Chapter Text
Will wakes from his dreamless sleep, sprawled comfortably over the expanse of the bed and furs. It is luxurious; he can wake as slow as he likes, come up from the quiet depths in the late-summer warmth.
Today his scar itches, and Will turns over, scratching his short nails idly over it and feeling them catch on the raised skin until it eases its itching. This blissful accomplishment past, he becomes aware that the bed is empty except for him.
When he opens his eyes, the sun is streaming in from the window over the bed, suggesting it is late enough that Hannibal is out making his rounds. He had taken to letting Will sleep in after his injury, and Will had discovered deep pleasure in the freedom and self possession of it.
A noise rouses him further, and Will surrenders his notion of sleeping more - perhaps until Hannibal returned.
A heavy sound in the main room of the longhouse. Will drags himself out of bed and goes to see what the commotion is, finding the space strangely filled.
Four hooves stand near the unlit fire pit, throwing long-legged shadows through the house. The animal stands in silhouette in the doorway, morning sun streaming around it to render the figure black, a living shadow with a long, thick neck and a broad nose.
It is the long ears that ruin the mystery of this particular shadow.
"Rata," Will scolds, and she lifts her head from raiding the apple basket. "Mules stay outside"
Her jaw works, and mashed apple falls to the floor, unimpressed with Will's half-dressed ire. He steps toward her, making a shooing motion with his hands until she takes his meaning and begins to back out through the open door.
She hesitates, her dark mischievous eyes gauging distance, and slowly she extends her neck to take another apple, ignoring Will's scolding noises. She surrenders the last steps in a hurry with her stolen prize.
'Rata' was right, though Will wonders if he had cursed himself with the name - it had only been after he'd given it to her that she'd learned to work open the door of her stall and go wandering. Usually, in search of Will, but apples suited her needs just the same, so he knows her loyalty is tempered by practicality, at least.
Will glances out after her and finds that she has not gone far - but that she has not, at least, let her stallmate out. At the risk of losing more apples, he lets her be. She will not wander far when she knows Will is near, a trait he has become fond of in her.
Will stokes up a small fire - not enough to heat the house to sweltering. The summer days are warm and the nights only cool - just barely comfortable enough to sleep. Will is grateful for the temperate weather, for the easy, steady rhythm of life in Ró. He readies the tea, throwing a handful of dried flowers into the iron kettle to steep.
Then he glances at the closed door of his old room, the bar swung tightly closed. The slave makes him nervous, though he is polite in his way. His eyes retain defiance, his attitude is disingenuous. At least, it seems as such to Will, who feels Matthias' eyes settle on him too often and with too much interest.
Perhaps it is just a gap in understanding. Will pours two cups of tea and leaves one on the table, carrying the other to Matthias' door. He taps lightly to announce his presence, and then swings the door open. Inside, the former Imperial sits on the edge of the bed like a crouched animal, and watches Will enter his space intently, his attention seemingly locked with Will's luminous blue gaze.
"Good morning," Will says, in the soft-feeling imperial language.
"Good morning, Will," Matthias answers in Ardik - he has learned much faster than Will, submerged in it and driven by necessity.
He stands up, and the chains rattle at his wrists, the sound a familiar one to Will. He takes the cup when Will offers it and drinks without breaking eye contact.
The weight and interest of Matthias' stare - the way the whole of his lean body seems to line up with the motion, lizardlike - all unnerve Will to the point of wanting to escape.
"Would you care for breakfast?" Will asks, hoping that time and kindness, in what small ways he can offer it, will continue to ease the man's interest in him.
Will can hope, anyway, though he does not truly understand the source of it in Matthias specifically. The other Imperials had been fascinated at first by his unusual eyes, but did not seem willing to ascribe anything but that to his abilities. Most flat out refuse to believe, and Will is content not to correct them.
After all, his sight is his to use or not at his own discretion now. Hannibal makes no demands of Will's gift, as he ever had, instead asking respectfully.
"No sir," Matthias says, smiling a little as Will settles down at the table to drink his own tea. "I'm not hungry yet."
Will allows that, but does not want to be stared at for the duration of his own meal.
"Rata has gone out wandering," he says. "Now would be a good time to see to the stalls and feed the animals."
Matthias acknowledges with a nod, taking a moment to finish his tea as he knows he is allowed, before going out to see to his chores. Will breathes easier when he knows he is no longer being watched. He eats his own breakfast - bread, honey and milk, in silence, grateful to feel himself unwind again after enduring so much singular attention. He wonders where Hannibal is, and supposes he will find out.
In the year he's spent in Ró, things have changed slowly, comfortably as Will grew into the new, unexpected place he finds himself in. It feels strange to consider the expanse of time behind him, how different things are now after years of the same.
He finishes his tea and thinks of how his fate, once broken, has come to be reforged.
Gathering his things for the day - a wax tablet, a stylus, Will makes ready to go searching. Hannibal's leather armor - a heavy burden he'd been putting off for nearly a week - is in need of repair. He gathers it up, slinging it over his arms and heading out into the heat of summer.
Ró has grown green and bright again, after the long winter. Will breathes in the warm air and looks up at the expanse of uninterrupted blue sky before the weight of the armor spurs him on.
A glance into the stables shows him Matthias working - he has shed his simple tunic to leave himself bare-chested in the heat, keeping cool. He has a soldier's body, hard and lean and well-muscled in a way that Will envies.
He has seen, too, how the eyes of some of the women watch him and wonders how much of his bareness is truly practicality, and how much is vanity.
Will hoists his burden and continues on to the seamstresses, the three sisters who had so struggled to clothe the new influx of slaves, and yet who had nothing to say by way of complaint for the four strong and usually willing slaves they had been given.
"Will," the voice interrupts his thoughts and his determined trek, and Will hefts up the armload of leather that is nearly dragging on the ground before turning.
Fredrik trots to catch up, clad in a leather apron and an eye-catching circular bruise at the junction of his chin and neck, where the skin is soft and vulnerable. Will stares too long, trying to identify it before it hits him.
Fredrik lifts a hand in embarrassment and lays his open palm over the love mark. Will smiles, shaking his head to allay Fredrik's worry - Will is hardly one to judge.
"Will," Fredrik repeats, glancing at Will's burden and then falling into step. His tone is urgent, his voice low in conspiracy. "Three of the slaves vanished in the night. Have you seen Hannibal?"
Will winces - the treatment of the Imperials was mostly fair, but this escape would be punished harshly. Will can hardly blame them - what man did not long for his freedom, when he had been born to it - but he understands the need for discipline.
"He was already out when I woke," Will answers, hoisting the ringed shirt higher as it threatens to slip out of his grasp. "Which three was it?"
"The two brothers set to watching sheep and a comrade of theirs who had no set task," Fredrik explains, calling the individuals to Will's memory by features if not name. He places the third as well - a leggy youth he had seen, Randulf - often idle and angry - resentful of captivity and unwilling to see the Ardik as anything but savages. Will is certain that this is the key to the foolish attempt.
"They won't get far unless they have already left the valley. The pass is under watch, but-" Fredrik sighs.
Will passes him the heavy armor. "I can help. But you have to go easy on them when they're found."
"If I find them," Fredrik says. He cannot make a promise on Hannibal's behalf, and Hannibal would not have the luxury of being lenient.
Will stops walking and takes a deep breath of warm, fragrant air. He can smell bread baking and leather drying in the sun, can feel the heat of the day on the crown of his head and the nape of his neck. He closes his eyes and reaches down into the sight, rifling the strands. As ever, his fingers seem to slip from Hannibal's fate. Instead he seeks those that intersect it - and his own, sifting through what feels like dozens of fleeting encounters. Will feels it takes nearly an unbearable amount of time to sift back through them until he catches the right line.
Will comes back with a start, plunged into thoughts patterned so differently he nearly reels from it. He has never felt anything quite like them, animalistic and darkly angry. He reaches back in, determined to get hold of something useful, finding the thoughts red and raw, a vision of mountains, the feeling of slippery grass beneath his palms. He can smell blood, and at the corner of his vision is a wreckage that might be a body.
"South," he gasps, into the warm welcome of summer air, "they have not left the valley."
There is something strange and wrong about the vision, something Will cannot wholly grasp or explain, nor does he feel he has the time to. "I think he's looking for the mountain pass out. Go quickly."
Something in his demeanor conveys the urgency. Fredrik passes him back the heavy armor in need of mending, grateful for Will's help.
He takes it, numb and uncertain.
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