WHAT IT MUST BE LIKE TO BE GENTLE
to reach out and not want to hurt

[set a few  days after this thread.]
@Mathias
A long journey from Solterra after what seems like another eternity spent apart is spent mostly in silence, and is rewarded at long last by the cool night air of Delumine, the warm, wet scent of spring now beginning to permeate their surroundings. Sam still has no explanation for Mattie, his madness unspoken between them, and he feels its presence like an itch he cannot scratch. While he is focused on retrieving his belongings, he is also dreading what must surely come afterward: his admission of murder. He cannot with a clean conscience go on existing as he has. He has feasted on the hearts of the innocent, has sullied his pure heart with the sins he has committed unto others, and he will pay the price. How, he does not know; can only hope it does not result in the one thing - the one person - he cares for the most being lost to him forever.

“Here,” he says, breaking away from his lover as he finds his cloak. His dagger and sheath are nestled inside and he quickly reaches out with his telekinesis, strapping the sharp iron tool to his leg while snuffling around the inside pockets of his outerwear. Some of the herbs he has stored have gone bad, withered, wilted or rotten in their jars, and he huffs. He has been gone a long while, it would seem. Longer than he had anticipated. Yet still, he finds some that have kept, and he thanks the gods for watching over him - if that is truly what they have done. In the back of his mind, he questions whether a god could find him worthy of protection. He levitates a small jar of berries and leaves, a concoction of his own making, and hands it over to Mathias. He tries to mask how utterly exhausted he still is, but it is hard. Still, he puts on a smile for the one he loves. “These are full of nutrients,” he explains. “They won’t fill you up, but it’s a good place to start, and they’re easy to digest.”

With a whisk of telekinetic energy, he picks up the cloak and slings it over himself, his jars rattling like little fairy bells within the confines of their designated pockets. He is not swift enough however, to keep the scrolls he has from tumbling out of the unbuttoned outer pockets. Sheets and sheets of bloodstained parchment fall to the forest floor, the science behind his healing potions, the anatomy of his reflection as The Wolf, his research laid bare for the world - at least, his world - to see. And there, beside the reflection of The Wolf, is a forgotten sketch of the memory Mathias, scowling in his all his agonized glory. All at once he is undone, his heart stuttering in his chest as he catches his breath. “Oh - uh - shit - s-sorry about that, I didn’t uh - realize the um - the pockets, they sometimes - they aren’t always done up right …”

This is the only excuse he can muster as he tries to pick his dignity up off the forest floor and re-roll his research, his moon trackers, his beautifully arched calligraphy that is laid out next to the terrified scribbling of a madman. He always knew he could not hide himself forever.

I THINK IT'S TIME THAT 
YOU CRAWL BACK HOME SON

There is comfort in the cold iron wrapped around his legs, familiarity in the weight of the helmet that hid his defect from the world -- there had been some measure of relief when Sam had handed the battered armor over, some feeling that perhaps things would settle into their natural order in time -- but then again, neither of them are as they were before. Time has scarred them in places whether the other has not found yet, and as he watches Jetsam fuss over a cloak and a dagger, he wonders what time will have for them yet.

He takes the jar in his telekinesis, turning it over and over for a few moments while he carefully considers the mixture within -- had anyone else handed him an unknown jar, he might have thought they were trying to poison him, but this is Sam -- before opening it and practically dumping the contents into his mouth. His journey to the Oasis and rapid flight with the stolen goods afterward had taken more of a toll than he had noticed, and he has to remind himself not to eat too quickly lest he make himself sick. “S’not bad,” He mumbles around his mouthful, his manners lost to the winds, and he swallows quickly as Sam sends a handful of scrolls flying to the forest floor.

Perhaps a normal man might have been concerned by the frantic scrawling across the parchment, by the words that flowed like water, but that would have required being able to discern what the writing meant -- while it remained one of his more closely guarded secrets, the bastard prince had never actually been taught to read, and so he stares at the research papers with an air of faint bemusement instead. “You studyin’ wolves now, Sam?” He asks as he reaches out and grabs the sketch of himself, squinting at it as though struggling to read Sam’s handwriting (rather than trying to figure out what any of the words were at all -- Sam’s messy handwriting only made that task harder).

It had worked to hide his illiteracy when they had been younger -- hopefully it would work now.


“Speech.”