aslee graves

Still, Zolf had never intended for this to become a big happy reunion, but Sasha had insisted that Hamid needed this so strongly that Zolf was forced to believe her. He wasn't sure how sitting here, smushed between Sasha and the shockingly pink half-orc was helping, but he still couldn't shake the memory of Hamid looking at Zolf like he was afraid one or both of them would disappear.

"So," the half-orc (what was her name? Azizi?) said. Her voice was deep and kind, ruthlessly polite in a way that made Zolf think of his mother and afternoon tea. He felt like a little kid again, being interviewed about his day at school and the banker's boy he'd once made the mistake of calling handsome. "How exactly did you and Hamid meet?"

"Ah." Zolf threw Sasha a harried look that she pointedly ignored. He regretted not being her boss so, so much. "Well, the same way I met Sasha, really. I was doing crowd control with Ber--" Zolf cleared his throat. "With Bertie, and, ah. Sasha had some old friends--"

"Acquaintances, really," Sasha said. Grizzop laughed for the first time all night, and Zolf didn't know what was weirder: That Sasha had finally found a soulmate, or that she'd had to go all the way to a judicious European goblin to find them.

"... Right, well, they were making a fuss, so Bertie and I stepped in, made a bigger fuss, and then Hamid..." Zolf sighed at the memory. Halfway through a fight, trying desperately to make sure his new heavy didn't murder someone in broad daylight, and then there's this extremely handsome man... sprouting fake blood from his wrists like a macabre street magician. "Hamid tried to talk the crowd into behaving."

"You hired him to talk?" Grizzop said, and Zolf could hear the disbelief. "Hamid?"

"He's good at it." Zolf wasn't about to broker any shit about Hamid, not from these strangers. Maybe especially from them. Didn't they know how lucky they were to be here without having to worry that their very presence was just... weighing Hamid and Sasha down? "Yeah, he can get a little emotional, but so do most civilians. A real mercenary group needs a face, someone to chat with the employers. Our employment with the government wasn't exactly in the business plans. The fact that he turned out to be an eerily capable 'wizard' was a bonus."

"Oh, do Sasha next," Azu said, excited.

Zolf snorted. "I was pretty sure if I let her go, she'd be dead before sunset."

"Oi!"

"No," Sasha interrupted Grizzop's protests, "he's right. I was stupid."

"We all were," Zolf agreed. "I hired fucking Bertie."

The table erupts into laughter.

It should feel a little mean, laughing about a dead man. Azu had never even met Bertie, and she was laughing as hard as the rest of them. At the end of the day, though, she'd heard the stories, and, well... It was Bertie. If anyone deserved to be disrespected at their grave, it was that prat. Even after everything between them, Zolf had trusted Bertie to take care of Hamid. Another stupid mistake, on Zolf's part.

(Zolf wasn't sure if Hamid had been able to forgive Bertie's spirit, yet, for what had happened to his sister.

Zolf hadn't.

He never would.)

"What's so funny?"

Zolf's mouth went dry.

Grizzop and Azu both launched into some awkward, interlocked conversation, but the sudden ringing in Zolf's ears drowned it out. He'd known about Hamid's new knack for transformation, of course. There'd been mention in the letters, and Sasha had warned him beforehand that it could be a little shocking. Zolf wasn't sure what to expect, had been a little worried that he would look into Hamid's eyes and not be able to find humanity, but. Aphrodite be sweet, he hadn't expected this.

Hamid's eyes were liquid gold, the pupils a thin, calculating slit, even when he smiled. Scales were beginning to peek out over the bones around his eyes, the brass mimicking an odd makeup trend. His teeth were sharp but uniform, still sparkling clean and white. It spoke of hidden, unfathomable power, strictly controlled. The magic of dragons roiling around in a halfling's skin, the mask of a businessman hiding the feral flicker of fire. Hamid had always been handsome, but there was something about this was....

Beautiful, Zolf realised. Because being half in love with the man wasn't enough, Zolf had to find his dragon form attractive.

Poseidon preserve him.

"Ah," Zolf gritted out, throat scratching around the syllable.

"Life, generally," Sasha said, as if Zolf wasn't falling apart beside her. She stood, gesturing at Hamid to slid into her space in the booth. "Go on, then."

Hamid obliged, blushing at Zolf as he did. "Hi," he whispered, ignoring how Azu cooed from Zolf's other side. Zolf didn't answer, too busy trying to think of ways not to choke on his own tongue. "So," Hamid said, a louder. "Have we ordered yet?"

Blessedly, as the dinner and conversation went on, Hamid relaxed. The draconic features began to fade along with the lie in his smile, the conversation flowing from him as easily as the wine flowed into his glass. Less fortunately, Zolf couldn't manage to find himself less drawn to Hamid's eyes when they were brown than gold, the shape of them still as beautiful without the scales highlighting them. What's worse was his mouth; Without the points of teeth, there was only plushness, bruised from nervous chewing. Zolf was holding up his fifth of the conversation, somehow, but he couldn't tell you a word of what he said.

Halfway through the night, Hamid leaned his weight into Zolf's side. It was only then that Zolf realised how close they'd gotten over dinner. They'd cut themselves off from the rest of the world, carving out a little place at the table just for them, a space in the conversation where they could quietly talk about everything and nothing. Ridiculously, he felt the urge to blush, but he refused to give Sasha (or Grizzop, oh gods, that was a thing he had to worry about now, wasn't it?) that kind of ammo.

"Hello there," Zolf said. Shit, was he flirting? He didn't realise how fond he'd sounded until it had already come out of his mouth. Good lord, he sounded like Wilde. He was going to fling himself into the ocean and not come out ever, ever again.

Hamid giggled and burrowed further into Zolf's side. Too tipsy and tired, Hamid's blush could not be contained. It lent him a sort of innocence that was in stark contrast to the sheer power he'd been radiating when he stalked out of the bathroom. When he stared up at Zolf through those thick, dark lashes, still as beautiful, Zolf knew he was done for. "Hi."

Zolf waited, patient with tipsy shenanigans as a pirate could be, for the conversation to resume, but nothing ever came. Hamid continued to stare at him dreamily, smile ever present. Eventually, he had to ask. "What?" Zolf said, trying not to laugh. "Have I got something on my face?" He rubs his hand across his face haphazardly, pausing only when Hamid makes a small, hurt noise. "What?" Zolf says again, even as Hamid reaches up to tug his hand away.

"You're ruining it," Hamid whines.

"Ruining what?"

"I'm looking at you," Hamid says, very seriously, as if that makes any fucking sense.

"Sorry, what?"

"I--" Hamid laughs, a little hysterical. "I missed looking at you. I missed you. Let me look."

Zolf doesn't know how to respond to that. It's blunter than they usually are face to face-- In fact, Zolf doesn't know if either one of them have ever revealed that they care about each other anywhere other than the page. (Except, perhaps, if Paris counts. But Zolf tries not to think about Paris. How he almost ruined everything.) No one's even almost died, and here they are. Talking about feelings.

It's something of a new experience.

"Wow," Grizzop says, and that's how Zolf remembers that other people exist. Hamid pulls back, sobered by the presence of others. Zolf can feel himself grow colder without his supernatural warmth pressed into his skin. There's an awkward moment where Zolf watches Azu watch them like she's observing some wild animal, and then Sasha stands up once again.

"Right," she says, using every once of the awkwardness left in her body to be as forceful as possible. "I saw something shiny next door when we came in. I'm going to steal it. Bye." She leaves like that, Hamid gaping in her wake.

"Sasha!" Grizzop yelps. "Sasha, we talked about this!" He skitters after her, and Azu stands to follow him.

"Apologies, friends," she says, but there is nothing but glee in her eyes. "But I believe they may need me."

Hamid and Zolf both watch her go for a moment, the air around them still as if the world itself is trying to process what just happened.

"Well," Zolf manages to say. "At least they seem close." Oddly, this makes Hamid's shock turn to something that looks vaguely like displeasure. A concerned hum vibrates up Zolf's throat before he can even think to stop it. "What's the matter?" he asks, gentler than he means to. 

"No, sorry." Hamid shakes himself and manages a small smile. "I'm glad they're friends. Grizzop... is wonderful for Sasha, really. There's nothing he wouldn't do for her, and Sasha really needed someone after Brock, and it was never going to be me or Bertie and... Well, Azu is a sweetheart, you know that. And she loves to protect people, and Sasha and Grizzop never just admit when they need help, plus there's the paladin thing and the woman thing, so of course they get on well."

"But?" Zolf prompts.

"It's lonely, sometimes," Hamid admits, softly. Zolf can feel his heart quake. He did this-- By not being there, by not protecting Bertie, by... Well, by being his disastrous self. "I'll never be able to be part of that."

"Sasha would never--"

"It's partly my own fault, Zolf." He's never going to be able to get over the way Hamid says his voice sometimes, like the name actually means something. More than that, it means something good, and pure, something that Hamid wants him to understand. If Zolf were more full of himself, he'd call it love. "I haven't exactly been making an effort to be part of the best friends club."

Zolf would be lying if he said that didn't make him a little worried. He had noticed the tension between Grizzop and Hamid, but it didn't seem all that bad. After all, it wasn't like the London Rangers had always gotten along. "Hamid, if something is... making you uncomfortable, no job is worth that."

Hamid laughs, pats Zolf's furry cheek. "Nothing like that, though it is darling of you to worry, Zolf. I mean, of course I won't always get on with them. They all grew up so differently than me."

"So did I," Zolf points out. "Never stopped us."

"Never stopped us from getting in our fair share of awful rows, either," Hamid says, and, well. Fair. The difference, Zolf thinks, and the reason protectiveness rises in his chest, is that there was always a fondness to it, between them. He only yelled at Hamid because he cared if Hamid lived to see another day, and because Hamid seemed determined that he wouldn't. Or, sometimes, because Hamid was forcing him to be a functioning man again when all Zolf wanted to do was lay down and die.

They never wanted to change each other, never looked at each other and wished someone else was there, instead.  

"So why the arm's length, then? It's not like you."

All the light in Hamid's eyes fades. His smile never wavers, but Zolf can feel the sadness in it anyway. "I thought I could protect myself, I suppose. Cairo was... horrible, and Grizzop was already pretty convinced that I'm a murderer and..." Hamid sighs. "Oh, I don't know, Zolf. It seemed easier to accept that I would never really be friends with them. It was a good excuse, anyway. It's hard enough, caring about Sasha. I don't-- I don't want to lose anyone else."

"Oh." Zolf can feel his heart twisting in his chest, unspoken words beating at his ribs. "That'd be my fault, then."

Hamid looks stricken. "Zolf, no!"

It's nice of him to protest on Zolf's behalf, but Zolf doesn't operate under denial when he can help it. Prague was a selfish decision. A necessary one, perhaps, but one that fucked over the people he loved the most. It will take some time to heal from that, no matter what Hamid says. Zolf doesn't say that, though. For all he knows their fights are rooted in love, the last thing Zolf wants to do tonight is argue.

"I am sorry," Zolf says, because he has to say something to make up for everything. "Maybe not for leaving, but for... leaving you."

Hamid doesn't look like he knows what to think about that, and Zolf can't blame him. There's an implication there, a fantasy that Zolf hasn't been able to shake. It's his favourite what-if. More than the Navy, more than London, just... What if he had asked Hamid to come with him? What if the three of them had sat down in that bar and Zolf had said, hey, guys, this whole Simulacrum thing has gone a bit above the call of duty, what if we left Bertie to answer to Wilde and fucked off to have real lives again? More than that, what if they had said yes? There's a place for Sasha in that dream, because there will always be a place for Sasha in Zolf's family now, but at the core its yet another wish built around Hamid. Zolf can't deny that.

Can't deny how bald-faced obvious it is, now.

"I don't know what I would have said," Hamid says. His voice is so soft and so raw, Zolf can't imagine it being anything but honest. The reality of it finally being addressed slices through the soft parts of Zolf like a warm scalpel. "But I wish you would have asked."

Zolf futilely tries to soothe his cracked lips with a dry tongue. "Then I'm sorry for not asking."

"There's nothing to be sorry about," Hamid insists. "I just missed you."

"I missed you, too," Zolf says.

There's a moment where neither of them know how to respond to this, the moment they've created between them. Zolf wonders if he should take Hamid in his arms, finally. Wonders if Hamid expects something, if there's a rule to this he doesn't quite know yet. Eventually, though, Hamid laughs-- genuine and bright, and lets himself collapse into Zolf's side.

"Well, now that we've gotten that out of the way," he says, dryly.

Zolf wraps his arm around Hamid's shoulders on instinct, pretends he doesn't notice that he's pulling Hamid closer. Now that the tension is gone out of Hamid, he's small and soft, tucked into Zolf's side. Sometimes, when Hamid is a ball of lies and diplomacy and sheer magical power, it's easy to forget that he's a full foot shorter than Zolf. Now, though, he fits so well under Zolf's arm that Zolf can swear he can feel his heart actually swell.

"You brought it on yourself, you absolute drama queen," Zolf says, the not bothering to control the mirth in his voice. "I cannot believe you started crying in the middle of the foyer. It was like we were in London again."

"Oh, well excuse me for making you admit to feeling a genuine emotion, Mr. Smith. Won't happen again." Hamid sticks a claw in Zolf's side just firmly enough to make Zolf squirm and swat at his scaled hands.

Hamid catches his free hand in between both of his own, the claws gentle against his skin, the scales warm and smooth. Neither of them mentions it, the conversation fading around them. They lean against each other as the cafe mills around them, basking in comfortable silence. Hamid tucks his head into the crook of Zolf's neck. His claws morph back into hands, his soft fingertips trace Zolf's callouses.

Zolf memorizes the depth of Hamid's perfume, the softness of his hair against Zolf's skin, the way their bodies shift together when they breathe. He doesn't know when he'll have this again, if they'll have time after tonight, if the Separatists will come after him if he tries to stay, if either of them will even survive the struggle. He doesn't know if Hamid will even want to, after the emotion fades from the night. But he'll always have this memory, at least. 

"You know," Hamid says drowsily, after dozing on Zolf's shoulder for an hour or two. "I don't think the rest of the team is coming back."

Zolf snorts. "You think we should be worried?"

"Mm, no. We can worry tomorrow." Hamid snuggles further into Zolf's side, humming against his shoulder when Zolf makes a soft noise of complaint. A moment passes, and Zolf can feel the thoughts vibrating around in Hamid's head when the halfling stiffens against him. "You will... be here tomorrow, right?"

Oh.

That hurts, for all Zolf deserves it.

It's the pain that helps him decide. He doesn't want to be this person, a man who Hamid can't even trust to be here when he wakes up. He doesn't want to be the team member who leaves his best friends to fight demigods and cultists alone. He doesn't want to live his life running anymore. Zolf wants to be here, for Hamid and Sasha and their new friends. Separatists and dragons and Oscar Wilde be damned.

Zolf presses a kiss to Hamid's gel-stiffened fringe. "Yeah, of course."

"Good." Hamid pulls back enough to dig his chin into the meat of Zolf's shoulder, so close their noses are brushing. "I've decided I'm keeping you."

"Hmm." Zolf pretends to think about it, all squinting eyes and furrowed brows. "Yeah, I think I can live with that." 

Tears are gathering in Hamid's eyes, unshed but still sparkling in the corners, when their lips brush for the first time. The second time, their grins are so wide that everything is awkward and perfect and Hamid pulls away laughing. Zolf has to reel him back in with firm hands and an admonishing mutter, and even then Hamid is still giggling as he melts into Zolf's chest.

Yeah.

Grizzop and Azu both looked worried-- Well, Azu looked worried. Grizzop looked like he thought Hamid had finally lost it. Hamid couldn't blame them. He didn't know what Sasha had told them, but he could never bring himself to talk about Zolf with them. It felt wrong, somehow. The early days, when they were still working on the name, was something so precious to him, and words couldn't explain it. Especially not to the people who had replaced Zolf and Bertie, thereby changing the entire dynamic.

Sasha, though, knew Hamid at his absolute worst, and the tears didn't phase her at all. After she greeted Zolf (Lowkey as always, like Zolf was catching up with them after lagging behind to catch up on some paperwork. Why did that thought rip a sob out of Hamid's throat?), she faded to the back of their group, looking between Zolf and Hamid with a wide, expectant grin. She had planned this surprise, Hamid realised, but was too distracted to be offended.

Zolf had always been the one to carry the full brunt of Hamid's emotional outlash, but he'd never smiled like that about it. His smile was soft, almost fond, and Hamid could feel his organs quaking at the way the emotion echoed in Zolf's clear, blue eyes.

"Well," Zolf said, and, oh god. Hamid had forgotten how deep and lovely Zolf's voice was, oh god, he was sobbing even harder now. He was so happy. "I guess some things never change."

"Shut up," Hamid said. And then, quickly, "No, wait, I didn't.... Don't leave."

Zolf's brow furrowed, but his smile didn't fade-- Just turned a bit sad at the edges, the happiness wilting. Hamid felt the loneliness in his chest start building again. "I'm not going anywhere, Hamid."

If anything, Hamid cried harder.

"Sorry," Grizzop said, in his usual 'I'm not trying to be incredibly rude, but I unfortunately will be' voice. "Who are you?"

"It's Zolf," Hamid sobbed. "It's.... Zolf."

Azu looked confused. "What is a Zolf?"

"I'm a Zolf. Zolf Smith, in fact. Founder of..." Zolf paused. "Sorry, what was it you were calling it now? Right, sorry. LOLOMG."

"Ah, right," Grizzop said. "The cleric they left in Prague."

Hamid wailed.

"Does Hamid not like Zolf?" Azu 'whispered' to Sasha, and Hamid is so used to her particular brand of obtuse that it almost doesn't register. It's not until he sees the worry flit into Zolf's eyes that he sucks in a breath so sharp that it burns all the way down to his toes. Hamid can't let Zolf think that he doesn't want this, can't let Zolf think that he belongs anywhere other than here.

Sasha beats him to it, though, with a snort. "Hamid likes Zolf plenty. He's just a prat about it, sometimes."

The tears almost stop when Hamid draws himself up into full height, prepared to be affronted, but Zolf ruins all composure by coming to his rescue. "Stop it, Sasha. You know how Hamid can get when he's hungry; A couple dire lobsters and he'll be right as rain."

"I'm right here," Hamid wibbles, but it doesn't come out as the protest he intends it. It's more a statement: I'm right here, Zolf. I'm right here, pay attention to me. Then again, he's not sure if he wants Zolf to notice the teary, snotty mess he must be at the moment.

"Wow," Grizzop says. "I can't believe you used to be weirder than you are now."

"Grizzop," Azu scolds, but before she can continue (and embarrass Hamid further by discussing every schmoopy, ridiculous emotion written across his face), Hamid interrupts.

"No, you're all right," Hamid said. He took a deep breath, tries not to notice that the fondness is creeping back into the edges of Zolf's smile. "We should all get dinner. Zolf, you've... It would mean a lot to us, if you would meet the new team."

"I'd love to."

The easy agreement almost threw Hamid off, and certainly made him suspicious. Nothing with Zolf had ever been easy, from beginning to end. His sudden agreeableness was something Hamid hadn't expected or even wanted. Or, maybe, Zolf's growth didn't dissolve in the face of an old friend like Hamid's tended to.

"Perfect," Hamid said. He, and the rest of the group, were pretending that fresh tears weren't gathering in the corner of his eyes. "I'll go freshen up, and meet you all in the dining room. Yes?"

The team agrees easily enough, even if Sasha hesitates, but Zolf lingers for a moment. The doubt is clear in his eyes. After all, Hamid has never needed time or a bathroom to get himself stage ready.

"I just... need a moment," Hamid said, and Zolf nodded.

"'Course," he said, "it's a lot. You've been through a lot."

"Well," Hamid joked, "You seem to be handling it fine."

Zolf laughed, a low, rusty sound. It was different, now, like a record covered in dust. When was the last time Hamid had heard Zolf laugh? Before Prague, obviously, but... Before Paris? Before Dover? He couldn't remember.

"Do I? I don't feel fine."

Hamid winced. "Zolf," he said, softly. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to."

The look that crosses Zolf's face must be a look that all religious figures learn, at one point in their lives. It's a mix of "oh, look at this stupid beast, how I pity it," mixed with, "look at this abhorrent creature, how it disgusts me." Hamid had seen it in the eyes of many a priestess in his childhood, and Grizzop and Azu had both conquered halves of it. Zolf was the only one who had managed, so far, to also make it seem fond, as if Hamid's slight was somehow endearing. It always unsettled him, threw him off whatever self-destructive spiral he'd been ready to fling himself into.

Honestly, Hamid wishes he'd known Zolf at University.

"Of course I'm staying," Zolf says. He starts off after Sasha and the rest, and Hamid still isn't used to the fluidity of Zolf motions now that he's got two (magic) legs again. It's unfair, how much the new stability in his shoulders shows off how broad and strong they are. The last thing Hamid needs is even more reasons to miss him when he's gone. "I need to make sure the new recruits are taking care of you better than the last two idiots, don't I?"

And then he just... leaves, like that sentence couldn't be broken down into a thousand meanings, a million messages that Hamid could spend the next six hours dissecting. It's enough to paralyze Hamid, leaving him stuck stock-still in the hotel lobby until a well-meaning conceirge comes and pokes him along. Hamid trudges to the bathroom, replaying the conversation over to himself. It feels more like a daydream than a memory, like one of those silly fantasies he used to have, all prince charming and being swept off his feet. Although, it's less about the adventures than it used to be.

Once upon a time, Hamid wanted princes and princesses. He wanted grand adventures and crowns, to achieve great deeds that could be shown as brazenly as the medals on his chest. Reality worked that out of him quickly enough. After everything in London, Hamid had learned that no one was coming to save him. Paris taught him that grand adventures and great deeds were sometimes things you didn't want to show. Sometimes they were things you wanted to forget about long enough to sleep. But it was okay: Hamid had picked up new dreams. Dreams of him and Zolf, of Sasha and Bertie, all four of them a happy little family in the face of certain death. It had been a dream born from an almost.

Prague took that dream from him, too.

Hamid relished in the sting of cold water against his face, dripping down his neck. It made the world feel a little more real, a little less like the memory of those old daydreams. Seeing Zolf had led him back to that intense longing for a home-- But, no, that had been the fourth lesson, the one that Cairo taught him. Hamid didn't know how to be the new him around someone who still had his hands around the tenderest parts of Hamid's heart.

When he opened his eyes, they were molten and draconic, the tips of teeth peeking out over his lips.

He'd tried to, five minutes ago, but the flesh around his ports was too sensitive to get a lot of leverage against the bottom of the tub, and the sorrow had melded with the cold to make his bones rattle as he tried to lift himself out. So he'd lowered himself back into the water and told himself to bide his time until he got up the strength to try again.

Twenty staff members below him at his beck and call, two friends and an employee just a room away, and Zolf couldn't get out of the fucking tub. He wasn't calling for help. He wasn't.

Help called for him.

"Zolf?"

The soft, nervous way Hamid said his name had always sent a shiver of regret down Zolf's spine, but now in the supposed silence of the bath, it jolted Zolf guiltily out of his own sorrows and into reality. He turned quickly towards the door, water sloshing around his waist. The door was ajar, preserving most of his dignity, but one brown eye did peek through the crack.

"Hamid," he said, voice cracking in embarrassment. "What are you--"

"Sorry. Sorry!" The crack shrunk as if reacting to Hamid's shame. "I didn't think-- I mean, you were in there a really long time, Zolf, and I honestly thought maybe you were just doing a Poseidon thing and still had clothes on."

"Yes, well... Obviously, I don't."

"Em, right."

Even the quiet sounded heavy on the tile as they sat there for a moment, just Zolf and the big brown eye. Uncomfortable silences weren't something the Rangers were exactly prone to. Uncomfortable ramblings, yes, especially from Hamid and Sasha, but silence wasn't exactly their specialty. Apart from their babblers, they also had to deal with one very shouty priest and a pretentious knight, so any awkwardness on their part was as loud as their comfortability was. Which was to say: Extremely.

"Is there something you wanted, Hamid?" And maybe they had all spent too much time together, because Zolf could hear his voice getting higher and higher with stress and embarrassment, something he was sure he hadn't done before meeting Hamid al-Tahan, the King of Squeaky Anxiety.

"Right, sorry, I just-- I wanted to see if you were alright. Do you need anything?"

Zolf tried not to let the question frustrate him. He knew Hamid meant well; There wasn't a malicious bone in the halfling's body. But while Sasha and Bertie had merely ignored Zolf's new handicap completely, Hamid had been treating Zolf with kid gloves, those wide eyes following him around the hotel room like a worried mother's. The reassurances and frantic questions had been nonstop, and Zolf knew it came from a good place. He knew it did, no matter how many disappointed looks Sasha gave him, alright? Hamid was a good man, and he wanted to take care of his team. Intellectually, Zolf knew there was nothing wrong with that.

The problem was that there was nothing intellectual about pride. Zolf was a cleric of Poseidon, an ex-naval officer and pirate, and the leader of one of the most important mercenary bands in the world. He was, technically, still Hamid's (and Sasha's, and Bertie's) boss. He'd lived through trials both spiritual and literal, survived swarms of botanical nightmares, and had handled losing the first leg just fine. Hades below, he had done most of that without the leg. There was an intense shame in the idea that now he needed Hamid's constant attention now that he'd lost the second. What was he supposed to say, 'yes, Hamid, I've just discovered I can't get out of the bath without assistance, could you please come help me and also deal with the awkward humiliation of seeing my wrecked naked form?'

By Zeus and all his whores, Zolf would rather ask Bertie for help than see pity in Hamid's eyes again.

"Please tell me you haven't drowned yourself in there. I honestly don't know what I'd tell the staff."

Zolf's head dropped back as a dry, shaky laugh escaped him. Hamid unfiltered was more and more of a treat every day. "Gods. Don't ever change, Hamid."

"Don't make fun of me," Hamid said, and Zolf could hear the pout in the tenor of Hamid' s voice. Before Zolf could clear his affront, though, Hamid continued: "I'm only worried about you, Zolf."

"Yes. Yes, I know, but I don't need to be worried over," Zolf groused. "I was doing just fine before. And don't--" Zolf closed his eyes, something that tasted like weakness overpowering his words. "Don't say you do need to, actually, because I will find those prosthetics and beat you with them."

Hamid's voice burned back, caustic. "Stop being ridiculous, Zolf. I'm worried about you because I care about you. Sasha is worried because she cares about you! Bertie--" A pause. "Well, Bertie cares about himself, mostly. But the point is, the only one worried about your bloody leg is you!"

Suddenly, Zolf was colder than the water around him. "Oh, so that's how you 'care' about someone, is it?"

"Oh, you know that's not what I--" But Hamid cut himself off, and when his voice returned, all the fire was gone. "I'm coming in, this is ridiculous."

"What? No, Hamid, don't--"

Hamid was a rumpled mess the likes Zolf had never truly thought Hamid had the capability to be. He'd seen the halfling covered in several "mystery" fluids, half-drowned, and, basically, utterly wrecked, but Hamid had never looked quite as strung out as he did now. There was a sickly ashen cast to his skin, like someone had covered his deep complexion in thin powder. His eyeliner had smeared itself across his face and sleeves-- It was the clothes that disturbed Zolf the most; It looked like Hamid hadn't changed in days.

That thought was so absurd that guilt started to settle in Zolf's chest.

Which was not on, honestly. Zolf didn't owe Hamid anything, and if he came in looking for an apology, Zolf was going to fry his fucking--

"I'm sorry," Hamid said softly.

Oh.

"Hamid…"

"No, really, Zolf. It came out wrong, and I shouldn't have even gone there. I know that." Hamid's huge brown eyes stared down at him, wet with tears. Zolf squirmed. " I'm really sorry."

Zolf's indignation began to crumble. "No, you were right."

"Don't. Don't." Anger flashed in Hamid's eyes, but somehow he only looked wounded, as if Zolf's reassurance had torn him apart somehow. "You're allowed to be upset, Zolf. I won't ask you not to be upset with me, or Poseidon, or the world. You're allowed to be absolutely furious. It was awful, what happened to you and Sasha, truly awful. And the last thing I ever want to do is make you think you're overreacting, or that you can't… talk to me."

Zolf's throat clicked as he swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. "Thank you?"

"I was just trying to let you know that I… I mean, Sasha and I, really-- We care about you."

Zolf offered a crooked smile, trying not to collapse immediately into tears like some kind of… Hamid.

"Even if I'm a legless lump?"

Even though there were still tears in his eyes, Hamid's smile was the most genuine Zolf had seen in days. Weeks, maybe. "You'd still be the legless lump that saved us. You took us in, even though Sasha had a bounty on her head, even though I was a useless public school magician. And then, Zolf, you gave us a purpose. Made us-- Made me something worthwhile."

Tears and laughter were starting to mix at the back of Zolf's throat; If he laughed, he would start blubbering like a baby. He was stuck. Couldn't make a joke, couldn't say anything to break the tension.

"You're pining," Hanna said. Most of the time, Emmanuel could block her voice out, familiar as it was, but the laughter made him aware enough to send heat across his cheeks.

"I am not pining," Emmanuel said primly. He straightened from the paper spread across his lap, hoping the solid line of his shoulders would lend weight to his words. "I'm writing."

"Writing letters," Hanna pointed out, as if that was undeniable proof. "Which you never do. Unless, apparently, it's for your lover boy."

"I regret telling you literally anything about my life."

"You keep saying that, and yet, you keep telling me these things."

"Well," Emmanuel sighed, "when you die with someone, you're stuck with them."

Hanna hummed. "Weird. I died the first time with Leo, and he never overshares about his sex life."

Emmanuel snorted. "That's because Leo doesn't have a sex life."

Watching Hanna laugh, no matter how often it happened or how Emmanuel strived to make it happen, was still unsettling. Hanna wasn't the first ghost Emmanuel had been close to, but she was the first he had known before the second death, and laughter had always been Hanna's favourite form of communication. Once, her laughter had been loud and manic, her smile wild as she darted from one joke to another. Now, though, even the fall of her hair was slower, her laugh deeper, and though her soft translucent blues stood out against the dark night, it was never more apparent that the third life could not be more different from the second one.

The thought terrified Emmanuel, and not because he was afraid of the life waiting for him-- No, instead Emmanuel could not help but think of the spectres he had known in Nacre. They had been someone else, once, before he had known them. Someone brighter, once, before he had known them. Someone brighter, maybe. And what did it mean that no one spoke of their dimming? Was this-- the replacement of loved ones, shadows wearing long gone faces --what the Ordennans called a curse?

Emmanuel shook himself. No, the Ordennans considered him a curse, too, and besides, what did it matter that Hanna was a little quieter, a little slower? Death did that to a person. Emmanuel certainly couldn't see himself being any happier with Hanna far from his side, the halls of Tristero just out of his reach.

"Are you alright?" Hanna asked, breaking Emmanuel from his soliloquy-- Maybe Hanna wasn't the only one who'd gotten a little slower with death.

"I'm fine," he said, his smile almost genuine. "Just a little tired."

"Unsurprising, really," a voice said behind them, and Emmanuel suppressed the need to groan.

"Hello, Rosana," Emmanuel and Hanna chorused, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

"La Salle. Treville."

Rosana stepped into the light of their smaller campfire, out of the snow and into the small, still wet area that they had cleared for themselves.

Being quite dead, Emmanuel and Hanna had traded warmth for solitude, and Emmanuel noted with concern that Rosana was shivering as she sat next to him. And then, with more concern, that she was sitting. There went his night off.

"Is everything alright?" Hanna asked tentatively when Rosana made no move to speak.

"No." Rosana stared into the fire, unconcerned.

"... Right." Hanna and Emmanuel exchanged glances. "Well, as I was saying--"

"No," Emmanuel interrupted. He refused to have this conversation with an audience, especially with one who knew Len. "When the moons are up, you can both tell me to do whatever it is you need, but right now they are down and I will spend my time however I want."

"And how is that?" Rosana leaned closer, trying to peek at the pile of paper Emmanuel was struggling to keep from the wet and the heat.

"He's writing letters," Hanna said, mock-whispering to Rosana across the fire. Even as Emmanuel hissed a weak protest, Rosana turned to him with surprised eyes.

"Has the messengers' guild opened its doors again?"

"No." There was a long moment as Rosana looked over at Hanna in confusion; Hanna barely held in her laughter. Emmanuel sighed, "It makes things easier to process, okay?" It's not pining. It's not.

The explanation seemed to satisfy Rosana (Hanna still looked too amused to be trusted) who shrugged and turned back to the fire. "Prayer serves much the same purpose, I've found."

"Oh yeah, we don't pray," Hanna said, "Our god got murdered. Dead as dicks, poor old Trist'."

"You only have the one?" Rosana asked.

Emmanuel shrugged. "Technically three, but, uh… We really only have one at the time."

"Very small, was Nacre," Hanna said, sagely. "Bit crowded to have all three at once."

Rosana managed a laugh. "I can't imagine…"

"You lot have just Samothes, don't you?" Hanna asked. Emmanuel managed not to flinch at the question, unsure if Rosana even knew of Samot.

"He's the only one most of us worship, yes," Rosana said. Her voice was stiff, and that told Emmanuel everything he needed to know.

"Hadrian told you, then? Before he left?"

Rosana's eyes narrowed. "He told you?"

"What? Oh, no, I don't--" Emmanuel couldn't remember if he and Hadrian had ever spoken a single word to each other. "Lem told me. There was a, a-- Well, I don't know, but it fell out of the sky looking for, well, him and so--"

"The thing the Queenkiller killed?" Hanna interrupted. The air around them had been cold but not uncomfortable before those words.

"Y-yeah," Emmanuel said, and tried not to remember the cold on her face as her blade sunk in.

"I see a Varal will not change its spots," Rosana said stiffly.

Her bitterness was enough to relax Emmanuel a little. "At least you don't like her, either," he sighed. "We were afraid you two were… close."

Rosana scoffed. "I don't follow my husband's path, not in faith and certainly not in friends."

"Oh, shit," Hanna breathed, and Emmanuel raced to speak over her.

"I mean, Len was literally traveling with her when his friends murdered our Queen, so, you know-- I get the frustration."

The revelation didn't lift the corners of Rosana's frown any. "Not to be the bearer of an ill omen, but I can't say Hadrian is less likely to resort to violence than... the company he keeps."

Emmanuel remembers a quiet confession in his doorway, a curse between them, and says nothing. "Oh, he can't be all that bad," Hanna said, though her voice didn't sound any surer than Emmanuel felt. "Tell us about him! He works with you, right?"

"Not with me, no," Rosana said, with reluctance. "Under the crown of Samothes, yes, but I work with the people of Velas. Lately, our Lord has required Hadrian's sword in… outreach."

"Oh," Hanna said, knowingly. "He kills people."

"They call him 'paladin' for a reason, it would seem."

"He's not like those… things." A wave of revulsion rolled through their tiny group, the memories of armies marching through the camp. The sounds of metal on stone shook in their silence, a shared waking dream. "Hadrian has a heart; It is what guides his blade."

"We believe you," Emmanuel said. There was a guilt there he couldn't shake, after all, an awareness of his own hypocrisy. Lem did not even have a God to blame for the blood on his hands, just his own logic, and Emmanuel saw the soul in him still.

"Okay, but enough about sad, shitty war stuff," Hanna said. "Tell us something cute. Like how you and Hadrian met or whatever."

Rosana managed a smile, albeit a sad one. "Believe it or not, he was not Hadrian, then. He was my Alexander."

"He changed his name?"

"It is tradition, in the church--" Rosana sighed. "It is supposed to be symbolic of leaving your past behind you and giving yourself over to Samothes completely."

Emmanuel and Hanna contemplated this silently.

"That's… pretty fucked up, actually." Emmanuel couldn't help but agree.

"Samothes demands our devotion," Rosana said, which wasn't exactly a disagreement.

"So what's the story? Did you help him pick his new name? Did he change it to something you liked? Were you already married? Come on, don't hold out on me; From the beginning!"

"What could you possibly want to know?"

"Everything!" Hanna tossed her hands into the air. "How'd you meet? Where did you have your first kiss? How did he propose?"

Emmanuel laughed. "Pearl and bone, Hanna, let her breathe."

Hanna ignored him, and leaned closer to Rosana, not noticing as she began to merge with the light of the fire. "You have to give me something good. I need romance to live, and Emmanuel is endlessly boring."

Emmanuel sputtered a protest. "You were just complaining about me telling you too much!"

"I said romance," Hanna scoffed, "Not sad sex stories."

Emmanuel flushed, as well as a man without a beating heart could flush, anyway. "Can we not talk about my sex life to the priest, please?"

Maybe it was just that she needed the distraction from her own secrets, but Rosana sounded delighted at the new subject. "No, no, I want to hear this. I mean, I know how you met, I've heard the stories--"

Luckily, Hanna was onto Rosana's tricks. " Oh, no, you're not getting out of it that easily. I still want all the juicy details about your hubby."

Rosana paused and then said, laughing, "Fine, fine. How's this? I'll tell my story if Emmanuel tells his first."

Immediately, Hanna's pale eyes were on Emmanuel, wide and pleading. He could feel himself relenting already, his stomach sinking along with his resolve.

It wasn't that Emmanuel was… ashamed of Lem. Not exactly. Lem could be a handful, and if Emmanuel's parents had been alive, he wasn't sure what they would think of him, but-- Emmanuel loved him wholeheartedly.

At the heart, the problem was Emmanuel's longing, his unending, eternal hunger for things it was impossible for him to have. It was something he'd always struggled with; As a human, Emmanuel had wanted everything, refused to compromise his dreams or his duty to the crown. That denial was what got him where he ended up, saying goodbye to an orc he didn't know but was half in love with, his previous bakery under siege. He had wanted too much, and he had gotten it.

Now, the wants were simpler, and still so big they swallowed him whole. Mostly, he wanted to keep his people safe-- Not just Nacre, or its scattered remnants, but Rosana and her ilk as well. It was a big ask, unwieldy in its enormity. But in these intimate moments, Emmanuel found his wants growing inward, more selfish with every word.

He wanted a love story. A real one, full of jokes to tell and secrets to keep. He wanted months with Lem, an endless supply of memories and daydreams to indulge in. Anything to prove that he had not imagined this pain nested in his ribs.

It was a want big enough to choke, a longing so complete that Emmanuel was sure only a dead man could carry it. Surely Len could not feel this, too; Emmanuel could not imagine a heart beating while this full.

"There's nothing to tell," Emmanuel said, his gaze lowering from Rosana's. "We met, he left, and I wouldn't follow. And then I died and history repeated itself. I--" Emmanuel sighed. "I barely know him."

"And yet," Rosana teased, "you write him longing love letters in the dark."

Emmanuel hugged his parchment to his chest as Hanna snorted.

"You don't understand." Hanna rolled her eyes and took on an affectation that sounded a bit like Emmanuel's Velasian accent played through an untuned flute. "They have a connection. They fought amidst the ravaging hoards of Nacre--"

"Hey," Emmanuel chastised.

"-- and the drunken mess of Velas--"

"Fair," Rosana said, laughing.

"They had a cigarette on a hotel balcony. There was murder. There was legal intrigue. There was a disproportionate amount of goodbye sex. Truly, the stuff of legends." The sarcasm was palpable.

"Well, there are songs written about less," Rosana said.

"Oh," said Emmanuel, still thinking of all the things his story was missing. "We have one of those."

The little dome of firelight and conversation stilled.

"Who wrote a song about that mess?" Hanna said, breaking the silence only when it was well and truly settled.

"Well, Lem did." Hanna made a noise, a sound of confusion and frustration, so outraged that Emmanuel flushed with shame on pure reflex. "I would have told you! Honestly, I meant to, I just didn't think it was all that important."

"A man writes a song for you, and that's not important?" Hanna scoffed. "I owe Lem an apology; you two absolutely deserve each other."

On his other side, Rosana was looking at Emmanuel with all the rapture of a teen with her first crush.

"Did he play it for you?" she asked, her voice so airy it was almost a whisper.

"Yeah. Before he left for the Archives. It was--" Emmanuel's throat closed with a click as he remembered the wailing notes of the violin, and the tears in the corners of Lem's eyes. At the moment, Emmanuel had ignored the wistfulness of the scene, simply because it made hiding his own agony all that easier, but now he wished he had said something to make Lem a little happier while his words could still reach him. "It was terribly beautiful."

"They're like that, sometimes, aren't they?" Rosana's voice still sounded like she was locked in a dream, but her voice was sadder now. Emmanuel knew that tone; It happened to all pirates at one point or another. Eventually, you learned that the stories that you loved were just that, and that reality was much, much messier. For Emmanuel and his bretheren, it was legends of the sail and sea. He guessed for Rosana, it was love stories.

He didn't envy her.

"Who?" Hanna asked.

"Men with a greater purpose. Men can be beautiful in all sorts of ways--"

"Can they?" Hanna interrupted. "Huh, I'd never noticed."

"But there's something about a man with a mission that can be so etherally beautiful it's... terrifying, really. Like there's something not quite real about them." Rosana sighed, and turned her sad smile to Emmanuel, looking for a little comradeship. "Of course, that's why it's so sad to love them. Their mission is what makes them beautiful, but the things they do in its name--"

"Oh," Emmanuel said, a humorless laugh bubbling up, "you mean like doom an entire city?"

"No," Rosana said. Finally, she was frowning, and Emmanuel wondered if it was the first true emotion he'd ever seen on her face. "Thought I suppose that's part of it. I mean the things only someone completely convinced of their righteousness could achieve."

Emmanuel flinched at the pointed look Hanna shot him. "Wow," she said, her sarcasm lengthening her vowels until the word was a long, poisonous drawl. "I wonder what would happen if two of those men ever fell in love. Huh."

"Shut up, Hanna," Emmanuel said, and pointedly turned his back to her as he rounded on Rosana. "Okay, then. Tell us who Hadrian was before he was beautiful."

There was a woman in Emmanuel's dining room.

Well, alright, the dining room wasn't quite his, and women had been in and out all day--

His brain kicked itself into a rather impressive restart.

Closing had come and gone with the fall of the first moon, and the second had begun to sink over the mountains just as Emmanuel had left the kitchen, holding loaves of day-old bread under his arm and sloppily untying his apron with his other hand.

It was the moonlight that gave her away, after all. It glinted against the strict pale of her air, and cast her shadow dramatically across the floor. She looked good in moonlight, Emmanuel thought, before shaking himself and reminding his brain that, wait, strange woman, and also, gay.

She looked up at him as his stride stumbled to a halt, and her eyes were half-lidded with exhaustion. Even through the fog, there was a glint of intelligence there that unsettled Emmanuel; He'd only ever met two people that smart, and one of them had been brutally murdered. The other was his idiot boyfriend, who had technically helped with the murdering, so, you know. 50/50.

As she studied him, and the silence stretched to a breaking point. Emmanuel shifted awkwardly under her gaze.

"Um." And that, unfortunately, was a Lem 'um', which struck Emmanuel as rather rich of his subconscious, given that they had yet to spend a full two days in each other's presence.  "We're closed, ma'am."

She sighed, a tired little sound that made him wince. It spoke of more than just a missing night's rest. That was bone deep, guilt and shame and duty, and he knew it all too well. "I'm not here for your bread, baker."

"Well, good." He placed a hand protectively on cold crust. "It's been claimed."

That seemed to amuse her. At least, she smiled, and her gaze drifted down to the bread before cutting back up to Emmanuel's face-- A little less tired, now, a little more keen. The wariness began to have a sharpness on Emmanue's tongue.

"Taking it to your friends at the camps?"

Emmanuel's shoulders rose like the proverbial hackles. Yes, he brought bread to the refugees from Nacre, but he always paid, and it would have only been thrown out, anyway. His owner had no quarrel with Emmanuel's "charitable leanings", and Emmanuel had hoped that was all it would ever be seen as. But it was only a short logical jump to 'he is one of Them', fake accent be damned, and Emmanuel wasn't going to pin his well-being on this particular woman's ability to 'look the other way'.

"Is there a problem?" Emmanuel asked, making sure his vowels were Velasian-tight.

The woman laughed. "I'm sorry, it's just that you sound ridiculous."

Emmanuel huffed, letting the unfamiliar syllables fall. "Who are you to tell me--"

"Darling," the woman said, and he heard it on her tongue, now. Something said she was letting him. "I would know. Leave it there."

Velasian, then. That made sense. Emmanuel hadn't planned to sell his (rather terrible) lie to any actual Velasians, but the Ordennans kept marching, and suddenly they were everywhere. Emmanuel's bread was running even more thin, lately.

"My accent isn't that bad." Lem had liked it, anyway.

She ignored his protests, anyway, instead letting her eyes drop back down to the bread. "Do you bring them food every night?"

"I'm sorry to be rude," Emmanuel said, not sorry at all, "but who are you?"

Her placid face did not so much as twitch. "I am Rosana, of Velas. Just a refugee, trying to get to know the town. That's all."

The settling of the Velasian refugees had troubled Emmanuel as he watched them approach over the hills just outside of Rosemerrow. It was hard to come by food and shelter for his own people as it was; competition would mean a lot of suffering, and if things got bad enough, a few actual deaths. The very thought was mind-boggling. Struggle for food was common in Nacre, so much so that a tour of duty as one of Brandish's pirateers was something of a rite of passage, but no one ever starved themselves to Tristero. It was barbaric.

Reality outside of Nacre, Emmanuel was starting to understand, was more than a little barbaric.

Emmanuel's unease wasn't settled afterwards, either-- The few of his kinsmen who had gotten employ since settling in Rosemerrow had gotten the absolute dredges of the city, or else lied their way to it, like Emmanuel had. The Velasians, while still not considered citizens, at least had the advantage of not carrying Tristero's Gift.

"You broke into my shop, Rosana of Velas. This is a very different place then where I'm from, but I don't really think that counts at sightseeing."

"Really?" Rosana leaned forward, propping her head on her hand. Her smile was sleepy and warm, in a way that made Emmanuel very, very afraid. "I can't think of anything more informative than seeing what the most dangerous man in town does when the darkness really settles."

Emmanuel's laughter was brief and hysterical, but sharp enough that the shadowy figures outside began to stir. "I'm not..." He wasn't sure when he had lost his breath, but it was certainly very far away from here.

Him, dangerous? He was just a baker! And, yes, he had once been a pirateer, but he'd been a, frankly, useless one, what with the barely being able to fight and falling head over heels with a charming terrorist. There were wizards and politicians and giant hyenas in this town, and Rosana, who looked like she could murder him without getting blood on her gown, thought he was dangerous?

Honestly, he felt a little faint.

For the first time since Emmanuel had laid eyes on her, Rosana seemed unsure of herself. Well, good, he thought sullenly. It was about time they were on the same page about something. Sad it had to be utter confusion, but, oh well. Common ground, and all that.

"I was told...." Rosana's voice dipped lower, as if to keep the nonexistent patrons from hearing. "I was told the leader of the Nacre refugees was a pirate."

"There are so many things wrong with that sentence, I don't even know where to begin," Emmanuel said, his indignation finally giving him his voice back.

"Try the ending; That would be novel."

Emmanuel drew himself up to his entire, not quite impressive, height. "First of all, I was not a pirate. I was a pirateer." Rosana didn't even need to ask the question, just looked at him, a little askance. Emmanuel sighed. "A pirate, but in service of the crown. I suppose. It's the honor of the thing, really."

"Honor," Rosana said, drawing the word out like she really wanted to relish in its awfulness. "Still. They were right, when they called you a pirate, then?"

"I wasn't the only one," Emmanuel said. He could hear the whine in his own voice; Suddenly he felt very much like when his mother had scolded him for sneaking fresh tarts and burning his fingertips on them. "There were loads of us, really. It was kind of a... military scholarship program."

Confusion settled on Rosana's face again. "I'm sorry?"

"Right, they don't have scholarships, anymore. Or tuitions. Or.... Universities." Emmanuel rocked back on his heels. "They, ah--"

Rosana raised a single, imperious hand, and Emmanuel ground to a halt. "I don't actually care why you did what you did, pirate." Emmanuel opened his mouth to protest, but the hand twitched, and he thought better of it. "I just want to speak to you on behalf of my people."

"Right." That had been his second quibble. "You know I'm not actually the leader of anything, right?"

He had hoped that he could at least confuse her a little more with his correction, but Rosana seemed unphased by the truth. If anything, she just looked even more smug. "And why do you think that, de Salle?"

"I--" Proving the universally accepted was far beyond Emmanuel's paygrade. "Because I'm not."

"And yet, when asked, almost every one of your people said they followed you." At Emmanuel's resulting floundering, Rosana's smile went a bit more gentle. "I'm afraid leadership isn't what it once was."

"Why would they...." Emmanuel's mind was overtaken by a long list of his own mistakes. "Why would they choose me?"

"It's not that simple. Rosemerrow is so eager to ignore the rest of Hieron, Emmanuel, and that gives them the power to pretend they will get the chance to choose their next leader. But the rest of Hieron, including your people, knows-- In times like these, leaders aren't chosen, and they certainly aren't born. They just are."

Emmanuel sighed. "That doesn't seem like a very stable form of government."

Rosana smirked, but her eyes, still so tired, held no mirth. "It's not a very stable world."

"Oh, well, that makes okay, then." Despite his protest, though, Emmanuel was already starting to resign himself to being Nacre's de facto representative. Perhaps that was why they had named him such; It was probably no secret that Emmanuel did not have much heart to deny his county, however fractured, anything.

And now he was going to be running it.

Fuck.

Rosana's dark eyes watched him approach the table she sat at. Emmanuel shuffled along on sore feet, and, after setting his staling bounty on the table, sank into the chair next to her. "Alright, so." He steeled himself for his next sentence. "What else do they say about this leader of theirs?"

He should have known to be suspicious when she tilted her head at him just so. "Only that you eloped with Lem King the night before he held your Queen down and watched his friend slit her throat."

Emmanuel choked. "That is not--"

"I know, dear." Rosana put a gentle hand on Emmanuel's wrist. "I've no end to the things I know about the Queenkiller's adventure, and I rather think Lem would have had a hard time keeping things to himself if he'd married a pirate."

Emmanuel stared at her unblinkingly for a moment, and then closed his eyes, briefly. "Next time, perhaps lead with the mutual friend, next time you pop out of the shadows."

"So he is just a friend, then?"

"Yes. No. We're not-- We're certainly not married. It's complicated." Talking about politics had been easier than talking about his love life. "He's just not here," Emmanuel finished, weakly.

Being married doesn't make the leaving any easier, I'm afraid," Rosana said. Her eyes shifted out of focus for a moment and Emmanuel shivered as she stared at something beyond him and his shop. After a moment, Rosana shook herself, and sighed. "I'm sorry. It's been a long year."

Emmanuel had to agree. A year ago, he didn't know the true reach of Ordenna, or that somewhere out there was an orc who would turn his entire world upside down. Nacre had been whole and thriving. He had been alive, truly alive.

A year ago, Hieron had been a whole other world.

"Are you... married to an Archivist?" Emmanuel asked, carefully.

Rosana laughed. "No, I made the unfortunate mistake of marrying a man of the church. But he's worked with Lem a time or two, and I've heard all the stories. They have the same soul, I think. Pigheaded and too damn trusting."

Emmanuel thought about Fero in a church and dismissed the thought before it could even form.

"I take it he's not with you now?"

Her mouth drew into a tight, thin line. "I didn't come here to talk about my marriage, Master La Salle."

"No," Emmanuel said. "You just came to talk about my hypothetical one."

Rosana didn't even have the propensity to look ashamed.

"I am at my wit's end, trying to provide for my people. You know what these people are like. What would you have me do?"

"Don't march in here, planning to use Lem against me, for one."

Rosana sighed. "I admit, that was... badly done of me." She shifted, her eyes sinking back into the shadows. "But my people are dying, La Salle. Even worse, sometimes they wake back up again. I need your knowledge. And, like it or not, you need us."

She was right.

Ordenna's influence had made Rosemerrow's cold shoulder even crueler, and the people of Nacre were shunned when they were not being hunted. The Velasians had the fortune of connection, and the unobtainable advantage of being 'uncursed'.

With a camp of Velasians at his back, Emmanuel would finally have the leverage to start integrating his people into Rosemerrow society, one by one. The tempation was undeniable.

But still, Nacre had been in isolation for a reason, and Emmanuel had been betrayed by his fair share of Velasians.

"And what exactly would you want in return?" Emmanuel sighed, and looked wryly at the stale bread on the table. "Old bread? Dead flesh?"

"You know things about the plague that I could not even conceive," Rosana said, her voice falling quieter. She, like the other mortal beings of Hieron, was not quite ready to speak of the undead so casually. "And your people still outnumber mine. Add that to your reputation..."

"Not this again," Emmanuel groaned, until Rosana cut him off with a laugh.

"Honestly is well and good, La Salle, but I need to teach you the value of a well-placed exaggeration."

Emmanuel thought, fondly, of Lem's voice, spinning wilde tales out of nothing but a vague suggestion. Emmanuel knew the value, but he couldn't imagine he'd ever have Lem's talent for it.

Or, apparently, Rosana's.

"So that's it, then? You save my people from the leprosy of Adelaide's gift, and I become your cursed pirate king?"

Rosana shrugged, her pale hair cascading around her shoulders. "That's about it, yeah."

Politics were so confusing.

It's not... entirely in Emmanuel's hands. Lem is still himself enough to know that the whole thing would just end up being a large pile of resentment and stale bread. But Emmanuel is a terrifyingly big part of it, because Emmanuel represents everything that Lem never even thought to dream of, before they met.

A home, for one. A home that's just his, and maybe one day just theirs. Sheets that he buys and cleans himself, the sun shining through white linen. A husband, maybe, his big hands marked with old callouses. Hours, days, without equations and variables and notes tumbling around in his head. Something to look forward to besides another chapter, another road. Warm tea and scones in the morning. A familiar smile.

There was something, once, that Lem thought he'd found with Fero. Not a home, but something almost like it, but now when Lem dreams, the broken pieces of their relationship seem like shadowy echoes. Like something he forces, when all he really wants to do is sit, and breathe, and let Emmanuel make him tea.

"Find a bakery," Lem repeats, his frustration turning the words into a snarl.

He's found his bakery, thank you. That's the whole problem.

Forget Lem's mission. Forget Hieron, forget the Gods, forget Hadrian's never-ending existential quandaries and the trouble it always gives them. Wipe the slate clean, and it is just Lem, and he still cannot just go home.

There's a bakery that needs to be saved.

The Heat and the Dark sits atop Rosemerrow, and every time Lem thinks of it, that sick purple against the sky, his stomach lurches. Sometimes, he cannot even wrap his mind around the concept of it, and he has to thing of it in small, sad pieces. The doorway where he saw Emmanuel again is Nothing. The blanket that smelled of tea is Nothing. The kitchen, where Emmanuel pushed him against the counter and kissed him until the tension melted from his shoulders, is Nothing. A thousand dreams, suddenly Impossible.

Lem was never a philosopher, but now he wonders if that means they never existed at all.

He doesn't suppose it matters, really. He's finally taking Fero's advice; Now is all that matters. And right now? His Future is Nothing. There are no bakeries for him, no great audiences, or Kings to swear fealty. Lem has exactly on thing left to his name: