They start when they're still pages, sitting at the dining hall as the meal concludes and arm-wrestling despite their exhaustion and sore muscles, their friends cheering around them, jokingly placing bets and asking who gets to fight the winner. Raoul grins at the boy across from him, who sets his own face in determination; Raoul always wins.

Now, they sit opposite each other again, for the first time in months; Raoul clasps a hand rough with familiar callouses, but this is not the boy he wrestled so many years ago - no, Sir Alanna is friends with thieves and prostitutes, and though she's strong enough to win by her own muscles, she has no issue with pushing Raoul's hand down low just to prove she can, then grinning savagely before she shocks him weak by stealing a kiss, and slams his hand to the table.