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There is touch. Hands on his face, warm. Big.
Blinking open his eyes, he remembers that his body is curled-up nicely. Wall and pipe and metal press at him from many sides.
There are hands on his face, and the man before him is kneeling, half-crawled into his hiding place. He has a good face, maybe. Red hair. Warm-colored lights hover around him.
The man is making sounds, mouth moving over and over, the same noise in two short bursts: bam-bam, bam-bam, bam-bam. The melody is wavering, but it is nice, for a moment; a steady pulse.
He remembers that same rhythm lulling him into fuzziness, earlier. That noise, inside his head. Over and over, this man had spoken into his mind. It had been nice, after all the running he had done, to crawl into a small place and just listen.
Then the rhythm breaks, the voice grows louder. The man leans forward, his hands lifting—they had been warm—to grab at his shoulders, pulling, wanting him out of the small place.
He screams, then. It feels sharp and good in his throat. The man jerks back, and it is good. This is something he can do. He wails again, to watch him stumble further away.
The red-haired man looks upset. It is frightening when people are upset. The man has hands that can hurt, but they hang limply by his sides right now, fingertips smeared a dark berry red.
Pressing himself as far back as he can, feeling cold pipe digging into him, he hides. He puts his own hands on his face, and it is not warm, but sticky. Whining, feeling the hum in his own throat soothe him, he closes his eyes.
A clambering noise, slow and careful. He freezes in place. There is the man again, reaching in. The small place is too small for the man, his skull knocks into pipe, his shoulders hunching. Still, he reaches, pushing a glass bottle against his curled-up form, imploring. He speaks the same noise. Then a different one. It sounds like a wounded animal.
The man can just barely reach his face, now. But his hands are not touching—they are holding, taking his chin, raising glass to his lips, and it smells, and it’s cold—
The sharpness of his teeth is another good thing, a fierce sweetness in his chest. He can bite. He can bite hard, and he can hurt . His teeth pierce tendinous flesh, and he scares the red-haired man all the way out of the small place yet again.
The man is sitting still, out there; sprawled back, clutching his hurt hand, breathing for a long time.
Everything has almost gone dark and fuzzy again by the time there is another noise. He jerks in place, body growing tense, but he is tired.
The insistent man is back, but crawling on his stomach. When he reaches out this time, there is nothing in his hand. It touches his foot, where there is soggy fur and leather. Carefully, it touches again—a stroke, small and simple. Barely felt. He watches; frowning, frightened, but there is nowhere to go.
The big hand is gentle and dirty, and there is red beneath the fingernails that drag softly over his foot. Over and over, over and over, until he is feeling fuzzy again, blinking slow. It’s strange—not bad?
Very lightly, he brushes his own stiffly curled fingers against the hand. A pause. Then the hand turns, open and inviting, before folding ever so gently around his own. It burns and prickles, to be held like this. It’s nice. Good.
Suddenly it’s dark. He inhales, squeezing hard. A breath, and then light is back—golden, nice light, hovering in the air, closer this time. He stares, wide-eyed. With his other hand, he reaches. When his fingers can’t touch the light, he whines, reaching further.
Oh—the man speaks again, face crinkling by the eyes. Slowly, he is shuffling back; warm, soft hand going with him. It is sad to let it go. The golden-haired man pauses. Then the light dances, up and down in gentle swirls, and he stares , reaching with both hands. When the light moves, he follows, chasing it through the tight press of pipes and the hurt of his body. Even so, he is quick, and he catches the light eagerly as cold air envelops him.
Outside of the small place, the room is big, an open yawn. He inhales, looking around. The light is clasped tightly in his hands, unfelt but shining through clutching fingers.
By his side, the man is tilting his head, tapping at his own mouth, opening it.
Curious, he leans forward, taking a big bite of the golden light. No taste? Pulling back with a deep frown, he finds it still whole and bright in his hands.
The man huffs out air and smiles and offers him the bottle from before. This time, the flecking of teeth is enough to deter him. Good. The man learns.
They pass through many rooms; big places that have ceilings so dark and vast that even his sharp eyes can’t see them, and small corridors that twist and turn in broken angles. It’s cold, always cold, but the nice man holds his hand the whole way.
After a long time like that, when his legs are beginning to shake and his ankles twist on the snow every so often, they come to a stop. Exhausted, he collapses into a heap, curling up to keep warm. His cheek touches the cold, and it stings, but he is too tired to move.
Warmth wraps him up so gently that he can’t help but sigh at the feeling. He blinks his eyes open.
Oh. The gold is all around them—they are inside the swirling light, arching over them like a bubble. It’s pretty. He reaches over and sticks his fingers into it, like dipping them in water, and finds it just as cold. It’s better inside the big light. It’s so warm, and his feet burn and sting, but it’s still so nice. It’s the best place he has been.
The man offers him different things, but seems afraid to touch him now. Nothing is pushed into his mouth, when he sets his jaw and scowls up at the strange man and his brown, squishy marbles. Not food. Eventually the man sighs, shedding his thickest layer, making a nest of a roll of fabric. He lies down, staring at the golden ceiling with red-rimmed eyes. The skin beneath them looks soft and tired.
Hesitant, he shuffles closer. The nest looks inviting, and the man turns his head and smiles at him, gently encouraging. So he curls down onto the fabric, finding the softest part of the man to rest his head upon with a sigh. He likes soft, warm places, he decides, and the rhythmic give and swell beneath his ear.
Slowly, a light pressure settles between his shoulder blades. A murmur, and a wave of the hand. Figures of light form in the air above them. It is nice, and time passes; drifts. Throughout the night, golden images of people he does not remember waltz around the space, and he eventually gives up on trying to touch them.
They walk for a long time, again. His knees hurt. His feet no longer hurt, but have grown numb beneath him. There are clumps of snow on his boots. He picks at them with a fingernail when he crouches down to relieve himself, while the man walks in circles and looks at the cavern ceiling.
It’s even colder after that, and the man holds his hand, wrapping their bare fingers together. Now and then he switches the hand, and the other is left warm and tingling against the air. He looks at it until the man helps him tuck it into his sleeve.
Then— impact. Ice wall against his back. He wants to scream—the red-haired man presses a hand over his mouth, silencing the bubbling noise of his throat. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. The man had been kind, and now he is wide-eyed, breathing heavy, body pressed against him. He squirms, instincts telling him that being held is bad.
Hand through his hair. The scratch against his scalp is jarring enough that he freezes in place, whining against soft palm. The sound escapes through his nose, which he is free to breathe through. Pale and black-eyed in the sudden lack of light, the man looks terrified.
It feels… sad, somehow. Being afraid is bad, but causing fear is not good, either. So he leans in, pushing back against the pressure until he can knock their foreheads together. He’s quiet now; doesn’t feel the need to whimper. He rubs their noses together. The scared man scratches through his hair, releasing air from his lungs unsteadily.
After a while, they leave.
They reach daylight. Bright and ugly, it makes his eyes sting and spill over.
Stumbling, he finds soft fur and fabric behind his neck, and he yanks, drags with shaky fingers, finds his own dark, small cavern, where the light can’t touch him.
A hand at his elbow. He knows it now, and lets the steady hand guide the way.
It’s dark by the time they reach people. He doesn’t see them, really; too busy poking at the ice crusting his nostrils and trying not to stumble over the packed snow on legs that shake. But there are voices. Loud, and many. He looks up to see buildings jutting out of white snow, people all around them.
Danger.
He gasps in fright as the red-haired man pulls his hood back, freezing air stinging against his ears and the nape of his neck. Still, the man moves in front of him. Speaks noises, calmly but very clearly.
There are glints of sharp metal among the scattered people. There are so many eyes watching him. Making a low noise of his own, he grabs at the coat of the man, pressing his face between his shoulder blades. It grows quieter.
They are allowed inside, then. There are rooms, but they are smaller, and there is no snow in them. He peers around curiously, clutching the sleeve of his red-haired man. There is a room with a desk and a bookshelf, and they can shut the door behind them. It’s not so cold here. Especially not when the man snaps his fingers and flames burst into life in the fireplace.
Vocalizing in delight, he crowds close to the fire. The man looks worried, but allows him to stay near the flames when he doesn’t reach out for them, which would be silly. There is a soft chair there, and he sits, feeling the plush fabric slowly warm against his cheek.
Still watching him, the man kneels down to begin loosening the mess of snow and fur that sticks to his feet. It feels strange, but not threatening—he allows it, curious and worn-out and a little dizzy with the heat.
His robes are frosted and dirty. Pink ice clings to his knees. When the man finally gets the boots free, pieces of hard snow clatter to the floor all around them. His foot is very small, when it sticks out of his robes, free at last. He flares his toes, swollen and dark, the smallest of them a pale gray.
Sucking in air, the man gets to his feet. Raises his hands up, palms in front, and says something. Then he leaves.
He returns with two mugs in hand, smiling, trying to carefully place one into his curled-up hands. Beneath his lashes his eyes are brightly colored. It’s pretty.
He sips at the red liquid in the mug and makes a face. But he is thirsty, and so he drinks, until the mug is empty. It feels nice. The other mug is passed over, and this one is hot, the liquid rich and creamy. He gulps it down eagerly until he finds that there are pieces in it; mushy orange and brown, and he spits them back out with a noise of betrayal.
It takes the man a long time to pick out all the pieces with a little spoon, and offer the mug once more. The man watches him drink, at last, shoulders sagging.
Afterwards, he digs around in his pockets and pulls out a silver-wrapped bar of something dark. Breaking off a piece, he hands it over with that same half-smile, coaxing and kind.
It breaks with a nice crack between his sharp teeth, and melts on his tongue with a shock of sweet. He accepts another piece eagerly as the man kneels before him, carefully parting robes, lifting his ankle to look once more at his foot and its wiggling toes. He is quick to set him down again this time, tucking layers in place, smoothing fabric down.
When the kind man reaches again, palm up, blue-eyed, he gives over his hand easily, amused and curious at the prodding. His fingers are sticky with melted sweet as the man turns the hand over, and then the other, checking each finger carefully. The red hair shines in the firelight. The man looks sad, though his lips curl up. Then, his head dips; he brushes beard and mouth very lightly against the row of his knuckles.
He speaks, then, for some time. Voice low and rumbling, a soothing noise. It is nice to sway to. He feels heavy. The chair is very soft.
It’s so nice when he wakes, fire crackling and the weight of furs over him, that he takes some time to rise. He yawns, and rubs at his face and hair, and slowly blinks.
Across the room, the familiar man stares at him.
He sits by the desk; strange things spread over the surface. Rocks? A book? It looks fun, so he crawls out of the chair, pulling furs along with him as he walks over on feet that do not hurt. Some of the rocks have pieces of paper wrapped around them. But the book—the book is big, and pretty.
He creeps closer, putting his chin over the red-haired man’s shoulder. It’s a nice book. The pictures are good—the paper-smell is good. He reaches out for it, tracing fingertips over the pictures, and the man grows very still. Is he allowed?
A noise, soft and rumbling in the man’s chest. A hand, settling over his own on the page. Upset? No. The man smiles, maybe. Soft face, drawn and tired.
Curious, he leans very close, pressing his cheek against warm skin. His nose; his mouth. The texture is nice against them. The man smells the way a pillow does in the mornings. It’s funny, too, how deeply red he grows, pale around the mouth, neck pink.
Eventually, he lets the man keep working, flipping through pages in his book. He rolls a stone in his fingers and drags a hand over his bearded chin, then nods to himself.
The man packs together his things, rises, and begins fussing—holding his shoulders, looking him deeply in the eyes. He smiles, squeezing their hands together, nodding again. He points between them.
Cocking his head, he grabs the finger, hesitant. The funny man laughs, pulls him close, and something strange takes hold of them.
Hurts. Not terrible, but his skull rings.
They are somewhere else. Flower garden. Warmth envelops them, scent of turned soil and nectar in the air. Fascinated, he turns in a circle, looking at the sprouting plants, the rose trellis, the little garden table painted yellow. He gets down on his knees, feeling the grass tickle against his palms.
The man wipes red from his nostrils and huffs, looking around as well. A door opens, and someone steps out—she is big, broad and tall, her apron embroidered and pretty. She towers over him when she approaches. He looks up at her from where he has started burying all of his fingers into cool, upturned earth. Blinks—is he not allowed?
The man speaks. The woman nods, her light-dark eyes serious. She raises the stone on her necklace, murmuring into it. Then she kneels, and puts her own hands into the dirt, offering him some in her cupped palms.
A while later, another woman arrives, sighing and rubbing at her forehead. She eyes him up and down and makes a slow, pitiful whistle-sound.
And then, the red-haired, kind, familiar man leaves, and he is left behind with two strangers. He cries when the man leaves, pulls at his pretty hair and his stupid coat, but it doesn’t help. The big woman holds him, and it is bad , and he runs and hides in a closet, but finds it too full of dark bottles to curl into. The second woman comes and knocks lightly on the half-shut cabinet door, frowning at him. She pulls him to his feet with surprising steadiness, and guides him back to the living room with an insistent tug of his elbow.
It is warm up there, and nice enough. A round pillow is placed into his lap. He digs his ragged nails into it, and he hums, cuddling up on the soft furniture. Perhaps this won’t be so bad. He quickly changes his mind, though, for the woman who sat him down here won’t leave him alone. She keeps making noises at him, and they keep rising in intensity as she leans in, imploring, brows lowered. He gives her an ugly look in return.
Scowling right back, she tries again, but differently: Her hands moving, making figures in the air. He reaches for her hand when she wriggles her fingers funny, and she snatches it away. She makes shapes again. He watches, wide-eyed, head tilted.
The large, kind woman is speaking to her, but she is shaking her head. There is some anger in her brow, but not the frightening kind. She walks off loudly, comes back with paper and ink in her hands. He perks up, these are good things. Good smells. She won’t let him put his finger in the ink bottle. Instead, she makes pictures for him: lines and circles and dots. Hearts? He touches them, and she allows him; when he draws back, his fingers are wet and stained. Good! He draws for her, too, nice round shapes, and the room grows quiet.
She frowns at his figures. He feels sad. He reaches for the tool she had drawn with, but she snatches it away, not letting him touch the feather, even if it looks soft. Anger bubbles up in him, and he snarls —swats at the ink bottle, which crashes down to spill black out onto the pale furred rug on the floor.
The nagging woman stares at him, nostrils flaring. Her voice cracks. She walks off. He is left scratching his nose with damp fingers, watching the pool grow bigger by his feet.
Sighing gently, the big woman sits down next to him, picking up the now empty bottle. She looks at the papers scattered across the table, the pointless scrawls of ink. When she tilts her head and opens her mouth, he thinks there will be more insistent talking, but this is different. He likes her noises. Her mouth keeps moving, and the sounds keep flowing, and they are strung together like a breath into the next, tone rising and falling. She does not pause when he stays quiet, or frown when he stares.
He leans in, resting his head against her chest, and she wraps a heavy arm around him. His face sinks deeply into softness. From across the room, a sharp huff of a noise. A murmur, from deep within the chest beneath his ear. It is a nice chest. The woman with a good voice and nice chest begins her lulling again, and he stays.
A cracking noise, like logs on the fire, tears through the quiet of the room. Two people pop into existence before them—his red-haired man! And another stranger, bright and blue and squealing at the sight of his cuddled-up form. He hides his head deeper in his safe, plush valley and hopes he won’t be noticed, but to no avail. The blue one is waving to him. Then she twirls, colorful skirts rising in a sudden spin—he lifts his head, watching. She grins with all her teeth. The red-haired man huffs, face growing soft. When they both approach, he is no longer scared.
It’s unclear what the blue one is doing, as she sits by his side on the sofa, but she performs it with much enthusiasm. Noises bubble up and hands dance freely as she chatters. Eventually, she pushes her puffy sleeves up to her elbows at a prompt from the man, stretches her fingers—and pauses, head tilted in consideration. When she bounces up and runs off, he is too befuddled to react.
She brings him a wet cloth and a handheld mirror that looks back at him like still water. He stares at the pitiful face he finds, framed by silver filigree. What a sad creature. He pokes its nose with a clink of glass.
Sweet and careful, the blue woman begins wiping down his face, working patiently at the places where he is sticky and crusty. Nothing hurts, and so he eventually stops flinching and wrinkling his nose, instead turning into the wet warmth with a hum. Afterwards, she runs fingers through his hair, straightening the fastenings of his clothes. She flashes teeth again, and claps her hands together.
Light peeks out between the seams of her clasped hands. A trail of finely shimmering dust begins to rise in a swirl from a pouch at her belt, looping around her hands, twinkling into bright nothingness. When she parts her hands, two palms filled with a strange, golden-green light reach for him. He wonders if it will be warm.
When the hands settle on his cheeks, cupping his face, he gasps— something in him curdles, his thoughts clumping like sour milk. Where—what— He shivers, feeling feverish as magic scorches through him, feeling ice-cold as realizations frisson in its wake.
Oh dear. Dragging figurative fingertips over the fogged-up windows of recent memories, he finds streaks of fear and humiliation in horrid clarity. There is gentleness and patience too; far more than he deserves. Light. Light. Embarrassment bleeds through him, blooming into hot discomfort on his face. He wants to hide. He wants to be held. He wants to hurl the last two days into the void of the Astral Sea, and wrap himself in his thousand layers of silk and chitin and wrought steel.
“Essek?”
It is the same noise he has heard echoed nonsensically for the past day and a half, and for a moment it rings like the strangest pareidolia, but no—these are syllables with meaning; Eh-sekh is him. He blinks rapidly, dizzied by the momentum of his mind. His tongue hesitates, muscle memory recalling the ways one might shape one's mouth to speak.
“Yes, I— Yes. I am here.”
Sitting gingerly on the edge of the table is—is—
Fondness and a strange, full-bodied fear surges through him. Oh, Light, what has he done? How could he forget?
“Caleb,” he says, voice wavering like a teenager’s. He clears his throat. “Hi.”
Caleb tilts his head, brows half-raised, eyes endlessly patient beneath ginger lashes. He looks at Essek like he has a thousand other times. Essek—that is who he is; he is Essek, who was Shadowhand to Leylas Kryn; who thieved from his people and awoke the war-rage in their blood; who fell in love over open books and across the flicker of fire; who went into Aeor with his—with Caleb, and came out a mindless creature.
“Welcome back, friend.” Caleb speaks so very softly. Like how one might touch a sleeping lover’s lips. “I missed you.”
Essek nods. It must have been quite the task, caring for someone who wears the face of a friend, but looks at you like a stranger. He thinks of someone touching the brilliance of Caleb’s mind, muddying it with the fingerprints of their filthy spells, and he barely holds back the baring of his teeth.
“I missed you, too.” Essek exhales. “Or, well—I suppose not. You were right there.”
“Did you miss me? ” Jester, honey-sweet Jester, leans into his field of view. She is pressed up against his side, hands tangled in her own lap, earrings dangling from her lobes. They’re new, he thinks.
“Every second,” he smiles, and is glad that she is close, but has still not thrown her arms around him. His pride is finely cracked porcelain, and he is one kind gesture from shattering into tears.
“You could not recognize me? Or our friends, for that matter?” Caleb asks, leaning in.
Essek looks at Yasha, silent by his other side, and Beauregard, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. Beauregard’s words filter in through his memories, sounds gathering into piles of meaning: Hurt? Huuurt? Foooood? Food yes? Fucks sake, Essek, do you want a slice of pie? We picked the apple trees earlier. It’s fucking good pie; I made it. Are you good in there? Can I help? How can I help , Essek, oh, fuck you—
“No. Perhaps a slight familiarity, though I did not trust any of you one bit at first. And then I suppose I had no choice.”
He laughs weakly. They both know he would have taken any hand that appeared friendly at that point.
“Ja.”
Caleb drags a hand over his mouth, rubbing at his beard. The relief clear in the untensing of his tired face calls forth a responding lightness within Essek’s chest.
“It took me ten hours to find you. Ten. I was out of my mind,” Caleb half-laughs, hands restless, reaching for nothing.
“Cursed artifact,” Essek explains. “Ah. You were right in the other room. I suppose I wandered off.”
His eyes focus on a messy stack of papers behind Caleb, scrawled in fresh ink with the saddest glyphs he has ever seen. The looping lines trace a kind of longing across the paper. Caleb follows his gaze, and a melancholic fondness seems to touch his features.
“I was reading about architecture. Then I turned, and you were not there.” The ache in Caleb’s voice is understated, but Essek knows him well by now.
“Well, I… I was all right. Eventually.”
Then, softly: “You took good care of me.”
“You were in pain.” Caleb sighs. “Perhaps I should have raised the Tower. Let it wait another day. But I was hoping…”
“The cleric at the outpost?” he guesses.
“Yes. She could have the spell ready the next morning. I weighed the risks. I didn’t know what it was like for you, in there. I could not justify waiting. You were hurt, and—ah, uncomfortable.”
The phrasing makes him suddenly aware of the stiffness of his garments, the fluids and the filth dried into the fabrics.
“Oh,” Essek says. “Ah. Excuse me for a moment, I need—”
“I tried to freshen you up, Essek, but it wasn’t so easy.” Jester twists her hands in her lap. “I got a lot of the stuff on your face, though! I thought, you know, it’s kind of like returning home to a clean house, yeah? Cause it probably feels really really weird for you right now.”
“Ja, you still have some ink. I am not sure how you got it up your nostril,” Caleb jokes so very gently. Essek knows he smells. He knows there are two days’ worth of fear-sweat dried on his scalp.
“It’s not so bad. I have seen worse,” Yasha says, plucking a strand of what looks like cobweb from his hooded cloak.
Beauregard clears her throat gruffly, and points over her shoulder.
“Yeah, bathroom’s that way. There’s a tub and all, and water from earlier. Knock yourself out. Or, like, not literally—be careful, is what I’m saying. There’s probably water on the floor. And I guess you can use my flower soap.”
“Thank you, Beau.” Essek rises on awkward legs. A warm hand brushes his own when he passes through Jester and Caleb.
“It’s homemade. Good stuff,” Beauregard adds as he walks by.
“Thank you,” he repeats in a hush. “I do appreciate it.”
In the bathroom, he sets a heating spell working away on the buckets of water, while he slowly unclasps his heavy robe. There is blood and grime in the fur collar. Crumbs of something red-brown pitter-patter to the floor—oh, yes, he had crawled through a crumpled brick-walled building at some point. He had burst through the thin ice of a newly diverted river, and soaked through to the knees. He had slept in the guts of dead machinery, while lethal creatures stalked the hallways. Light, how had he even survived?
Allowing the recollections to fold out in their full glory, he braces himself, but the wave of humiliation he expects does not arrive. There is embarrassment, yes. Discomfort, and fluster— why, why did he have to rub his face against Caleb’s beard until his cheek was stinging?
Still, his chest prickles with something other than shame.
He shrugs the robe off, and begins working on his buttons. In the mirror—large, round, with dried lavender in bunches to either side—he looks small-framed and worn. He thinks of all the teeth that could have tasted him. He thinks of all the things people might do to you, when you are helpless. He turns away from the mirror, inhale stinging in his throat and eyes spilling over, stunned with the knowledge that he is loved. Oh, silly Essek, you should have known. They have told you many times, in many ways.
He climbs into the tub still crying, letting the hot water burn his body into something shapeless that does not require further consideration. He is a mind, and that is all. His very own mind, precious and priceless in his guarded hands.
On the little shelf of bath supplies, he finds the very special flower soap: lumpy and on top of its own wrapping paper, which says to Beau, I love you so in scribbled pencil. Essek laughs out a breath, and runs water over his face with his hands.
Oh, he is lucky.