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Cresting over the hill, he sees the full view of the valley and the sun, sitting so agonizingly and tauntingly high overhead.
Staring up at it, Scott doesn't care for the way his eyes burn. The tears that fill them may very well be for the same reason, regardless of it's out of impending grief or the sun's harm to his retinas because either way–
Despair washes over him, crashing down onto his frame like a tidal wave. He collapses, falling onto his knees with a ragged sob that tears through him harder than any clawed beast or sword swing can.
"Please." He tilts his head back, staring up at the sun.
He can't breathe around his tears but what use is breathing when the night isn't here and with it, the orb's ability to grant him what he needs to be enough, to save Dad, to change the path that this cruel, cruel fate has taken?
No, it wasn't enough that Mom is dead. No, it wasn't enough that Scott's the only mage in his town and so, he has to go off and play mage when all he ever wanted to be was a florist.
No, it's not enough that Scott has just begun to feel like he can make the best of this situation, like he can reconcile what he wants to do and what he's expected to do– It's too good for him, life has been too good, it's too much for him to start having friends and to feel at ease in this strange new world.
No.
Dad has to get sick. The world has to threaten to take him too.
And the sun, in all its cruel indifference, has to stay in the sky to keep him here instead of being with Dad.
"Please go faster." Scott whispers, staring at the sun.
The devestation within him churns faster, thrashing out at his limbs and his heart, anything it can touch, all while the need to leave, to move, to get out of this forsaken kingdom back to his town to be by Dad's side roars to life like a furious inferno but there's nothing he can do, he needs the sun to go down or else he's stuck with useless spells that won't do anything if Dad is really–
"Please just go faster, I can't–" A sob cuts him off, ripping the breath from his lungs hard enough to physically hurt. He doubles over, one hand digging into the dirt while the other clutches at his chest. "I can't stay here. I'm not enough as I am now, so please–"
Scott lifts his head, as if his pleading would actually get the sun to dip.
It doesn't.
"Go faster." Scott whispers. Then, louder, with the increasing intensity of his cries. "Go faster, go faster, why won't you go faster?!"
But no amount of yelling will reach the sun. By the time Scott has tired himself out, his voice is hoarse and the sun–
The sun has not moved an inch.
"Please." Scott falls forwards again, gasping into the dirt with his eyes squeezed shut. "Please."
He barely notices the distant sound of someone’s breath catching, too caught up in his own misery to even care until there are footsteps rushing towards him.
The sound brings with it, the awareness that he's been caught, that he's been seen. Scott startles and whirls around, nearly falling backwards and off of the cliff entirely–
If it wasn't for the arms that catch him.
One hand splayed securely along the back of his shoulders, the other wrapped around his waist–
Through his tears, Scott catches a sight of Nom's devestated expression– Wide eyes behind his glasses, mouth slightly parted yet tight at the corners– before the knight is pulling Scott tight against him, the hand moving up to the base of his neck to encourage Scott to tuck his head in Nom's neck.
Helpless to resist, Scott's arms snap up to return the embrace with awful desperation, like clinging to a log in the ocean as lightning flashes overhead and waves as tall as three stories threaten to drown him entirely.
Nom is steady against him, a solid, sturdy wall befitting of a knight. His hold is tight and secure, with one arm around Scott's back and the other around his shoulders with the hand still pressed against the back of his head where the fingers thread through his hair to hold him, not restraining but only steady.
It's as though Nom has decided he's going to become a physical incarnation of promised security.
With it, Scott breaks entirely.
Fresh sobs tear from him anew, wracking his frame with a kind of violence that almost feels proportional to the way his grief shreds him, crumpling every little thing he thought he knew about anything at all until it all feels so worthless in light of what could and is to come.
Because what is he going to do? What is he going to do, living in a world without Dad?
He had to do this once already with Mom but he had Dad, he had Dad, if Dad goes, then what, what is he going to do?
A sound that's just ever so slightly off from a distressed wail, like the sound of a deer or some other prey animal pierced through by a weapon, tears from his throat, muffled only by the exposed fabric of Nom's clothing behind his armor.
"Shh." Scott hears Nom hushes him gently in tandem to the way his hand gently strokes at the back of Scott's head. "Slowly, now. Breathe Scott."
Scott tightens his hold on the knight, curling further against him even though there was already no space left in between the two and not only does Nom allow him to do so, he actively gathers Scott closer, holding him impossibly tighter.
The pressure is nice. Scott's breath skips over itself in its haste to return to a more or less steady pace as he listens, burying his face into the side of Nom's neck in hopes that the knight's smell- Bookish yet earthy- will help ground him in the midst of this devestation.
His sobs slow after that, leaving him trembling like a leaf in the wind, wrung out and weak.
And through it all, Nom remains, having shifted at some point to be leaning against a tree, his knees propped up so that Scott is all but cradled in his lap, completely surrounded by a level of physical contact that Scott can't help basking in even as the voice and urge from before– The one that screams at him to do something instead of just sitting here and wallowing– continues to ring in his head and through his limbs.
For a bit, nothing else happens. Scott just shudders and shakes against Nom with the occasional gross sniff while Nom continues to hold him close, his breathing slow and steady in contrast to Scott's hiccuping, staggering mess.
All while the sun continues to rise and Dad suffers somewhere beyond the distant horizon.
"…I'm sorry." Nom whispers against his hair, barely loud enough for Scott to hear, succinctly breaking the silence.
With words still not entirely within the realm of possibility, Scott only makes a vague high-pitched sound that he can only hope, as he does for so many other things, expresses his thoughts succinctly. The chest beneath Scott shakes when Nom chuckles.
"Yeah, yeah, I know it's not my fault." Scott feels the way his chest expands and compresses with the heavy sigh that escapes him. "I'm just sorry I can't make the sun go down for you or get the orb to work during the day."
Scott blinks, the last of his tears trailing down his cheeks at the motion. Although it pains him to do so, Scott pulls back, just enough to meet Nom's eyes. When he does, a brief smile curls at the corner of Nom's mouth, like he's still somehow pleased to see Scott even in the state that he's in.
"Or–" Nom falters as another sigh escapes him. "To make sure that your dad is or will be okay."
A faint smile curls at the corners of Nom's mouth, then. He reaches out, brushing a thumb against Scott's cheek, catching a stray tear.
"But I can be here for you." Nom whispers.
Scott's breath shudders on the inhale as he leans into the contact. Nom shifts, his eyes searching Scott's, even as Scott angles his focus downwards, avoiding.
"…May I be here for you Scott?" He asks softly. "Just as you have been for me?"
Scott inhales sharply. Against his will, his gaze lifts again, and he almost finds it hard to believe what he sees.
There's so much earnest weight to Nom's eyes, one that's befitting of a knight such as Nom, steady and stable, swearing fealty to their assigned royalty except Nom isn't swearing fealty to royalty–
He's just making a kind request of the local mage.
Yet somehow, impossibly, it carries the same amount of weight. So really, who was Scott to refuse?
Especially when death lingers on the horizon, a promise of isolation that came after Mom's death now hanging over Dad's head in the distance, back at home. The thought occurs to Scott, as thoughts of a similar nature often do, that he wishes that Mom was still here so that he can tell her about this. Well, there's still Dad. But even Dad–
Scott looks down.
…Maybe, even in the worst case scenario, Scott won't be left alone. Maybe, in the worst case scenario, Scott can tell Dad assurances to bring to Mom, wherever she went, that he'll be alright.
Scott just has to–
"Please." Scott whispers, voice hoarse and shot. He falls against Nom again, curling his legs towards his chest as his arms wrap around the knight once more. "Please."
The word is an ironic echo of the ones he pleaded repetitively at the sun only moments before but– It's one thing to beg at an impassive, untouchable celestial body.
It's another, when it's Nom.
Nom, who gathers Scott against him again readily, uncaring for the mess that Scott has and currently still is making against his armor and clothing, tucking Scott's head underneath his chin with a sigh that sounds somewhere between pleased and relieved.
"Of course." Nom leans his head against Scott's, his voice heavy with the earnest promise of his words. "Always."