I didn’t know how to tell Eleni that I thought we were going to die. I sat there, sipping on my chai, but the sweet taste was soured by the truth. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but a fresh wave of nausea dizzied me every time I thought about everything that El and I had tried to build together, everything that was going to come crashing down, going to be snatched from us. My hand was slick with tears I had tried to desperately wipe away, but I could already feel more threatening at the corners of my eyes. It was just me then, in the disquieting silence of Rhodian’s café, the only sound a faint, half-hearted plunk of lyre strings from next door and the constant, soulless marching of a clock.

Eleni wasn’t more than ten minutes late, but even the familiar crack of the metallic heels of her boots on the grey flagstones didn’t reassure me like they normally did. She slung her sabre onto her shoulder and trudged over towards our table. I heard her breath hitch as she caught sight of me, my face pink and blotchy from my tears.

“Cal?” She whispered anxiously, taking my hand in hers. “What’s the matter?”

I didn’t know where to start. I wanted to tell her it was going to be okay, but…I didn’t think it was going to be okay. I listened to my breath quaking, and watched her through my blurring eyes, wondering whether I’d remember her, even if I never saw her again. I didn’t know how I was going to let go of her. Her perfect eyes, the way that her short ebony hair danced in the wind, how she kissed me every time we met, that cute little half-smile of hers.

I take a deep breath. “El… I need to talk to you about something. Something serious. But know that I love you, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah…of course Callia. There’s nothing we can’t solve together, is there?”

“Eleni. That’s the problem.” I said. I didn’t want to tell her what came next. I tried to steady myself, but tears were running down my face. “Babe, we can’t…be together anymore.”

“Cal…why?” she says, her voice wobbling, her bottom lip quivering as she wills herself not to cry.

“Because El, I am Princess Callia of the 43rd royal regiment of Seraphim Vale. And you…who are you?”

“Commander Eleni, 1st legion of Cleotonia.” She recites.

“Well…Commander Eleni…” I shudder, a shadow of a smile forced across my face. “Seraphim Vale and Cleotonia…are going to…have…declared war.”

I watched her brow furrow, her face clouded with something that was almost anger, but disbelieving confusion flickered in her eyes.

“Your father?” she asked, her words breaking as tears jabbed at her eyes.

“Your Emperor, El. Your goddamn Emperor Vasilis.” I roared in distraught rage. I’d never shouted at her before. Part of me wanted to believe that she could convince Vasilis to have mercy, but I knew that she hadn’t had any part in his counsel.

Callia…I love you. I love you. I love you. I will get you back if it’s the last thing I do.”

“El-” I say, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I love you too. I will always remember you.”

I hugged her then. Her breath on my cheek. Her body against mine. I didn’t want to let go. I felt her hands trace mine, and then our lips were pressed together and we were thirteen again, nothing but us and the shared thud of our heartbeats. But this was goodbye. I got ready for the end of our forever. Commander Eleni of Cleotonia. My El.

“Will I ever...see you again?”

“Maybe. Maybe someplace else, once it’s all over.”

John is a binman, along with Derek the driver and Kevin a new guy. He is married to a carping wife Lulu and they have 3 kids, 2 from Lulu's former relationship with an estate agent who she continually compares him with, badly, and a baby, which is probably his. He works hard all week but finds peace on Saturday afternoon when the 2 eldest are at their dad's and Lulu and the baby visit her mother. Then he makes off to his local pub where he plays 'Sword of Cleotonia' on his tablet as he downs a pint. His rascally younger brother signed him up as a lark and at first he refused to play the character but now he is really into it, and has even found true love.

Bob lives alone since the death of his elderly father, his mother having run off with a condo salesman she met on a holiday in Tenerife when Bob was 10. He works in Tesco stacking shelves at night and by day sits at his laptop in his childhood bedroom eating pizza and playing 'Sword of Cleotonia'. It's his only escape from a drab, lonely world and he has chosen to play a character as far removed from himself as he could possibly imagine, but even he has found true love.

Two sad and lonely people looking for escape and finding... well, love is love.

John aims to escape the drudgery and the dirt of his life through the game now, because his character isn't a touch like him - except from the fact that her hair is blonde, although he imagines that even that is a different type of blonde, a blonde that drips regality and honour instead of stress and sweat and residual bin juice. She gives empress energy - although she is not an empress by any means - she is a soldier, but not even just a soldier, the most senior commander of the Emperor's guard. In a strange sort of way, she seems to be the daughter that he never feels like he has, hence the name Eleni, which is what he would have named the baby if Lulu had listened, and if he actually thought it was his. A daughter of his would have his hardness, and his strength (which would hopefully come to light in less traumatic, painful experiences than his own) but also her own self-worth, her own courage, her own relentless refusal to step down, and her own entrancing sort of beauty. So, that explained the reasons for the creation of Commander Eleni, First Legion of Cleotonia.

But did it?

The only other explanation that John could give himself for being so invested in Eleni, when he wasn't getting inside his head about his apparent lack of real family, was the fact that she was, well, she was just so different from him. Polar Opposites. And opposites attract, right? He works long and backbreaking shifts, she only works when she has to. He lives in a chaotic family, a family, yes, but a family he can scarcely really call his own, in a house that is too jumbled and full to feel like his either. She lives in an almost-mansion up in the Royal Crescent, near where some of her other comrades reside too, a place that is comfy and perfectly furnished. His refuge is a greasy pub, devoid of light and soul, with only one disinterested barman permanently hunched over the counter huddling into his cigarette. She spends her spare hours at a café, where light filters in through large circular windows right up to the rafters of the ceiling, where there is a gentle hush of lyre strings from the tavern across the way. When he's playing, sometimes he almost thinks he can smell the wafting smell of fresh baked bread coming from a baker's shop somewhere nearby.

John wasn't expecting for Eleni to meet another woman on the game and hit it off so fast, but that seemed to unleash a spark in him that he'd oppressed in his youth out of fear, and then at some point, he met Lulu and settled into an...uneasy marriage, to say the least. He'd decided that his youthful opportunity to find himself had passed, that he'd spent too long trawling through Buzzfeed, aimlessly completing "am I gay?" quizzes and the like. He'd never found someone like him that he could talk to and open up to. He knew now at least that he wasn't gay, because he'd liked Lulu at the start and on the good days, he definitely still did. But, he wasn't straight either, he could say that for certain. And that particular truth was sealed through the giddy throbbing in his heart that he felt when, at some point, Eleni and her girlfriend escaped to the café's roof and shared a kiss under the stars. He'd watched snippets of the soppy romance shows that Lulu desperately enjoyed, but that kind of romance didn't make him feel as complete as when he witnessed the two women decide that love was love and even if it was secret, it was perfect.

Who John didn't know was the man playing as Princess Callia, Eleni's Cal, from the 43rd royal regiment of Seraphim Vale. That's Bob. If John could see Bob's face behind the screen then maybe his heart would swoop in the way he's so been longing for.

Bob's always been more sure of himself, gay since the age of 12, openly so since the age of 15 - although it's fair to say not happily so. Even though he's out, he still has to act like he's closeted, apart from his brother they all mock his homosexuality, both sets of grandparents (well, those that remain), his aunts and uncles, his many cousins. He wonders what his mother would think, if she made the time to see him again. They've tried to send him to a conversion camp so many times, to try to "pray away the devil" or some such, been disappointed at his refusal. He plays as Callia because she seems strong-willed and unapologetic. And that only got better once she found a girl, or he found her a girl, whatever.

Callia is amazing for Bob. She's a princess, the second daughter of the King of Seraphim Vale. She is proud, and strong, she's cut her raven hair short, she carries a sword instead of a handbag, she wears trousers whenever she can. Bob loves that she can do all that, crush stereotypes, all whilst being in a position of authority. She gives speeches, she rallies her Dad's troops, she has a velvet throne in the palace. Callia is everything that he feels he can never be, she is unafraid and she is not a laughing stock like he is in his large family.

Eleni and Callia. John and Bob. All people (and almost people) who are, maybe, in some way changed by "Sword of Cleotonia".