drowning again, vauquelin residence
the 17th of Vortas, 2719 | late evening
"No. You know my honest feelings better than that. I am not infallible. I misspeak, too, in my emotion." Ezre both attempted to interpret Lilanee's Deftung and correct it, grinding out the consonants for true, honest, sincere slower for emphasis, his fingers loosing their grip on the teapot while he attempted to pour, hands shaking again. Her broken use of his language would have been endearing had it not stung so much. Instead, it broke his concentration.
He'd ignored that look of well-practiced defiance on the raen's sharp, borrowed face, resisting the urge to rise to the challenge in favor of attempting to search for some measure of centering calmness in a familiar act of service. The obvious misunderstanding of his intentions stole any semblance of strength he'd managed to muster, and he found any solace he'd attempted to gather in what should have been the unifying gift of tea not only hollow, but exhausting, discouraging. He managed not to drop anything, not to spill more than a drip or two, but his body begged to give into the gravity of frustration and unhappiness in the Hessean's field, to wilt under Tom's glare, longed to melt into a puddle on the floor.
He made it to the couch instead, dark eyes flicking to his clothes while he shivered, loathing the effort. His tea was passed to him and he almost shoved it away—too hot, too heavy, too unappreciated. Instead, awkwardly, he held it, bringing the cup to his tattooed chest in hopes the radiant heat from it would chase the gooseflesh away and fill the suddenly very empty space between his ribs. He almost spilled the liquid, however, startling at the sound of Lilanee's hand against her palm.
I she said.
Not we.
While the swift flow of her words threatened to drown the divinopotent all over again, much as he had before in the bath, he let them wash over him anyway. He'd known the redhead long enough to understand that to find the one valuable bone you were looking for, you sometimes had to sift through a lot of dirt. So, too, was the Hessean's way of speaking: so many words poured out to sift through and find the one important meaning.
Her language was purposeful. Exclusive. Hurtful.
"Dru—"
"—wait—"
"—Lilanee, you cannot—"
His bleary attention was on the Hessean's face for a moment before he tilted his head toward Tom as if to answer him, including himself on something that he had not, at all, seemed invited to participate in,
"You will not go to Western Anaxas alone. Nor will you be going anywhere immediately. I took the time to prepare as carefully as possible for today, and so will we again for whatever is next."
A guide perhaps?
Ezre hissed, expression deepening into a scowl at the sensation of salt rubbed into a metaphorically open wound, especially when she stepped closer and dared to change the subject back to himself. Had he not shared his whole self? Had he not given enough? Did she not know the difference between words spoken without thinking and sincere feelings expressed after much consideration? He could hear his umah's voice now, chiding him for entrusting any part of his heart to a stranger, to a foreigner, to someone who did not know how that Hoxian heart worked at all, let alone a Hexxos.
He raised a trembling hand at all of the redhead's questions, desperate to breathe between them, desperate to put some space between her hurt and his bare self, feeling suddenly so very exposed on the sofa without his rhakor.
"I do not know what happened. None of that went at all as expected, but that is not my fault." The dark-haired mess of a Guide growled, delicate features twisted into genuine anger now, other hand barely keeping the untouched tea from spilling, "That is the nature of that mist—of the grau—it—it does something to magic. Was our spellwork amplified? Was it changed? I do not know! Have I been given time to process? Dru. Do I look capable of such a thing right now? Dru! I have hardly been given a moment to breathe, let alone think—I am not entirely sober—I have—"
He was speaking over her, voice wavering, growing in frustration until Lilanee spoke Alethia's name and he nearly dropped his teacup. Hot liquid spilled and he made a sharp noise of discomfort, sitting up with all the speed he could muster while tea traveled down inked lines and mountain-made muscle,
"No."
Ezre's tone was almost petulant, frayed field a flare of bright, glaring, scintillating mix of shifted colors, most of them angry and hurt. He resisted the urge to shout, mostly, "I would not have slipped under the water if you had not been distracted, if your attention had not been impatiently diverted by your mother who seemed to not even be invested in the life of someone that I can only assume that she once claimed to care about. Kuleda-vumein had no respect for what we were attempting because she has no respect for me! As if the mist and the distance were not dangerous enough, the mona weigh all intentions in the casting!"
The Hoxian's own attention was suddenly interrupted with Tom's hand waving as if to swat angrily at insects instead of children. His dark eyes widened for only a moment, but there was no flicker of fear in them, no betrayal of surprise. Perhaps there should have been, perhaps the Hexxos should have at least pretended to be shocked at the once-human's explosive honesty, but, Ezre wasn't high enough to feel as though every moment was a new discovery and he was still too high to be startled by actual new revelations that seemed to seep into the cracks of his mental shape for the raen, filling in the places he'd yet to see.
"Need I remind you, Cooke-vumash—" Ezre began with a whisper, for suddenly everything was too loud, the buzz of everyone else's overstretched fields too grating on his overstimulated senses. His ears rang with it all and his free hand reached up instinctually to wipe under his nose, "—that I am not only a Carrier of the Dead, but a student of the mortuary sciences. Do you know that many of our study cadavers come from prisons? From unwanted, unclaimed, unremembered bodies at funeral homes picked up from gutters, from streets, from rivers? Who gives them purpose? Who treats them with dignity? I do. How much detail would you like me to go into about my academic knowledge of drowning? I—I am very aware of what happened—of what happened to me—not everything was under my—our—control!"
He couldn't stand, but he'd sat up and regretted it because the room spun and his stomach churned. Tawny skin tingled where tea had been spilled. He was as angry now as he was hurt, as confused as he was defiant. Everyone else was standing anyway, and he couldn't bring himself to join them, too afraid they'd just knock him over with a look before saying another word.
"Magic is not predictable, Clairvoyance especially. I was very careful with my research and my preparation, and you all seem to assume this was whim and chance! We all understood, or so I thought, that anything about Western Anaxas was mysterious. Dangerous. Strange. But I knew you would be there. But I trusted you. I gave of myself because I knew I was not alone, because I knew I could place myself in your care. I see now that my understanding of a reasonable risk is—uh—unique among the three of us. "
With his last words, which were more of a groan than anything else, he'd willingly looked away from the raen to look to the Hessean again,
"Mistake or not, however, you have an answer to a question that I know has caused you suffering for a long time, Lilanee. There is more truth in what is left unspoken, of what is said between the words, but you focus on what was said in anger and hurt, on what was said without thought. Do you not know me at all? Have you only been talking and not listening this whole time of our more-than-friendship? Even when I shared my feelings? Last night, in the dark. Days before, in the clouds. Whenever I can."
Ezre managed to shakily put the dribbling teacup on the arm of the sofa, right there nestled among the blue stains he'd scratched into the fabric with his nails. He oozed downward, off the too soft, too comfortable cushions to his knees on the floor, sinking, curling, shivering, until he could lean the side of his cheek against the thing.
"You have seen more of me than anyone else, and now you doubt? Do you know who I took this risk for? Not for me. Not for accolades. Not for the curious triumph, though it was. Dru, vre'ia. It was for you."
He buried his face in the cushion for a moment, resisting the urge to shout into stuffing, desperate to quell the seething, writhing thoughts and feelings that bubbled and swirled in his chan-opened mind, that bled from every pore while he couldn't seem to bring his rhakor into focus. With a whine, he leaned it back to look up, up at the fancy ceiling of the once-Incumbent's fancy Anaxi house.
"I would have gladly traded one life—my own, which is mine to give as I see fit—to prove another's. At least my funeral would have been well-earned. Someone will have to see this corpse, and you do not understand the honor it would be if it was you. I care, you know, about the friends I keep. I love, too, though it is different in shape and form. Not like an Anaxi, but not less than in its difference, either. We are not the same, but that does not make me insincere—"
He'd left a smear of red on the upholstery.
"—I do not share your fear of dying, even if—contrary to what you seem to see of me—"
It was better to stare at it there on the sofa, the dark-haired Guide's face scrunched from an indignant scowl to unfiltered hurt, squinting at fabric while tears stung his eyes. His jaw clenched and he hitched a breath that felt too precious to waste on such a totally unfiltered, expression of emotion
"—it would be sad for me, too. I am certainly not ready, but I was not—still am not—may never be—afraid of death."
He'd ignored that look of well-practiced defiance on the raen's sharp, borrowed face, resisting the urge to rise to the challenge in favor of attempting to search for some measure of centering calmness in a familiar act of service. The obvious misunderstanding of his intentions stole any semblance of strength he'd managed to muster, and he found any solace he'd attempted to gather in what should have been the unifying gift of tea not only hollow, but exhausting, discouraging. He managed not to drop anything, not to spill more than a drip or two, but his body begged to give into the gravity of frustration and unhappiness in the Hessean's field, to wilt under Tom's glare, longed to melt into a puddle on the floor.
He made it to the couch instead, dark eyes flicking to his clothes while he shivered, loathing the effort. His tea was passed to him and he almost shoved it away—too hot, too heavy, too unappreciated. Instead, awkwardly, he held it, bringing the cup to his tattooed chest in hopes the radiant heat from it would chase the gooseflesh away and fill the suddenly very empty space between his ribs. He almost spilled the liquid, however, startling at the sound of Lilanee's hand against her palm.
I she said.
Not we.
While the swift flow of her words threatened to drown the divinopotent all over again, much as he had before in the bath, he let them wash over him anyway. He'd known the redhead long enough to understand that to find the one valuable bone you were looking for, you sometimes had to sift through a lot of dirt. So, too, was the Hessean's way of speaking: so many words poured out to sift through and find the one important meaning.
Her language was purposeful. Exclusive. Hurtful.
"Dru—"
"—wait—"
"—Lilanee, you cannot—"
His bleary attention was on the Hessean's face for a moment before he tilted his head toward Tom as if to answer him, including himself on something that he had not, at all, seemed invited to participate in,
"You will not go to Western Anaxas alone. Nor will you be going anywhere immediately. I took the time to prepare as carefully as possible for today, and so will we again for whatever is next."
A guide perhaps?
Ezre hissed, expression deepening into a scowl at the sensation of salt rubbed into a metaphorically open wound, especially when she stepped closer and dared to change the subject back to himself. Had he not shared his whole self? Had he not given enough? Did she not know the difference between words spoken without thinking and sincere feelings expressed after much consideration? He could hear his umah's voice now, chiding him for entrusting any part of his heart to a stranger, to a foreigner, to someone who did not know how that Hoxian heart worked at all, let alone a Hexxos.
He raised a trembling hand at all of the redhead's questions, desperate to breathe between them, desperate to put some space between her hurt and his bare self, feeling suddenly so very exposed on the sofa without his rhakor.
"I do not know what happened. None of that went at all as expected, but that is not my fault." The dark-haired mess of a Guide growled, delicate features twisted into genuine anger now, other hand barely keeping the untouched tea from spilling, "That is the nature of that mist—of the grau—it—it does something to magic. Was our spellwork amplified? Was it changed? I do not know! Have I been given time to process? Dru. Do I look capable of such a thing right now? Dru! I have hardly been given a moment to breathe, let alone think—I am not entirely sober—I have—"
He was speaking over her, voice wavering, growing in frustration until Lilanee spoke Alethia's name and he nearly dropped his teacup. Hot liquid spilled and he made a sharp noise of discomfort, sitting up with all the speed he could muster while tea traveled down inked lines and mountain-made muscle,
"No."
Ezre's tone was almost petulant, frayed field a flare of bright, glaring, scintillating mix of shifted colors, most of them angry and hurt. He resisted the urge to shout, mostly, "I would not have slipped under the water if you had not been distracted, if your attention had not been impatiently diverted by your mother who seemed to not even be invested in the life of someone that I can only assume that she once claimed to care about. Kuleda-vumein had no respect for what we were attempting because she has no respect for me! As if the mist and the distance were not dangerous enough, the mona weigh all intentions in the casting!"
The Hoxian's own attention was suddenly interrupted with Tom's hand waving as if to swat angrily at insects instead of children. His dark eyes widened for only a moment, but there was no flicker of fear in them, no betrayal of surprise. Perhaps there should have been, perhaps the Hexxos should have at least pretended to be shocked at the once-human's explosive honesty, but, Ezre wasn't high enough to feel as though every moment was a new discovery and he was still too high to be startled by actual new revelations that seemed to seep into the cracks of his mental shape for the raen, filling in the places he'd yet to see.
"Need I remind you, Cooke-vumash—" Ezre began with a whisper, for suddenly everything was too loud, the buzz of everyone else's overstretched fields too grating on his overstimulated senses. His ears rang with it all and his free hand reached up instinctually to wipe under his nose, "—that I am not only a Carrier of the Dead, but a student of the mortuary sciences. Do you know that many of our study cadavers come from prisons? From unwanted, unclaimed, unremembered bodies at funeral homes picked up from gutters, from streets, from rivers? Who gives them purpose? Who treats them with dignity? I do. How much detail would you like me to go into about my academic knowledge of drowning? I—I am very aware of what happened—of what happened to me—not everything was under my—our—control!"
He couldn't stand, but he'd sat up and regretted it because the room spun and his stomach churned. Tawny skin tingled where tea had been spilled. He was as angry now as he was hurt, as confused as he was defiant. Everyone else was standing anyway, and he couldn't bring himself to join them, too afraid they'd just knock him over with a look before saying another word.
"Magic is not predictable, Clairvoyance especially. I was very careful with my research and my preparation, and you all seem to assume this was whim and chance! We all understood, or so I thought, that anything about Western Anaxas was mysterious. Dangerous. Strange. But I knew you would be there. But I trusted you. I gave of myself because I knew I was not alone, because I knew I could place myself in your care. I see now that my understanding of a reasonable risk is—uh—unique among the three of us. "
With his last words, which were more of a groan than anything else, he'd willingly looked away from the raen to look to the Hessean again,
"Mistake or not, however, you have an answer to a question that I know has caused you suffering for a long time, Lilanee. There is more truth in what is left unspoken, of what is said between the words, but you focus on what was said in anger and hurt, on what was said without thought. Do you not know me at all? Have you only been talking and not listening this whole time of our more-than-friendship? Even when I shared my feelings? Last night, in the dark. Days before, in the clouds. Whenever I can."
Ezre managed to shakily put the dribbling teacup on the arm of the sofa, right there nestled among the blue stains he'd scratched into the fabric with his nails. He oozed downward, off the too soft, too comfortable cushions to his knees on the floor, sinking, curling, shivering, until he could lean the side of his cheek against the thing.
"You have seen more of me than anyone else, and now you doubt? Do you know who I took this risk for? Not for me. Not for accolades. Not for the curious triumph, though it was. Dru, vre'ia. It was for you."
He buried his face in the cushion for a moment, resisting the urge to shout into stuffing, desperate to quell the seething, writhing thoughts and feelings that bubbled and swirled in his chan-opened mind, that bled from every pore while he couldn't seem to bring his rhakor into focus. With a whine, he leaned it back to look up, up at the fancy ceiling of the once-Incumbent's fancy Anaxi house.
"I would have gladly traded one life—my own, which is mine to give as I see fit—to prove another's. At least my funeral would have been well-earned. Someone will have to see this corpse, and you do not understand the honor it would be if it was you. I care, you know, about the friends I keep. I love, too, though it is different in shape and form. Not like an Anaxi, but not less than in its difference, either. We are not the same, but that does not make me insincere—"
He'd left a smear of red on the upholstery.
"—I do not share your fear of dying, even if—contrary to what you seem to see of me—"
It was better to stare at it there on the sofa, the dark-haired Guide's face scrunched from an indignant scowl to unfiltered hurt, squinting at fabric while tears stung his eyes. His jaw clenched and he hitched a breath that felt too precious to waste on such a totally unfiltered, expression of emotion
"—it would be sad for me, too. I am certainly not ready, but I was not—still am not—may never be—afraid of death."
