14.1 Fic: Second Watch
It was the kind of watch that would usually have been hard to stay awake through. Their campsite was right next to the road, a semicircular cutout in the mountainside. They built their fire on the ashes of many others before, sat on stones already arranged around it, and pitched tents against stony cliffs crowded with strangers’ names.
Cypher had picked a spot with his back to the cliffs and his face to the road and let the fire burn down to embers as the others snored.
They’d made good time. The road was smooth and even and grew thicker with traffic every mile. They’d probably reach Midnight by midday tomorrow.
In short, it was going terribly.
He’d been so, so sure they didn’t have to go anymore. That he’d have more time to work everything out. Get his shit together. Didn’t it just figure that his own logic would rope him back in.
At least they only needed to catch a flight. Pit stop. In and out.
He raked one hand through his hair, scratching at the base of his skull.
I should cancel the library. Tell her we’ll catch another branch somewhere.
In, airship, out. Time it well at the docks and he wouldn’t even be spotted.
She hates libraries anyway. ‘books are boring,’ she said.
Both statements that told him plainly she’d never been to the Library. Damn but he was excited to show her. He wanted to see her face when she saw the gatehouse. The section signs. The Bookwyrms.
He sighed.
Godsdamnit. I’m not going to be able to pass this up, am I?
But the Library entrance was only four blocks from Flint street. From home.
His chest felt tight.
Two years. What do you even say after two years.
A silver lining. Whatever else they said, if he saw his parents, they would certainly use his name. Probably a lot. Probably loudly. Definitely without needing to be asked. Shit, if that’s the way I can hear it again, it might even be nice. His names were gifts, guides, tethers and blessings. Heritage. Even flung in anger, he’d be glad to have them back. If only it didn’t mean revealing their loss. ‘Your name is your path, meu filho. You don’t have to walk it, but its the one under your feet at the start. What else could we call you, ah? In a city like this? Your mother, she wanted to give you a name to make you strong.’ Yeah, well, fuck her. The best thing about my names is she didn’t pick them. ‘I said no, Strength is not how you have a good life. It gives power, not happiness. That’s why I called you ****. It’s meaning ‘****** *****,’ ‘**** ***.’ The name gives these things to you from the beginning, and you have them on your soul.’ Did they still guide him, even now? Whatever boon, whatever gentle path had been set before him, was it still the one under his feet? Could he walk it, blinded? Reaching for his adult name was like trying to lift the morning fog in his palm. He remembered pestering about it. Complaining that all his friends kept the same name their whole lives, asking why he needed another and if he did, why dad wouldn’t just give it to him already. Fifteen was, according to him, already dubiously old to still use your birth name. ‘I picked your birth name, and if you won’t use your mother’s family name-’ What for, she’s no family of mine. ‘-Then you must have at least one name from someone else. They can’t all come from me, I can’t be the only voice guiding you – how will you make your own life like that?’ He’d spent a long time trying to figure out who he could ask. He didn’t know that many adults in Midnight. All dad’s family was in Chult. Never met any of the other one’s. It should come from someone who knew him. Someone who saw him. He asked Melody to give him a name the same day he started calling her Mom. He hadn’t noticed the switch, so he didn’t understand why she cried. He was just thrilled she said yes. Took her damn time thinking of one, though. He would have taken anything. And now he’d gone and lost both in a mess of his own making. Given himself a replacement – blasphemed. He couldn’t even tell them how it happened. The city ahead felt like it was rushing toward him, no matter how still he sat.
Nickname gang. It wasn’t exactly the same. Cri and Mirage both knew their proper names. Avenues past the bullshit, spells that brought their eyes up, cleared the fog, said ‘I see you. Hear me.’ When their ancestors called them home, they’d hear it. Funny, the things you take for granted. Miraculous, the way she could take the most painful hole in his head and make him laugh about it. He didn’t know whether the latin flair to her guesses came from his looks or the drama she heard in their syllables. Probably both. He wondered how long she’d keep guessing before the challenge became a frustration. He wondered if any of them were right. Had she already called his name and it just didn’t register? Was it not just forgotten, but untethered? He found himself picking at the threads on his shirt cuff again and forcibly stilled his hand. The bite scar shone pale in the dying firelight. What if it’s not my name anymore, because I’m not me anymore.
What do you say after two years. What do you say when you show up looking like a dead man walking, twitching at hands and insects that aren’t there, staring down the night until dawn makes it too bright to see and even then it’s still a relief that you don’t have to dream anymore? I can’t ask them not to care, and I can’t ask people who care not to worry. And gods knew they were worried. They barely let him leave last time. He’d never fought with them like that before. Not even when he was a kid. The worst was that there was no anger. Only fear. Fear of whatever he couldn’t tell them. Fear that if he walked out, he wouldn’t come back again. And he hadn’t. Was there any way to convince them it wasn’t because he didn’t want to? Maybe. If the party could forgive a year of silence, evasion, disappearances, antipathy. Across the campsite, Mirage snorted in her sleep. Her nose wrinkled, her brows knit together. She turned over onto her stomach, mumbling something unintelligible, and the lingering firelight flashed over a streak of drool on her cheek before her hair resettled over her like fog on the harbour. If she could move from believing he’d been responsible for her rotting in that godsforsaken cell, to walking at his elbow, asking him about decryption and dead languages only to give his anxious mind a break... Maybe, what you say after making someone worry in silence for two years is just... anything.
“I just don’t understand what answers you’re expecting to get out of Amir, anyway.” The kind that make a great big mess on the floor. Ta’lok wasn’t going to let him assassinate the fucker, he knew. Not until he had a crack at actually talking to him. Cypher was dubious about the odds of that working. It didn’t seem any more likely than keeping her in a box for weeks just to create scandal. He didn’t know what kind of house the dipshit lived in, but if he thought he could keep Mirage in, he was absolutely not ready for trying to keep her out. If she agreed to double back with him after Ta’lok satisfied his attempts at the polite approach, then slipping away from the group was simple. And picking Amir’s brain in a more literal sense would be even simpler.
“Cypher” stretched, walked over, and crouched down a hopefully not-too-startling distance away from the dozing druid. “Cri. Hey.” her facial feathers ruffled. “It’s your watch. If you still want it.” “Hm? Oh, yes. I’m awake.” Cri blinked, then yawned. He stood back up as she stretched, extending her wings in a brilliant white arc against the night. She followed him back to the campfire, taking a seat at the same time and looking at him with her head rotated. He looked up from where he’d been opening his backpack. “I can move if you want, but the light’s better here.” “You should rest.” He sighed. “This is me resting, Cri.” He pulled the grimoire onto his lap and retrieved the pen, started unwrapping it. “Not to I-told-you-so but I did say I’d be up anyway. Offer to go back to sleep is still open.” She made a soft, chirp-like sound that somehow still sounded like tsk. “If you cannot sleep, you should at least stop working.” “And do what, instead?” She smiled, or he thought she did. “Be.” He frowned, paused halfway through finding his place. “Cri, I sincerely doubt that meditation is a good idea right now.” She sighed. It didn’t sound frustrated, though she had every right to be. There was no good reason he could give her why the same practice that gave so many people calm just made his sirens louder half the time. Hanging out in my head is a bad plan. It’s messy. Distracting. Anytime I sit still too long, the door gets loud. I need to be clear tomorrow. Can I tell you that? Understanding what comes through that thing is how I ended up here. You don’t need your own door. You don’t want one. It was becoming a staring contest. Cri let him win. “Sit with me, then. You can study on the ship.” He sighed. He owed Cri too many favours today to fight with her. “Fine. What do you want to talk about?” She smiled. “Did you have a nice time in town today?” Cypher frowned at her, trying to read her face. She looked at him mildly. “I guess,” he said, guarded. Actually, it was a better day than he’d had in a long, long time. Confusing, exhilarating, exhausting, frustrating, and the second half was shaded by the looming dread of the city on the road before them and the anxious faces he’d left there, but town had been good, yes. The question was, why was Cri asking about it. Her feathers ruffled, she looked down. "If I've upset you, I apologize.” Goddamnit. “It brings me joy to see you happy, there was so little of it in your face when first we met." “It’s fine, I overreacted.” She waved it aside, her facial feathers smoothed. Apology accepted with the same grace it always was. “Town was good, yeah. Been on the road a while. Nice to eat something that wasn’t in a backpack for weeks, too.” She chuckled. “A highlight, to be sure. For myself, it was nice to have kind words waiting at the courier’s.” She nodded, smiling. Rereading the missives in her mind? “You and Mirage seemed to be having fun there, as well.” She said it conversationally, and faced the fire, but the focus of her enormous yellow eyes didn't stray from his face for a second. Maybe she was interested in how fast the blood was draining from it. He grabbed a stick off the kindling pile to break the eye contact, poking a little too aggressively at the coals, staring at the sparks. Of course she noticed. Cri waited him out. He didn’t make her wait long. There was no point prolonging the thing, or trying to deny. He clenched his jaw. “You gonna tell her?” “Of course not.” “You gonna tell the others?” “Cypher, really. Of course not.” What, then. Just wanted to call me out for a private dressing down? I know it’s a bad idea, okay? And if it felt like I had any more choice about it than I do about breathing, maybe that’d make a difference. Something on his shoulder. A-fucking-gain. At least he was getting better at ignoring that, then he realized the texture was that of feathers. He looked. Cri’s hand. “It was not my intention to tease you,” she said, and if it had been anyone else he would have scoffed. “I only wanted to tell you, I think it’s wonderful.” Her voice was soft as a summer breeze. It blew him over. He dropped the poker in favour of using both hands to compress his face. He wanted to build the fire back up and throw himself into it. Might cool him down. She chuckled. “I’m such an idiot,” he muttered into his palms. “Oh, stop that.” He sighed, but he also dropped his hands. For several minutes they both watched the coals. Cri looked a rotation of the campsite without moving her shoulders. “Are you going to tell her?” Cri asked, when she was facing him again. Good fucking question. He thought about it. She let him. Reflex said no. Logic said not now. Not while the threat of who took her and why and did they get what they wanted or are they still after her is still hanging over us. Later, then? When they’d found the person or persons responsible and stomped them through the earth? Impossible to say. What would it even look like, telling her? And why should she listen? He’d given her a pretty solid reason to rule him out as an option, last winter. She’d probably think it was a joke. An unfunny one. How was he supposed to explain what changed? ‘Well, you see, I was an idiot then.’ It was a start. Slightly inaccurate, though; he remained a bit of an idiot in the present, too. “Probably not.” He was still looking at the remains of the fire. Cri was silent beside him. “Not... for a while, anyway. Later, I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing.” She let the statement stand. Thank you. “I will admit to a lack of personal experience,” she said, slowly, “But I don’t believe love is something we are ever prepared for. It isn’t a puzzle you can deduce the correct answers to.” He frowned at the fire. The word was not helping to cool his face down, but if Cri had caught his almost-slip earlier, she certainly wouldn’t buy any minimizing lies he spun now. It wasn’t as though he could lecture from life lessons on the topic, either. Except maybe on how to misread and misuse. The idea he couldn’t plan a painless course through this storm was as undesirable as it was plainly factual. “Yeah, I figured.” Just as well, though. He was still reeling from the idea of even having a chance of standing next to her as more than a friend, thinking of actually taking a step in pursuit was as ill-timed as it was terrifying. “I won’t make you discuss it, if you do not wish to.” He nodded. “However, if you ever do want to talk to someone, I hope you know you can talk to me.” About this? He stared. “What for?” She shifted one shoulder in a smiling shrug. “Any weight is lighter when shared.” She extended a hand. The motion brought his eyes to it. For lack of words, he took it. Squeezed.
A silver lining. Whatever else they said, if he saw his parents, they would certainly use his name. Probably a lot. Probably loudly. Definitely without needing to be asked. Shit, if that’s the way I can hear it again, it might even be nice. His names were gifts, guides, tethers and blessings. Heritage. Even flung in anger, he’d be glad to have them back. If only it didn’t mean revealing their loss. ‘Your name is your path, meu filho. You don’t have to walk it, but its the one under your feet at the start. What else could we call you, ah? In a city like this? Your mother, she wanted to give you a name to make you strong.’ Yeah, well, fuck her. The best thing about my names is she didn’t pick them. ‘I said no, Strength is not how you have a good life. It gives power, not happiness. That’s why I called you ****. It’s meaning ‘****** *****,’ ‘**** ***.’ The name gives these things to you from the beginning, and you have them on your soul.’ Did they still guide him, even now? Whatever boon, whatever gentle path had been set before him, was it still the one under his feet? Could he walk it, blinded? Reaching for his adult name was like trying to lift the morning fog in his palm. He remembered pestering about it. Complaining that all his friends kept the same name their whole lives, asking why he needed another and if he did, why dad wouldn’t just give it to him already. Fifteen was, according to him, already dubiously old to still use your birth name. ‘I picked your birth name, and if you won’t use your mother’s family name-’ What for, she’s no family of mine. ‘-Then you must have at least one name from someone else. They can’t all come from me, I can’t be the only voice guiding you – how will you make your own life like that?’ He’d spent a long time trying to figure out who he could ask. He didn’t know that many adults in Midnight. All dad’s family was in Chult. Never met any of the other one’s. It should come from someone who knew him. Someone who saw him. He asked Melody to give him a name the same day he started calling her Mom. He hadn’t noticed the switch, so he didn’t understand why she cried. He was just thrilled she said yes. Took her damn time thinking of one, though. He would have taken anything. And now he’d gone and lost both in a mess of his own making. Given himself a replacement – blasphemed. He couldn’t even tell them how it happened. The city ahead felt like it was rushing toward him, no matter how still he sat.
Nickname gang. It wasn’t exactly the same. Cri and Mirage both knew their proper names. Avenues past the bullshit, spells that brought their eyes up, cleared the fog, said ‘I see you. Hear me.’ When their ancestors called them home, they’d hear it. Funny, the things you take for granted. Miraculous, the way she could take the most painful hole in his head and make him laugh about it. He didn’t know whether the latin flair to her guesses came from his looks or the drama she heard in their syllables. Probably both. He wondered how long she’d keep guessing before the challenge became a frustration. He wondered if any of them were right. Had she already called his name and it just didn’t register? Was it not just forgotten, but untethered? He found himself picking at the threads on his shirt cuff again and forcibly stilled his hand. The bite scar shone pale in the dying firelight. What if it’s not my name anymore, because I’m not me anymore.
What do you say after two years. What do you say when you show up looking like a dead man walking, twitching at hands and insects that aren’t there, staring down the night until dawn makes it too bright to see and even then it’s still a relief that you don’t have to dream anymore? I can’t ask them not to care, and I can’t ask people who care not to worry. And gods knew they were worried. They barely let him leave last time. He’d never fought with them like that before. Not even when he was a kid. The worst was that there was no anger. Only fear. Fear of whatever he couldn’t tell them. Fear that if he walked out, he wouldn’t come back again. And he hadn’t. Was there any way to convince them it wasn’t because he didn’t want to? Maybe. If the party could forgive a year of silence, evasion, disappearances, antipathy. Across the campsite, Mirage snorted in her sleep. Her nose wrinkled, her brows knit together. She turned over onto her stomach, mumbling something unintelligible, and the lingering firelight flashed over a streak of drool on her cheek before her hair resettled over her like fog on the harbour. If she could move from believing he’d been responsible for her rotting in that godsforsaken cell, to walking at his elbow, asking him about decryption and dead languages only to give his anxious mind a break... Maybe, what you say after making someone worry in silence for two years is just... anything.
“I just don’t understand what answers you’re expecting to get out of Amir, anyway.” The kind that make a great big mess on the floor. Ta’lok wasn’t going to let him assassinate the fucker, he knew. Not until he had a crack at actually talking to him. Cypher was dubious about the odds of that working. It didn’t seem any more likely than keeping her in a box for weeks just to create scandal. He didn’t know what kind of house the dipshit lived in, but if he thought he could keep Mirage in, he was absolutely not ready for trying to keep her out. If she agreed to double back with him after Ta’lok satisfied his attempts at the polite approach, then slipping away from the group was simple. And picking Amir’s brain in a more literal sense would be even simpler.
“Cypher” stretched, walked over, and crouched down a hopefully not-too-startling distance away from the dozing druid. “Cri. Hey.” her facial feathers ruffled. “It’s your watch. If you still want it.” “Hm? Oh, yes. I’m awake.” Cri blinked, then yawned. He stood back up as she stretched, extending her wings in a brilliant white arc against the night. She followed him back to the campfire, taking a seat at the same time and looking at him with her head rotated. He looked up from where he’d been opening his backpack. “I can move if you want, but the light’s better here.” “You should rest.” He sighed. “This is me resting, Cri.” He pulled the grimoire onto his lap and retrieved the pen, started unwrapping it. “Not to I-told-you-so but I did say I’d be up anyway. Offer to go back to sleep is still open.” She made a soft, chirp-like sound that somehow still sounded like tsk. “If you cannot sleep, you should at least stop working.” “And do what, instead?” She smiled, or he thought she did. “Be.” He frowned, paused halfway through finding his place. “Cri, I sincerely doubt that meditation is a good idea right now.” She sighed. It didn’t sound frustrated, though she had every right to be. There was no good reason he could give her why the same practice that gave so many people calm just made his sirens louder half the time. Hanging out in my head is a bad plan. It’s messy. Distracting. Anytime I sit still too long, the door gets loud. I need to be clear tomorrow. Can I tell you that? Understanding what comes through that thing is how I ended up here. You don’t need your own door. You don’t want one. It was becoming a staring contest. Cri let him win. “Sit with me, then. You can study on the ship.” He sighed. He owed Cri too many favours today to fight with her. “Fine. What do you want to talk about?” She smiled. “Did you have a nice time in town today?” Cypher frowned at her, trying to read her face. She looked at him mildly. “I guess,” he said, guarded. Actually, it was a better day than he’d had in a long, long time. Confusing, exhilarating, exhausting, frustrating, and the second half was shaded by the looming dread of the city on the road before them and the anxious faces he’d left there, but town had been good, yes. The question was, why was Cri asking about it. Her feathers ruffled, she looked down. "If I've upset you, I apologize.” Goddamnit. “It brings me joy to see you happy, there was so little of it in your face when first we met." “It’s fine, I overreacted.” She waved it aside, her facial feathers smoothed. Apology accepted with the same grace it always was. “Town was good, yeah. Been on the road a while. Nice to eat something that wasn’t in a backpack for weeks, too.” She chuckled. “A highlight, to be sure. For myself, it was nice to have kind words waiting at the courier’s.” She nodded, smiling. Rereading the missives in her mind? “You and Mirage seemed to be having fun there, as well.” She said it conversationally, and faced the fire, but the focus of her enormous yellow eyes didn't stray from his face for a second. Maybe she was interested in how fast the blood was draining from it. He grabbed a stick off the kindling pile to break the eye contact, poking a little too aggressively at the coals, staring at the sparks. Of course she noticed. Cri waited him out. He didn’t make her wait long. There was no point prolonging the thing, or trying to deny. He clenched his jaw. “You gonna tell her?” “Of course not.” “You gonna tell the others?” “Cypher, really. Of course not.” What, then. Just wanted to call me out for a private dressing down? I know it’s a bad idea, okay? And if it felt like I had any more choice about it than I do about breathing, maybe that’d make a difference. Something on his shoulder. A-fucking-gain. At least he was getting better at ignoring that, then he realized the texture was that of feathers. He looked. Cri’s hand. “It was not my intention to tease you,” she said, and if it had been anyone else he would have scoffed. “I only wanted to tell you, I think it’s wonderful.” Her voice was soft as a summer breeze. It blew him over. He dropped the poker in favour of using both hands to compress his face. He wanted to build the fire back up and throw himself into it. Might cool him down. She chuckled. “I’m such an idiot,” he muttered into his palms. “Oh, stop that.” He sighed, but he also dropped his hands. For several minutes they both watched the coals. Cri looked a rotation of the campsite without moving her shoulders. “Are you going to tell her?” Cri asked, when she was facing him again. Good fucking question. He thought about it. She let him. Reflex said no. Logic said not now. Not while the threat of who took her and why and did they get what they wanted or are they still after her is still hanging over us. Later, then? When they’d found the person or persons responsible and stomped them through the earth? Impossible to say. What would it even look like, telling her? And why should she listen? He’d given her a pretty solid reason to rule him out as an option, last winter. She’d probably think it was a joke. An unfunny one. How was he supposed to explain what changed? ‘Well, you see, I was an idiot then.’ It was a start. Slightly inaccurate, though; he remained a bit of an idiot in the present, too. “Probably not.” He was still looking at the remains of the fire. Cri was silent beside him. “Not... for a while, anyway. Later, I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing.” She let the statement stand. Thank you. “I will admit to a lack of personal experience,” she said, slowly, “But I don’t believe love is something we are ever prepared for. It isn’t a puzzle you can deduce the correct answers to.” He frowned at the fire. The word was not helping to cool his face down, but if Cri had caught his almost-slip earlier, she certainly wouldn’t buy any minimizing lies he spun now. It wasn’t as though he could lecture from life lessons on the topic, either. Except maybe on how to misread and misuse. The idea he couldn’t plan a painless course through this storm was as undesirable as it was plainly factual. “Yeah, I figured.” Just as well, though. He was still reeling from the idea of even having a chance of standing next to her as more than a friend, thinking of actually taking a step in pursuit was as ill-timed as it was terrifying. “I won’t make you discuss it, if you do not wish to.” He nodded. “However, if you ever do want to talk to someone, I hope you know you can talk to me.” About this? He stared. “What for?” She shifted one shoulder in a smiling shrug. “Any weight is lighter when shared.” She extended a hand. The motion brought his eyes to it. For lack of words, he took it. Squeezed.