really funny at all. Thus, without fail, she never forgets to heal me as if it was something she have gotten used to do before leaving. I gave it a thought for a time, until I came to realize that my visitor is not just an ordinary girl, but a soul traveler who's completely clueless of her abilities that she visits me in different bodies.", Stellan couldn't help but brush his lips on Helena's hands. Her skin smell of herbs, subduing all the looming thoughts that troubles his mind. "The next thing I knew, I've been waiting for her. Hearing her stories and seeing her smiles became part of my week. Slowly, I found myself wanting to see her more that with her absence, my day is incomplete. She comes at different times, in random days. In different bodies. She tells me stories of her great adventures, and shares me uplifting words of advice. She appears anywhere where it's close to nature within Hesam, but she especially likes the river the most. She said, there's no such beautiful thing in Aelmere", Stellan smiled as he bit his lower lip. Helena's eyes softened with a faint memory she could hardly recall. "But as always, she visits at my lowest of low, on my saddest defeats, and my weakest condition. Little by little, she reaped her way in me until she became my calm before the storm, my double rainbow after the rain, and the light in the midst of the darkness. She is my Cedar Hill", Stellan seized every moment to lay bare the overwhelming desires of his heart without reservations. He's done holding himself back, as he let go of his hard grip on controlling his feelings for Helena.
"How certain are you that it's me?", Helena removed her hands from Stellan's grasp but the paladin knight refused and squeezed her hand even tighter. She casted her doubts that Stellan may have mistaken her for someone who she only share the same color of eyes.