#polyam representation

Damiri let out a shaky breath and glanced down at the still body on the makeshift bed. It looked very out of place in the strange basement room that Noah had been forced to make into his crafting space. He only knew the name of his patient because he overheard Damiri mutter it to him. Aiden. Noah had a vague notion it meant ‘fire’. But he was trying not to think about that, because the way Aiden was lying there, with Noah’s treasured skulls placed carefully around him like clusters of pale flowers, he looked like he had been laid out on a funeral pyre. He was like a fairy tale stuck in a tragedy, all pale skin and black hair draping down…

In his corner, Damiri had begun to bounce his leg. “It’s been ten hours.”

Noah made an effort to meet his eyes and tried not to see the despair glittering in the brown. “It often takes time.”

“Ten hours?” There was a sharp edge to Damiri’s voice and Noah looked away.

He still hadn’t been able to find out exactly how Damiri and Aiden were connected. He was pretty sure there was at least one other person present in the house, but he hadn’t seen them. Damiri was the one that came to fetch him, and to tell the truth, for anyone else he might not have come along willingly.

Because he didn’t appreciate people lying in wait for him at his home, and he hated to be called a necromancer, but the unrestrained fear in Damiri’s eyes had been enough to make him hesitate.

And then the love had changed his mind. He had met several empaths since the time he learned to pick up on other people’s magic, some of them extremely bad at shielding themselves, but he had never felt that much love pouring out of a single person. Nor that much terror.

So he had allowed Damiri to escort him to this unnerving basement and the two of them had been here since. It had to be nearing sunrise now.

“That means we still have the eleventh hour,” Noah said finally. He didn’t believe in giving false hope, but he didn’t believe in giving up either.

Damiri muttered something under his breath and brought his hand to his mouth again to bite at his nails. Then he winced, fingers cramping up, and let out a hissing swear.

“You alright?” Noah asked, hastily getting up and walking towards him.

“Fine,” he grunted, wiping his middle finger on his trousers. It was bleeding, the nail-bed bitten raw.

Noah sighed. “Will you let me help with that?”

Damiri stared blankly at him for a moment, but then he silently held out his hand.

Noah held it for a moment to assess the damage, his skin looked oddly pale against Damiri’s warmer shade of brown. Silently he reached into his pocket and took out a small, delicately built skull. A field mouse. He pressed his thumb into the sigil he carved on the top of it before placing it carefully on Damiri’s palm. He had barely finished murmuring the incantation before the sigil cracked, splitting the skull in two. Noah winced slightly – he always did, he couldn’t help it – but he smiled seeing the raw edges of skin on Damiri’s fingers mend and heal.

Damiri seemed afraid to move his hand, staring at it like he had just seen it burning. “What did you do?” he breathed, his eyes darting up to Noah’s face. “Is- Is that what you’re…?”

Noah nodded, taking the cracked skull out of his palm and slipping it into a different pocket of his coat. It was truly dead now, not a shred of life left clinging to it. He would give it a proper burial as soon as he could.

“But how-” Damiri studied his fingers incredulously. “How does it work?”

A faint smile overtook Noah’s face. Ten hours of healing rituals to pull his significant someone back from the brink of death and only now did Damiri ask.

“Death is a straightforward thing,” Noah replied, sitting down on a nearby crate, close enough so he could look at Damiri properly. “But life is not. When a living being dies, not all of it dies at once. Sometimes something of the lower life force lingers and the right magic can bind it to its vessel. That is what I do.”

Damiri looked at the clusters of skulls placed on the low bed. Those belonged to larger creatures, nothing smaller than a cat, and they all bore the same sigil. “Your skulls crack when the life in them is spent,” he concluded slowly.

“Yeah,” Noah hummed. He would never learn to like that part, but it was inevitable.

“Then…what is keeping it from working?” A low note of dread was slipping back into Damiri’s voice and Noah wished he knew a way to quiet it.

“I can only offer help,” he explained soberly. “I cannot force it. He was hurt by magic…” He glanced at Aiden’s motionless form. Apart from the hollowness of his eyes, he did not look hurt. He was barely breathing and his heartbeat was so faint that Noah couldn’t catch its rhythm to chant in time with it, no matter how hard he tried—but his body seemed unharmed. “Perhaps he does not know how to mend what is broken in him.”

“But you-”

“I do not mend anything,” Noah interrupted Damiri firmly. “What you just saw, was your own body healing itself because I gave it the opportunity to do so.”

Damiri looked from Aiden’s still face to Noah’s, and back again. “And you can’t— Can’t you help?”

Noah shook his head. He didn’t even know what happened to Aiden. He knew nothing about him apart from a muttered name and his importance to Damiri. He didn’t even know his magic. “I have found that healing blindly usually does more harm than good.”

Damiri let out a hollow laugh. “What more harm could you possibly do to him now?”

The chill Noah felt sliding down his back must have been evident to Damiri, because he met his eyes again. “You do not want me to answer that,” Noah replied solemnly.

A heavy silence fell between them. Noah didn’t feel up to breaking it, so he tried to continue with the incantation in his mind. Perhaps if he weaved Aiden’s name into the words, he would hear him. It was hard to speak to someone he’d never even looked in the eye.

“Damiri, what is Aiden’s magic like?”

He had been wanting to ask that question ever since he’d first laid eyes on his patient. Even now, weakened as he was, Noah could nearly feel Aiden’s power humming underneath his skin. It didn’t feel familiar though. It was unlike anything that Noah had ever felt.

Damiri hid his face, rubbing his forehead and temples with tense, nervous movements. The more his shoulders sagged, the younger he looked. “That is a question you don’t want answered,” he said darkly.

“You mean you don’t want to tell me,” Noah sighed. “Just like you didn’t want to tell me about your magic.”

Even without seeing Damiri’s facial expression, Noah knew it was resentful. He had been able to feel the familiar pattern of emotion manipulation as soon as Damiri had gotten close to him. Damiri hadn’t been pleased when he guessed his gift correctly. Not pleased at all.

Damiri gave no response and suddenly a thought slipped into Noah’s mind.

“Do you think I’ll no longer want to help him if I know?”

A moment before Damiri had been fidgeting in his chair, now he was sitting near-frozen.

Noah looked at him attentively. “Because it’s far too late for that, you know.”

At last the dark eyes lifted up again. “What?”

“I decided to help when you asked me,” Noah explained calmly. “I don’t change my mind.”

He wanted his magic to work. He wanted to see Aiden’s eyes open, wanted to see the handsome face come back to life. Even if he had not fully decided to help on the strength of Damiri’s plea, he would have lost any hesitation upon seeing Aiden. Because he agreed with Damiri, and with the words he had whispered to him on his doorstep, more than ten hours ago. “He can’t die.” Noah didn’t know why, but he couldn’t help but agree. Aiden could not die. And perhaps that was a solely selfish wish, because when he looked at him, and felt that strange magic just out of reach, Noah couldn’t bear the thought of never actually meeting him.

“Would it help you heal him?” Damiri broke into his thoughts. “If you knew what his magic was, would that help?”

Noah shook his head regretfully. “It would help me if I could understand his magic, but I do not recognise it and there is no time to teach me.”

Damiri made a strange noise and Noah gave him a questioning look.

“If you really wanted to know, you could have lied,” he said.

Noah’s lips curled slightly in distaste. “I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

Another nondescript sound at the back of his throat.

Noah was ready to turn away and give him his space again, but Damiri suddenly slumped forward, dropping his head into his hands and burying his fingers in his dark hair. “You have no idea,” he grunted. “How badly I want to force all this on you.”

Noah could feel the truth of it. At times he could sense Damiri’s anxiety almost snaking towards him. Damiri was desperate not to feel these things. Anyone would be. But unlike most people, Damiri actually had a way to get rid of it all.

“I appreciate the self-control.”

This time Damiri nearly laughed. But his head stayed in his hands, and Noah decided to leave him be. He got to his feet and quietly walked to the bed. With loving attention he rearranged the skulls into their repeating patterns of threes. He made sure not to touch Aiden, and he really tried not to stare at him.

Aiden… Aiden… There was nothing in the name that matched the humming he felt in the distance. And still his heartbeat was too weak, his breathing too shallow. What if he couldn’t hear him calling? What if he simply couldn’t find the gifts he brought…

“His name is Aidan.”

Noah nearly jumped. He had not heard Damiri move, but suddenly he was standing beside him. He was tall—even when he leaned forward Noah had to look up slightly to see into his face. The sadness that trickled out of him was getting so thick it was almost tangible.

“Aidan Yeoh.” Damiri tore his eyes away from the motionless face. “And his magic is thievery.”

“Thievery?” Noah repeated in confusion.

“The gentlest thievery you’ve ever encountered,” he muttered. “He doesn’t even need physical contact. And he can take almost anything. Memories, feelings, thoughts…”

Noah felt a tightness closing around his chest. There was a reason he didn’t like being called a necromancer. Necromancy was frowned upon. But magical theft… He made no reply and Damiri said nothing more. He stood over Aidan a moment longer, staring at him like he wanted to touch his face but wouldn’t for fear of crying, and then retreated back to his corner.

When Noah started chanting again, Damiri closed his eyes.

Noah waited until the rhythmic breathing of exhausted sleep filled the room before he started changing the words of the incantation. He circled the bed on silent feet and took back his cherished skulls. One by one he took them away from Aidan, weighing them in his hands for a moment before placing them gently on the ground. Not in threes this time, but in a circle. Circles in circles, all of them side by side, each one guarding the other. Until they were all gathered together and Noah sat down, placing himself between Aidan and his treasures. He had forgotten about his tea, but he was still chanting. Still calling out to Aidan. But this time it was a different chant. What was offered freely could be taken back.

An entire night he had been here. More than a night. This was the eleventh hour and the sun was rising. It was early in the year, the sun would be shy about it. But it would rise, and sunrise is powerful.

Noah didn’t notice Damiri waking. He was still chanting, tired words tumbling stubbornly from his lips and his body rocking in time with the rhythm.

“What have- What are you doing?”

Damiri was beside him in an instant, his hands reaching out for the skulls, stopping just short of touching them. He looked back towards Aidan, who still lay sleeping like the dead.

“What have you done to him?”

Noah shook his head, bowing down low enough to nearly double over, chanting possessive words that wanted to stick to the inside of his mouth.

Damiri backed away from him, footsteps unsteady on the tile floor. “If you—” His voice was only a breath away from breaking. “I swear—”

A nauseating crack rang out like a shot and the last syllable slid mercifully off Noah’s tongue.

Another crack. Another. Noah turned away from the breaking skulls so he did not have to see. They all split right through the middle, straight though the sigil, and in the sudden quiet that followed, Aidan drew a stuttering breath.

Damiri seemed to be by the bed with only a single step. “Aidan—”

Noah got to his feet just in time to see the fine lashes flutter up and the thin lips move. “…Dami?”

The sound that escaped from Damiri’s chest echoed inside Noah’s mind as loudly as the breaking of bone. Shuddering, Damiri sank to his knees and slumped forward, his fingers grasping at the fabric of Aidan’s shirt and his forehead pressing against his side.

Aidan reached for him with a movement that was so controlled it made relief come alive in Noah’s entire body. He had done well. Aidan’s body was undamaged.

“You bastard,” Aidan muttered weakly, his fingers digging into Damiri’s shoulder for a moment before combing through his hair. “That’s the last time I let you design the balancing charm.”

“Fuck off,” Damiri breathed and he raised his head, his voice choked and thick with emotion.

Noah felt himself sway on his feet. Damiri's relief, a mix of joy and wild affection, filled the room like thick smoke. It was almost hard to breathe. And it was impossible not to smile. He blinked, slowly looking from Damiri to Aidan, just in time for Aiden’s eyes to meet his. Noah had been prepared for them to be dark and attentive. He had not been expecting them to be this alive.

There wasn’t a single mark of hardship left in them.

For a moment Aidan just looked at him, but then his lips formed into something very like a smile. When he next spoke, his voice was noticeably smoother than it had been before. “Are you the one that chanted?”

“Yes,” Noah said, his hands trembling slightly and an involuntary smile playing around his own lips as well. “And you are the one that can’t see what is given freely, but will take what is guarded against him.”

The fascination on Aidan’s face was as genuine as Damiri’s exasperated exclamation of understanding. He got to his feet, rubbing violently at his face.

“Why didn’t you fucking tell me?” he grunted, doing a bad job of hiding his tears.

“You might not have trusted me,” Noah replied, apologetic but not remorseful. “I told you I wouldn’t lie, but that doesn’t mean I have to tell you the truth.” He wasn’t sorry. He felt almost giddy. He felt light. He had saved a life.

“Yeah, you know what, I don’t care.” Damiri let out a broken laugh, shaking with relief and gratitude. “I really don’t.” He swallowed. "Thank you."

“I—" Aidan interrupted, sitting up with the grace of a cat woken from nothing but a comfortable slumber, before Noah could even open his mouth for another reply. "—have two things to say.”

His eyes were fixed on Noah so intently that he felt his face heat up in spite of himself.