ꙮ The Courtyard Sinks Inn, again. Closing in on the dim, but not quite there yet. Late enough that the lamps are lit, and the cedar incense is burning - it’s old, and good, the traditional stuff they burn during fire-dances, late enough that gentle streams of light ripple through the central column supplying water to the pools. There’s a big festival happening Somewhere Else, so it’s been a pretty quiet evening.
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- Aurelius
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#wolf
#izaak
lowers himself into a steaming pool with a groan, having already washed himself in a cooler spring to the side. His hair is down around his shoulders, unbound, and a mere towel protects his non-existent modesty. He sinks down to his shoulders, then to his neck, and leans his head back against the cool stone of the pool edge. He stares up at the ceiling, nearly motionless except for the silent track of his eyes back and forth across the tree branches swaying gently above the pool.
ꙮ At some point, someone very quietly sets a plate of steamed dumplings down next to Wolf’s head with just enough of a quiet ceramic clack that he knows they’re there. They’re some kind that’ll still taste good if they cool off before he gets to them. Other than that, though, he’s left to his contemplations; sometimes you just know when someone needs time to exist and work through something. And so time passes, like that, drawing a bit closer to the dim, until someone else pads up with -somewhat- less grace but no less care, and a familiar voice pitched quiet:
: “Yeresh Wolf. May I join you?” It is, very much, a question.
blinks, water rippling as he shakes himself from his reverie. He cranes his head back–and back, and back, goodness Izaak is tall–and opens his mouth…then hesitates, uncharacteristically. Then, after an awkward moment, he sits up a little straighter. “Please, Izaak. I…think I could use the company.”
nods, and lowers himself into the pool with the characteristic slow care of someone who very much entered a pool -too- rapidly once before they were even fully-grown and resolved never to make that specific error ever again. A quiet, blissful rumble as he sinks in, leans his head back against the edge of the pool- adjust some of his complicatedly-braided and beaded mane out of the way and the water and the beads digging into their neck weirdly- and exhale as he looks up at the same branches Wolf was looking up at. Finally, a quiet: “I think you’d tell me I had a heavy song in my heart. I can listen, if you’d like.” It is, again, a question.
blinks at that…then nods, once, sharply, swallowing hard. Closing his eyes, and scrubbing wet hands over his face, sending droplets down his skin. “Oh, my friend,” he says, rather raggedly. “I feel…” He struggles to keep his voice level. “I feel like a wrung-out rag.” He laughs, but it’s tired, and there’s not much mirth in it.
nods, slowly. Turns slightly, so he can tilt his head and look at Wolf’s face. “Well. Springs are the right place t’ start fixin’ that.” He nods, and smiles; there’s worry in the smile, but mostly just patience, a habit he’d learned from someone in particular.
laughs again, a little more truly. “I…should have apprenticed you when I had the chance.” He looks at Izaak, something like regret, and something like apology, on his face. “And now I do not know if I will get the chance.” He sighs. “The more fool me. I know better than to let things go undone…” ⁂
clenches his eyes shut against a burst of memory, at that–a near-painful snapping-back of a lost piece. Intent, warmth. The boy–not a boy for many years now–was ready. Just one thing to do first, one request from the Palimpsest-King, too dangerous to take an apprentice on. He’d be back soon enough– “Agh. Ah….fuck.” 🙧
: “Hey, hey.” He turns more towards Wolf, not that he knows what to do once he’s done so, splays his fingertips out, taking a moment, feeling the -sensation- of the water between his fingertips, rather than jumping to the first thought. Wolf taught him that trick, too. “Wolf. My friend. You taught me the songs. You taught me the things that matter. You taught me how t’ put one foot in front of the other without stoppin’.” A pause. There is a question, but it is not his to know, and yet… he asks it, with mild trepidation. “Has the King given you more work to do?”
: “Yes.” The word is ragged. “And no.” A breath, and another, trying to calm the small tempest in his chest. “Izaak. I…” He shakes his head, his jaw clenched. “Goddess. Fuck.“ A spasm of an arm, like he wants to slam his fist into the stone lip of the pool and restrained himself almost too late. “There is so much. I cannot…begin, there is so much. Too much, too…” He swallows hard. Breathes deep. Steadies his voice. Looks Izaak in the eye, trepidation clear. ⁂
: “Do I sound different to you, Izaak?” 🙧
exhales, with a certain slow contagious deliberateness, and -listens-, meets Wolf’s gaze- and blinks, one of his ears perking up of its own accord. Listening with more than -just- his ears, too, and he may, or may not, ever truly hear the Song, at least not the way Wolf does, the way it’s been described to him over a campfire, through the notes of melodies, through the smell of herbs crushed in a palm. But he can hear -that-. “…don’t know that I could explain how, or… what. Like a…” He scrunches up his face, a little. “Like the difference between a flute and a festival bell…? When I first heard ya. When you came back. Didn’t properly notice it at first, but…” He shakes his head. “Like different… -kinds- of bein’ clear. What…?” This isn’t Yeresh Stuff, he’s pretty sure about that.
exhales an unsteady breath of…relief? Something kin to it, anyway. “The Saint and I. When we went into the Tangle, for the Palimpsest-King. Something happened. What, I am not…sure.” He shakes his head, pressing one hand to a temple as if the touch could make his shattered memory congeal. ⁂
: “I awoke…we awoke…in a place far from here. A terrible and silent place. Outside the World, Izaak. Outside it. The being that lives there…he calls himself the “Architect.“ He claimed to be the creator of the world. The worlds. For there are many. Five, including our own. And he said…” He takes a deep breath, steeling himself against the horror and pain of that memory. “He said our worlds had been broken. Destroyed, with nothing left. That the only hope was to aid him in reclaiming the wreckage of…existence…that he might remake it.” A sneer twists his lips. “With less…mess, perhaps. So he said.” ⁂
: “He said…that he had found us.” A grimace. “I think that he lied. For he lied about our worlds. I think, perhaps, that he took us. And whatever he did, to bring us to that place…” His eyes clench shut, in guilt and pain. “It took our memories, Izaak.” His voice cracks. “I did not even remember you until I saw you, Izaak. I forgot. I forgot…” He trails off, briefly losing the battle with his own emotions. 🙧
rumbles, very quietly, under his breath. It’s several things at once, precisely none of which it would be appropriate or possible to act upon, so he just rumbles, enough to ripple the water a little, and it’s a comforting sound more than anything. Very slowly and methodically, “I think that I would want to do things to that person that the Rite would not allow.” He almost looks guilty for having had the thought. “Yeresh. My friend. If… if I got hit by a rock and forgot you, you’d remember me for me. So, I’ll remember you for you, too. You’re still who you were. And ya remembered me when ya saw me, so that tells me that… no matter what that- person- did, it’s all still there. So. ‘Don’t blame yourself for wildfire’, yeah?” If he has a reaction to everything else Wolf had to tell him, it can wait until later, because Wolf is sad RIGHT NOW and that is what MATTERS.
nods, a little. “Thank…thank you, my friend.” He shakes his head. “I know that I bear no…guilt, not truly. But…oh, Goddess Bright. I had forgotten even that I had intended to offer you…” He rubs his forehead, grimaces at the ache. “Mm. No. There is too much to leave unsaid, and I cannot afford the luxury of regrets.” A brief, harsh laugh. “Perhaps in my inaction I saved you. Who can tell?” A deep breath, a gathering of thoughts. ⁂
: “You should know this. All of my new companions, save the Saint, are from other worlds. Aurelius and Unua are from one, Archie another, the Awoken a third. Why we were taken, we do not know–only that it has…changed us, somehow. We all have shattered memories. And we all have torn connections to our worlds.” He frowns, deep in thought. “None of us speak the same, Izaak, as we did. As you do, instinctively in connection with the World. My connection has returned, as has the Saint’s, yet it is…different. It now takes thought. Will. What this means…” He laughs, exasperated. “I have not the faintest fucking clue, my friend, but it seems significant.” ⁂
: “And now…” He sighs, falls silent for a long moment, staring at the ripples in the water. Then he clenches his jaw, nods, and looks Izaak in the eyes. “I fear I can offer you no better apprenticeship than this. But there is something you must know, if you are going to guide and protect our people and our world in my stead. For I fear that shortly, we will leave for strange and distant roads. But it will be hard. It will be very hard. And I will not burden you without your consent.” He grimaces. “Forgive me, my friend. I should have told you all at the first. But I was shaken…and I feared.” 🙧
listens, and frowns, curiously, and… nods. Mysteries aren’t his strong suit, and never were, but listening, and guiding and protecting? He’s always been called to that. “Sounds like you had a lot t’ fear, my friend. And if I can hold any of that for you, I’d like t’ try. And if… any of this is somethin’ you want me t’ make sure the other yeresh know, I can carry that for you while you’re out on th’ King’s work.”
He blinks, then frowns in deep thought. The other yeresh? A powerful force, if they would move as one… He shakes his head. No regrets. No flinching. ⁂
: “Then listen well, Izaak, and listen well to the words of the Wolf, Worldsinger, World-torn.” His voice falls naturally into a slow and steady cadence, an almost song-like roll. “A cancer sleeps in the heart of the World, a rising hunger, a rending force. A dozen dozen times and more, it has come to the World and devoured it, a sickly honey, a fabric torn. The World will roil, the World will weep, ‘til all is torn asunder save a single deep acorn, and a single Mask to hold the memory of what went before. O’er and o’er it goes, a rising fall…a stasis wrapped in change.” ⁂
: “Tell them that the Wolf shall not suffer the World to be so chained, nor its Saint, a song unending limned in suffering. We go to walk the stranger paths, to seek the worlds, there to find a remedy to all our World has lost. Hold fast against the hunger, hold fast against the rending maw. Bind tightly to each other, sing of fire, sing of hope. And if all is lost, if the Six do not return…hasten forth to the center of the Tangle, to the deeping shrine therein. Scratch the walls there with this telling, that hope might live again.” He sags as the last word leaves him, nearly dipping into the water–gasping with the force of what has filled him. 🙧
listens, and -these- words etch themselves deep into his memory like any song that Wolf ever taught him, the precise rhythms and cadences, even- he -commits- them even as in some part of his mind he’s hearing them and processing what he’s hearing- processing what Wolf faced, -that- he faced this. Nearly in a trance, though, and then it breaks, and -he- falls back slightly, caught by the merciful wall of the pool, sinking into the warmth of the water. “Oh, Light.” And then: “I will. I promise it.” And then: “Oh, friend.”
buries his face in his hands, and weeps, then. “I’m so sorry, Izaak. I’m so sorry. I wished so much better for you than this wretched, rending doom…”
slowly, not hesitantly but giving Wolf space to pull away, if he needs or wants to, puts a hand on Wolf’s shoulder. “We dance the Lady of Embers’ dance. We sing Her songs.” With utter faith: “So either we’re dancin’ with the wildfire She sings us towards… or we’re not, and you and your friends’re gonna stop it. So, either way…” He takes a steadying breath. “I’ll keep singing Her song here, and yours, while you do your work. That’s not a doom. No matter what happens.”
allows himself, for just a moment, the solace of pressing his face against Izaak’s shoulder, of the shudder of emotion braced against another person’s flesh…then takes a deep breath, exhales, and pulls back. When he looks up at Izaak, his jaw is set, and a quiet, fierce determination burns in his eyes, reddened though they may be. ⁂
: “I swear to you, Izaak, my apprentice, my friend. We shall not fail so long as I draw breath. If I can take even a single step, I will take it towards the salvation of our world. I promise you.” 🙧
- You hear — and your Star hears — a song, echoing from the stillness: Sertse B’yetsya, B’yetsya, B’yetsya
meets Wolf’s gaze, and smiles- no, grins, the grin is back and his eyes are bright, with tears but also with light, and he nods. “Aye, Wolf. And we’ll be singing the embers bright when you come back.”
hugs his friend, then, very hard, then laughs as he releases him. “Ah. Well.” He looks around, a little sheepishly. “A hell of a thing, for the baths…”