#times like this I'm reminded that Evie Carnahan was a big inspiration for Kiki's character

[haledamage]

"I think we're stuck." for Kai?

(trigger warning for claustrophobia, brief mentions of child abuse (no worse than the stuff mentioned in-game in Aloth’s backstory))

“Oh, lovely,” Aloth said drolly, staring into the room he’d just discovered. “A dark, ominous closet. My favorite.”

“Wonderful.” Kai managed to sound even less enthusiastic about the discovery than he did as she stepped up next to him. “You know, when I said I wished we could have some more time alone together, this isn’t quite what I had in mind.”

“I know.” He took her hand, gave it a quick squeeze, then let her go. “At least those journals look promising. Maybe we’ll actually find some clues in this one.”

“Or spiders.”

He chuckled. “I suspect we’ll find spiders either way. After you, my dear. “

Kai didn’t hide her reluctance to enter the tiny room, but she did it anyway. It was barely big enough for the two of them to have room to move about without having to climb over each other. She suspected she could lay on the floor and be able to touch all four walls, and the ceiling was low enough that the cobwebs hanging from it caught in Aloth’s dark hair, silver strands clinging to him and aging him before his time. The three walls that didn’t house the door were covered in shelves with stacks of old, crumbling books and intriguing esoteric trinkets.

Without a word, the two of them turned to opposite shelves and started sifting through their contents. She had to resist the historian part of her brain that told her to take everything so she could study it at her leisure. They were here for a purpose, and part of that purpose involved leaving as small of a trace as possible of their passing.

Still. It was very tempting.

“Oh!” Aloth exclaimed suddenly, drawing her attention away from the golden curio she’d been inspecting. “I think I found something. I can’t read the text, but it looks familiar.”

She peeked over his shoulder at the book he was holding, squinting to try and see it in the unlit room. “It’s Engwithan. It’s too dark in here to decipher, but I recognize the language.”

“That seems promising,” he muttered to himself, tapping his finger on the corner of the book as he thought. Kai knew what he was thinking; he was trying to decide if they should risk exploring more, or take their prize and get out. He nodded, coming to a decision. “We should go. We’ve already been here too long.”

“Agreed. We’ll take it back to our room and see what there is to see. Worst case scenario, we can come back.”

They tried to put everything else back where they’d found it, more or less, then picked their way back to the door. It had drifted closed while they were exploring, the old wood warped and uneven from age. Aloth reached it first and moved to open it, but it didn’t budge.

He tried again; the doorknob rattled as he tried to shake the latch free, but it remained unmoved. He threw his shoulder into it, trying to force it, but it still remained spitefully closed.

Kai wished she’d thought to bring her pistol. There was more than one way to open a door.

He turned to her, a frown set deep in his brow, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it. “I think we’re stuck.”

It was amazing how much dread could come from just four words. “Of course we are. Gods forbid anything go simply for a change. How long do you think before someone comes looking for us?”

“If we’re lucky? A few hours.” His eyes roamed the room as if trying to find a different way out, but there were no windows, no spaces there could possibly be any hidden doors or alcoves. “If we aren’t… Edér will probably notice we’re missing by morning.”

“Galawain’s flea-bitten arse!” Kai growled and kicked the door. It did not fly dramatically open like she’d hoped. She leaned back against the door and pressed her head against it.

“Feel better, my dear?” he asked dryly.

“I’m sorry, darling. I just…” She closed her eyes, trying to keep her composure, but she was breathing too fast. “I don’t like tight spaces.”

“I… had forgotten,” Aloth said softly. “Forgive me.”

“Not your fault. It’s been a while.”

“That it has.” He tried to hide it, but Kai could still hear the pain in his voice.

“Don’t you dare apologize, Aloth Corfiser. We’ve talked about this.” They had, in fact, talked about it exhaustively. He still felt guilty for leaving Caed Nua, even though they’d agreed he needed to, and she still felt guilty for not going with him, even though they’d agreed she needed to stay in Caed Nua. It was a circular argument, one with no clear answer and no winner and all it did was reopen wounds that would be better left alone so they could heal.

“I know,” he said, voice so low now it was almost a whisper. She hadn’t realized how much her hands were trembling until he laced his fingers with hers. “But I can still never get back those years we were apart.”

“We have plenty of years ahead of us that we’ll spend together.” Even on the edge of panic, that still drew a small smile to her face. “Though we’ll probably spend them locked in this gods damned closet.”

“Kai. Look at me.” Aloth’s voice was gentle but firm, and she found herself responding to the command almost unconsciously. He was standing very close, his face barely inches from hers, and instead of making the suffocating closeness of the room worse, his proximity actually made it a little easier for her to breathe. His pale eyes seemed to glow in the dim light. “You are safe. I won’t let anything happen to you. Just keep your eyes on me.”

He kept talking about nothing in particular, his voice calm and his gaze steady, his hand a lifeline in hers. Every breath came a little easier than the one before. She stopped shaking as the panic ebbed away, and the walls moved back to a reasonable distance once more. Finally, she sagged against him, pressing her face to his shoulder and just breathing him in for a moment. He smelled the same way he always did, the vanilla-and-dust scent of old books and the clean sharp ozone scent of his magic and a hint of woodsmoke that he picked up from her.

His arms went around her, holding her close, and the last of the tension drained from her and she could finally think again. Her thoughts raced like they were trying to make up for the time lost panicking. Maybe one of these shelves had a key. They couldn’t be the first kith to lock themselves in here. Or maybe… “I don’t suppose Iselmyr knows how to pick locks.”

“Fye, ainlie if ye've git an axe.”

“Figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.” Kai’s own Awakened memories weren’t any help either. Iorena had been a soldier through and through. She knew how to open a stuck door using a spear as a lever, but that didn’t exactly help right now. A memory from her own childhood surfaced, hazy but possibly useful. “Maybe I can. Do you have a letter opener? A… a hair pin? A quill you’re not especially attached to?”

“Perhaps.” Aloth raised a curious eyebrow, but started searching his pockets for anything that might fit the bill. “Why would you know how to pick locks?”

“When we were children, my younger sister Ariana taught me.” Her pockets were distressingly empty, so she scanned the shelves to see if they had anything promising. “It’s been about thirty years since I’ve done it, but it’s worth a try.”

Aloth beat her to the punch, plucking a single patinated copper hairstick that probably predated the gods themselves from the shelf above her head. He offered it to her and she turned to the door to try and coerce it open. “Why would you need to know how to pick locks as a child?”

“Our mother favored solitary confinement as punishment,” she told the lock so she wouldn’t have to look at Aloth while she spoke. She knew what she’d see there: pain, sympathy, and enough understanding to make her angry, both on his behalf and on her own. “While I turned to reading as a way to pass the time, Ari was more proactive. She would sneak out in the middle of the night and rearrange Mother’s furniture, or steal things from Father and hide them throughout the house, and lock herself back away before they awoke in the morning. They never did figure out who was doing it.”

“How terrible,” he said softly, and he clearly wasn’t referring to Ariana’s poltergeist impression.

“No worse than anything you endured as a child.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

“No. It doesn’t.” Kai really didn’t want to talk about this anymore. There wasn’t enough space in this room for the two of them and the looming specter of her mother. Lucky for her, she was offered a very easy change of subject as the lock made a loud clicking sound. “Aha!” She gave her makeshift pick a careful twist and the door swung open. She climbed to her feet and gestured to the now-empty doorway. “After you, my dear.”

Neither of them said a word as they crept through the empty building and back out onto the street, then through a nearby alley. They emerged into a lantern-lit courtyard, music and laughter pouring out from the open doors of a tavern, and slowed their pace. Just another normal couple enjoying the evening air. The inn they were staying at was only a few buildings down, and they went straight up to their room as soon as they got there.

As soon as they stepped inside, Aloth rounded on Kai, hands falling onto her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I’m… getting there.” No use lying to him; he’d see through it anyway. She brought a hand up to his face, tracing her fingers along his cheek. “Thank you for keeping a level head, darling. If I’d been there alone, I suspect I’d have never made it out.”

“You don’t have to thank me. You’ve done the same for me. We take care of each other.” He said it like it was a simple fact of life. Water is wet; grass is green; we take care of each other. It made Kai adore him even more, just like it always did. “I got you something.”

He pulled the Engwithan book from his bag, then reached into it again and pulled out a smaller book, barely the size of his palm, and a bronze statuette of what looked like a deity, though it didn’t look like any of the ones they knew. They were small enough items that probably wouldn’t be noticed as missing, unless the owners did a thorough inventory - in which case their visit would have been noticed anyway.

Kai took the palm-sized book from him and opened it, curiosity getting the better of her. In it was page after page of faded writing in what looked like a very old form of Eld Aedyran, and the pages were so old they threatened to crumble at her touch. “You stole ancient artifacts for me,” she whispered, awed.

Aloth smiled proudly at her clear approval of his thievery. “Of course I did. I know the woman I married.”

She carefully took the books and statue from his hands and set them on the table. Then she walked back to him, cupped his face in her hands, and kissed him, pouring every ounce of gratitude she had into it - not just gratitude for the pilfered gifts, but for his support, and his love, and just for being there.

“You’re welcome,” he said breathlessly once they parted, already leaning in for another kiss.

“That’s just the start, darling,” Kai said when they next broke apart. She pulled away from him enough to undo the clasps on her armor, letting it and the shirt she wore underneath fall to the floor. “We’ve got all night. Allow me to thank you properly.”