Essek Thelyss & The Mighty Nein

Your grace shines through the peeling pain / and that will be your death.  Damned by the damned / and cursed by the cursed / Deliver the kiss of poisoned breath [Damned (by the Damned) - Edge of Sanity]

essek does not remember if his mother would hold him. he imagines not— such distraction cannot be demanded of the umavi. of the illustrious den thelyss.

he learned to walk quietly so fast, so young— the noise bothered the umavi if he ran, if he fell. if he cried. his father taught him to float not much older— he learned so fast, his father had said to him. so smart.

but it was a parlor trick— his father would use it to scare the umavi— his mother, he used to call her that more, what changed, when did they break so completely— drawing up behind her when she was hard at work and surprising her, using the disruption to draw her away and towards essek.

when he first started to float again, weeks after the search party had returned, it made her smile, if sadly. now, the umavi does not blink.

(what they don’t understand, he thinks, watching the mighty nein watch his feet touch the ground, is that no one else does it. that i would stop, if i could.)

that all is to say, the last time the umavi held essek was at his father’s funeral. he will come back, essek did not tell her, because it was not true. it was the last time anyone held him, until caleb pulls him in, too, scattering their papers so very haphazardly for what it is they bear.

caleb widogast, child of the empire, failed assassin with his lilting voice and his long red hair and his blue blue eyes, holds essek for the first time in a century. he smells of dust, of desperate sweat, of chocolate and of cat.

essek does not move. in his mind he holds on so tight his fingers pale. in his mind caleb widogast, failed assassin and failure in absolutely nothing besides, holds onto essek’s hand as they descend the stairs, and the expositor scrutinizes all she wishes.

in his mind they do not ask him to take them away from him. in his mind they ask if he would like to come.