they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
and told you to find peace.
H
e had expected for a reaction from Fia when he’d summoned the eyes into being. Prepared himself for it.In Vectaeryn, Caine had once set one man’s most horrific nightmare upon him as a desperate final resort. The dream he had conjured for him — there had been four figures sitting by a lake as smooth as glass, Caine remembers, the man’s family; a little girl’s laugh had echoed like bells through the sunlit glade — had not been enough to subdue him. The man’s eyes had been ravaged by rage, and… sorrow. The knife had come from nowhere, and before Caine could react, the man had buried it hilt-deep in his leg.
He had panicked, then. His magic had slipped. Sank its ravenous teeth into the sea of despair emanating from another dream — it had needed no further invitation.
(The little girl’s rotting corpse stumbles towards them. Gaping mouth open in silent agony. Bloodshot eyes dripping blood-red tears. The man stops struggling. His face falls slack with horror, the knife clattering to the floor. The corpse of his daughter is the last thing he sees before Caine’s blade flashes, shaking, across his throat.)
He had expected a reaction. Yet when it comes, when Fia jerks backwards from the eyes in shock and fear, Caine’s revulsion at himself swells just a little bit more.
But he cannot stop his illusions once they are cast. He can only see them to their end.
The eyes burn and burn. His skin crawls, slick with sweat.
And then she steps closer, just enough to brush his wounded shoulder. Why? His startled gaze does not break from the flickering flames, but his breath shudders as he fights the urge to retract his wing, swallows the shock of her drawing ever nearer.
Why isn’t she afraid of me?
The flames ripple when his attention slips. Focus, he hisses to himself, pushing the thought from his mind. Focus.
When the illusion leaves him, Caine’s breath comes easier. The feverish light departs his eyes. The exertion lifts from his shoulders, and at once, he seems to solidify. Exhaustion still plagues him, but the boy is more flesh than shadow for the first time this night.
“It is…far more than to my satisfaction. Thank you, Caine.” He nods, strangely comforted, and returns her two-toned stare with brooding eyes. He wonders what she is looking for.
His dagger bends the moonlight into a ghoulish halo above his head when he offers Fia his salute. When he ponders over the oddity of a foreign-born assassin swearing his fealty to a golden-scarred girl, his smile deepens.
Out of everything, this is by far the least odd thing to have happened tonight, he muses.
“I’d be honored,” comes her reply, and he begins to rise when he notices the sheath at her side shiver. He halts, puzzled.
And then she draws out a sword.
“I want you to know that this arrangement is…reciprocal. So long as you are at my side, I swear by my sword – and, I assure you, she is quite a special one –“
His gaze lingers over the intricate carvings of the sword’s handle, and when he strains his ears, he thinks he hears it humming softly in the air. The blade is lovingly polished, the forging masterful.
He has never been more pleased to be bested by another in the finery of their weapon.
“-I will do whatever I can to protect you.”
Her words ring in the space between them, heavy with sincerity. Glistening with promise. They are a novelty to him.
"How odd. No one has ever said that to me.” Caine punctuates his admission with a chuckle, to make it so that she will not be able to hear the bitter vulnerability in his voice.
"By our blades, then.” He does not have the right to hope. But a flicker of it ignites in his chest still, and Caine hopes that he will never have to betray his oath.
They slide their blades back into their sheathes in unison. And it is done, he thinks, with a pang of dissatisfaction. He frowns when he realizes he does not wish to leave, to melt away into the night, like he has always been apt to do.
To his surprise, Fia's voice comes again. “Starting now. Come here for a moment – a bloody wound, no matter how small, is an excellent way to attract a hungry Sandwyrm when you’re traveling the Mors.”
Blood? Suddenly, he remembers. He glances down at the wound upon his shoulder, almost painless now, and considers telling her that it is no more than a scratch. And a self-inflicted one, at that.
Perhaps he won’t tell her that specific detail.
But she leaves him no room for protest, and there is little he can do but trail her, intrigued, as she heads for the oasis.
He hangs behind and peers at the oasis’ lapis blue waters as she begins to survey the various shrubbery. He doesn't know what she's looking for, but what he does know — sand and sweat cake in rivulets down his pelt, and he detests nothing more.
"Wait,” Caine calls out to her, before he turns and wades into the water’s cool, refreshing depths without a second's hesitation. "I suppose my wound should be cleaned, yes?” He does not look back towards her, though his tone carries a breezy nonchalance to it.
The water is blissfully cool against his heated skin. He sinks into it until he is chest-deep, and watches as the sand billows from his pelt in waves. The ends of his hair float along the water’s surface, like a spill of black ink.
He lingers in the pool's depths for a few moments more, sighing as the knots in his muscles loosen, before wading back towards the shore and Fia. He draws to a stop next to her, and siphons away some of the water dripping off of him with a flourish of telekinesis.
"So,” he says, glancing at his wound — and her — with keen interest. His dip in the oasis has washed off the sand that had clumped along the cut, and a few drops of fresh blood drip from it to the sands below. "How do you Solterrans heal wounds in the desert?”
He is more than a little amused, and he doesn’t bother to hide it. No one has ever tended to his wounds before. Caine had always done it all himself, with gauze and ointments and alcohol-dipped needles. There are none of those here, among the golden sands and swaying palms.
He looks at her expectantly, his gaze tracing, none too discreetly, the lines of her golden scar. His curiosity, he has realized, is a heedless creature.
@Seraphina | "speaks" | notes: briefly considered having caine ask sera to join him for a dip
