Chapter Text
The morning after the argument—and it was an argument, as bitter as any that Sothe and Micaiah have ever had, even if she would never call it that—the morning after the argument, Sothe wakes to a fog as thick as the one in his head. A fog that makes the morning's light thick and smeary, as though wrapped in gauze; a fog that seems to seep into the tent and under his skin to chill him.
Micaiah, ever chilly, is the first to rise. Stirs from her side of the bedroll without a word. Sothe wakes for a moment, when she raises the tent-flap to leave, and that gauzy half-light falls against his face. Then she's gone, and when he wakes again, it's late enough he can hear, nearby, the clangour of tent-poles banging against each other while being put away.
He rushes out to the mess tent. Shovels down the lukewarm dregs of some sort of porridge. He's still wiping off his face when he spots Micaiah: chilly, confident, striding alone to a knoll, a little ways above and apart from the rest. Tibarn and Ike do the same, at the other corners of the camp.
Three leaders for three armies. The march on the Tower of Guidance begins today.
The Dawn Brigade goes to Micaiah. Nolan, Edward, Leonardo, all of them.
All of them except Pelleas, who instead goes where his mother Almedha goes. And Almedha goes to Tibarn, though Sothe can't guess why. Because she has to go somewhere, he supposes. Because there's no love lost between Micaiah and Almedha, after everything. Because Tibarn, at least, seems to know something of what dragons are like.
So Sothe goes to Tibarn, too. Slips wordlessly between two dun-faced soldiers of a similar height to himself. Stands close enough to seem dull and dun-faced himself; far enough apart to evince no notice from them. He hopes they'll start marching before that changes.
But it's too much to hope for. Tibarn nods once the troops are assembled. Reyson, as if on cue, hews close to Tibarn, and together they make their way between the ranks, with Tibarn fixing an eye on each soldier in turn: "Let's see what we're working with here." Sensible enough.
Even so. Sothe would rather go unnoticed, and for a moment, he think he has. He can feel it, when Tibarn's eyes fall on him—and then slide right off him, seeing only some unknown rank-and-file, spared from the stone by a quirk of fate.
But behind Tibarn, Reyson hesitates. Only minutely—the way one may pause before an uneven step—but Tibarn's alert to it at once.
Tibarn sees Sothe properly, this time, and offers a lazy smile. "What," he asks, nodding toward Micaiah, "not sticking with your friend?"
Sothe gives a surly shrug. He doesn't owe Tibarn any kind of answer.
But Reyson seems to guess the reason anyway. He's looking at Sothe the way Micaiah looks at beggars, all earnest sympathy.
"Someone's got to keep an eye on him," Sothe grunts, with a gesture toward Pelleas. Pelleas, who is already wrapped up in his mother's arms; Pelleas whose expression is, somehow, halfway to crying even at this early hour; Pelleas who he'd sooner stab than shelter.
"Of course," Reyson says, and nods like he believes it. Or rather, like he's trying to believe it.
Trying, but not particularly hard. There's an odd light in his eyes, as he looks Sothe over now, either pity or disgust, and Sothe's not sure which. If he were Nailah, he'd bare his teeth.
But he's only Sothe. He hasn't the weight to back up a snarl; knows better than to try. So he only stares back, dead-eyed, until Tibarn moves on and Reyson, after a moment's lingering, moves along as well.
The march, excepting the company, is the easiest Sothe has ever had.
Their route to the Tower of Guidance is across a broad, snow-spattered plain, with sightlines so clear Sothe can see for a mile. No Disciples of Order in sight. Nothing else moving, either—not the faint crunching of a vole below the snow, nor the flick of a hare's ear in the distance, nothing. He sees a mink, here and there, so he knows the animals aren't stone, exactly. But they blink slow and lazy, when they see the army coming, and remember to move only belatedly, the way city-pigeons do.
Which is odd, Sothe will grant that. But considering the woman Sothe's known since he was six is now sometimes-possessed by a goddess, and also it turns out that very same goddess lived in a bird these past few years, and the other goddess has turned all the other people in the world to stone—well. A bit of torpor in some dumb animals isn't even in the top three strangest things to happen this week.
But Tibarn, apparently, can't let a sleeping dog lie.
He won't stop pacing, whenever they're at camp; and he won't stop grousing, whenever they're at rest, saying that it's quiet too quiet, that they're all losing their edge, that the disciples must be planning something.
A something that he can never quite seem to articulate or actually do anything about. Which makes it a whole lot of bluster over nothing, as far as Sothe can tell.
Not that any of this is Sothe's business. He's a passenger, here. Just here to keep an eye on Pelleas.
But Sothe's used to being at the head of the army, in the thick of things. So he keeps hewing close to the army's front, whether he means to or not, and keeps overhearing testy exchanges between Tibarn and Reyson, Tibarn and Ranulf, Tibarn and Lucia—between nearly everyone except him and Elincia, it seems. Something about the velvet-wrapped-steel of her smooths out the edginess that has Tibarn sniping at everyone else.
And he never talks to Sothe at all. His gaze slides right over him.
Which annoys Sothe more than it ought. He's a passenger, here. He ought to be satisfied with that.
But late one afternoon, when the army's resting by a just-thawed stream, and Tibarn's grousing to Reyson about quiet too damn quiet right in front of him, the two of them talking like he's not even there—"You know," Sothe says, sharp, "some of us had enough trouble before all this to much relish the idea of looking for more."
When Tibarn turns toward him, he drapes his wings behind him like a cape, huge and at ease. "Ah," he says, "little Sothe. Hadn't heard from you in a while."
Sothe shrugs with one shoulder. "Whatever the disciples are planning, we've no way of knowing. And we have to march on the Tower either way. So. We march. Simple as that."
Tibarn chuckles. "Is that the kind of thinking that had your girl led about by the nose by that little princeling?"
Sothe raises a brow. That's a shade more personal than he expected. "We protected our own," he says flatly. And then—out of a sudden, nasty impulse to wipe the smile off Tibarn's face, to make the hawk king come at him like he knows the man can—he adds with a sneer, "And that's more than some here can say."
Ulki and Janaff, lounging a little ways away, both start at that, flaring their wings.
Tibarn, though, raises a hand that stops them. He's still smiling. "It's good to protect one's own, of course," he says to Sothe. He takes a step forward. A step that could be an idle motion, or a threat. Close enough to loom, just by being, the man's so tall. Then he adds in an undertone: "So, Sothe. Who's here to protect you?"
Sothe said he wasn't looking for trouble. He wonders if he meant that. His skin's prickling, not unpleasantly, and Tibarn's looking at him at least. He's got his hand gripped around the knife at his belt. Waits for Tibarn to take another step, and—
"Tibarn, stop," Reyson says, exasperated. He edges between them, angling himself in front of Tibarn. Then he adds in an undertone: "He'd like it too much."
It's meant for Tibarn's ears, not Sothe's. But Sothe's ears are keener than most beorc: he hears it. And Tibarn hears Sothe hearing it.
"That so," Tibarn says with a slow, lazy smile. Looks at Reyson and then back to Sothe, still smiling.
Sothe scowls, because he's not sure what expression he'd be making otherwise. His skin feels funny. He can't look away from Tibarn's eyes.
"Tibarn," Reyson says with a decisive note, staring south toward the Tower. "Come on. Let's keep moving."
So then Tibarn turns away, and Sothe only turns away after that.
That night, Sothe dreams about falling. A cliché.
He's back in that canyon in Daein. Back in Tibarn's grip. Back in that airy space some thousand feet above the ground.
Except in the dream, Tibarn's doesn't put him in chokehold from behind, a hostage-taker with a mission, I see one arrow fly and the boy gets a quick lesson in falling. Instead Tibarn flies at him head-on, grabs him one-handed around the throat, and lifts him just like that.
And in the dream, Tibarn doesn't let him go.
He raises Sothe for a moment, sure, as if to toss him over his shoulder like a bit of trash—as though Sothe weighed no more than a bit of trash—but Tibarn stops short of tossing him. Instead, he stares at Sothe down the length of his arm. Sothe chokes out some sputters, and claws at Tibarn's huge hand with his own smaller ones. But Tibarn's grip holds fast; his fingers don't budge no matter how hard Sothe pulls at them—that grip tightens, even, steady and remorseless, until Sothe's own small sputters are choked out entirely. Sothe kicks out his legs, but they strike nothing but air—Tibarn's lip quirks, suppressing a laugh—so then Sothe begs with his eyes, not caring that it's pathetic—not caring about anything, because caring is a conscious thing and his clawing, his flailing, is all animal. Tibarn meets his gaze, steady-eyed, and that lip-quirk of his broadens into a huge, hungry grin—
When Sothe wakes his breath is short and his cock is achingly hard.
Which is when he remembers he's had this dream before—another cliché. Has had it many times, he thinks.
Last time this happened, Pelleas had asked after him. It was back when they were living in Castle Nox, those tense two weeks before Ike's army arrived. Sothe had woken up, rasping and disoriented, hardly knew where he was—and that plaintive little voice had risen up beside him, Sothe, are you alright?
And when Sothe only grunted in answer, after a pause: Do you have bad dreams too?
There was no Micaiah between them. One of those nights when she'd gone to curl up with Volug instead. Volug who knew his place; Volug who made no asks of her; Volug whose bed she'd shared more often than not. Which left the two of them huddled there alone, opposite sides of the great royal bed. A space that Pelleas knew better than to try and cross, mostly. Most of the time.
But just then there was a faint rustling of sheets, the sound of Pelleas turning over. Turning towards him.
So Sothe had raised his voice in the darkness and said, Go to sleep, Pelleas.
Go to sleep, and Pelleas had stilled at once. Went quiet enough that Sothe could hear his own heartbeat through his hand, where he'd laid his head upon it.
Go to sleep, Sothe had said, and then tried to sleep himself. And when he couldn't, he lifted a hand to his own forehead, damp with sweat, and wondered if he was catching a fever.
And then he had reached down to his own cock. He didn't know if Pelleas was asleep or not. Didn't care. The dream was already dissolving to bits in his memory, like snow in water, but with every stroke, he held fixed in his mind just two things—that smile of Tibarn's, and those thick fingers around his throat—and that was enough to bring him off. To let him sleep at last.