#{to not only sate these muses who won't shut up}

[tarnishedxknight]

{out of dalmasca} As always, I want to write so much more, haha, but sleep calls. I'll be back here on Thursday (and probably Friday too) as usual to hopefully get out a lot more replies! =)

[essektheylyss]

Essek fic prompt, if you're interested: anything with animals. Essek and Frumpkin, Essek and Sprinkle or Nugget, Essek getting his own familiar... idk Essek and the freakin moorbounders. Essek realizing he can show affection to a creature that won't go tattle on him and ruin his reputation.

This,,, so aggressively got away from me and I wasn’t totally sure how to end it but it was so cute and I really just want soft afternoons with puppies for Essek forever

They’d left him, for the time being, where it seemed they’d left many of their unwanted problems and strange adoptees over the months—with Jester’s mother.

The sunlight streams in through the open window hard enough to give him a headache, but he welcomes the sharp sting in his brow as he sits on a very pink bed that he’d gathered had been Jester’s growing up, with several books collected from the wizard’s tower, the one who’d looked him up and down with an upturned nose and humphed loudly and sent them on their way without another word, and Essek didn’t know what kind of judgment he’d really expected.

“—so sorry to do this to you, Marion,” a sheepish voice he recognizes but fails to quite place floats through the cracked door, followed by a thump and the boisterous bark of a dog. “Luc and I have quite a few errands to run, but he’s been chewing all of the furniture and I feel horrible when Veth comes back to the house destroyed—“

Ah, Veth’s husband. He doesn’t remember his name, and a nauseous feeling washes over him when he realizes that he absolutely should remember Veth’s husband’s name, considering the man had spent a week in Essek’s prison.

He’d had very different priorities then, but that doesn’t feel like an excuse anymore.

His face burns, and he holds his breath, hoping that he will not be found here by Mr. Brenatto, even with the knowledge that Marion could reveal him at any time.

“Of course, Yeza,” Marion’s voice replies—oh, thank the gods, he will remember it now—and Essek has spent enough time here over the past few days to recognize a slight strain in her voice, though she speaks warmly. “That’s not a problem at all. You and Luc run along and leave him with me.”

Essek sits very still as thanks and niceties are exchanged, until soft footsteps mean that the halfling has exited the room.

And then, as he’d feared it might, the door swings open.

Marion Lavorre stands there in an elegant black dress, one hand on the collar of an absolutely enormous puppy, ears still a little big for his body, panting excitably. His tail thumps against the doorframe as she scrunches her face a bit, a proactive apology, and then the dog—blinks. He’s seen the effect on at least one occasion, and in a snap its eyes glow blue and it vanishes from her grasp and appears on the bed beside him, its not quite clean hind descending on what he surmises is a very old and very delicate book. He’s certain that Yussa Errenis is a man who does not lend out books that he does not have backups of, but he still imagines trying to explain why its illuminated pages are crumpled.

“Oh, Nugget,” Marion hisses, and the dog blinks back to her side, but not before dragging its huge tongue across Essek’s dumbfounded face. She looks at him, as sheepishly as Yeza Brenatto sounded, and it seems that the parents near to this group have similar views on this… Nugget. “I’m so sorry—I really am able to take care of him for the afternoon, but I have rehearsal shortly—“

He blinks at her, feeling his face flush in confusion. “You… rehearse?”

Her smile is a little devilish, and he can see her daughter in her more than ever. “Singing, dear. I have a rehearsal for a performance.”

His ears burn with embarrassment. “Ah. That makes… more sense.”

“Anyway, I have a rehearsal and then I can watch him, but it would be so helpful if you could—“

Essek swallows hard, and remembers that Marion is like her daughter in more than one way—it’s very hard to say no to either of them when they’re asking nicely.

He nods and wonders how he’s going to take care of a blink dog. “Of course.”

A relieved smile floods onto her face. “Oh, thank the gods,” she says, and looks down at the overly excited dog. “Nugget, Essek is home.”

And she points to him, and the dog meets his gaze with the biggest puppy eyes he’s ever seen. Oh, luxon. This is already a mistake.

“Okay, all you do,” Marion says, and he has to wrench his eyes away when he realizes that she’s talking to him now, “is say home.”

He quickly folds his books shut and sets them aside. The dog is almost as large as he is, and he frowns, thinking about the halfling who is a head and a half shorter than he is. “This is… Yeza’s dog?”

“Well,” Marion sighs. “Technically, it’s Jester’s dog.”

With a name like Nugget, he should’ve known.

“Nugget,” he says slowly, with tremendous hesitation. This is the last thing he wants to do with his afternoon, especially with his headache only building. “Home.”

It blinks to his side, and its tongue is on his face in an instant. He fights it off with several undignified shouts, and when he’s finally situated, Marion smiles apologetically.

“Thank you so much,” she says, and closes the door, and it dawns on Essek that he is now alone in Jester’s room, tasked with not killing Jester’s dog, and he feels all the blood drain from his face.

Nugget looks at him happily, tail thumping against a very pink pillow, and Essek takes a moment to pat it gently on the head a few times. “Good dog,” he says hollowly, and Nugget nuzzles into his hand, and it only takes a few minutes of hesitation before he’s figured out that Nugget will flop down sideways on the bed if he keeps scratching a certain spot behind his ear.

And for a little while, his fingers itch to pick up the book he’d been in the middle of, an analysis of ethics in the Age of Arcanum to do with attempted time magic—he thinks that Caleb and Yussa might’ve picked that out especially for him, but it’s interesting enough so he doesn’t mind—but he doesn’t want to risk the dog chewing up Jester’s childhood things. And he finds, a while later, that sitting there scratching Nugget’s ears is almost like meditation, something his tutors had tried to teach him as a child that he’d never been very good at, with his mind buzzing constantly and too many ideas to chase.

Now, though, he’s stuck here, and he’s not thinking about his books anymore—he’s watching the rise and fall of Nugget’s chest, the easy trust he gives a man he’s never met, the pleasure he takes from such a small affection.

Sprawled out on the bed, he’s the image of bliss.

“You’re a very simple creature, you know,” he says, and finds that talking to Nugget is not as awkward as he would’ve expected. He’s never spoken to an animal in his life, and had assumed it would be even worse than talking to someone else—but no, it’s like being alone in his tower and musing to himself. A little arrogant, sure, to speak knowing you are your own answer, but there’s no one around to judge. And when he speaks, Nugget’s tail thumps again, and he lets out a heavy sigh of contentment.

It is not a response Essek is used to from anyone, when he speaks—his words are weapons, more often than not, whether he wants them to be or not. He has armed himself with them for too long, and people tend to flinch when he opens his mouth.

“Are you lonely, to be so willing to open yourself up in exchange for love?” he asks, and knows that it’s rhetorical, but still wonders what the answer might be. “Or do you simply know nothing else?”

Perhaps Essek is not as complicated as he thinks he is—he, like this dog, sees the world transactionally. He is trying not to, with his friends guiding him, to believe that not everything must be earned or exchanged, but he looks at this dog, and he thinks that it’s natural to view the world that way.

And who is he to think he’s better than this puppy, snoring sweetly beside him, occasionally peering up at him with those doe eyes?

The sun is still pounding a tattoo into his eye sockets, but the ocean breeze is very unlike Rosohna and the stuffy confines of his tower, and he leaves the window open. Instead, he slides down to rest below it, the sun no longer hitting him, and curls up against the dog.

Nugget shifts his head until it rests on Essek’s stomach, and he absently continues to scratch his ears. It’s the most relaxed he’s been in… years, he thinks, even before the business with the Assembly, before he had ended up as a fixture in the Bright Queen’s throne room.

He thinks of Caleb, reading on the ground of the Xhorhaus library, with Frumpkin curled up on his stomach. It has always seemed rather inconvenient, but Caleb does it for hours.

Essek reaches for his book, set on a shelf at the end of the bed. Instantly, Nugget lifts his head and whines, then rolls over until his body is on Essek’s outstretched shoulder, nosing at Essek’s chin.

“By the light,” Essek snarls, falling back into undercommon, and returns one hand to the dog’s ear. When he immediately quiets, and releases Essek’s trapped arm, Essek blinks at him. “Ah. You only act out when you’re being ignored.”

He breathes out the barest hint of a laugh through his nose. Perhaps he and this dog really are quite alike.

One hand still offering enough affection to keep the dog sated, he retrieves his book uninhibited, and holds it over his head. It is perhaps harder to focus this way, but it is soothing to have Nugget’s gentle movement of breath on his stomach, and the breeze coming in the window, and a book in his hand.

He remembers his father telling him that a pet was a lot of responsibility when he’d told Essek as a child that he couldn’t have one, but Essek thinks now that having a pet is no more responsibility that keeping oneself content. In fact, perhaps it is easier to be satisfied, with such satisfaction as a model.

“Essek, we’re on the way back! Are you okay with Mama? Are you having a good afternoon? Caleb wants to know if you like the books—“ He thinks Jester may have had more to say, but he answers anyway.

“I’m not getting through reading particularly fast, but I am having a pleasant afternoon. I ended up watching over your—Nugget.”

He looks down at the dog, whose tail wags at the sound of his name, whacking him in the head. He can’t bring himself to be mad.

“You’re watching Nugget?! Isn’t he a good boy?! Isn’t he so cute, Essek? Oh my god, I can’t wait to see him when we get back—“

He imagines the rest of the Nein shaking their head as Jester is cut off once again, and he smiles as he sets the book down and turns his attention to scratching Nugget’s fey ears with both hands. Nugget writhes with pleasure as Essek lets him lick his chin this time.

“Yes, he’s very cute. He’s—” he trails off for a minute, and almost forgets to finish. “He’s a very good boy.”