Snow is a hat worn by mountains,
the tallest of which do not remove the hat in summer.
Sunlight settles like a shawl
upon the hills and dewy berry fields.
The sun is not a wag or hail-fellow-well-met.
It does not loaf or shirk.
It keeps its face funeral-ready,
as you should.
Chris Forhan
from A Child's Guide to Etiquette
But he had not broken.
Lilanee had needed his support and he had given what his hands could hold. She had needed his calm and he had poured it at her feet. She had needed an advocate with an outside perspective and he couldn't have been more of an outsider than anyone else in all of Anaxas, to be honest: the Hexxos Guide a Circle-worshipping, supernaturally-aware creature so far from the Vitanist, irreligious, practically alien Hessean culture that he still felt the sting of Kuleda-vumash's disapproving glare just a day and a half later.
Somehow, they'd managed a stay. Somehow, despite his shortcomings, the Hoxian had convinced those involved to allow one more attempt at proof. A few more days. A magical intervention which the ninth form Clairvoyant student assured them with all the rhakor-bolstered confidence would be the (only/last, depending on who you asked) attempt to contact Kuleda-vumein, lost and presumed dead in the misty wilds of Western Anaxas
Gods, if he could just not fail in the proving—
Ezre had snuck away early without apology. He needed the breathing room even if it was difficult to slip away from warm breath and warmer bodies, using the pretense of contacting the Everine and gathering supplies as an excuse to go alone, to spend a few precious houses without the constant stream of words that would have otherwise provided a level of comfort but currently felt like a tide washing him away from the shore he wished to stay standing on.
Vienda was an utterly unfamiliar landscape, but the Hexxos Guide welcomed the opportunity to find a state of non-thinking in the urban wilderness that was so unlike Frecks and even more distant from rural, isolated Kzecka. He welcomed the opportunity to mentally unravel all alone in a crowd that would not notice the tattooed Hoxian beyond the ink beneath his skin and the hints of bright saffron linen barely visible beneath the thick dark wool of his warm, hooded coat. He did not care who stared because he was still no one here in Anaxas, just a stranger among the strange.
Ezre could have taken a taxi or a rickshaw. He could have hailed a moa-drawn carriage to travel faster against the mid-Vortas chill, but he wanted the cold to seep into his bones with a homesick longing for comfort that only one of his own kin would understand properly. He walked. He walked to Rookwren. He walked to the church where Everus Perpetuus had passed away and Evera Sibylla had taken his place, and he found a quietude in the Alioe-focused place of worship that he knew he needed. None of the Everine were at all familiar with Hessean burial practices, and while he was aware that no one dared speak of the other Kingdom's near-heathen views, the Hexxos Guide was also quite aware that these particular Everine didn't know what to do with his kind, either.
Tea and prayer—universal religious prescriptions for soothing all hurts as far as Ezre was concerned—kept him enjoying the veiled company of Evera Sibylla for nearly an entire house, noting with no small amount of amusement that where the Anaxi servants of Alioe and the rest of the Circle hid their faces behind a veil, the Hoxian simply did the same without fabric in the way. Arrangements were made for assistance and then Ezre found himself adrift again in the Uptown streets, warmed on the inside and yet not necessarily in possession of any more clarity than when he'd first left the Kuleda household.
He meandered markets in the chilled afternoon, passing shops full of all sorts of things while he searched for scryerworks and grimstores to pick up a couple of last-minute supplies, discovering once his hands were already full a tiny herbalist tucked between a bookstore and a clothier, the scents of which reminded him so much of home that he bought far too much incense and lingered far too long in useless conversation about sage and lavender that he had no idea what time it was once he was back out on the streets again.
It was as he stood digging for his pocket watch, feeling the cloud of his own breath float against his delicate cheeks, that he realized he'd forgotten the house number of Lilanee's family home. Everything else that had jostled for priority and position in his too-busy mind and the most important thing he needed to get back again had totally slipped through his inked fingers!
Three Twelve Willow Avenue, however, was etched into the folds of his grey matter.
He sighed, tucking away the silver timepiece and curling his hand around the collection of seerstones in the same pocket, aware that he could just reach out to Lilanee whenever he was ready to head back—was he ready?
Dru.
Tom Cooke had promised comfortable chairs.
Ezre's free hand raised and he waved down the young human woman and her panting pair of moas that were poised to pass him there on the street.
"Need a lift, uh, sir?" The girl did her her level best not to stare, not to let her red-cheeked face tilt a bit more so she could take in the Hoxian's tattoos a bit better.
"Zjai— Yes. Three Twelve Willow Avenue, please." Dark eyes darted down the street and he chewed the inside of his cheek, making his decision with the paper-wrapped package of incense pressed against his chest along with the small box of his other purchases. Inhaling deeply, he settled into the chilled seat and nodded, confident in his unsure decision-making in this moment.
The ride through parts of town he'd yet to wander was just long enough for self-doubt to claw beneath his layers of warm clothing, to settle there between his ribs and his heart, and to whisper failures into his ears with the voice of the wind. The Hexxos paid the driver dutifully, nervous about how to tip in Anaxas, let alone in Vienda, and glanced up at the Vauquelin home with its distinctively foreign architecture nestled as it was among similar just-as-unrecognizable homes. The stonework was not stained red like ancient Brunnhold, nor was it carved by Hoxian hand out of volcanic rock. Roofs here weren't thatched like in Xerxes and Kzecka, like in the outlying villages huddled around each other for warmth and nestled in the Spondola peaks. Anaxi kept their shoes on when entering their homes. It was all so very different and he'd done his best over the past few days to pretend he was always capable of taking it in stride.
He hesitated at the door, not wanting to interrupt, not wanting to invade as he had just a few days ago with the very inescapable presence of his innermost self into the not-Incumbent's mind. He didn't want to impose on anyone else, Lilanee's mother making him feel as though his very beliefs, let alone his entire existence, had been one brief, bright imposition on both herself and her daughter, despite having acquiesced to his rather wild proposition to attempt to contact her husband by Clairvoyant means.
So he sat, quite suddenly, there on the front steps in the no-man's land between the front gate and the front door, staring at carved stone, icy patches of leftover snow, and the brown, dry remnants of summer's green growing finery. He paused to attempt to center his mind, to calm frayed nerves, to sort through names and faces, addresses and numbers, and at least try to remember Lilanee's address and yet still not bothering to reach for the easiest solution nestled into a silvered skull in his pockets.
He just needed a moment—one more moment. Just one more.