Drunken Whims of Dawn's Eve (M) 2 Parts

[dz19l3]

   This was requested as a... sequel? Continuation? Something, based on a cold sneezefic I wrote called Icy Karma, to specifically focus on a caretaking scenario. Before I knew it, I'd ended up with a whole other fic with the first half being around 2k words thus far. As with a lot of my writing, the characters may be easier to make sense of to a degree with context from the previous stories, because I have an obsession with continuity and chronological order.

   Link to previous story:

   Anyway, sneezy wizard time.

*       *       *

   It was an hour ungodly enough to begin reducing the function of the human brain to a state of inebriation, as though the fatigue striking just before the grey of dawn was a watered-down liquor. Weak, but an effect that could not be denied. My ability to pick through the foreign vocabulary in front of me was a few seconds too slow, interpretation of magic runes even slower. I was reaching an inevitable slog of a pace, and I suspected Eliza was suffering much the same issue. The effect was universal, but the way her head drooped under its own weight, her heartbeat a tiny increment slower than its average relaxed rhythm, made it easy to infer.

 

   “How far along are you?” She made a croaking ‘mmm’ sound as the part of her brain which handled speech started trying to work through the damper of Quaker hour.

 

   “A bit over three quarters. You?”

 

   “Mmgh. Around the same.” I returned her croak. Neither one of us was willing to throw in the towel yet, and until one did, we would endure the task ahead until someone passed out face first into their papers. How it usually went with intensive projects.

 

   Communication left enough of a gap in my focus that I noticed the tickle forming, a squirming sort of itch. I sniffed once, twice, and found it was not content to go away so easily. Of course. I exhaled softly in a half-hearted expression of exasperation, and rubbed a knuckle against my septum. The feeling relented, for now, but remained as a threatening pinpoint of irritation.

 

   “You okay?” Came the cautious inquiry from the other end of the couch.

 

   “Yes.” No sooner than I’d said it, the itch crawled upwards to the back of my nose, an additional signal of inevitability I was not pleased by. “Nose just tickles.” Normally such a phrase would be inconceivable, but the fatigue made any feeling of embarrassment impossible over such a small thing.

 

“Oh.” It surprised her as well, based on her tone.

 

   My breath caught for an instant, trembling, and I began to consider a list of suspects. The fire had died a few minutes ago, with only candlelight illuminating the room, and the air had cooled as a result. But this wasn’t the intense, sudden response a change in temperature would have brought. The windows were closed, it couldn’t be something outside either. There was nothing to warrant a sneeze at all. My nose had just decided it had nothing better to do while it was getting over a cold, which it had deemed reason enough far too many times throughout the evening.

 

   I rubbed again, rougher, which would at best forestall the gradually growing agitation.

 

   “Hhh-ah… Ungh.” I managed to keep from muttering expletives, though every frustrated breath could have easily translated to a similarly vulgar interjection.

 

   I pulled my focus away from the teasing itch long enough to remember I was not alone in the room, and extended the reach of my magic to feel what Eliza was doing. The scholar had turned enough that her chest was facing toward me, leaving no questions as to where her attention was. But where else would she look?

 

   “Logan?”

 

   “Stuck.”

 

   “What?”

 

   “It’s st-stuck. Hih!” I stuttered, struggling with another taunting hitch. I fought with it for a few moments, tensing occasionally as my breathing hiccupped and the feathery sensation swept against the inside of my nose. It proved fruitless.

 

   Fine. If it wouldn’t get it over with, it had no reason to be there. I turned my head away and pinched my nose shut, waiting for the itch to recede. Which it did, for the most part, but the slightest remnant settled patiently in the depths of my sinuses. Faex.

 

   I feigned interest in the documents, trailing my fingers over it without actually reading more of it, thinking. I did not want to deal with a fit right now, especially after the past week. I’d had more than enough of my body’s malady induced antics without the worst of it happening in front of someone.

 

   “What time is it?” I heard Eliza turn slowly in her seat, the couch shifting underneath me.

 

   “You don’t want to know.” She told me after a few moments. I made a grudging sound and tried not to seem too hurried as I stood up, leaving the documents on the table. I was fully prepared to retreat to the fireplace as soon as possible, using my magic to feel the room.

 

   “I should probably head home then.” She nodded, and the papers rustled and scratched against wood as she started gathering them up. I strode quickly across the room, around the table, and touched my fingers to the mantle of the fireplace.

 

   The logs were still warm enough from earlier it wouldn’t take much to light again. Energy flowed through my hand, the embers barely coughing a tiny, insignificant candle flame to life which started desperately lapping at the logs. My head whirled with a sudden wave of nausea from overtapping my reserves.

 

   Was I really tired enough I couldn’t even light a fire!?

 

   “This is going to sound strange,” I felt my nose twitch, “But do you have alcohol lying around?” There was silence for just a few moments longer than she should have needed.

 

   “What? Why?” Eliza sounded the smallest amount more alert now that she had something to be surprised about. Technically not just any bottle of liquid death would work, but now was not the hour to be throwing around big words or magic terminology. Nor was I keen on explaining Rowst’s theories on pyrokinetics, with his reputation he was likely drunk when he wrote them.

 

   “It… works well for fire magic, whichhh — Hhhuh!” I took a frantic moment to rub the bridge of my nose and attempt to waylay whatever hell it had in mind. Deo damnatus rem. 

 

   “Which I am lacking, and need to get home.” Much to my chagrin, it was proving more and more difficult to prevent any sniffling from disrupting sentences.

 

   “Oh. I don’t drink.” Stercus, I should’ve guessed as much.

 

   “You’ve experienced the Fomorian number system and you don’t drink?” I heard her chuckle, just a little, but the tone had made my general frustration more obvious than I meant it to be.

 

   “Is there something else you can use?”

 

   “Eating will take too l-long,” there was absolutely no way I was going to make it through three hours of digestion to have enough energy for porting. “Something hot, or… Hh-Hah!” 

 

   “HMMPFSSH!” All at once it snuck up on me, and I had to pinch my nostrils again to stop it. “HEH’NGGHXT!” Twice now I’d had to resort to that, not good.

 

   “Euggh, or flammable.” Rationally, I knew it shouldn’t bother me so much. It wasn’t that different from when I sneezed normally, which was frustratingly frequent enough I’d been browbeaten into tolerating the embarrassment of it throughout my day to day life. But a drawn out fit in the first place was another matter, let alone the fact it was brought about by the death throes of a cold that refused to leave me alone. Yet here I was, sniffling like an idiot and blushing so hard my cheeks were hot enough to match the embers of the fi-

 

   “Stercus sanctus, I’m a moron.” I stooped down to the floor and knelt in front of the doused fireplace, the tiny flame I’d called having died almost as quickly as it had come.

 

   “What is it?” The scholar asked, shoes gently tapping on the floorboards as she drifted closer.

 

   “I can just use the embers.” Often mages grow so accustomed to the concept of turning the essence of one thing into another we forget to manipulate the original thing itself.

 

   I moved my hands towards the firepit until I could feel where the air around it was warmer, and started coaxing what energy I could from the source. The itch fluttering back into prevalence reminded me to work quickly.

 

   The contents of the firepit slowly began to grey and crumble around the edges as I continued to leech from it, a red line of heat eating away at the surface, disappearing when my concentration momentarily broke to rub my nose against one shoulder. I desperately wanted to sneeze, but if I could just manage for a bit longer I could whisk myself away to more preferable surroundings.

 

   But again and again it interrupted me, until at one point in the back of my awareness my body’s pressing of demands mounted into an urge.

 

   “Heh!” For the third time I held my nose and waited for it to pass.

 

   “Hhh-hh--HIHhh!” Stop. Just stop already, for the love of the Divine.

 

   “Ehheh!” Go away. Perite!

 

   “HEH’NGXX-TCHUH!” Stifling a second time had accomplished the opposite of banishment, the tickling raging through my respiratory system with renewed intensity. My sinuses throbbed, and I realized with growing panic it wasn’t going to let me hold it off any longer.

 

   “HUHRUHH’TSCHHOOO! HEH’TSCHEOO!”

 

   “Bless you.” I flinched at the reminder of Eliza’s presence, wishing she would look anywhere other than me, yet knew I couldn’t really blame her for doing otherwise.

 

   “You’re going to - Ihhih! HEEIH’TSCHOO! RRSHHMPF!” I spoke from behind one preemptive elbow, “Going to get tired of say… Sayinggg!” I didn’t try completing the sentence again.

 

   “EHHSHMMPH! MMPSHHT!”

 

   “Are you okay?” I can barely think, let alone talk. I shook my head and hoped she’d get the message.

 

   “Will you be okay?” Pro futuo eruit!

 

   “HEHHSHHMPT! HHSHHMPFT! MMPTSCHHUUHhh!” I wanted to crawl into a hole and die, but had to settle for turning as far away from the direction of her voice as possible, the less visible the better.

 

   “Damn it, I -- IIEEHH’SSHMPT! HEH’SHHMPFT! MMPFSHHH! I’ll be f-finneeh-HEH’TSSCHOO! Hhh! Huh-uhhh! In a few -- HAH-AKHSHHMPT!” In truth, I wasn’t sure how long ‘a few’ would be, but given the fact I was far away from anything that would normally cause an issue I hoped it would be short. For the sanctity of my dignity if nothing else, or what was left of it.

 

   I hadn’t heard her approach, but felt a hand on one shoulder, instinctively and just a bit too violently wrenching away from it. She didn’t deserve that, or my cursing, or frankly to have me sneezing my head off on her floor when she just wanted to sleep. But I had no other way to protest her intrusive attempts at concern.

 

   “I’m trying to help you off the floor.” If you want to help then leave me alone!

 

   “HHMMPSHHT! MMFFSHH-UHHh!”

 

   “Logan, I’m at least a foot and a half shorter than you, but one way or another I need to get you onto the couch before you hit your head on the mantle.” For a moment, even amidst the sternutory hell I was enduring, I was taken aback by the change in her character. But regardless, concussing myself when I was already going to end up with a headache by the end of this seemed like something to avoid. With a few chaotic lunges of my free hand I found the nearest wall and pulled myself up.

 

   “EHHSHMMPT!” Of course, it wasn’t being made particularly easy for me.

 

   “It’s this way.” I was legally blind, not spatially inept. There was only one direction the couch would have been in from where I was and… And I probably would’ve tripped over the table like a jester on stilts if left to my own devices. Fine. Dampnas, fine!

 

   I stumbled towards her voice with a drunken sort of awkwardness, scrubbing one wrist under my nose in the hope it might delay it long enough to complete the great exodus to the land of couch cushions. I flinched when I felt her hand on my back, guiding me gently forward, but resisted the inclination to move away. A few more steps and I wouldn’t have to deal with the indignity of being led across the room like an infirm old woman. I probably would never have needed it, but under the… circumstances...

 

   “HEEGH’IHHTSCHOO!” It bent me forward enough that the hand being held out in front of me next found itself gripping the back of the couch for dear life. Eliza let go.

 

   “RRSHMPFFT! HEHSHHMPHT! HHNGHMMPFT!” I lowered myself down unto the seat once I gained a pause, immediately turning away to hide the event to the best of my ability. At least, away from where I thought she was.

 

   “Stay here.” I couldn’t leave no matter how badly I wanted to, all the magic energy in the world wouldn’t be enough for me to focus on making so much as a spark right now, let alone travelling as a flame effigy.

 

   She turned, the air shifting around her movement, and one footstep after the other made her way out the door. I was alone, to get the rest of this unholy endeavor over with in peace.

   “HEHH’TSCHHEEOO! HEAH’TSCHOO!”

[Secret Sneezer]

Wow, another great piece of writing! You're really good at this, I loved every second of reading this! 😁

[ID2006]

Mmmm, looking forward to part two

[fickle_tickle]

I love it!!! Thank you so much for writing this, and so quickly too!! I'm so happy you liked my comments! I think your writing style is divine. Your characters are so well developed, and the idea of a blind person being able to 'see' spatially with magic is a stroke of creative genius, especially because you give readers insight to how it works by writing from Logan's perspective. The mechanics of magic are really solidly built throughout, actually. I love that you've chosen to make it take up energy like any other difficult physical activity, which I always thought would be the case if it were real.

I'm excited to learn more about Eliza like you mentioned because let's be real, I totally already ship it! I love that through the haze of it all, he still noticed her shift in demeanor. She's normally so unintrusive (which works well, I'd probably traumatize this kind of man myself), but real people can sort of shift between gears like this once you get to know them well. You've done a really nice job throughout these stories establishing what she's usually like, so introducing a duality to that is really going to flush her out. *Kronk voice*  Oh yeah. It's all coming together....I'm super excited to see what comes next!!

[dz19l3]

   I have part 2, which admittedly took a great deal longer than the first piece, and I'm not entirely sure what I want to make of it. I don't think I'd call it sneeze for the most part as it turned out oddly wholesome, and I gave a fair amount of information at once instead of the drip feed I've been trying to stick with, and a lot of is driven forward by dialogue rather than description. Maybe it will work, maybe not, but either way I enjoyed writing it. Thank you all for the patience and kind words, I'm touched to know that there are people who enjoy my writing enough to specifically seek it out, and I certainly wasn't expecting interest from the angle of character development.

   As a side note, either I am insane, or I have ended up making an inconsistency with Eliza's fireplace height of all things. Always the dumbest stuff that gets you.

 

 

                                                                                                                                                              *       *       *

  It was proving to be an interesting night, though it wasn’t necessarily the first time my office had to house a mage suffering from an uncontrollable revolt of the sinuses. Disgruntled and agitated enough that one misstep would have made the tension in the atmosphere unbearable, but it was a relief to find I’d chosen a seemingly correct course of action to manage the situation. Funnily enough, were it not for the time we’d first met being just as chaotic, I wouldn’t have been able to guess what to do.

 

   But over time, I had managed to glean two things of import. The first required no insight, he made it obvious that he considered his sneezing mortifying and assumed everyone around him viewed it with the same severity. The second, was whether he realized it or not, he responded to reasoning. Embarrassment became easier for him to tolerate when it involved a solution, which had been demonstrated from when I first met him and held true all the way up to this point.

 

   I sat down at the kitchen table, and rubbed the fatigue from my eyes. Tired or not, it was better that he was here with someone who could offer help, even if he didn’t see it that way.

 

   I could still hear him, faintly, from down the hallway. It wasn’t like my house was particularly massive, but the fact I could hear him sneezing from here brought me a pang of worry. He was normally a much more quiet man, not in the sense of being terse but just in the ways he attempted to conceal his presence. His voice stayed at a measured volume with the exception of certain circumstances, and while most people were the same way, it was coupled with so many other things I believed it instead part of conscious effort. He always appeared to be painfully aware of his stature, holding his arms a bit too close to his body when standing still. The way he maneuvered around the office, keeping his steps small and calculated. Perhaps he felt his presence too obvious, and it was just his way of reconciling the fact he was incredibly unsubtle by default. Or a natural habit as a result of his lack of sight? I could never be sure, but either way, sometimes it was hard not to notice.

 

   I cringed a little when a burst of sound, louder than those before it, rebounded against the walls of the hallway. I felt the sudden impulse to check on him and ensure he hadn’t blown out his ears, knowing full well he wouldn’t appreciate it and my intrusion would only make the situation more difficult for him to tolerate. I’d gone beyond pushing my luck already. He’d had to deal with things like this on his own long before I’d come along, right?

 

   And yet, it felt unfair that such was the case.

 

   I sighed and stood up, deciding it would be better to do something that might help, rather than sitting and feeling uneasy. My luck would have to be further tested. It was late enough that caffeine in any form was out of the question, but a glass of water was likely better than nothing at all. Yet as I filled said glass, I found the anxiety of uncertainty starting to cloud my mind again. 

 

   It wasn’t like he could even drink anything as he was, there wouldn’t be any point to me bringing it to him now, just unnecessary stress. But wouldn’t it still be rude to just disappear for too long, waiting for him to get his bearings? I was still a host after all, and wouldn’t he start to think I was somehow repulsed? Auggh!

 

   I set down the glass and tangled my fingers aggressively into my hair, frustrated with my racing mind and its inability to make a decision now that I was removed from the tense situation. I didn’t want to upset him, really, but how was I to be sure of what to do? I couldn’t just ask him! Or maybe I could, but getting an answer from the already aggravated man would mean dealing with quite a bit of evasion and only achieve the opposite of placating him.

 

   I had to calm down and think, if only for a moment. I could make a decision if I just tried to analyze all of this. Yes, analyze, treat it as merely a particularly confusing assignment. Nothing to worry about here, not at all. No crippling terror of offending someone I considered a friend, despite only knowing him for a few months, and truth be told, knowing very little about him. But then what did I know? What did I have based on the current situation to work with? When had it become an issue?

 

   When he realized he couldn’t leave.

 

   Escape, that was at least part of it then. Though being stranded was likely stressful enough on its own without an embarrassing situation being tacked onto it. Then… Then in theory making it at least technically possible to leave would help?

 

   Though that involved magic. What was it he’d said? Something flammable? Would paper be suitable then? Or did it have to be on fire? This would be easier if I at least knew something about wizards and their arcane nonsense! Always so cryptic! I wanted to scream, badly, until one final recollection came to the forefront of my mind. Eating. He’d said eating.

 

   Food was a concept I was capable of working with, odd as it was in this instance. I started rummaging through the kitchen like an indecisive raccoon, choosing one thing, becoming anxious and changing my mind again and again, before finally settling on a tiny container of brown powder. It was simultaneously cliche and one of the more bizarre choices I could have made. By the time it occurred to me it might not be heavy enough, it was too late to reconsider, and I was forced to doctor it as best I could. Enough time had passed throughout the process of cooking that the hallways seemed much quieter, and so I awkwardly made my way back to the office with my silly ad hoc soup.

 

   I took a moment to quietly look him over from the doorway before I entered, on the off chance it would be a poor decision to interact with him now. He’d hardly moved from the spot on the couch, unless slouching counted. His nose was red, and his face looked a bit more gaunt than usual, but for the most part he seemed to have regained some semblance of control. I stepped into the room, debated where to set down the tray, before panicking and setting it down at a clumsy angle on the table. I felt incredibly awkward, which only increased as I sat down a ways across from him, and suspected he was feeling much the same way.

 

   “Cups?” Came the soft utterance of curiosity. Good, now I didn’t have to worry about whether or not I should start a conversation.

 

   “I made food.” He visibly withdrew at that, mouth pressing into a thin line.

 

   “I know it’s late, but you really don’t need to feed me.” The habitual humor was bone dry if present at all. My mind screeched with rising panic. Of course it annoyed him, of course I annoyed him.

 

   “I know, but I thought you, well uh, that you might need it.”

 

   “I’m fine.” Came the stubborn refutation, as though I hadn’t watched him almost knock himself out not too long ago, as though I hadn’t seen him experience the scenario once already. Before I could think of what to say, his breath caught, as though his body wanted to prove what a lie the statement was.

 

   “Huh’mmpSHH! Hiih! Hh’mmPHHT!” He groaned as he moved his arm away from his face. It was still a bit odd to see him do it, since normally the greatest effort on his part to cover was a turn of the head. I guessed it was a maneuver inspired by his discomfort.

 

   “Did you want something else instead?” I held on to some narrow hope that maybe the type of food was an issue, and that I could scrounge up something more acceptable and make this whole business much easier.

 

   “No.” A pointed sniffle. I was not a violent person in the slightest, but I found myself wondering if I wanted to strangle myself or him.

 

   “Then is there something else you needed?”

 

   “I just,” his frustration seemed to spike, enough it was clearly audible in his tone. “I just need to get home.” 

 

   Him. I wanted to strangle him. I was trying my best and yet even when I mustered the courage I still managed to get him upset with me. I felt my own frustration appear, and for just a moment, it was enough to chase away the cloud of self-reprimand and unease.

 

   “I know, and I made the soup so you didn’t have to feel trapped here.” The words came out of their own accord with startling clarity, and I felt shook that it was my own voice I was hearing, even if it wasn’t the first time it had happened this evening.

 

   I looked at him, my lips parted as I tried to think of how to apologize for blurting out such a thing, until I saw he wasn’t angry. Just surprised, like it had shocked him as much as it had me. The surprise became thoughtful, and then finally, realization.

 

   “Oh. You meant it for the magic, not…” He stopped, and frowned, brows drawing together. He looked like someone who had something to say, yet no idea how to say it. Somehow, whatever force had compelled me to speak out of turn before understood, let me understand without him saying so.

 

   “You think I pity you?” He jerked as though he’d been struck, but said nothing, and made no sound. He seemed distant, deep in thought.

 

   “How is it you keep doing that?”

 

   “Doing what?”

 

   “The…” With incredibly poor timing, his breath hitched, and he turned away with a mild snarl of annoyance.

 

   “Hhh-iiih’SSHHmmpt! Hdt’mmpSSHT!” He recovered slowly, the thoughtful expression creeping onto his face again. I waited.

 

   “You fluster easily, but when things get tense you seem almost,” He rolled his hands at the wrist, as though trying to spin a suitable word out of thin air. “Assured. Like out of nowhere you suddenly know exactly what to say.”

 

   Oh, so he’d noticed that.

 

   “I… To be honest with you I’m not entirely sure how it happens. It just sort of… started happening. I didn’t think too much of it until now.” A thoughtful, but understanding monosyllable was directed to me. Somehow, that single sound carried a fair amount of meaning in it. I felt reassured that the questioning was not because I shouldn’t do it, but passive curiosity. Passive, in that I had no obligation to satisfy it. A sudden epiphany came to mind, and my heart hammered nervously.

 

   “I think I know where it comes from.” We barely knew each other, only by a few months, I couldn’t just confide delicate details of my life.

 

   “Where it comes from?”

 

   “I-- You don’t have to listen, I know it’s…!” Again, the same monosyllabic sound, reassuring.

 

   Maybe. Maybe it would make him feel better too, if he understood. If he didn’t have to fear me pitying him. I took a few deep breaths, trying to force myself to think clearly.

 

   “I know I haven’t known you for that long, so you don’t have to hear it.”

 

   “You are under no obligation to tell me if it’s uncomfortable.”

 

   “I know.” I couldn’t seem to do it. It was inappropriate to just talk to someone you had only known for a few months about such things, and yet it was incredibly ironic that it was the fear of doing something improper that was stopping me. Scrambling for something, anything, to ease the awkwardness I reached out and took the second mug of soup.

 

   As I drank from it to spare myself the responsibility of talking, I saw him frown at the tray, thinking. For a long time, it was just his silent deliberation, and me sipping continuously from the mug to pretend I wasn’t paying attention. Swiftly, and without a word, he plucked the mug meant for him and just held it. I wanted to cheer.

 

   It was that way, for a while, until I saw him smirk half-heartedly.

 

   “Is something funny?”

 

   “I’d offer you some cliche about how the soup reminds me of my mother, but it would be an insult.” It took me a bit to process what he’d said.

 

   “An insult?” He adopted my strategy of occupying his mouth with the soup. Even while hanging on his previous words, I felt accomplished. The lip of the mug lowered and he hummed in confirmation.

 

   “But like you said before, I haven’t known you long, so you don’t need to hear my nonsense either.” The door was open, now only to walk through. Would it be worth walking through? Would we both regret it later?

 

   “Maybe we could both share our nonsense?” I suggested, failing to hide my timidity.

 

   “If you’re sure you want to listen.” He clasped the mug tighter, thinking.

 

   “Of course.” Another chunk of silence, until finally, he sighed.

 

   “I didn’t have the best relationship with my family.” I listened attentively. He seemed confused by his own thoughts, trying to think of where to start, how to explain. I got the feeling it wasn’t something he was used to conversing about.

 

   “Where we lived, back then, things were hard, most people struggled to keep bread on the table. There was no such thing as housewives, not even a word for it, you’d starve otherwise.”

 

   “Travelling must have been quite a shock for you.” Despite himself, he smiled just a little.

 

   “Believe me, it took a while to wrap my head around the concept. But the point I’m trying to make,” he returned to the topic at hand, “Is that being able to work was everything.” I started to piece it together.

 

   “And you couldn’t.” He grumbled, long and tired, and rubbed at his face for a moment, as though hearing it was difficult. It took a while for him to continue with the rest of the train of thought.

 

   “No. I was a sickly child, a fact which fostered some resentment.” That caught me off guard, and I looked him up and down, the ridiculous build I’d gotten used to associating with him contradicting the statement entirely.

 

   “But then, selfishly, I didn’t die.” It was particularly bitter sarcasm. I nearly lost it.

 

   “What!?” He flinched away at the volume of my voice.

 

   “Just, let me explain.” He said, holding up one hand defensively as the other grasped tenderly at his forehead. Oh.

 

   “Faex, that’s what I get for badly delivered morbid humor.” I muttered a tentative, and more importantly reasonably quiet, apology. He didn’t dignify it with more than a wave.

 

   “Look, it wasn’t like I was entombed in a wine cellar, but I certainly wasn’t worthy of any close interaction beyond discipline. Which is better than I could say for most of the other people I recall from my childhood.”

 

   “Other people treated you poorly?”

 

   “People looked at me and just seemed to expect I’d fall over one day and that would be the end of it.” He sat there, seeming far away, the recollection no doubt bringing him away to an unpleasant place.

 

   “For me, it just confirmed that I was a lost cause and not worth anything. For my parents, it was a constant reminder of how likely it was that they’d lose the only child they managed to have. So I suppose, they just... acted accordingly.” I didn’t want to imagine what he must be feeling, but just hearing it overwhelmed me with disgust and anger.

 

   “What a cruel way to treat a child.” I spat. He shrugged.

 

   “If you think you’ll lose something it’s easier if you don’t get attached. It’s the same reason you don’t name livestock.” I was appalled.

 

   “You’re a person, Logan.”

 

   “So were my parents. People are imperfect.”

 

   “Treating your own child like that isn’t imperfection, it’s inhumane.” His only response was an unexpected, angry sigh as he threw up his hands.

 

   “What’s done is done, I can’t spend my entire life brooding over my childhood and hating my parents.” I let it go, and watched him. He didn’t deserve to grow up that way, no one did, and yet he somehow justified it to himself, rationalized it. Nothing was said, but I felt compelled to do something, anything.

 

   So I stood up and did the only thing that came to mind.

 

   “Don’t hate me for this.” I told him as I approached.

 

   “For what?” 

 

   I sat back down, next to him, and against all better judgement, hugged him. Or tried to. He didn’t move away, or protest, or flinch. He just held perfectly still, spine completely rigid. When I looked up at him, he didn’t look angry, or grudging, or much of anything that I was expecting. Just baffled, vaguely uncomfortable with the gesture yet not arguing against it.

 

   “Is this okay?” He didn’t answer, just blinked several times, seemingly struggling to process what was, to him, an evidently alien gesture. But slowly, robotically, he freed one arm, and started hovering it over my back, as though attempting to decide what to do with it. Eventually, he rested one forearm on my shoulders, elbow jutting out as he meticulously avoided placing too much of himself on me. Ah, comfort zone.

 

   “You don’t get hugged often do you?”

 

   “Not really.” He was deathly quiet. I felt a little sad at the thought, that he would be starved of such simple physical affection, to a point it seemed like I had been taking it for granted all this time.

 

   In the back of my mind, I was aware of an amount of self consciousness for how long I’d been so earnestly hugging a man I considered a friend, and started pulling away a little at a time. He noticed, and all at once, moved his arm from me entirely. Once separated, I slid a safe distance away, and studied his face. He was blushing, and looked confused on a fundamental level, but I couldn’t tell if he felt any better.

 

   “Thank you for trusting me with that.” He made an impassive sound.

 

   “I’m not sure it was trust so much as it was charging stupidly forward on the agreement that we’d both do it.” I smiled.

 

   “I have to admit, mine just feels stupid in comparison.” He rolled his eyes at that, something which for whatever reason, I had not expected him to be capable of.

 

   “Oh shut up, you can’t just pretend my familial drama suddenly makes everyone else’s inadequate.” I burst out laughing.

 

   “I’m afraid I can’t relate to familial drama very well.”

 

   “Be glad you can’t.” I decided to take his words to heart, though it seemed strange to look back on my family in this new light and realize just how fortunate I had been without knowing.

 

   “So, where to start then?” I shook my head. He rotated in his seat to face me, something which I suspected was more for my benefit than his. I breathed in slowly, exhaled, and felt most of my good mood fade at the recollections.

 

   “Like I said, my family was good to me, strict but good to me, even when I became a nightmare of a teenager.”

 

   “I find it hard to imagine you as a rebellious teenager.”

 

   “Most children become rebellious when they’re used to strict rules and structure, I was no exception.” He looked at me like I was a living paradox, but seemed to accept the answer.

 

   “What was strict about it?” I had the passing thought, briefly, that his curiosity was due to him trying to get an idea of what my family was like in comparison to his. I wasn’t sure I could say the same.

 

   “Just all the things I had to learn. When to look someone else in the eye, how to curtsey and bow, when to do either, at least those were some of the annoying ones. Punctuality and manners, things like that. The rest of it was more academic.”

 

   “You make it sound like they were preparing you for court.”

 

   “Truth be told, they were.” He leaned forward with keen interest then, eyebrows raised.

 

   “You’re…?” I flushed beet red.

 

   “Of an incredibly minor house! It barely counts!”

 

   “Still.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully, “You being part of a house does explain a few things.”

 

   “Explains what?” I bristled, just a little.

 

   “You’re soft spoken, yet speak well, and put an emphasis on humility. A perfect courtier.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Eventually, thank the Divines, he saved me the trouble.

 

   “Sorry, you were saying?” I obliged and continued.

 

   “Part of it, I think, was me trying to get back at them for making such a big deal of things I’d at some point decided weren’t worth learning. Why would it matter what I can and can’t say? Why all the manners and heavy expectations for something which, in the end, I didn’t want to do? It frustrated me, and so if you took a list of every dumb or outrageous thing a teenager would try, I could admit to having done a fair number.” I took a moment to gauge the mage’s response. He looked like a series of imagined situations were going through his head, and he was experiencing severe cognitive dissonance as a result.

 

   “But naturally, all of that, got me involved with questionable groups of people, and that started to reflect badly on my family on its own. Even before I had to start actually putting what they taught me to use.” Here it went, nothing left to stall, I had to find a way to summarize one of my biggest regrets. Why had I wanted to tell him so badly?

 

   But I told him. It was all such a blur of emotion that by the end, I could hardly recall even a piece of what I’d said, only that I’d told him. When I’d finished, I heard him inhale deeply through his teeth.

 

   “Helva fuit.” He cursed with a virulent, pained voice, trying to absorb it.

 

   “I don’t even remember what it was about, but that one stupid, stupid thing I said, and then that was it. Just like that, and it’s my fault.”

 

   “You couldn’t have known that would happen.” But it had, and from it I’d learned the terror that one misstep, one wrong word could change everything. It was irrational, and no matter how much I appreciated the comfort, it was impossible to reason with.

 

   “I should have listened. I should have known better than to just -”

 

   “Pro futuo eruit, Eliza, you’re talking about a court of noble houses. House politics makes pastries look foolproof.” It occurred to me, through it all, that this was one of the incredibly rare times I’d ever heard him use my first name. If not the first.

 

   “I’m sorry, you told me yours just fine and yet here I am barely keeping it together. It isn’t fair to you.” He’d had it far worse than me, I knew that, and we’d come from vastly different backgrounds. I had everything I should have needed to be able to get over myself, and yet here I was, still somehow reduced to a ball of angst and irrational social anxiety over something that happened years ago.

 

   “I told you, my problems don’t make yours inadequate.”

 

   “I know,” I had to take a few moments to regulate my breathing, “But you were able to just, talk about it, and I can’t even…”

 

   “Have you ever actually told anyone before?”

 

   “N-no.”

 

   “That’s why. You never had the chance to work through it. Even just talking makes a surprising amount of difference.” Something told me he spoke from experience.

 

   “Then you’ve?”

 

   “One person. My mentor.” A question, which I hadn’t even thought to ask, yet should’ve been obvious, popped into my head.

 

   “You never did tell me how you managed to get your education.”

 

   “I annoyed a foreign archivist until he agreed to teach me.”

 

   “You bullied a bookkeeper into mentoring you?” He gave me his best deadpan look.

 

   “Every doctor and medicine man that looked at me said I wouldn’t be able to walk. So I learned to do it in a year and a half out of nothing but spite. The old geezer didn’t stand a chance.” Despite everything earlier, it made me laugh.

 

    “Thank you, I think I needed that.”

 

    “What I’m here for.”

 

   For a while, it was quiet, just enjoying the other’s presence without saying anything. I thought about everything that had happened over the course of a single evening. I had shared something like that with him, and he’d even offered consul, and that worried me. Would things change now that such was the case? Would he feel pressured to offer me advice?

 

   “Logan, was this a bad idea?” I received only silence as my audience. When I turned to look at him, he was dead asleep. 

 

   Birds chirped outside, and I realized just how exhausted I myself was. I dragged his coat over him to act as a blanket before I left, blowing out the dwindling candles.