#philophobia

The sound mingles intermittently with the splash of heavy footfalls that trundle clumsily up the valley’s slope towards the mouth of Tri-Stone’s main tunnel.

Thick, leather boots slip backwards with every step gained as the soles fail to find purchase in the mud, a hinderance that threatens to bring a breathless giant to his knees between noisy hoots of laughter.

“That-!” Karn wheezes through immense lungs as he finally makes it to the tunnel, reaching out a hand to grasp at the slippery stone wall and haul himself underneath the overhang, “-Came out’a nowhere!”

As soon as he passes beneath the lip of jutting rock and into the tunnel proper, the rain stops hammering at the top of his hairless head, leaving the frigid water to dribble in rivulets down the back of his cowl instead where they’re warmed by the youngling’s neck, then rise in gentle curls of steam.

Held securely against Karn’s heaving chest by a damp, gloved palm, you finally pop your head out from behind his thumb, hair plastered firmly to your scalp despite his valiant efforts to shelter you from the worst of the torrent.

At last, between your own bouts of laughter, you manage to keep enough air in to cough out a faltering reply, “You must-! Have slipped over-! Like… seventeen times!” Your sentence is quick to fall away into another hitching breath when you recall – quite vividly – the colourful language that came spewing from Karn’s mouth as he scrambled to get out of the downpour, skidding on the slippery grass and landing on his rear enough times that his tunic is now thoroughly caked in mud, interspersed by the odd green stain.

It was a minor miracle he hadn’t dropped you.

You may be drenched straight through to the bone, but at least your clothes are only flecked with a few spatterings of mud. Poor Karn looks like he’s been dunked up to his waist in a chocolate river.

Not that he minds in the slightest. To Hell with pride. If all it takes is a bit of clumsiness to put this amount of delight on your pretty face, Karn would gladly sacrifice every last ounce of dignity he has left, if only to keep you smiling.

Flopping against the leather-bound fingers at your back, you inhale a long, calming breath and grin widely up into the maker’s sopping-wet face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move that fast,” you tell him, mildly impressed.

“I was tryin’ to get you outt’a the storm!” he quips, grey eyes twinkling with mirth even as they none-too-subtly dart over you from head to toe, surveying the extent of the water-damage.

It was his own folly that he hadn’t noticed the approaching tempest. After emerging from a lava-logged dungeon out near the Eastern edge of Baneswood – the same one he’d left deliberately unexplored so that you could delve into it together – he’d been too busy looking at you to see the roiling black clouds hanging ominously overhead.

His endeavours to keep you tucked under his chest and out of the rain when it had started coming down don’t seem to have helped all that much. The hair on your head sticks flat to your skull, and even your clothes are soaked all the way through, plastered to your skin in wet, wrinkled clumps of fabric that squelch noisily every time you shift in his palm.

Yet every patch of skin that isn’t covered seems to glimmer like diamonds in the soft, grey light….

To a youngling drunk on the afterglow of adventure, unexpected laughter, and who’s hopelessly besotted with his best and only real friend, you’ve never looked more breathtaking than you do right now.

Utterly oblivious to the maker’s captivated stare, you splay a hand across your chest and shoot him a lazy flutter of your lashes, pretending to swoon. “My hero.”

And Karn makes no attempt to disguise the swell of his chest at that.

“You know…” Heaving a sigh, you slouch in the maker’s palm and drape an elbow over the back of his curled fingertips. “… I don’t even care if Thane yells at us for sneaking out. That was the most fun I’ve had in ages!”

Truly, it was. It seems that every adventure you embark upon with Karn at your side is more exhilarating, far riskier, and twice as wild as the last. So much so that you’re half convinced the youngling is actively trying to outdo himself. But this latest venture, plundering the depths of a subterranean dungeon built by makers so ancient they’d make Eideard look young, has got to be among your favourites, if not for the thrill of exploring a stronghold that hasn’t been touched for millennia, then for the company alone.

Karn is the good sort. Funny, encouraging, and absurdly optimistic. You daresay that he was precisely what you needed after you lost Earth and found yourself tucked under the shadowy wing of the Horseman, Death.

Aware that you’re bulldozing straight into the realm of self-deprecation, you’re nonetheless still trying to figure out why the maker would want you as a friend. Why he’s remained adamant on calling you such even though several months have passed since that day you first met him outside the Cauldron. With Humanity restored and Earth no longer completely ruined, you presumed… that was it. You’d made some phenomenal friends and went on some frankly terrifying adventures, and now things would go back to – well, not normal per se, but you didn’t really expect to see him again, nor any of the others.

So, imagine your shock when Vulgrim of all demons, tracked you down on Earth with a message from the makers in Tri-Stone who’d heard of your survival and were imploring you to come back and see them.

Surprised but delighted to visit the beings who’d carved a niche out of their lives to fit you in it, you’d stepped away from the rebuilding efforts on Earth and made your way to their realm, promising the Horsemen that you wouldn’t be away for too long.

Which brings you to what you always knew would be your least favourite part of this visit…

Breathing out a wistful hum, you turn your face to the Vale and peer through the drizzle, roving your gaze up to the vague, yet familiar silhouette of the Tree of Life. It’s infinite branches stretch proudly over the landscape, blotting out a vast swathe of Stonefather’s peak in their vastness, an inescapable beacon that shows you home is always on the horizon.

“I’m glad we got to do one more adventure…” you murmur softly, “…before I have to leave.”

And just like that, the warmth that had been nestling contentedly around Karn’s heart is doused by an ice-cold splash of reality.

Right… leave…

A pair of broad shoulders slump alongside the youngling’s spirits as he remembers that today is the day he’s been dreading for nearly a week.

As is often the folly of youth, he thought he’d have more time…

All of a sudden, the hand you’re sitting in begins to move upwards, and just as you peel your focus off the Tree and turn towards the maker, you promptly find yourself blinking right into two doleful, grey eyes, wide and imploring.

“D’you really have to go?” he asks, looking for all the world like you’ve just told him news far more devastating than your imminent departure.

Slightly taken aback, you blink up at him for a moment, studying the downturned tilt of his mouth and the pinch of wrinkles between his brows, like he’s reluctant to see you leave.

But then, perhaps he’s just being kind. Because to think otherwise might imply that you’re actually someone who people want to have around.

And you just can’t bear to be wrong, can you?

“You know I’d like to stay,” you tell him honestly, “But with rebuilding efforts underway, I can’t really be off Earth for too long.”

A wild understatement. It took forever to get Death to let you out of his sight for more than a few days at a time, longer still to convince him to let you visit your friends in the Forge Lands. As the poor sucker who was ‘lucky’ enough to survive the Apocalypse, and the human who helped Death resurrect Humanity, your presence is frequently sought after to help smooth relations between the Horsemen and your fellow humans.

Karn’s expression somehow crumples even further, and pouting, he mutters, “Wish I could go with you…”

Gradually, your smile grows soft, exuding a particular kind of fondness that only he can provoke.

You know how much he’d love to see Earth for himself. And one day, hopefully someday soon, you’ll get to be the one who shows him.

“We’re working on it,” you console him instead, stroking your palm over the side of his thumb and thinking little of the way it twitches under your touch, “Strife and I are trying to raise the cap on inter-realm crossings, and there’s already talk about letting makers be the first to come over in bulk. God knows we need you guys to help us rebuild, but…”

But humans are suspicious, and with a plausible reason to be. Most are still frightened and wary of the beings that live beyond the Earthen realm, beings who are imminently stronger, older, and bigger than they are.

And they won’t soon forget that it was a Maker, after all, who’d played a major role in the end of the world.

“… But, it’s not gonna happen overnight,” you finish at last.

At that, your colossal friend visibly wilts in front of your eyes, and even his arms start to sag, dipping you further from his face as he casts it sideways and peers glumly out at the rain.

In the ensuing silence, the hiss of tumbling water grows ever more prominent, from a ‘whish’ to a roar, until you too find yourself following the maker’s gaze and twisting your head around to stare at the world beyond your little, dry refuge, wondering when the exhilaration was sucked out of the air and replaced with this cloying melancholy.

Surely the mention of your leaving wouldn’t have dampened the mood so sourly…

Would it?

“Well,” you announce once the quiet has ventured into the realm of ‘uncomfortable’ and you begin fidgeting in the soft leather of the glove beneath your legs, “Guess I’d better say my goodbyes to the others… wait for this rain to stop. And then I’ll be off.”

You risk a glance up at Karn, wincing at the sight of his ears drooping even further towards the ground.

The bob of his throat precedes a twitch in his jaw when he peels his lips apart and issues a sigh into the open air, the sound chased by a wispy, white cloud of his breath as it warms the world around it.

“I hope it never stops…” he murmurs.

Angling your head to one side, you grow still in his palm and ask, “What?”

All of a sudden, those once-soft eyes harden with resolve as Karn swings them back over to you and repeats himself, louder this time, “I said I hope it never stops. The rain. I hope it rains for a hundred years!”

Taken aback, you can do little else but offer an uncertain laugh that dies a quick death when his expression doesn’t change, and you start to realise that he might not be joking.

“Oh…kay?” you drawl out, flicking your eyes back and forth across his tightly-knit brow, “Um, why would you want that?”

Something akin to guilt – a quick, nervous stretch of his mouth – flashes across the youngling’s expression before it disappears just as abruptly. In its place, a rigidity stiffens his features, drawing his lips taut and carving an even deeper furrow between his brows. Then, finally, he works his jaw open and blurts, “So tha’ you’d never have to leave.”

Once again, you can’t think of a response fast enough to stave off the oppressive silence that wastes no time in reclaiming its lost space between you, at least until it’s broken by another stilted laugh.

“Alright, what’s going on?” you try to ask lightly, only to fall so wide of the mark that you end up sounding apprehensive instead, “It’s not like you to be this gloomy…” Then, deciding that’s too serious, you make an attempt at levity. “You’re starting to sound like Death.”

You expect the usual chuckle at the Horseman’s expense.

What you get instead is the rattle of a metal pauldron as the maker raises his arm in a shrug and snatches his gaze away from you, glaring steadfastly at the wall over your head with his jaw jutted forwards.

“Maybe I just hate it when you’re not around,” he sniffs petulantly, “Maybe we all do.”

Wait… What?

For a decidedly awkward stretch of time, you find yourself at a loss for words, struck nearly dumb by the highly exaggerated notion he’s just proposed.

You’re well-aware that Karn is often prone to hyperbolising his feats in battle and adventure, but this? To say that he and the others hate it when you’re not around?

Hate’s a strong word.

And there’s a nagging voice in the back of your head telling you that he’s just tossing any old excuse at the wall to see what’ll make you stick around a little bit longer.

But what you don’t yet understand is why.

Being around friends is lovely, sure, but everyone wants their space eventually, even if that space stretches on from weeks to months to years without a phone-call or a text that says, ‘Hey! Just checking in, you alive?’

… You know what it’s like. You know your company can start to grow stale after a while. It’s why none of your old school friends reached out later in life. You were their friend on the playground and in the classroom, but never a good enough friend for them to recall after the exams were over and you all went your separate ways. A stand-in, you suppose. Liked, but only when you just so happen to be around…

Perhaps, you try to reason, Karn just hasn’t quite made it to that threshold yet. Which is surprising after the solid week he’s spent practically attached to your hip like the world’s clingiest limpet, barely letting the other makers steal you away for more than an hour at a time.

So, maybe he’s not weary of your company yet, but that’s no reason to embellish quite so glaringly.

“Okay,” you say at last with a flippant snort that all but broadcasts your dismissal of his claim, “Now you’re just exaggerating.”

Tusks crack audibly against his canines as the maker’s jaw snaps shut and the muscle jumps, clenching tighter than a vice. Nostrils flaring, he uses his shoulder to shove himself off the wall and draws you down so he can better loom over your head, squinting hard from underneath a heavily creased brow with a glare that would look more fitting on Thane than on the happy-go-lucky youngling.

It’s a shift that’s startling enough for a twinge of unease to roll across your guts.

“Oh?” he blurts sharply, too sharply, in a voice that – again – doesn’t seem to suit your jolly giant friend in the slightest, “Wanna know exactly what we’re gonna do after you’re gone?”

You don’t think you’ve seen Karn this agitated since that corrupted custodian almost got the jump on you in the Foundry…

Before you can utter a single word, one gargantuan hand pulls away from the other and curls abruptly around your waist, hoisting you out of its twin’s palm in favour of depositing you on the floor of the tunnel, though all with the same level of care that you might set down a porcelain vase. That, at least, reassures you, as does the fact that he takes a second to steady you on your feet before pulling away and standing to his full height once again.

He’s released you, it seems, to free up his hands so that he can raise them and count off on each finger as he begins to elaborate, his voice echoing down the tunnel and bouncing off the damp, glistening walls.

“First,” he starts, sucking down a noisy breath and knocking off his forefinger, “Valus’ll be so busy sulkin’, he’s gonna refuse to forge anythin’ fer at least a week. Alya’s gonna be in such a foul mood, it won’t be worth talkin’ to ‘er. Muria’s plants’ll wilt ‘cause she’s so worried ‘bout what you’ll be gettin’ up to on Earth, an’ Thane’ll be polishin’ that practice sword you use ‘cause he says it ‘needs to be perfect’ for when you come back!”

Upon his final word, the youngling runs out of steam, blowing a long, hissing wheeze from his lungs like a great engine pulling into its last stop. He’s breathing hard, harder than he ought to be, as if he’s been holding something heavy in his chest for a long time and it’s finally starting to work its way out.

He knows precisely how his people are going to react to your departure because it happened the first time you left them, whisked away by the Tree of Life to realms unknown. And then a second time, when you were reunited with the village after Death took a long fall over an even longer drop into the Well of Souls and you were brought to Tri-Stone by that short, feathery fellow with the mannerisms of a crow.

The makers, collectively contented to have you become a permanent feature in their lives, felt their world shift out from under their feet when the Horseman inexplicably returned to bring you home to Earth.

Karn remembers. Remembers the withdrawn disappointment that turned Alya quiet for a month, and the way her brother would make odd, keening noises behind that metal slab for a mask from time to time, resolutely ignoring all of the tools strewn about their shared forge.

He remembers how the entire village seemed to shrink in on itself, the very stone turning inwards as if to hide the grief on its face. Everything about Tri Stone felt so much smaller without you in it. The irony of which wasn’t lost on him at the time.

Karn… had taken it hardest of all. He never got to tell you… Well, there were a lot of things he didn’t get to tell you. Some of them he still has yet to confess. His own indecision had swiftly turned into regret after you went home, and he was stuck on this side of the Tree, a fresh hole in his heart where your presence used to be, bundled up like treasure behind his ribcage, a hole that was neatly filled in once more when you returned to him just a week ago.

Standing uncertainly on the ground near his boots, you, in the meantime, have shied away from the wake of his outburst, your mouth hanging open gormlessly and your heart thumping an erratic rhythm behind your eardrums.

Whatever remnants of a happier mood had followed you inside the tunnel have been completely washed away.

There’s a very odd phenomenon occurring in your brain; You can understand every word that Karn just said, while at the same time comprehending absolutely nothing of the meaning behind them. This is news to you. Why on Earth would they just…?

“But….” Wetting your lips, you squint up at Karn and cant your head gently towards him, an inquiring gesture, seeking clarity, or at the very least a bit of elaboration. “Why?”

You jump out of your skin when he throws his arms out wide and tosses his head back as a laugh bursts out of his mouth, entirely humourless and near-enough frantic, like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. “’Cause we’ll MISS you!”

Which is… incomprehensible, frankly.

Why would the makers - a group of good-hearted, impressive, powerful, courageous, and downright extraordinary giants – miss you?

You’re you.

Oh, you’re not the worst human alive, though certainly not the best by a long stretch. People don’t miss you. It just wasn’t the way of things on Earth, a fact you’ve had years to come to terms with. Hell, you aren’t even particularly bothered by it anymore, perfectly content in the knowledge that when you are ‘missed,’ it’s only because you’re needed to play ambassador between species.

If Karn is to be believed, then the makers in Tri-Stone are breaking a pattern that’s been consistent for your entire life.

And while you couldn’t ask for better friends in them, you’re downright certain that they could find a better friend than you. Somehow, somewhere along the line, you’ve managed to convince yourself that, at best, they only like you when you happen to be around…

Huh… Sound familiar?

Reconciling what Karn has just admitted with what you know to be true leaves you scowling at the ground, perplexed and cold, growing colder by the second without his palms around you to keep the worst of the rain’s chill from settling in.

Suppressing a shudder, you clutch at your own elbows and scornfully huff, “What’s to miss?”

Maybe the cold is why your response came out frostier than it was supposed to.

Droplets of rainwater trickle down to gather at hem of Karn’s tunic, falling to the ground around him with soft ‘plips.’ He’s watching you again, and you must be cutting a pretty wretched figure because he lowers his arms and lets them dangle at his sides, the incredulity softening to genuine concern.

“Everythin’,” he breathes.

An explosive and dubious snort jumps out of you before you can think to catch it.

Pinning his ears back, Karn argues, “S’true!”

And while you don’t reply with words, you still throw your brows up and dip your chin, glancing off to the furthest wall, entirely unconvinced.

The maker grits his teeth. Fine. If that’s how you’re going to be… Perhaps it’s time he stops being a coward and gives you some irrefutable evidence.

“I-… I lo-…“ Cutting himself off with a grimace, Karn clenches his eyes shut tight and gives himself a mental kick.

So much for being brave.

Slowly, he peels them open again and sweeps a massive hand out towards you, holding it still, palm to the roof of the tunnel as if he’s trying to entreat you over to his side of the argument. “They all love you,” he croaks.

You can’t help it.

You flinch, eyes darting up to the maker in palpable alarm.

It isn’t quite panic that flashes like solar-fire across your chest at that, but it’s from the same vein.

The ‘L’ word.

Equal parts intimidating and wonderful. In this instance however, it feels as if he’s poised the word towards you like the business end of a sword.

“Come on Karn,” you force a carefree chuckle that almost gets stuck somewhere halfway up your throat, and comes out a rigid, wooden sound, harder to ignore than the uninvited squeeze of your chest, “I mean, sure I’m tolerable… But loveable? That’s…” You pause, sucking air in through your gritted teeth. “A bit of a stretch.”

Something in him gives a whimper and shrinks back in dismay at your comment. Then, he immediately shifts his weight forwards, collapsing onto his knees with a thud and planting each hand on the ground at your sides, trying not to read into the tiny step you take away from him.

“You…” The youngling chuffs, letting his forehead pucker miserably. “You don’t believe me.”

An unanticipated explosion of noise nearly rocks him backwards onto his heels.

“Can we-! Not! Do this!?” you exclaim shrilly, forcing out yet another self-conscious laugh as you wheel away from him, unaccustomed to feeling quite so exposed.

Because it’s awkward. It’s unpleasant. And it dredges up feelings you’d rather not let see the light of day, insecurities better left dead and buried for your own sake and the solace of the people around you.

You were both in such a good mood earlier.

What happened?

“Do what?” Karn retorts, nudging his head to the side to try and recapture your focus, “Tell you you’re important to us?”

“That’s not what you said.”

“I said they love you. What’s wrong with that?”

Nothing.

Everything.

Nothing wrong with saying it except for who he said it to.

With a brusque shake of your head, you take another step away from him and closer to the mouth of the tunnel, to the cascading sheet of water that tumbles from its overhang. The spray hits the ground and skims up the front of your legs.

It isn’t too late to salvage the levity, you reckon. If there’s one thing you’re halfway good at, it’s knocking a tough conversation off its trajectory and swinging it back to safer waters.

“… Nothing, buddy,” you shrug, falling back on the nickname he seems so fond of – although maybe he’s only fond of it because it came from you. “Nothing worth getting all worked up over anyway.”

Plastering on a grin that aches at the edges and feels as fruitless an endeavour as stapling jelly to a wall, you swivel around on a heel until you’re facing the maker once again, still on his knees, still grimacing down at you like you’re the most pitiful thing he’s seen all day.

The crooked arch of your smile gives a twitch. “Forget it… C’mon,” you sigh, gesturing at the long tunnel behind him as you begin to shuffle around his flank, “Let’s just… get back to the village, yeah? We can dry off in the forge. Warm up, and you can-“

“-No.”

You’re stopped dead in your tracks. Not from any conscious decision, but because the encompassing warmth of an immense palm sweeps up behind you for all of a second before a thumb and two fingers pinch the back of your shirt, pulling you to a halt directly beside the maker.

He’s leant across himself, snagging you gently in his paw but frowning hard at the ground between his knees.

Blinking widely, you manage to crank your neck around enough to look at him in profile, your spine rigid against the tips of his fingers. “No?” you ask.

And then, you’re being dragged, just slowly enough that you’re able to stay on your feet as you’re forced to tread backwards, heel over toe, offering only a few, indignant noises of complaint until you find yourself standing in between Karn’s knees once more.

“Hey! Do you mind?” you grunt, reaching over your shoulder to shove at his gloved fingertips.

Blessedly, they come away without much fuss, but his hand doesn’t venture far, resting on its side behind you on the ground and curling up like a leather barricade, hemming you in, removing one more angle of escape.

Crafty bastard.

Still, despite the frown on his face, his eyes are darting from you to the floor and back again, a nervous habit you began to notice after he’d say something he wasn’t sure you’d approve of.

“I-I don’t want to,” he stutters, “Forget it, I mean.” As if he might have been talking about anything else.

Under normal circumstances, he’d want nothing more than to ‘forget it,’ if that’s what you want. To go back to how things were not five minutes ago when he wasn’t at risk of jeopardising the best friendship he’s ever had.

When was the last time he ever said ‘no’ to you for fear of causing any sort of rift? He wracks his brains but turns up nothing.

Maker’s bones, he really does have it bad, doesn’t he?

So much so, apparently, that he’s deemed the risk of losing your friendship a lesser price to pay than the risk of having you believe you’re just tolerable. And if the only way to change your perspective is to reach into his chest, scoop out his heart and wrap your gentle hands around it and tell you, ‘This, right here. This belongs to only you,’ then so be it.

So, prying his clenched jaws apart, he inhales a vast lungful of air to steady the fluttering in his chest and locks you in his sights, holding your gaze without a thought to let it go until he’s said his piece.

“I’m not done talkin’,” he tells you with his faux-authority, “And you’re not done listenin’ to what I have to say.”

“Karn,” you start, blinking up at the once-passive maker like he’s grown a second head.

But he doesn’t give you a chance to say any more than that.

Lifting his free hand from the ground, he jabs the tip of his forefinger into your chest, just hard enough to jostle you as he demands, “How come you don’t think we love you?”

“Karn-“

“-‘Cause we do,” he steamrolls over your feeble protest, “The others-… they don’t just tolerate you. They think the world o’you.”

Fists clenching at your sides, you retort, “Doesn’t mean they love me, Karn.”

“They do,” he insists with a flash of his tusks.

Your own teeth are on display now, mirroring his frustrated grimace. “Stop saying that!” you argue waspishly, taking an inadvertent step back only for your calves to bump into the palm behind you.

“Why!?” he presses, “S’it really that hard to believe!?”

“And what if it is!?”

“It shouldn’t be!”

“They don’t love me, Karn!” you finally snap, raising your voice until it echoes down the tunnel and reverberates back into your ears, your own words reaffirmed shrilly by the cold, stone walls, “Nobody does!”

The maker suddenly adjusts his weight, and he pitches forwards, looming over you with his lips curled back and his eyes burning with the fanatical desperation of a man afraid of never being heard. Slamming his fist against the ground, never-minding the way you recoil into the cup of the palm behind you, he finally bellows out the words he’s been holding onto since the day you stumbled over that far horizon and into his life.

“I do!”

…. …… ……… It’s… funny.

When Karn imagined how this confession might go, he pictured it happening at sunset, the pair of you laying side by side on the soft grass of the vale, sleepy and satisfied from another ruin ticked off the proverbial list as you bask in the fiery hues of Lios and Helia’s rays as they descend below Stonefather’s Peak. Or perhaps he’d tell you at twilight, after the rest of the village have retired and all is soft silence save for the insects chirruping in the creek, and the lunar thrips dance over your heads whilst you sit and talk in hushed tones on the wall surrounding Muria’s garden.

Maybe, on occasion, he’s even dared to imagine how you would react to the news. Naturally, in his mind’s eye, you’d be thrilled. Eyes glistening with tears, you’d tell him you can’t believe he waited so long to fess up, and then you’d climb into his lap and declare with all the strength in your chest that you love him too. Always have. Ever since that day he met you outside the Cauldron.

This however… This was not what he imagined. Not even close. Spilling his most closely-guarded secret into the cold, lonely air of a tunnel with the rain cascading in waterfalls as a backdrop. And you, staring up at him with your eyes as dull and despondent as the weather outside your little refuge. You don’t look thrilled.

In fact, the only similarity he can draw between his fantasy and this reality is that there’s moisture glistening behind your lashes.

Exhaling raggedly, Karn slumps backwards onto the heels of his boots, tusks jutting out from his drooped lower lip.

“I love you,” he repeats croakily, searching, coaxing...

Gradually, the line that’s cut between your brows starts to lengthen, cleaving deeper into your skin, and he finds himself holding onto the air in his chest, peering down at you unblinkingly.

“No,” you utter in a voice as blunt as the business end of his hammer, “You don’t.”

Hurts about as much as a good slug from it too.

“Yes, I do,” he insists with an urgency that puts your back up.

Snapping into motion, you kick your trembling limbs into gear and storm sideways, escaping the breadth of his palm and back-peddling towards the vale once more, unaware of much beyond putting distance between yourself and these feelings of vulnerable confusion.

As you stumble backwards, you try to steel your heart against the maker crumpling in front of you. “You don’t love me, Karn,” you protest, slapping a splayed hand against your chest to add, “I don’t even love me. Hell, I barely even like me, why in the world would you?”

Hasty as a giant his size can be, Karn suddenly scrambles upright, getting his boots underneath him and taking a lurching step after you, one of his arms stretching out to bridge the gap between you. “How can you say that?” he pleads, and then, “Have you met yourself? How could I not love you!?”

You can think of several very harsh reasons off the top of your head, though none that you want to give voice to lest he think you’re looking for pity. You’re not.

You’re just… spooked.

Hell, Karn is certainly trying to approach you like you’re a horse that’s just seen a plastic bag, palms held out, treading carefully after you as you retreat further from him.

From one step to the next, an icy rush of water smacks the top of your skull without warning, and you let out a gasp of shock as the freezing rain spills down your shoulders and over your back until you’re once again drenched, exposed to the elements. You don’t stop though, not even when you nearly slip on the mud underfoot. You just continue moving backwards, watching the dark curtain of water that conceals the tunnel entrance.

“Wait!” a voice calls out, fighting to be heard over the deluge. Suddenly, Karn’s massive silhouette emerges from behind the curtain and diverges the water into two paths, letting them come together again as he steps out into the vale, his boot prints utterly swallowing the ones you’ve left behind.

“Where’re you going?” he begs, voice cracking.

Where are you going? Where do you usually retreat to when you’ve been blindsided and you need some time to sort through the squall of thoughts trying to race around in your head?

“I’m going home, Karn,” you tell him defeatedly, stumbling around on the slippery mud until you’re facing the far end of the vale.

The splashing of Karn’s boots grows quiet for a moment before it picks up again, hurrying towards you.

“But… what about the others?”

“The others’ll be fine!” you blurt, “Just tell them I said goodbye and had to rush! It’s not like this is the last time I’ll ever see you guys!”

Karn’s stomach gives an unpleasant lurch at the mere notion of never seeing you again, and as the seconds pass and he finds his insides tightening under winding tendrils of dread that squeeze at his guts and pluck at the nerves around his heart, the maker’s strength is sapped straight out of him, leaving him to trundle to a slow, unsteady halt halfway down the slope.

He wants to kick himself. Kind of wishes Thane had caught the pair of you sneaking out of Tri Stone if it meant he wouldn’t have stuck his foot in his mouth and scared you off. Alya’s always complaining about him and his big mouth… He’s never regretted opening it as much as he does now though.

All he can do is try to make things right again.

“I’m…! I’m sorry,” he croaks at the back of your retreating head, too softly for you to catch over the pouring rain and howling wind.

Blinded by the water hammering against his face, he raises a hand and squints underneath it, cupping the other around his mouth to call, “I’m sorry!”

Your figure, a tiny blob of colour against the greyscale landscape, slows to a staggered halt.

Bolstered by the pause, he dares to take a hesitant step towards you, hollering for the third time, “I’m sorry…! I didn’t- … Look, just-! Just come back! You’ll catch ‘yer death if you walk to the Tree in this!”

It’s the concern in his voice that hits you hardest, leaving you colder than the very real chill settling into your bones from the rain.

You’ve made him think he’s the one who has anything to apologise for…

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

He’s your friend. One of the best you’ve ever had. It isn’t his fault you’re so full of doubt that it’s more comical than tragic.

To doubt is what makes you Human, you remember Death telling you some time ago when you were trying to come to grips with his own existence, for once without a hint of derision in his tone, just a matter-of-factness that reminded you of how old people talk about the weather, Of all the Universe’s species, I’ve never known any to cast as much doubt as humans.

‘Can you blame us?’ you’d thought privately at the time. How could we not after finding out that every bit of wonder we thought might be real – magic, superheroes, knights and dragons, Good triumphing over Evil - they all turned out to be well-meaning lies invented by adults to make our childhoods just a little more magical before the real truth set in. That the world isn’t such a fantastical place after all.

Then again… in a Universe that has since proved to you that magic does exist, as do angels, demons and giants, why does the concept of being loved seem so implausible?

If you ever figure out the answer to that, Jamaerah might have to make you an honorary scribe.

Lost to your musings, you almost don’t notice the moment when the rapid drumbeats of rain on top of your head comes to a stop.

You certainly notice the shadow that falls over you though, blanketing you in a muted darkness and finally drawing your gaze up off the glistening grass underfoot.

Craning your neck back, you find Karn standing over you with one of his bulky arms raised and his hand poised above your head, fingers splayed out like the prongs of an umbrella, keeping the worst of the rain off you and letting it drizzle harmlessly over his glove instead. The gesture is sweet, knocking some of the wind out of your sails.

Together, you must paint a pretty dismal picture.

He meets your gaze for all of a second before he turns it to the ground again, struck shy in the face of the woman who quite literally ran from his declaration of love.  

“Come back to town with me,” he all but pleads, hunched over, unsure of himself, “M’sorry…”

There are far worse things, evidently, than facing the impossibility of being loved. First and foremost; the sight of real tears glinting in Karn’s warm, grey eyes. Or perhaps that’s just the rain gathering on his lashes. Either way, the damage is done, a surge of guilt has stoppered your urge to escape, and you don’t think you can bear to hear him apologise to you once more.

The sigh you heave is long and slow, and you end it by offering the maker a simple shake of your head, still clinging to your elbows. “Don’t,” you murmur, shuddering as a breeze rolls across the valley, carried down from the snowy peaks of the mountains, “Don’t be sorry, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You ran,” he points out as gently as he can to still be heard over the wind.

“Yeah, well…” You shrug helplessly. ”Guess I’m just… jumpy.”

“Cause I said I-… Y’know. That.”

Wincing, you start to say, “You don’t lo-“ but one glance at the maker’s darkening expression has you changing tacks, “Not everyone was made to be loved, Karn. Plenty of people live their whole lives without knowing what it feels like. People like me. That’s just our lot in life. And that’s… it’s okay.”

“But…” Wetting his already rain-slicked lips, he shakes his head and stubbornly retorts, “But it’s not true for you.”

Finally prying your fingernails out of your bare arms, you clasp your hands together instead and rub a thumb against the inside of your palm, considering your next words carefully.

“I know that people don’t… think about me the way I sometimes want to be thought about,” you start, “And when you grew up the way I did, you learn that anyone who tells you… that… is either a liar or…” Pausing, you look hard at the youngling staring back at you, painfully earnest and attentive. “…Or they’re wrong,” you finish, fixing him with a solemn stare. “I don’t think you’re a liar, Karn.”

“An’ I know I’m not wrong,” he replies firmly, and then, almost as an afterthought, he adds, “Cause I’m never as happy as I am when you’re around.”

And what the Hell are you supposed to say to that beyond a succinct, “Huh?”

The side of Karn’s nose curls around a hard sniff as he starts to bend his knees, crouching slowly into a squat and reaching a hand out towards you, palm tilted up in an invitation that you recognise well. “When I heard you were comin’ back to Tri Stone for a visit,” he begins, “I got so excited I forgot to sleep! All I could do was count the days ‘til you arrived.”

… Oh…

Excited? To see you?

That’s… new.

Drawing your bottom lip between your teeth, you worry at it for a moment, studying the very tempting – undoubtedly warm – seat being offered to you. Now that your initial flight has been pulled up short, you’re almost embarrassed to have found yourself standing awkwardly out here, shivering in the rain.

“N’when you finally did,” Karn adds hoarsely, “It was like everythin’ I was ever worried about didn’t seem so bad!” The waver in his voice drags your attention from his hand and returns it to his face, just in time to see him wrestle his lips into an encouraging smile. “… ‘cause you were here.”

The teeth on your lip bite down hard enough that the pain briefly distracts you from a sudden sting prickling behind your eyelids.

It appears even Karn hadn’t expected his own sentiment to sound quite so tender. He swallows thickly, his throat bobbing behind his dusty, blue cowl before he clears his throat and aims a sheepish nod at the palm hovering tantalisingly close to your side.

“Look, just… Come back to town, eh? Least ‘til the rain stops…” And then with his next utterance, he goes straight for the jugular. “Blackroot’ll be heartbroken if you leave without sayin’ goodbye to him at least.”

Despite the mood, you can’t stop the wet, aborted laugh that flies out of your mouth. “Now that’s just fighting dirty,” you sniffle, wiping your nose with the back of a wrist.

“Heh…” Karn has to catch the inside of his cheek to suppress a triumphant grin, hiding the quirk of his lips by glancing down at the mud that’s caked all over his boots. “Well,” he shrugs bashfully, “Seems fittin’.”

Several second fritter away, carried off by the wind whilst the pair of you hover near each other in silence, each considering the other from the corner of an eye.

Until at last, with the softest, most tentative motion, you turn your back to the maker’s proffered hand… and slowly sink down onto the edge of his palm.

Gasping in a tiny, hopeful breath, Karn’s eyes grow wide and round as he lifts his gaze to see you swinging your legs up and into his glove, settling back against his fingers as they curve over to meet your delicate spine.

The wrongness that’s been festering around his heart dissipates like a noxious cloud blown away by a fresh breeze.

Bodily, the youngling slumps, nearly rocking all the way over as his shoulders droop whilst his heart rises from the dark, moiling pit that’s steadily closing up in his belly.

He falls just shy of gushing out a heartfelt ‘thank you,’ deciding instead to simply pull you in close to his chest and beam down at you through his sodden lashes, keeping his free hand curled slightly over your head to stave off the downpour that’s still drumming across the vale.

Sheltered on one side by the maker’s girth, held safely in his palm while the other protects your back and head, you try to ease the last vestiges of panic from your lungs by drawing in an aching breath and exhaling it all out again, following Karn’s lead and allowing your body to just… slump.

“I’m sorry,” you confess, drawing your knees up to wrap your trembling arms around them and hug them tight, leaning sideways against the youngling’s sternum.

His almighty chest rumbles beneath your ear when he offers a soft, “M’sorry too.”

“Karn, you really don’t have to be sorry for-“

“-Not sorry for what I said,” he interrupts, starting the laborious trudge up the slope towards Tri Stone once more, “I ain’t sorry for that. I meant it.”

Canting his head down to peer at you over the fraying edge of his cowl, the maker’s eyes crinkle at their corners as he scrutinises you, and when he sighs, his chest rises and falls so greatly, you can hear his heartbeat picking up speed even behind the thick, woolly cloth of his tunic.

“I’m sorry you don’t believe it’s possible,” he finishes.

If Karn had his way, he’d find out who the thief was who stole the certainty out of your heart and he’d bare his tusks and clench his fists and demand they put it back…

But that’s the wishful thinking of a youngling who’s ferociously loyal and desperate to prove his worth to you.

There are other ways, a wizened voice whispers at the back of his mind, sounding suspiciously like Eideard.

Karn blinks, humming lowly in his throat.

“Don’t matter if you believe me or not,” he sniffs with an air of finality, plodding over the mud with far more surefootedness than he had before, “You didn’t believe in makers ‘bout a year ago. Didn’t make us any less real.”

“Hm… Fair point,” you concede, raising your head to peer tiredly up at the ceiling of rock that swallows you both down into dry, familiar darkness, lit only by a scattering of glowstones embedded into the walls.

“And if… if it’s hard for you to hear it,” he continues hesitantly as you swivel around to meet his eye, “Then I won’t say it to you… I’ll show you.” He barely even registers that he’s slowed his gait to focus on you, nor that he’s lifting you towards his face inch by precious inch until you’re sitting level with his stare. “I’ll spend the rest of your life showin’ you what you mean to me,” he says, brooking no argument. Then, rather generously, he nods his chin in the vague direction of Tri Stone and adds, “To all of us.”

Later, you’ll blame it on the sentimental nature of the evening’s conversation, or the cold getting to your head, but whatever you foist the blame onto, deep down you know good and well that there was nothing that could have stopped you from kneeling up in Karn’s glove and teetering forwards until you flop quite abruptly over his shoulder. There, you proceed to wrap your arms as far as they’ll go around his thick neck, holding onto him like he’s the only anchor you have left to tether you to this realm. Implicitly, you trust that his palm will remain beneath your legs to keep you from falling.

In turn, Karn doesn’t even hesitate for a second before he’s melting into your embrace with a rich, contented hum. His comparatively monstrous hand, gentled by weeks of learning how to hold you, falls across your back and squashes you carefully to his neck as he tucks in his chin and pushes his nose into your hair.

Long gone are the days when you’d extend a gesture of friendly affection to the maker and he’d react as if you were trying to hand him a live grenade, startled, skittery, and completely clueless as to how he should be reciprocating.

He was scared to death that he might hurt you by accident until you showed him how much more resilient humans were than he expected, and he learned quickly, ravenously, drinking in every last scrap of tenderness you fed him like a man on the cusp of starvation. He learned how to hold you – exactly like he is now – without squeezing the air out of your lungs, yet in such a way that you’re fairly confident there isn’t a force in the Universe that could pry you out of his hands.

He learned because you showed him.

Perhaps… when he says he’ll show you, the implication is that you could learn as well…