#is it in poor taste or would there still be imperceptible smoke in the air

[evadingreallife]

Tag urself im #found out there was a fire nearby cause i saw the emergency helicopter bringing water

[feldelicious]

A Visit

Anza swatted at another fly, annoyed. Honestly, she thought. A frightening large insect flew near her. A stinger? It’s a stinger. Proboscis? Who cares. Anza’s eyes narrowed in resignation. She concentrated on her enemies: insects. Of all types.

 A golden radiance pulsed briefly outward and around the priest. Threatening, buzzing insects (and even assuredly those who weren’t so threatening) fell to the ground, dead. Anza floated on clouds through the swamp. It was rather convenient to levitate.

 The priest finally approached her goal: a charming home near the coast in the Swamp of Sorrows. Cannily tucked away. Almost deliberately so. But not so ostentatious as to scream: ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE. Still. Anza looked down at her notes, the goblin writing nigh unintelligible:

 Do not. & I repeat: DO NOT BO N3AR THa OKR4. It’l probebLy dill u.

 Nonsense. Their intelligence is probably as good as their penmanship.

 An invigorating breeze rustled by, cooled by the sea. The plants in the garden near the tidy little home rustled in luxurious happiness. Anza pointedly avoided what looked like the okra; no one could trust a plant that grew vegetal spikes, as flawed as the intelligence may be.

 Ignoring the (allegedly) killer vegetation, the home really was well blended into its surroundings. It didn’t so much disappear as simply deflect one’s eyes because it seemed so organically suited to its surroundings. And yet, there was a flaw.

 An almost imperceptible wisp of smoke curled from the narrow chimney. Cooking? The savory, sweet, ubiquitous scent of crocolisk gumbo simmering on a hearth permeated the air. Anza smiled. Reb’kah.

 The priest felt no need to be shy. She levitated down the path, noticing the trip wire: Reb. Peering down at the rune on the stone in front of her, she mused: this is really quite dangerous.

 I suppose I simply announce myself. Purple energy swirled around the blood elf, seeking out and negating magical effects.

 The thick wooden door immediately sprang open. Inside stood a fiery-haired orc, busy in her kitchen.  Her right hand continued to stir the gumbo, but her left rose with sharply bent fingers as dark magic gathered around it – then shot out toward the intruder.

 “Wai---"

 The priestess’ blue eyes widened as she reached for the Light – although her shimmering shield was instantly cancelled by an evil-looking skull smashing into it.

 “Hello, Rebkah.”

  The orc offered a sideways glance.

 “Thank you for not doing permanent damage.”

 “I heard you were coming, Anza. Come in.” The warlock lifted a spoon to her mouth for a taste, looking rather pleased. Anza lifted the hem of her robe and stepped inside the foyer. The cottage was tasteful and roomy, actually a bit less ostentatious than the elf had come to expect from the orc. Her glance took in subdued crimson walls, a magohany cabinet, clearly Pandaren-carved with clouds and wind serpents, delicate silken drapes in lilac, possibly of Nightborne make, and a curious collection of nautical instruments in brass – were they Kul’tiran?

 “I would have written well in advance but you know how unreliable it is to send messages of import quickly these days. I relied on other means.”

 A goblin with exceedingly blue curly hair and a tray of what looked like very cold beverages walked in and bowed. “Refreshments, Lady Reb’kah, Lady Anza.”

 With a thud, the small green woman shakily set the drinks down at a table in the living room, which had already been prepared with tropical fruits and exotic meats in expectation of a guest. Reb’kah glared at the servant.

 “Oh, Reb. Leave the poor dear alone.”

 The much taller orc narrowed her eyes at the goblin, who quietly yelped and ran, and the warlock went back to tending the gumbo. Contentedly.

 Anza smiled. “You look well.”

 Reb’kah smiled in turn. “I am.”

 “And your husband is a mercenary on the high seas?”

 “He’s an entrepreneur.”

 “In shipping?”

 “Yes. Also, cargo transport. Sometimes requisition.”

 “A pirate.”

 “A businessman, a captain and occasional privateer.” Reb’kah’s tone was final.

 Pirate. Anza thought. And takes a sip of the very cold and insanely refreshing beverage. Seafoam coconut water? With just a bit of rum, and something else.. If she poisoned me, it was worth it. And smiles again.

 Reb’kah’s eyes focus on Anza. “I have heard that a certain faction of elves visited the Sunwell some time ago.”

 “Yes.” Anza grabbed a bit of Zeb’ahari kiwi, known for its pale green shade, and a thinly sliced piece of meat and popped it into her mouth.

 “And?”

 Anza, annoyed, replied: “They came, they did not destroy our entire civilization, and, thankfully, they are gone.”

 “But they remain. In the Eastern Kingdoms, that is.”

 Anza, looking more anxious than perhaps Reb has seen her before, waved her hand in dismissal.

 “Yes, but Reb, and I am sorry for barging in on you like this, but you’ve heard what has happened.”

 Reb’kah looked down at the gumbo, then reflexively added a dried herb from a basin at her side. She stirred in the tiny green pieces, and leaned forward to smell the effect.

 “I’ve heard. And while I’ve helped save Azeroth before, you must know that I have new responsibilities.” Though she’d been cooking with her left hand; her right hand held the subtle outline of her growing child, strong yellow fingers against a black embersilk gown, subtly embroidered.

 “I’m so happy for you, Reb.” Anza stood up, and gazed out of the window, facing the seashore. She closed her eyes, breathing the clean, though slightly salty air in. “You know what Sylvanas has done.”

 “I do.” Rebkah turns to Anza. “But I don’t know what it means for the future..yet.”

 “Neither do I. But I know you can help.”

 Reb’kah retrieved bowls and scooped rice into them, leaving plenty of space to ladle gumbo atop. She placed a bowl of crocolisk gumbo in front of Anza.

 “How? I’ve had to cut back on chaos magic due to this pregnancy. So I’m really not interested in stepping into the realms of the dead at all. Nor chasing down someone who never should have been made Warchief to begin with.”

 Anza leaned forward, using delicate fingers to waft in the smell of the hot gumbo. She smiled, taking a big bite of the stew with her spoon.

 “DERR ARE COFENANFS.”

 Reb’kah delayed her first bite from her own bowl, frustrated because this meal had taken hours. “What?”

 Anza swallowed. “This really is good. What I mean to say is, in the Shadowlands, apparently there are factions at play.”

 “And how do you know this?” said Reb’kah, taking a conservative bite of the gumbo in front of her.

 “The same as you.” Anza said. Reb’kah grunted. “You’ve heard the same from your informants as I have.”

 The orc nodded to herself in contemplation, it really is deliciou…

 “Yes, Reb, it is really fantastic gumbo. I’m going to finish it. I’m shoving my face full right now.” Anza was sincerely eating very quickly and not as elegantly as Reb’kah was accustomed to. “What resources can you supply for this effort?” Anza masticated.

 The warlock leaned back in her chair, further testing the strength of the fabric cushion, one of those slightly ridiculous Goblin pineapple prints. “I think that there is more than enough work to be done right here in Azeroth, right now.”

 “I agree, Reb. But we must address this new threat. There are entirely new possibilities.” Anza swallowed, looking guilty. “You know the value of souls, Reb. There are entire factions ebbing and flowing in the world that Sylvanas has unleashed. And regardless of your view of Sylvanas, we must prevent the destruction of reality.” Anza looked down at her food. “It really may be that dire.”

 The priestess sat up straight, shoulders back, looking directly at her orc friend of many years. “I will infiltrate Bastion. I know that I will have influence; I will aim for prestige. I will have to prove myself to them first, but then I will have much more information. I only ask that you provide me with information of whatever faction that you decide to join… and I will reciprocate.”

 Reb’kah’s eyebrow raised as she took a delicate bite. “I’m not sure that I have time for any of this.”

 Anza nods. “That’s fine. But you have other resources. Other minions.” She coughed delicately. “Employees. At your command. Competent people. Send them to the Shadowlands. I will share what information that I have with you. If you do the same, we may have influence in this newly discovered reality that Sylvanas has thrust upon us. Please.”

 The warlock took another, larger bite of gumbo. “Fine.” She decided, after a few moments. “I’ll help. But don’t hold me accountable for any souls that are lost along the way.” Reb’kah looked both serious and dismissive as she continued to eat.

 Anza, pragmatic and with only a distant air of distaste, said, “Deal.”

 A seabreeze rustled the drapes, bringing an unexpected chill to the air.  Though it was still much warmer than the icy winds currently blowing through Northrend – that frozen continent where the realm of death itself had began to seep into Azeroth through a shattered sky.

***Anza of Wyrmrest Accord wrote this story. Reb’kah edited it and added things. Hope you enjoyed!***

[thebifrostgiant]

If You Know Where to Look - Part 8 (1/2)

Summary: in which Loki hunts, and you listen. Thunder rumbles from a distance

Part 1 / Previous

Read on Ao3

Word Count: 2,423

Rating: T (for now)

Pairing: Loki/Reader

*

Chapter 8: A Crown’s No Cure

A week. Loki has a week until he’s meant to be married. And yet here he is, in the middle of a self-appointed task, a task that he sees the necessity of even if there were a fair many other things he’d envisioned himself spending this time doing. It seems he has elected to take a hunting trip after all — and wouldn’t Thor be quite chagrined that he had gone off without his brother or their companions — but rather than terrorizing some poor beast of the forest and bringing its head back as a trophy, he follows the cold trail of another wretched creature, seeking blood not for sport, but to satiate the burn for vengeance on a more personal matter.

He urges Fóthradr into a trot with a gentle prod of his heels into the palfrey’s dappled flanks, and ducks beneath the lowest hanging branches of a small alder as he scans the ground for any slight clue. The air is cool as it streams against his face, bringing with it the damp wash of a brewing storm and the scent of upturned leaves.

The trail is already faded and nearly imperceptible. A heavy downpour would sweep away any chance of following it altogether as barely-there spoors became slicks of mud and patches of faintly crumpled grass, telling of a stray footstep here and there, were whipped flat by the squall. But subtlety is Loki’s art, and it is not raining yet.

His eyes find traces where most others would not. A broken twig here, the smashed cap of a mushroom there. A winding track a hairsbreadth too wide to be used simply by deer. The trick, Loki has found, is not to come at it head on, for one often misses even the most obvious of signs when they are right in front of one’s face. Instead, he knows that it’s far better to approach things of this nature sideways, seeing without seeing, and he glances around from the corners of his eyes. Underlooking to avoid overlooking, catching the tiny details in a most delicate manner. And...

Ah. There.

In his left periphery, Loki can just barley make out the hazy glimmer of a dew trail, a slender pathway through the grass where the droplets have been wiped away by shuffling boots. Loki smiles. Thor may be the stronger hunter between them, able to take down large prey by sheer force, and Fandral the better shot with an arrow, but when it comes to tracking, to uncovering hidden passages and noticing the unnoticeable, it is Loki who is best.

He slings his leg over the bare back of his mount and drops gracefully to the forest floor, and goes to take the bit out of Fóthradr’s mouth and slides a halter over his nose, tying the rope to a sturdy branch and leaving plenty of slack for his horse to graze. He pats him twice on his freckled cheek and turns his oblique attention once more to the moisture-ridden earth, slipping through the forest on foot as he pursues his ravin.

***

When the door swings open with no warning, you have to jump back a bit to avoid being smacked with the heavy wood, and once you recover, you're met with the frowning face of a woman who is decidedly not pleased with either you or your response to nearly being knocked unconscious.

“Ah. You must be the little servant brat Loki mentioned,” she says coolly, as if you’re some insignificant child and not nearly of an age with her. You notice there is a slight accent to her discourteous tone that you vaguely recall is Vanir. Then she sneers, and somehow manages to look down at you even from the scant inch she has on your own height. “It certainly took you long enough, but I suppose if this was the best Asgard had to offer, I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Her eyes flick to your scar and you suddenly wish she had hit you with the door. You feel cold, and your hand itches to cover your cheek, but you stand there, lips pressed together so hard they’ve lost color, trying not to feel so humiliated and waiting for some instruction. You hate this, you realizes with fervor, especially since Loki’s betrothed is every bit as awful as the prince himself, but you’d hate it as much even if she was as kind as Eir, because taking orders and being expected to comply to every demand of another is degrading, and when compared to your simple life on the farm, where all there was to worry about was plucking the worms off the cabbage plants and gathering fatwood for the winter and chopping apples so they could be dried and stored for the rest of the year, not even the ethereal glory of the palace is enough of a counterbalance.

“Well?” she says, brimful of impatience, after a long moment, still standing in the doorway

Oh. Evidently she expects you to enter, despite not inviting you forth, so you gently step around her into the room and she pulls the door shut with a snap behind you.

The room, or rather the suite of rooms that makes up her chambers, is larger than your whole home, with towering shelves crammed with tomes of all sorts, a bed big enough for four people stacked high with pillows and silk sheets, desks and wardrobes of carved wood inlaid with brushed silver and deep perse garnets, and curtains draped elegantly over floor length windows. It all makes you feel very small and paltry.

The woman moves across the floor to stand in front of a set of ornate mirrors bordered with floral designs in wrought brass, and you’re not sure what you’re supposed to do. You get the impression that she doesn’t particularly wish to have you speak to her, but should you ask? Perhaps you’re just expected to know, only you’ve never done anything like this before, and you have no idea what duties a servant of a princess is meant to oversee. You run your hands down the sides of your tunic, trying to get them to stop sweating as you continue to hesitate in the corner of the room. Her bright yellow eyes find yours through the glass of the mirror, leaving you exposed under the second-hand scrutiny.

“Are you going to help me get dressed or not? I don’t have all day.”

Right. Of course. You’re only just now realizing that she’s clothed only in a slip and there’s a splendid golden gown spread out before her, seeming to shimmer in the light, and yes, perhaps she would need an extra set of hands to manage getting it on properly. Right. You nod, and step forward to do just that. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?

***

It’s almost too easy, Loki thinks as he spots the rising smoke above the trees and treks on silent feet to the campsite. Several old, patchy tents dot the clearing centered around a felled tree and a shoddy fire pit. It’s pitiable, almost, or would be if Loki were inclined to feel such things for these lowliest of people who would disgrace themselves as they had.

Loki watches for a moment, unseen amongst the trunks, as a handful of men and a young woman drift back and forth across the site, idly chatting, the men carrying buckets and roughly hewn hide packs, the woman mending the torn outsole of a boot with neat little stitches. They seem harmless enough, simple-minded, dirty peasants concentrated on survival, but Loki is a sensible man, and he puts no stock in depthless suppositions.

He steps forward and reveals himself.

Impressively, no one screams, but they do take off running. Mead and wash-water slosh everywhere as buckets are overturned, needle and thread and leather flying as they scramble like panicked deer in all directions.

“No, no. I don’t think so,” he chides, and all seven or eight of them freeze. He smirks. “You’ll be coming with me. You see, some of you” — he recognizes two of the men from their part in delivering the girl to him on that cur Einvald’s behest — “seem to have blood on your hands, and you will be punished for it, have no doubt, and the rest of you... well, you’ve been privy to such crimes and yet you’ve deliberately held your silence, so it would appear to me that you are guilty in equal measure. But your fate is not for me to decide, and so, an extemporaneous jaunt to the palace’s prison cells is in order. Come along, now, let’s not waste any more time.”

It’s hard not to feel smug as they all march like ducklings after him, but he knows he’s missing one, and it does put a damper on the taste of victory. It seems Einvald may be more wily than he’d first thought, slipping away from him like a weasel slinking from a falcon’s claws. But he will be back for the man, to ensure he is repaid tenfold for his insults. And, in spite of the imminent storm, Loki can hardly wait.

***

It can be that hard, you find out. Maybe if it weren’t the strange, Vanaheim style of dress with so many straps meant to be tied just so, and maybe if the one you were attempting to dress wasn’t so irascible and fidgety, and maybe if you had the first clue about any of this it wouldn’t be so bad. But you don’t, and by the time you’ve finally managed to get all the parts of the dress situated properly — and you have to admit it does look rather nice — your mistress is practically frothing as she grits her teeth, flared nostrils visible in the mirror as she lets out a furious breath. Clearly, your incompetence is a cause of great irritation to her, a fact that she lets you know in no uncertain — nor, really, construably polite — terms.

In fact, everything you do over the next few days is met with much the same reaction. It’s a steady stream of “What are you doing? No, not like that!” and “I said braid my hair, not turn it into a tangled wreck! Ouch, stop pulling!” and “Why isn’t my bath ready yet? The water’s too hot! Ugh, now it’s too cold!” and “Élivágar and Ginnungagap, girl! Can’t you do anything right?” without you being able to get a word in edgewise. It’s enough to give you a headache, and make you think that Prince Loki may actually deserve her.

You’ve been kept busy making the ridiculously lavish and comfortable bed in Ülle’s chambers, stoking the fire in the hearth to maintain the perfect temperature, drawing baths in the largest tub you have ever seen — complete with wonderfully fragrant and, you imagine, expensive oils and soaps — dressing Ülle, brushing and plaiting her hair — which is slippery and fine, and resists being done up in even the most simple of styles — picking up and putting away all the assorted things she leaves strewn about, retrieving this and that and the other thing from who even knows where, all on top of being expected to follow Ülle around wherever she goes as her personal attendant, which leaves precious little time to do all the other tasks, but you still have plenty of time to get yelled at, of course.

On the positive side, you’ve just about figured out all the turns to get to the kitchen and back, having made the trip several times a day to bring Ülle her breakfast and whatever else she requests, and you no longer fear getting lost in the palace. The bad news is the other servants don’t seem inclined to be friendly toward you, not that you go out of your way to encourage any interactions. You know they whisper about you when they think you can’t hear. Mostly they talk about your scar, predictably. No one seems to know how you got it, and there are several trails of gossip going around, some more wild than others.

But you do learn some things from their tales. Apparently you had been so limp and covered in blood when Prince Loki carried you in that you had looked dead, and the prince was so bloody and disheveled, with a somewhat frightening look on his face, that some had thought he had killed you. But since you are obviously still alive, that idea had been proven wrong, though most seem to think that Loki had, at least, given you the scar, and at most actually tried to kill you, and that you perhaps have other scars elsewhere on your body hidden beneath your clothing (which does in fact match that of the other servants). Still, there’s a theory that Loki hadn’t been the one to hurt you, but that he had rescued you in some daring fight against those who had hurt you and rushed you back to the palace to save your life. A bit closer, but still nowhere near the truth of it. On the tail end of that one was a particularly absurd rumor that you were the prince’s secret lover, although how that gained any credence you shudder to wonder.

Despite the high stress of it all, and the work you know you’ll have to make up later, the most interesting parts of your days are when you do accompany Ülle when she leaves her chambers, following at her heels like a trained dog and fetching whatever she demands, often loaded down and carrying assorted chattel that she couldn’t possibly be expected to carry herself as she strolls the palace gardens — extravagant, interwoven pathways with shady bowers covered in bright pink, orange, and blue-violet blooms, and creeping clusters of tiny white and yellow flowers that grow on trellis archways and smell wonderfully sweet, and thick, verdant grasses and shallow pools and clinging vines cascading from berry laden rowans and stooped, feathery willows as far as the eye can see — or the library — central to the palace, massive enough to get lost in, with low lighting provided by lanterns and warmed by cozy little fires lit in corners meant for reading comfortably, with wooden tables and long chairs upholstered in velvet, the scent of thousands of books’ worth of parchment and leather permeating every crevice — or several other various and grand locations throughout the residence of the Allfather and his progeny.

(2/2)

[pathfindersemail]

Canis Aureus, Redux! 

Chapter 3: “Keep your friends close...”

Summary: [Reyes Squadmate AU] Reyes Vidal was only seven years old when he watched Alec Ryder kill his father. Years later, Cerberus makes him an offer he can't refuse and the machinations of vengeance begin. Old wounds and a new galaxy - the job was easy enough. If only Sarianna Ryder stayed out of the way...

Click here to start from the beginning.

Reyes spent his last night in the Milky Way reviewing files. With his back hunched over a desk, he took refuge in a small antique lamp with a canvas shade and a narrow neck. Though humble, it offered dim lighting for an otherwise... riveting read. As his eyes pored over the glowing text of the data pad, his mind aimlessly wandered to the other possibilities he shirked. The soft, sprawling arms of a lover, a night full of heady drink, or even money well spent on good takeout (a luxury in Omega). He almost sighed at the thought.

But then, not without a resentfully grateful roll of his eyes, he remembered just how lazy he was. It would prove too taxing to explain why he would leave the soon-to-be ex’s warm bed (and it would be a pain to explain that it was a union of convenience – one to while away evenings up until his departure); it wouldn’t do to go into cryo with a hangover; and, lastly, nothing was stopping him from still ordering takeout. A muted chuckle was all he needed, and soon his fingers dashed across the interface of his omnitool, ordering a greasy helping of good food to pass the night.

Until then, there were files. Alec Ryder’s, to be precise, and the pathfinder team he would have to infiltrate.

Cerberus delivered on otherwise preciously hidden information. Reyes could recall when his contact handed him the drive containing the dossier.

“This should help you on your mission,” he had said. They met at a bar that time. It was impossible to tell if he was the same agent who recruited him years before, or if he was some other nondescript ageless fellow with a penchant for his tobacco. Either way, the soft glow of smokes was all that lit the profile of his face, and even then Reyes could hardly get a good look. An antiquated hat stiffened by the rim and lined with some fabric in the body cast a sizeable shadow over his face. He seemed to lower it and raise it in dramatic points of the conversation, as if to help the poor fledgling double agent learn his cues better.

“This is...” Reyes found himself stammering.

“Something to help you in your mission,” the contact cut in with repeated emphasis. “You won’t be alone.”

He was briefed long ago. An ambiguously large contingent would be coming with him to Andromeda, he knew. Precisely where and how they would stay in contact was apparently too “sensitive” for someone of his ranking. Nevertheless, they were generous with their information, and seeing as how he was about to play wolf in sheep’s clothing, he had to learn a lot quicker than most.

“You know Mr. Vidal,” the agent began as he put his glass to his mouth. “We always had faith in you.”

Reyes remembered focusing on the way the contact’s hand trembled imperceptibly with each raise of his glass. “Who’s we?” he asked. He hadn’t realized the soured frown which overtook his signature cavalier smile until the nameless man before him laughed

“Good question.” He took another drag of his cigarette before nodding to the drive he just handed to the rookie. “That’s something you will have to hold on to once we’re across.”

Again he took note of the subtle placements of the now inclusive pronoun. Reyes tapped light fingers on the oak surface of the bar, counting seconds in his head with metronomic precision.

“Read it carefully,” he said in a deft change of topic. A nod of his head had pointed to the dossier safe in Reyes’s gloved hand. “The metaphor for these missions is usually wolf among sheep,” he raised his head high, looking up to the bluish limelight as he exhaled trail slithers of smoke.

Reyes’s breaths quickened at the mention, alarmed by the too coincidental observation he had made.

“But the fact of the matter is...” the agent paused, letting a truculent gaze fix on the small chip. “You’re entering a lion’s den.”

Days later, sitting in the comforts of a seedy hotel room, he began a procrastinated perusal. The foreboding wasn’t lost on him, but it was hard to take the contact seriously.

Thumbing through page after page, there was an eerie and hermetically sealed neatness to Alec Ryder’s life. For instance, Reyes learned that Ryder had long ago been dishonorably discharged from military service. His wife had passed in the interim years of said discharge and the launch of the Andromeda Initiative, and in the mean time it was his two children (twins, Reyes noted not without some piqued bemusement) who carried on his legacy.

Interspersed in this brief biography were candid photographs to help visualize the picaresque scene. The first was a standard military mug-shot-esque portrait. Cropped hair, with only a shadow trailing his chin to speak of a beard, and relatively seamless lines over his eyes. Ryder was undoubtedly a young and fearless man at the time the picture was taken. A churlish half-grimace marked the taut clenching of his jaws. The soft features of his rather short, plump nose were marked by the hardness of his jowls and the height of his gaunt cheekbones. During training, his supervisor would note that such details in a photo held a proverbial thousand words. Was he nervous when the photo was taken? Is he squeamish about recording his likeness? Having it reflected? Or is he simply a dim-witted man whose soulless eyes and hardlined brows knew of no other sentiment save duty? The instructor’s voice went on and on, giving page after page of psychoanalysis to be inferred from the deceptively trite details of a photo.

It was dated before the First Contact War. Reyes nodded his head as he read the small captioned dates couched in between the photos. Strange, Reyes thought, that he already wore such a murderous look even before he bore the grisly testimony of war.

His thumb flipped through, and soon the page entered into a different realm altogether.

What should’ve been a record of his medals of honor, his acts of valor, or even candid moments of boyishness with the other soldiers of his regiment were instead replaced with a more ...different version of his life. The next photo showed a woman sitting along a sanded bench as she looked out to an ocean. The waves before her were frozen to a mid-crash, waiting to throw their weight on sands that would never feel their wrath. She wore her hair in an up-done braid; a white flower with drooping petals that crowned her temples. She had brown skin and a pensive air about her. It took Reyes a second more of scrutiny, but he soon noticed the slight bump on her stomach protruding over the red, high-waisted hemline of her dress. A silk, shoulder-stiffened blouse almost covered it up. Below the photo was a terse caption: “Boracay, Philippines (February 2163).”

Reyes hemmed something of a breath, neither all that interested nor bored by his own obtrusions into the life of his father’s murderer. It seemed unforgivably quaint for such a sentimental photo to be buried in the dossier, like some remains of the mythic “American dream” bespoken from centuries past. His breathing seemed to deepen; his grip on his datapad tightening at the thought that such a man could live in contented peace, with a wife who was no more beautiful and perhaps not much kinder than his own mother; with children who would have all the luxuries robbed of him.

Next on the screen flared an idyllic, family portrait. Alec Ryder was dressed in military blues, that somewhat formal ceremonial garb so customary to soldiers who didn’t know how to be anything else. Next to him, the same young woman but this time with cropped, straightened hair and an understated white dress. Where Mr. Ryder was frowning in an attempt at deadpan solemnity, Mrs. Ryder was smiling brightly, lips reaching ear to ear – the familiar smile of mothers. She held two infants wrapped in some grayish blanket, their faces still obscured and blurred as they rested in their mother’s strong arms.

Another swipe of his finger, and a more recent photo came. A boy and a girl. They were crouched over a flower. The girl had a magnifying glass in tow, and the boy held onto a small toolbox. They both had warm black hair, tawny skin, and the unmistakably low, thickset brows of their father. The sister had a rounder face with big round black eyes shimmering against the flash of the camera, whereas her brother had a lankier skeleton figure. They must have been no more than ten, if he had to guess (truth be told, Reyes hadn’t seen much of children to make a better wager). He noticed the flower was one of many among a bush. A light pinkish ombre traced over its half blossomed petals, and on its leaf dangled a lime green cocoon. The girl eagerly pointed at it, showing the same ear-to-ear grin he recognized from her mother in the family photo.

With a sigh, Reyes set the datapad down. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing firmly between his eyes to coax out an encroaching headache. Somehow, the prospect of watching this family go through happier memories left a bitter taste in his mouth. A dryness, wrapped in that cottonmouth feel, left a piercing sensation at his throat. Without skipping a beat, Reyes pushed back the rolling chair before marching off to his kitchenette. The streaming of tap water pouring pressurized, milky white water into his glass seemed to soothe a bit of the migraine.

You’re selfish, he recalled an accusatory ex saying. Just a year ago, he had been pouring himself a glass of water in that same spot, in that same ungodly hour, when an unhappy lover aired out what dirty laundry they had.

I’m not selfish, he wanted to argue back. But he didn’t.

Reyes wondered if Alec Ryder ever suffered such accusations from his family; if that happy pregnant wife of his was always smiling back as she relished the summer breeze born of tropical waters; and did his children call him selfish too? Or did they know him by the advertised merits of his so-called service as some gallant and retired hero? He puzzled over what secrets must have festered among the Ryders, and whether it was she (and not him) who stayed up sleepless, wondering what violence he participated in. But something throbbing in Reyes’s temples drummed out such pointless contemplations. In all likelihood, Reyes thought, his wife died happy with her husband, unknowing if not uncaring of what enemies he made in their time together.

Ryder had his happy family; Reyes was left with nothing but the skeleton of hopes simmering beneath migraines, the toothy grin of a dead mother, and his faint remembrance of his father’s remains landing on his foot. A gnawing restlessness tugged at his chest, and the familiar coiling of his stomach left him frozen on the floor. The sound of water dripping from the sink rang hollow against the tiled walls. It would take several more minutes before he would regain control of himself, breathe back a sigh of relief, and rest back on his chair to welcome in sweet sleep.

The datapad would remain untouched on his desk for the rest of the evening. It wouldn’t even follow him across the Citadel, past the docks, and onto the rendezvous point for the future members of Ark Hyperion. It would collect dust, as the photographs would have if they had been made of film and materialized beyond its digitized existence in the microchip dossier.

Reyes left all evidence of whatever life Ryder might have had on that desk, content to let it wither into obscurity lest he wavered in his conviction.

Too late for that, he thought as he gulped down the tepid sink water. Too late for that...

“Reyes Vidal?”

The cryogenic technician was a mousy man. His face was half buried in his glasses, and it seemed all the hustle and bustle of people trying to get into their places made him recede further inward.

Reyes stepped forward with a nod. “Present,” he said in smiling, sardonic fashion. He had been waiting near three hours.

The technician readied his omnitool. An orange array of holographic text and codes lit up the squeamish pallor of his face, and soon an entire team of people in lab coats surrounded him. He had boarded the Hyperion just hours earlier, but he was immediately shepherded with several other nameless faces into a cryo lab, waiting in line like excited, anxious cattle.

“Look here,” an Asari doctor said as she appeared seemingly from the shadows.

Reyes’s pupils followed her pen as she waved it far to his right, and again as she flung it opposite to his left.

“Good,” she said, not without some cool urgency ringing in her voice. Another doctor (or perhaps a technician? a nurse?) prodded him with their stethoscope; another surreptitiously wrapped a blood pressure monitor around his arm. An array of small and simple tests made him feel poked and slightly invaded, but he had been prepared for it well enough that he bore it stoically with nothing but crooked smile to hint at his annoyance. At least these last minute things weren’t as bad as, say, the “psych evals” he had passed with flying colors just a month before.

“Did I pass?” he asked, making plain the irascible glower in his eyes as he brandished a lopsided grin.

She eyed him with a momentary glance, more curious than annoyed. “Pathfinder team?” she read aloud with an incredulous tone from the file on her interface. A stubborn roll of laughter rumbled from her throat, which she tried to hide with a gritty cough. She then fiddled with her omnitool.

Reyes wanted to ask her what was so funny, but she turned her attention away to the cryogenic technician just as he opened his mouth. “He’s ready,” she said before marching off to the next patient. She walked several paces down a different platform before she stopped in front of a woman with gaudy blue – or was it purple? - hair. It was striking amidst a crowd of humans just how much of an eyesore the unnatural radiance of the shade had beneath the sallow, brightly burning LED bulbs. He thought with an amused bob of his head, fingers pinching at his chin, that the piquant color didn’t match the Asari’s own complexion. “Who’s that?” he asked aloud, to no one in particular.

The mousy cryo technician jumped up startled, as if the mere unaccounted-for voice of his patient was its own thunderous panic in need of quelling. “Uh... uh....” He pointed at his glasses, moving them up over the bridge of his nose. “That’s Ms. Ryder... Sarianna Ryder.” There was an added yet nevertheless abrupt weight dropped off just at the sound of her name in his pronunciation of it. He retreated into the shell of his lab coat, shoulders seemingly engulfing his now disappearing neck. “She’s in the same team as you, s-sir.”

A small wick – a mere brush of glowing embers – lit in Reyes’s eyes. Said-Pathfinder’s daughter remained with her back facing them, chatting with the doctor in blissful ignorance of her watchful audience. He tried to listen, to gain what he could in the supposed lion’s den now that he found one of them, but all around him a stampede of voices fought for air in the high, vaulted ceilings. Voices didn’t get very far, and he really had nothing to work from beyond the taut smile on the doctor’s face and the lackadaisical slackening of “Sarianna” Ryder’s two shoulders.

If the child was there then the parent couldn’t have been too far. And... where’s the twin? Reyes’s eyes dashed from one corner to the other, craning his neck so as to scan the room, cluttered as it was with tech and people. Ugh, he groaned with a reflexive grinding of his teeth. There’s always too many people...

“S-ssir are you ready?” the technician stammered out the question before hurriedly racing to the finish.

Reyes shrugged before traipsing off to the designated platform. The hiss of machines as their mechanical, rigid limbs pressed through hydraulics lowered a cryopod before him. The vessel itself clasped to the ground before steam poured through its crevices as the door glided open. An orange line swam through the glass surface, buzzing after the circuitry made the whole thing light up in serene, neon blue.

“I guess I have to be.”

Perhaps the technician would’ve appreciated his wit if it hadn’t been delayed by Reyes’s own dumbstruck awe. His pupils constricted half in anxiety-ridden fear of its smallness; its rigidly square skeleton of a hovel dark and foreboding. He was told he would be asleep for more than six hundred years, and yet the prospect of passing through it all trapped in a box was a reality that never set in. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and the stunned and audible gulp in his throat betrayed his wariness to the other man.

“I-if you would please step in, s-sir.” The technician stretched out his hand in a guiding gesture towards the pod. Though the stammering continued on, he exchanged his nerve-wracked expression for a more placid bewilderment in the face of Reyes’s wild-eyed fear.

Behind them, an irate elsewise nondescript member of the Hyperion in their white and blue accented jumpsuit tapped their foot audibly. “We don’t have all day,” muttered the faceless man under his breath.

Reyes shot a menacing glare over his shoulder, but the surly man merely parried with an aversion of his eyes, leaving nothing save an audibly exasperated sigh to trail after his simpering impatience. You have six hundred years, actually.

He swung one leg over the pod before hoisting himself over the door and lowering himself onto the compartment.

“Now breathe sir.” The mousy man’s words tapered off as the glass door slid back in. Another jet of steam poured through, fogging up the surface just as it closed over his head in a series of clicks. A few other silhouettes hovered above him, he could see, but the condensation blurred all sight, and the figures merely looked like blobs melding together as the chill set in over the hairs of his skin.

A muffled sound fought against the perforated seals of his pod.

“W-we’ll see you on the other side, s-sir.”

The blobs of shadows and silhouettes dispersed, and the glass seemed to ice a silver sheen above him. Within the pod a blue light flashed in a burst into an all-white wash before it receded into a haze of pitch darkness. Reyes’s ears thrummed as it struggled to keep up pace with the staggered heaving of his lungs.

His heart kept the beat going. The rhythm steadfast, and yet his ears just couldn’t keep up. It seemed to trudge through the seconds as his vision, then his smell, and then even the frostbitten touch of his fingers waded somewhere – aimless and distant.

I’m going to right some wrongs, mamá.

Your father wasn’t a bad man...

You won’t be alone.

The last thing he could remember was his breath dispersed, as if torn and stretched and spread until it streamed against his face.

And then there was nothing.

[sickandvomiting]

Hey guys!! Long time no fics! I recently wrote this for a friend with our characters. Aldwyn is mine, the other is hers. This story takes place in Middle Earth, the the town of Bree, 60 years or so after the War of the Ring. I hope you all enjoy! It’s pretty long but I think it’s probably the best fic I’ve written.

Sounds of mirth and merriment echoed through the dark alley on the outskirts of Bree. The smells of ale and venison wafted through the air, mixing nicely with the smell of the rain that poured down heavily. Dark wood-smoke billowed out from a chimney just over a thin, pale man who sat hunched over beneath an awning, trying to stay warm and dry. The late November air was not kind to wanderers like Khyran, his own breath visible as he exhaled into the cold. He shivered as he pulled his thin travelling cloak closer about his shoulders, and wrapped his trembling arms around tighter around his middle, both for warmth and in an attempt to quell his rising nausea. Sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip despite the cold and damp, and his breath occasionally caught in his throat, sending him into violent fits of coughing that left his head spinning and chest aching. As one of these fits abated, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the damp, cold stone of the tavern behind him, willing the world to stop tilting about him. He vaguely registered voices coming from the light end of the alley, which emptied out onto the main road. A man was laughing loudly with two others as they walked by. Khyran heard the loud man bid his friends a happy “good night, all! Well wishes, and good night! I’ll see you when next I visit Bree!” His voice was cheerful and bright as the night was dark and dreary. Khyran heard the man’s footsteps approaching, and tried to shrink back further against the wall, to no avail. The footsteps stopped in front of him as the man reached the awning. Khyran kept his eyes closed, hoping the man would move on and leave him alone. Instead, the man laughed gently.

“Dear man, I have been there before,” he bellowed joyfully, assuming that Khyran was just a drunk who had stumbled on his way home and decided to rest here. His voice seemed to reverberate about Khyran’s skull, worsening his already formidable headache. He winced, gasping at the newfound pain, and curled up further against the swell of nausea that it brought with it. The other man noticed the sound, and his cheery smile faded. He looked closer at the man huddled in before him. His cheekbones stood out above gaunt cheeks, and one deep set eye was visible in a deathly pale face. The other was obscured by a leather eyepatch. Under a large hooked nose, a thin pair of lips were tinted slightly blue with cold. The man’s long dark hair fell in two curtains about his face, contrasting starkly with his sickly pallor. Oddly enough, his hair was completely dry, despite the fact that his forehead was soaked and small strands of hair were sticking to his face. He leaned in to look closer, and saw that the sheen was not rain, but sweat. Sweat? On a night cold as this one?

“You’ll catch your death with a cloak as thin as that,” the man said. Khyran’s eyes were still closed, but he could hear the change in tone, and knew the man was no longer smiling. The stranger pulled off his own cloak and draped it about Khyran’s shoulders, pulling it snugly around his trembling frame and kneeling down to clasp the furs in the front. Khyran opened his eye and looked at the man. He had shaggy short blond hair that the rain had plastered to his face, ruddy red cheeks, and dimples. He was muscular, but slender, and had a certain sparkle in his eyes despite his brows being furrowed with worry. When he was done fastening the cloak, he placed a hand gently on Khyran’s shoulder and asked gently, “Are you alright, good sir?”

Khyran moved to protest the cloak and tell the man that he was just fine, despite knowing that that was a blatant lie. He did not want to burden this kind stranger. However, his words caught in his throat and threw him into a fit of deep, wracking coughs. The stranger gently clapped Khyran’s back, brow creased with concern. As the spell abated, he whispered “That’s it, just breathe,”.

“Thank you,” Khyran rasped weakly, his throat sore from exertion and coughing. He leaned his head back against the wall and shut his eyes as dizziness overwhelmed him.

“Of course,” the man replied. “Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

Khyran slowly shook his head no.

“Alright. Well, I’m going to bring you back to mine until you’re well. I’ll take care of you there.” Khyran opened his mouth to argue but barely got a syllable out before launching into another bout of coughing. The man propped him up and patted his back again, hoping to help dislodge whatever was causing the terrible wet hacking. The fit quieted and Khyran whimpered lightly, tears of exertion rolling down his gaunt cheeks.

“No arguing, sir. I insist. I can’t very well leave you here to die,” he stated matter-of-factly, his mirthful tone gone. “It’s really no trouble.”

Khyran was too weak to protest any more, and even if he did want to speak, he likely would be cut off by another coughing fit. In addition, his nausea was still growing, and he was afraid that the next fit would force more than just air out of him. He’d had a hard time keeping his stomach in place during the last one, and the last thing he wanted was to vomit on a stranger who he was already a burden to.

“My name is Aldwyn, by the way. Aldwyn Telperiën. Call me what you will; my friends call me Perry.” Aldwyn knelt down beside Khyran, and slung the sick man’s arm over his shoulder. He hefted Khyran to his feet effortlessly, and waited for Khyran to stop swaying before starting off in the direction of his lodgings. He had one arm snaked around Khyran’s middle, and could easily feel his ribs and hipbone. Every other step he heard the dull clunk of wood on stone. He looked down to see that the sick man not only had just one eye, he was also missing a leg below the knee. Luckily, the wooden leg was closest to Aldwyn, and when Khyran limped he was able to support his weight. How could he have gotten into such poor condition? He also noticed that Khyran was cradling his stomach protectively. Maybe he pulled a muscle while coughing? A small moan from Khyran pulled him out of his thoughts. The frail man swayed dangerously, and suddenly stopped moving. Aldwyn quickly stepped in front of Khyran to catch him, steadying him by the shoulders.

“What is it? Are you hurt?” Aldwyn didn’t know that the tight pit of nausea in his stomach had been exacerbated by the movement. Khyran felt the roiling in his stomach increase tenfold, and had to stop when his stomach did a particularly nasty flip. He felt his mouth filling with salty saliva, and when Aldwyn stepped in front of him, clamped his hand over his mouth. He felt bile rising in the back of his throat and gagged silently against his hand while Aldwyn spoke. It went unnoticed, unfortunately for both of them. He tried to warn Aldwyn to get out of the way but all he got out was half a grunt before his meal surged up his throat, spraying through his fingers. He tore his hand away and doubled over forward with a gurgling retch as his stomach forced more of his meager meal onto the pavement. It landed with a thick splat, and was joined by another plume of foul sick seconds later.

Aldwyn had not moved out of the way in time, and the first wave had caught his boots and the bottom of his trousers. He reeled back in momentary alarm and disgust, then quickly composed himself moved over to stand behind Khyran and rub his back as he threw up. The poor man was shaking so terribly.

The first heave from behind his hand had gotten sick all down Khyran’s front, and he felt it soaking into his shirt, warm and sticky but cooling quickly in the November wind. The sensation and smell alone elicited another heave, and then another and another with hardly any time to breathe between. He collapsed, trembling, to his hands and knees, the latter landing squarely in the puddle of sick. His long hair, wet with rain, hung in front of his face, but he couldn’t do anything to move it out of the way, and ended up getting sick on it as well. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of dry heaving, the very last dregs of his meal came up with a small amount of bile that burned as it came and trickled out of his mouth and down his chin. He spat heavily, trying to rid himself of the foul taste. He remained where he was and screwed his eyes shut as the world seemed to spin around him.

Aldwyn hadn’t reacted quickly enough to catch Khyran when he fell, and instead had knelt down next to the sick man and rubbed his back until he was finished. When heaves finally tapered off, Aldwyn proffered a flask of water and a handkerchief. Khyran accepted them, swished the water around in his mouth, and spit it into the puddle of sick before him. He didn’t dare to take a sip when he stomach was still churning as much as it was. It would just come right back up.

Khyran groaned and murmured a barely audible: “Thank you.” He sat back on his haunches, still hunched forward and cradling his sick belly. As he handed back the flask, he looked over at Aldwyn with grateful eyes, and saw that his shirt had flecks of vomit on it, and that his boots were practically soaked with it.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry,” Khyran whispered, looking away, shame written across his skeletal features. It took Aldwyn a minute to process what he meant. When he did, he smiled gently. Khyran was still repeating his apologies.

“Believe me, these clothes have seen worse than this,” he chuckled lightly. After a moment’s pause, and no sign of relief from Khyran – he was still repeating “I’m sorry” – Aldwyn asked if he could make it back to the inn yet. Khyran shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

“Too dizzy,” he croaked out. “Alright. I’m going to help you away from this mess though. Let’s go sit somewhere a little drier, and less foul smelling.” The blond man wrinkled his nose at the odor of chyme and bile that hung in the air. Khyran nodded; the smell was nauseating, and his stomach was still churning ominously. Aldwyn slung Khyran’s arm around his shoulders again, and hoisted him up. He escorted him to a roof overhang a ways upwind of the puddle, and helped him to sit. Aldwyn then sat down next to him. Khyran closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall, feeling miserable and feverish and terrible for putting this kind stranger through all of this. They sat in silence for what felt like a lifetime to Khyran.

Then Aldwyn started humming. Quietly at first, but growing ever so slightly louder as he grew more comfortable. It was an old Elvish tune; Khyran had heard it before. After a few bars, Aldwyn moved from humming to singing the words. It was a beautiful melody from a simpler time. He looked out into the distance as he sang, remembering life long ago in the Elven Halls. When he finished, he closed his eyes and a gentle, melancholy smile played across his lips. He turned to see Khyran staring at him, lips parted in surprise.

“Lasto i Lamath. My father used to sing it to me when I was sick, or had trouble sleeping,” Aldwyn explained. “He was good at taking care of others. Truth be told, I’m not. I’m rubbish at it. But I’ll be damned if I don’t at least try.” Khyran saw sincerity in the stranger’s eyes, and felt tears pricking at the corners of his own. He held them back. How could a man like him be worth so much to a person who doesn’t know him at all? He wanted to thank him a million times over, and apologize twice as many, but he was afraid he would choke on his words and the tears would come. So he remained silent, looking away.

“Think you can manage the walk to the inn now?” Aldwyn asked. Khyran simply nodded. Aldwyn stood and extended his hand to Khyran, then helped him to stand. The world spun at the sudden change and the ground seemed to tilt beneath his feet. He pitched forward and would have fallen had Aldwyn not been there to catch him. They waited for Khyran to adjust, and Aldwyn half-supported half-dragged the sick man back to his suite at the Prancing Pony.

Once they arrived, Aldwyn called for one of the innkeeper’s assistants to draw a bath for Khyran. He helped the other out of his vomit soaked clothes, and left him to his own devices when the bath was ready. Khyran clambered awkwardly into the steamy water, and curled up, trying to get warm again. He felt truly awful. His throat was raw from coughing and vomiting, his head was pounding, his chest ached, he was dizzy, and his stomach was still roiling and gurgling. Everything sounded at once too loud and incredibly muffled and distant. He coughed weakly, too exhausted and sore to even try and dislodge the phlegm caught in his throat. His stomach gurgled and a breathy burp forced its way up his throat, which he stifled behind his fist. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this bad. Despite being mostly submerged in warm water, chills still wracked his small frame.

By the time he was finished washing up, the water was tepid. He had lost track of time. How long had he been in here for? His fevered brain couldn’t recall. He climbed out, dried himself off with some difficulty, and put on a set of clean nightclothes that Aldwyn had provided. He found his host in the next room, sitting at the foot of a large bed, gnawing on a piece of cured meat. The very thought of food made his stomach churn, but Aldwyn insisted that lay he lay down and at least have some waybread. He took the piece of bread in his hand and swallowed hard against the rising nausea. He hated to take another’s food, but Aldwyn was watching him, so he took a bite and struggled to swallow it. It was incredibly dry. Once he had, it settled in his stomach like a rock. He took another bite and then another, and washed it down with a swig of water from Aldwyn’s flask.

“Thank you,” he said shakily. “It’s no trouble at all,” Aldwyn replied. “Now you should really get some rest. I’ll get a fire going in the hearth. For now, just try to sleep. The bed is yours.” He saw Khyran’s lips part in protest, but cut him off. “Really. It’s no trouble. You’re the one what’s sick.” He turned on his heel to leave, but stopped at the doorway and said “Goodnight.” He paused a second, expression unreadable. “You know, I don’t actually know your name.”

“Khyran. Khyran Oisin,” the dark haired man offered.

“A lovely name it is. Good night, Khyran.” With that, he left.

Khyran pulled the blankets up over his head despite the fact that the room was very warm. He was shivering, and chills ran up and down his spine frequently. He curled up on his side, snaking his thin arms around his churning gut. His stomach made the occasional gurgle, loudly protesting the food he had forced into it. He groaned into the pillow. Despite how terrible he felt, he was exhausted. Aldwyn was singing the same Elvish tune in the other room, and the lilting melody lulled Khyran into a welcome, but fitful slumber.

He awoke an hour later to a gag, rolled over onto his side and abruptly vomited a cascade of water and waybread into a chamberpot that Aldwyn had placed there while he was asleep. He choked on a piece of bread that caught in his throat, and coughed up another wave of sick. Aldwyn ran in from the other room and pulled Khyran’s long hair out of his face and into a ponytail, tying it up with a bit of twine. With one hand he held the sick man’s forehead to keep him from toppling off the bed, and stroked his back with the other. He could easily feel the ill man’s backbone, and wondered in passing how his condition got to be this bad. He felt waves of heat radiating off of his companion. The terrible fever that had formerly been masked by the cold and wet November weather was now altogether too obvious. Between gags, Khyran mumbled something incoherent. Aldwyn shushed him gently, stroking his hair with the hand that wasn’t propping him up. Another wave of sick gushed into the chamberpot with a sickening splat that seemed to reverberate off the walls the already half full container. How much of the lembas bread had he eaten? One bite was enough to fill the stomach of a grown man. Had Aldwyn forgotten to mention that?

Khyran retched and gagged and choked and spluttered until there was absolutely nothing left in his stomach. Tears streamed down his face and mingled with the sweat and saliva. He was reduced to painful dry heaves. Caustic bile burned his throat, the taste of it making him gag even harder. He sobbed deliriously. Between heaves he tried to swat Aldwyn’s comforting hands away.

“Please, let this happen. I deser–” he was cut off by a gag. “-serve this,” he sobbed. “Leave me alone, please, I b-” Another gag. “-beg you. This is my punishment. Please, I deserve this.” He sobbed and burped up one last stream of bile. “Please….” He collapsed down against the mattress, spent and weeping softly. Aldwyn’s heart broke, and he pulled Khyran upright and cupped his too warm face in both hands.

“No one deserves this, dear heart.” He pulled the feverish man to his chest in a tight embrace. “No one.”

Khyran continued to sob softly against Aldwyn’s chest, occasionally interrupted by a coughing fit. Chills ran through him with increasing intensity, and Aldwyn knew he had to get his fever down to a reasonable level. He was far too hot. Aldwyn wasn’t sure that he would make it through the night at this rate. The fever was too high. He released the dark haired man from the embrace, and worked the sweat soaked shirt off of him. He stripped the bed of its covers as well, leaving Khyran shivering on the bare linens. The smaller man was muttering deliriously, eyes and head darting back and forth watching unseen terrors, but he had stopped crying for the time being. Aldwyn went out to the well and fetched a bowl of water. Using a spare rag, he wiped down Khyran’s face and chest, then soaked the rag once more, wrung it out, and applied the cold cloth to his forehead. The ill man shivered at the sensation, violent chills causing spasms all throughout his frail body.

“I’m… so c-cold…” he rasped through chattering teeth.

“I know, I know.” Aldwyn cooed. “Please, just stay with me. Stay with me…” He pleaded silently with the Valar and the stars, any deity who would listen. He took Khyran’s fragile hand in his and choked back tears. Eventually Khyran fell into a fitful sleep, filled with ghostly images and mirages, floating memories of things long past. Aldwyn stayed with him all night, reapplying the cloth when it warmed up too much, gently dabbing Khyran’s emaciated frame with the cold water. Eventually he too fell asleep, hunched over on a stool at the bedside. When Aldwyn awoke, Khyran was not in the bed. In a panic, Aldwyn sprung up from his seat and almost tripped over the nearly full chamberpot. Where did he go?? Did he wander off in the night, trying to escape the terrors that his fevered mind concocted? He stopped and listened for any sign of the sick man, and heard retching coming from outside. He stumbled out into the cold night air to find Khyran on all fours, dry heaving over the freshly fallen snow. The sick man had gone outside so he wouldn’t wake his host. Aldwyn helped him up and brought him back to the bed. His fever was still high, but the delirium seemed to have passed. Aldwyn took this as a good sign, and made Khyran drink some water. He barely finished the flask before it came back up. He took one more sip at Aldwyn’s bidding, and laid back down. They both went back to sleep.

Much of the next day passed in a feverish haze for Khyran. He would wake up in a coughing fit, or to throw up the meager amount of water that Aldwyn forced him to drink, and then quickly fall back asleep. Aldwyn was there with him the whole time. Finally, the water stayed down. The fever broke later in the evening, and Aldwyn let him get some much needed sleep. He himself desperately needed rest as well, and left the bedside to sleep on a bedroll on the floor at the foot of the bed.

The next morning, Khyran woke up drenched in sweat, but feeling markedly better than the night before. His throat was still raw and his ribs still ached, but his blinding headache had been replace by a dull throb in behind his bad eye, he wasn’t shivering anymore, and best of all, he no longer felt nauseated. In fact, he was downright hungry. He didn’t want to take Aldwyn’s food, so he ordered a small, light breakfast of plain toast from the inn’s tavern, testing his stomach. It stayed down.

Aldwyn awoke early in the afternoon to the sounds of Khyran puttering about the kitchen area of the suite rooms. His wooden leg thudded heavily against the floor with each limping step, and the sound of a raspy yet warm baritone floated through the air. He recognized the melody. It was Lasto i Lamath, the song he had sung to him the night Aldwyn found him. Aldwyn got up and stretched, yawning silently. He leaned against the doorframe and listened to Khyran’s song. His guest’s back was turned to the door, and he seemed to be making… eggs? And bacon?? When the song was over, Aldwyn piped up.

“You know, you’re really quite good.” He laughed boisterously when Khyran startled and blushed, giving a small yelp and dropping the egg he was holding, which shattered on the floor. Aldwyn stooped to clean it, but Khyran told him to go sit at the table.

“You’ve done far too much already. At least let me pay you back by making breakfast.” Aldwyn relented, and truly it was one of the best breakfasts he’d had in awhile. Khyran thanked him endlessly throughout the meal, and told Aldwyn that he will be out of his hair later that afternoon.

“Nonsense!” came the warm reply. “You can’t leave yet. You still have a fever!” Anticipating the protest, he added “A very slight fever, but a fever nonetheless! I must be going tomorrow by noon. At least stay until then.”

“Alright,” Khyran accepted, a little reluctantly, but happy that he didn’t have to go back out to the cold just yet. They spent the rest of the day chatting, and that evening they sat by the fire in comfortable chairs while Khyran recuperated, telling each other old tales, recounting memories, and sharing story after story from their childhood. It was a warmth and companionship that neither had had in a great long while, and they revelled in it until the wee hours of the morning.

The next day, Aldwyn woke up early to pack his things. When Khyran emerged bleary eyed from under the covers, he felt his forehead for temperature. The fever was completely gone. He finished packing his bags, saddled his horse, and loaded his cart, preparing to leave for the next town to sell his wares. Before he left, he took Khyran by the shoulders and looked him full in the face.

“Take care of yourself. Can you do that for me?” Aldwyn asked, voice thick with concern. Khyran nodded. “Good.” He pulled the smaller man into a tight embrace. When he finally pulled away, he looked into the Khyran’s eye and said “I wish you all the luck in the world. I really do,” he laughed lightly, a wide grin on his face. Khyran returned the gesture with a smile of his own; it was one of the warmest ones that Aldwyn had ever seen. His one visible eye seemed to well up with mirth, and there was a twinkle in the dark brown that Aldwyn has never forgotten.

“I hope that we shall meet again, Aldwyn Telperiën.” said Khyran as Aldwyn clambered into the seat of his cart.

“As do I, Khyran Oisin.” He beamed down at his new friend, and snapped the reins with a hyaa!! The cart began to amble down the road, and Aldwyn turned around to face Khyran. “Until then!” called he, raising a fist in mock toast. He then turned back to face the road ahead, and Khyran heard him singing in time with the hoofbeats of his horse, breath billowing out in clouds over the fresh, sparkling snow. He watched until the cart was out of sight, and listened until the song faded in the distance. He heaved a heavy sigh.

“Until then,” Khyran echoed sadly.

He was once again alone.