there and back again
the 17th of Vortas, 2719 | late evening
Ezre felt like a match struck, burned, and spent. A flash in the dark. Bright with that sharp scent of sulfur. Dancing flames, even for just a moment, and then—now—twisted and black and done. So done. Curled up on the carriage seat, the motion of everything was so wrong, and the position he'd laid down in did nothing to relieve the sensation of too much pressure in his sinuses.
The Hoxian, logically, somewhere in the back of his writhing, unfocused mind, knew so much of his disorientation was a combined disastrous after-effect of both the distance traveled in their Clairvoyant casting and the rather intense brew of chan that had totally burned through his veins. He'd reached far, traveled high, and the way back had been too quick, too fast. He knew these things, shaking and nauseous while wrapped in towels and someone else's housecoat, but it was difficult to swim through the miasma of mixed emotions, through the fog of all that had happened, and navigate the wild waters of all the emotions he couldn't stop himself from feeling at once.
Dark eyes didn't open, but he heard Lilanee and Tom above the slowly calming thrum of his own pulse and the gratingly too-loud sound of wheels on cobblestone. He felt the weight of the Hessean's familiar field, wishing he wasn't so sensitive to the bright shifts of color he was confident scintillated against the back of his eyelids even if they were just mental constructs of monic influence.
One shaking hand, fingernails deep blue, snaked free from its white-knuckled grip on a towel to fumble for the light touch that trailed near his cheek, closer to his neck. Without looking, he eventually found her hand before it was pulled away,
"I did not say anything would be safe. I did not say I was not afraid." He murmured, wincing at the turn of the carriage and the sound of his own voice because it felt weird no longer just inside his mind, free from his tattooed lips instead. There was a shift in the sensation of Tom's field, just there mingled in the small space, but the raen didn't choose to add to the statement made,
"I do not understand why you are still frightened now that it is over. Concerned, zjai. But scared? I am alive, and, Tom, do you concur on the conclusion that Jonathan Emmett is, too? Did you see as I saw? There was a reason I did not cast alone—perhaps I made decisions I would make differently next time, but I trusted in you both to assist in the endeavor. I did not intend to ask too much. Of anyone. But I did." Ezre fell quiet, untangling his fingers from Lilanee's to rub the palm over his face as if shoving away more nausea, as if attempting to assuage the pain in his sinuses.
Eventually—thankfully?—their ride came to an end but the young Guide knew that meant he had to sit up, he had to move again, and while his head might have felt somewhat less filled with mist, his body felt as though it had melted into the padded seat now stained with nicium and a few drops of blood still dribbling from one ear. Sitting up felt like the most thing he'd done all day, even with other hands to help him, and while he was sure he knew how to use his muscles, his brain refused to entirely make the necessary connections did as it wanted and mostly slumped into the support of others like a jellyfish in a current.
The Hoxian felt Tom's servants stare at him, but he didn't look at them. He knew enough of the raen's house by now and concentrated on not being such a useless burden, gagging and hiccuping, but too empty to actually have anything left to throw up. He was grateful that the only steps he was dragged up had been the ones at the entrance to the Vauquelin home, for he remembered the not-Incumbent's elbow against his palm and the measured climb up to the man's study last time and there was no way—
If his gaze lingered in appreciative defiance on that stag above the mantle, in some silent, chan-induced victorious glare, it was brief with solemn respect. Naulas was a patient god. The most patient of the Circle, honestly. If the Hexxos Guide and He Who Was The Guide of the Dead shared a moment—shared an understanding—it was in the silence of an empty grave and in the span of a single breath before Ezre looked away, smiling again for just the flutter of a heartbeat.
Ah, another sofa.
Something else soft and absorbent.
Good.
When would he stop being blue? He probably should have researched whether or not nicium stains were permanent. Too late now.
This time, the dark-haired mess attempted to sit up, melting forward to first rub his whole self clumsily with whatever towel or robe was closest, wiping blood and bile, wiping dried blue flecks away. He wrapped his hair in it with very slow, very measured movements, tucking one corner of the towel in against one shaved side of his scalp to keep everything out of his face before leaning over and grinding his own elbows into his knees, finally burying his face in his tattooed hands because just that movement had made him dizzy all over again.
Ezre was already tired of shaking, of trembling, but he couldn't stop—cold and tired and coming down of a wild high he noted he wouldn't try again on an empty stomach (because of course, he'd have to try that again for educational reasons). He'd over-extended himself magically, sure, but he'd perhaps taken in a dosage of chan out of comfortable recommended limits for his level of experience or tolerance or body weight.
Not looking while Lilanee and Tom busied themselves with tea, with caring for him in some kind of awkward, needful silence punctuated only by the specter-soft whispers of the staff, he finally looked up at the clattering of porcelain and the older galdor's Harbor-tinted curses hissed with a sharp edge of distress.
Everyone looked tired.
Everyone still looked sad.
He grasped for rhakor and found it just as slippery as his near-drowned self had been in the bath. Ezre sighed—dramatically, overly-expressive.
He used the arm of the couch to sit up, leaving little blue crescents in the upholstery from how tight his fingers curled into the stuffing. He stayed upright, swaying, dropping a towel from his shoulders, maybe two, tense there as if he considered standing up as if he considered just how much of his ability to serve tea was muscle memory, was pure Hoxian genetics, versus how ravaged he was instead of recovered,
"Sit then, Tom." He breathed, just as self-deprecating as he was chiding. In and out went the air in his now-grateful lungs while the tang of congealing blood and bathwater tainting everything he tasted, everything he smelled. Chan and adrenaline were draining with that chilled trickle from his veins, leaving emptiness behind, leaving clarity, leaving reality pooling back in its wake.
Like lava cooling as it dribbled over the side of some rocky volcano's mouth, the unsteady Hexxos Guide found his balance on his feet. It was as comical as it was serious, frustration written on his unveiled, tattooed face; hurt creased in that fold between two delicate eyebrows; and some youthful need to be excited and proud and celebratory coiling tightly in every teenaged muscle of his temple-disciplined body. He was either going to pass out or explode, honestly, if he sat still or sat silent any longer,
"Everyone just sit."
He was aware that everyone had tears in their eyes or down their cheeks. He was aware that everyone was shaken or shaking. He was aware that everyone was a blue-dyed, red-smeared, slightly unsavory acrid mess.
The Hoxian set his focus on the tea, still a child of Kzecka, utterly unconcerned for his state of (un)dress or what was left of his state of (no)mind. There was a ritual to service, and a Carrier of the Dead found solace in so many rituals. Hands moved with purpose, momentarily steady with the intensity of his concentration as he set about removing Tom's hands if he needed to or gently displacing Lilanee's hands if she'd pressed herself into the raen's place at his request for help. His frown had creased its way into his whole face, so fully expressive and unfiltered, so deeply etched with his own form of unspoken concern,
"You understood everything, lover." Deftung drifted over the steam, and while Ezre had found enough of his Hoxian composure to deny anyone another shameful apology, there was a hint of what the Hessean had come to know as repentance in his whispered tone, "Some things are better left in the vaults of our thoughts and I forgot my place in the balance of all things."
In zkratas.
He'd been frightened, too. He'd almost drowned. He was concerned for the father of the redheaded young woman he'd professed far too many feelings for, too. He was not, however, sorry for his anger, not in the way that was probably expected of him, in the minds of Anaxi to the heart of a Hoxian,
"You really need to admit, though—"
Ezre murmured softly, filling empty cups with every spare ounce of concentration he possessed. He would have served the tea he poured, but he set the pot down with a clatter and chose to ooze his way back to the couch instead. The movement had brought him back to himself, and while he still didn't like how exhausted he felt, he couldn't help himself otherwise, speaking as if what he said next was the most sensical thing to say all evening,
"—that was pretty amazing."