silence broken. [Flashback]

[Lillis]

author's noteThis post takes place a week or so after the conclusion of the thread "The Seven Slavers". For now, it's a closed flashback story between Caelum and Lillis. pulse is gone and racing -- all fits and starts window by window you try and look into this brave new you that you are Spring, 505AV They had spent the vast majority of the previous week in silence, navigating the strangeness of their interstices with purposeful care. Lillis used any excuse to touch him, always gently, never hesitantly -- and it was part magnetism, part experimentation: would she have another vision this time? She touched him lightly, in passing, when they dismounted to rest or sleep, and the vision never flared behind her eyelids, no matter how she tried to conjure it. The two of them had been thrust headlong into an intimacy that Lillis, for one, was not prepared to fully understand. This was exacerbated by the fact that there seemed to be some sort of hiccup in her gift of divination -- she could not tell what he was feeling. Once on her way to being a powerful empath, Lillis could not tell even when he was growing irritable or weary. Thus she spent a great deal of time staring at him as well, those impossibly wide cobalt eyes unabashedly locking themselves on him as she strained to use her gift, as she struggled to get a sense of this man who had saved her. But despite her frustrations, and despite the raw and gruesome circumstances of her life, she was quick to offer him a smile. She did not weep or complain; she rode alongside him when he told her to ride, she dismounted when he did, laid her head to rest when it was time. And her dreams brought her odd pictures of people she at once did not recognize and knew intimately. Very rarely did she initiate conversation -- though she always happily replied when he did. She endeavored, in those first few days, to keep her mind as blank as possible. She thought of things like the color of the sky and what it might be like to be a meadowlark. This was a defensive mechanism, mostly -- if she did not keep her mind in check, she might see a flash of her mother's face and glassy, dead eyes; might see a vision of her sister sliced deep down the center. And so she occupied herself through every quiet moment of the day. One not so very special afternoon, just after they'd finished some bread and cheese, she -- rather loudly and abruptly -- asked: "It's going to be very ugly, isn't it?" Tucking an errant yellow curl behind her ear, she peered down at her bandaged leg. "Even after it heals -- isn't it?"

[Caelum]

"I wouldn't say ugly," these words came slowly as he sprawled back against the trunk of a silver birch, one knee bent and the other leg stretched out. Dappled sunlight spilled over them, catching the glints and glitter in his horns, in his eyes, drawing the light from his flesh. "No. But it will be different. I don't know a great deal about Konti biologic specifics, Lillis. I'm sorry." Her name tasted like nectar on his tongue, swept up in the thick of his unearthly accent. A yawn cracked his jaw, eyes squeezing shut. He had not partaken of the bread and cheese, not requiring food or drink during the daylight, sustained by Syna while she ruled the sky. One thing of millions she had not forgotten. Of all things, that. That alone? He scowled at his thoughts, eyes opening to consider his companion. He was used to being stared at, watched as though he must be either monster or saint and could not possible be anything between. Only this young woman of them all seemed to have any actual reason to so watch him, at least in his opinion. "Does it pain you?"

[Lillis]

In response, she gave a shake of her head, delicate flaxen curls bouncing with the movement. "Not overmuch -- stings a little, I suppose." She smiled a thin little smile, dropping her gaze down to watch her absent fingers pluck bits of grass out of the earth. "I think you're being kind," she said quietly. "I think it will probably be very ugly, indeed." She lifted her eyes then, arching two delicate shoulders in a shrug. "It's all right, though," she added. "When I was, oh... seven or eight or so? I was running along the docks and I tripped and I got a terrible scrape down my right arm..." She lifted the arm in question, bending it at the elbow and twisting it this way and that in order to get a good look. "See, you can kind of see it, there." She pointed. "Anyway, it was pretty bad for a seven year old. So I went home to my mother and I was crying and she bandaged me up and I... I asked her, 'Is it going to be ugly?' And she said, 'No, sweetling. It's a mark of character.'" Her smile broadened then, lighting her eyes. "So. It's all right. It's just another mark of... of character."

[Caelum]

Caelum squinted at her for a long minute, listening to the birds warble in the trees, the distant hush of the wind stirring through the canopy of trees. The introduction of her had broken his heart and, now bruised, it was vulnerable, letting this silent, tragedy-stricken girl crawl inside. Very slowly, he slid forward and snaked his arms about her. It was a loose embrace, the sort easily escaped from, but it was warm and hard and smelled of the wind and herbs. It was the first time she had really spoken, but more than that, it was the first time she had mentioned her mother. Her mother whom Caelum had carried from blood soaked earth to lay into a grave, hands wrapped around her daughters, wrapped around a starfish. So he hugged her, maybe because he didn't know what else to do.

[Lillis]

When he hugged her, she spent a moment or two a little stunned, but quickly enough she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed in return. She was content to let it linger; it was nice to hold, and be held by, someone who did not pull away right away. And when they parted, she continued to wear her smile. "I don't think I thanked you for... everything you've done. So. Thank you."

[Caelum]

Caelum ducked his head, slouching back against the base of the tree when she pulled away. The palms of his hands tingled and he rubbed them absently against opposing sleeves. "No thanks is necessary, Lillis," and his smile sharpened somewhat, holding some of irony which was directly solely at himself. "I've been wanting to ask you if, well, if there's somewhere you want to go, if there's someone you want to go to.." He trailed off. It was, for the obvious reasons, a delicate matter; and he was struggling every day since having stumbled upon that scene of slaughter to suppress some of the darker, sharper sides of his raw soul. Sorrow lurked in the shadows of bitterness, of anger and grief that never truly faded; but then he had the distraction of her, didn't he? His beautiful, traumatized patient.

[Lillis]

"There's nowhere in particular I want to go," came her quick reply, perhaps a little sharper than she'd intended. She sat cross-legged, still clad in the old breeches and green tunic with which he'd provided her, and reached up to braid those unruly locks of yellow hair. "I have some family left back on Mura," she said, a slight edge to her voice, "But I..." She couldn't go back there, couldn't face delivering the news. Not yet. "I don't want to go home." Where else was there, really? "If..." She tied the braid back with a ribbon she'd thought to pluck from the remains of her dress before tossing it away. "If I'm keeping you from anything, please let me know. I can manage. I'll go..." Where? She paused for a long while. "I'll go to Riverfall. My father's extended family is there."

[Caelum]

The words she said came out too fast, too sharp, and left him peering at her from the corners of molten eyes. They closed after a moment, matchstick lashes laying heavily against the impossible heights of his cheekbones. A shift of lean hips, a ripple of spine, and he slid down the silver trunk in order to obtain a full sprawl in the soft grass, the warm embrace of the earth. They had ridden hard the day before and he had stayed up half the night at camp, working over his notes, arranging and rearranging their endless vigils of the world. He was bloody tired. "I'm going to Zeltiva," he said at length, the language poking and prodding at the corners of his mouth, the hinges of his jaw, awkward as ever in comparison to that which was clear and pure in his mind. Clear, pure and unspeakable. "They've the university there and I'm hoping to find some of what I need." A pause and more quietly, trying not to be aloof and to push, to shove at those who got too close. He found he liked this girl being close. "You can come, if you'd like."

[Lillis]

"I'd prefer to stay with you, if I won't be in the way." Lillis didn't realize how lost at sea she was without her empathic powers. Nevertheless, she expressed herself with the same confidence she always had, even without knowing his feelings, even without being able to custom tailor her responses to the color of his moods, the way she might have otherwise. "And anyway, Zeltiva's on the way to Riverfall, so..." She cleared her throat, brushing a few breadcrumbs from her knee, and leaning back in her hands, content to feel the soft earth sink slightly beneath her palms. "Perhaps I can be of some use to you. I've been to the University before, I'm well-educated. Perhaps I can help -- what is the subject of your study?"

[Caelum]

Winding an arm behind his head, he turned his face towards her, watching while she seemed to settled, to forcibly still herself from fidgeting. A hand reached out, absently touching the edge of a bandage before falling away. A smile quirked his mouth, self-deprecating, and while it was no solar flare, it was still one of the better ones he had ever had in this world. "I"m glad you're coming," he said simply. His chest rose with a deep, steadying breath. He absently rubbed a greening leaf between his fingertips and allowed his lashes to drowse, not quite content, but close. "Healing," he said finally. It was not purposefully brief. He was attempting to figure out how to respond, really, rather than shutting her question out.