lmao oh no

/this takes place in the past, before the lions arch attack

“Are you tired?”

“Mm. No,” Aydin answers too quickly, to make his point known. The warmaster rolls away in the bed again, naturally restless and unable to let the night settle between the two of them. Siocanh has come to accept his flickering- this hummingbird state of the other determining what their company means.

Siocanh simply hums, stretches his legs out under the sheets. He watches Aydin’s back breathe, spine set straight.

“Have you ever wished a moment would last forever?”

Siocanh wishes, in that moment, that some angles refracted through Aydin were easier to understand. He admires him for them, in his limits. Still- “I would believe that’s why it’s a moment,” He begins, and Aydin is facing him again, eyes bright, “There are small things to remember, but you’ll never be at that point, at that time, ever again.”

He turns to the warmaster better. “There are many possibilities. Tomorrow, something could completely change how one sees things.” Siocanh pauses again, considering Aydin’s weathering expression, his silence.

He knows Aydin enough- that the future makes him violent and brittle. “At least, that’s the way I look at it,” Siocanh finishes, tone soft. Aydin closes his eyes, and Siocanh is lost.

“I wasn’t- asking for any reason.” What’s said comes out an almost-whisper, a careless tumble of breath.

Standing in the grey morning’s height, Ethiron watches the skyline illuminate. Someone is supporting his. Without his staff it’s easier to fall. He does not.

(The snow is melting with contempt for light that comes too early. It would be blinding, otherwise.)

Ethiron regards that presence from the worlds between their feet. He has come to accept closeness (distance is just gravity. He doesn’t need to explain it completely). It’s not unlike a small, flexible shell of a room. It breathes, like Ethiron does. Shares his thoughts. Malleable, but stays. He tilts his chin downward, eyes already tired from the sun spilling out of clouds.

It is early. Denholm Al’ Golzhed Pike is pulling out his hair.

This was the night she never came back; when the waves swallowed her as she stood completely still-

(It is how he pictured it.) It is better than her new name- ‘Missing’. He stays just as stiff, drowning, knuckling his hair-

Wild, storm-filled eyes take in the room. There is unsettled dust, clinging to the walls and fixtures better left forgotten in tarps and crates. These effects are shown bare now, melting with time as barnacles and rust chew them away until they are all but restless monsters in careless lighting.

There is one shadow that has always stood out to Denholm, a stranger. A small ring, alone, sleeping inside an even smaller but well-decorated box.

“If I go-” I’ll die, “Not yet,” The sound of Aydin’s voice is like smoke sputtering out of chimneys; hot and thick and fading fast from his ears. Siocanh is watching him, standing close. This fear has aged into the palm of the Warmaster’s hand; penned since waking.

I need you, is what Aydin doesn’t say, but his body still tremors- Siocanh hears this nonetheless. But it’s selfish.

Sylloqui remembers bygone mornings in the old fisherman's town.

Elias, whose eyes always looked ahead and beyond her when she spoke. The future will accommodate them. Her quips were always met with their certainty, for without certainty, we have nothing.

Tadhg, who is lightning in all fractals of meaning- so sudden and bright he could never be preserved (or saved), but miracles rarely strike the same place twice,