(( part 2: http://ofemptyjournals.blogspot.com/2009/12/all-small-things-merosiels-pov.html ))
----
As I sit in this uncomfortable human chair, I am uncertain how much time has passed between the moments that the mage left me here to the moments when boot heels clacked on the wooden floor boards.
The sound is familiar, though, and the wait no longer matters. I am both startled and confused at the way my heart thrums suddenly in my chest for that particular cadence of footsteps behind me. Even though my hearing knows it and my pulse knows it, turning to look for confirmation seems as necessary as breathing.
The strange manner in how my throat closes and words are stolen leaves me staring up mutely at the elf hovering a few feet away. The mage did not lie. My eyes close. He is here, in Stormwind, he is here, he is safe, he did not kill himself, he is alive--
“Yo,” is the husky, soft greeting, as full of hesitation, nervousness, and defiance as the emotions flowing out of him in a palpable miasma. If I were not already seated, I think I would have fallen under the weight of it.
I open my eyes. The heavy burden of his anxiety and dread is staggering, blots out the tiny flickers of hope and relief that whisper when he stares back at me.
At first I believe this is the source of my unfamiliar reactions to him: surely the runoff of his anxiety is what stills my breath and quickens my heart, because if it is him, then it is not me, and then it makes sense. How could it be me? We were friends before he vanished, nothing more. I shared a bed with him because he asked, and stayed because it kept us both from feeling so lonely. Our friendship was one of convenience, was it not?
Absence should not have strengthened what I had believed to be a weak bond in the first place. We were friends. Are we friends, still? Are we less?
I remember Lady Windila and her words, and my eyes drift from his face--his hawkish features are thinner than before, as if he has not been eating well. From face to chest to the gently rounded slope his embroidered silk shirt makes over his belly.
Time is slow once more, slower than is normal for me, and I wonder again. Are we friends? I did this to him. I have spent these three months believing I killed him, yet he is here and not dead and are we friends? I did this to him.
My gauntleted fingers are in my line of sight suddenly; did I extend my hand to that sloped curve just out reach? I do not remember doing so, yet my fingertips hover and falter under the wash of dread that spikes and darkens and sinks into me, a pit in my gut that wrenches me into nausea and fear that cannot be mine and has to be his but it is confusing and I cannot split it apart and--
“Don’t.” Strange mist curls like smoke from his lips, both with the word escaping, and with each exhale. I do not know what to think of this, and I do not know what is more startling: his rediscovered ability to speak or this lich-mist that accompanies it. Something tremulous worms through me. Panic or despair? Is he dead? Am I staring at a resurrected corpse?
I want to know if I killed him, and my fingertips brush the shirt draping his belly. He flinches, repeats, “Don’t,” in a thinner tone that has me abruptly motionless.
This is as far I am allowed. If I touch, he will run. I can see it in the nervous twitch of his lips as they fight the grimace of teeth for a warmer, crooked smile instead. It is evident in the slouched, yet tense posture: his feet are lightly planted, his weight is on his toes, and his arms are hanging loose to his sides.
He will flee if I flatten my palm. I drop my hand, slow, sluggish as ever; I find my voice, a paltry little whisper. “Thorje Merosiel.”
No, no, that is all wrong, is it not? Formality has never sat well with him, and suddenly the lines crinkling the corners of his creased eyelids show as he closes his eyes, cringes. The tense posture is shifting minutely. Time ticks down by seconds and I cannot get to my hooves, pinned by the emotions he will not or cannot rein in.
“Xi Buras,” is the next whisper to steal past the barrier of my teeth and lips, and that has him pinned, in turn. Silvery eyes open, flick down to me, and suddenly he lurches forward a step, all grace in those long limbs of his thieved away.
He has remembered, the apology lining his mouth says so, and the emotion mutes enough that now I can stand. I am on my hooves in a rustle of leather and plate, and the chains attached to my kilt and belt rattle quietly against the libram strapped to my hip.
The space between us is met; he is a steady pulse of relief behind my eyelids, and little more. This is a headache I should be able to bear, but the way his thin face is now a gentled expression mixed in confusion and weary sadness makes it hurt more, makes me hurt more. I did this to him. But he smells of life. Smells of life, not death.
Curling my arms around him takes time, too; movement is so hard for me some days, when I feel as if I slog through tar just to breathe or think.
I press small palms to the middle of his back, the highest I can reach, curl my fingers around the thick rattail trailing down from the nape of his neck. He sucks in a soft breath, a hiss of air escaping inward rather than out like it should.
Before I can wonder if my embrace is unwarranted, unwanted, he is enfolding me in those lean arms and sliding into a crouch so that his face presses to my throat, my shoulder. The fabric of my mask is turning damp, and his shoulders shiver, tremble, under my fingertips.
“Xi Buras,” I breathe again, breathe for him, perhaps. “Shi lok revos.” These words taste bitter on my tongue, a memory of how it felt to say this to another friend: another missing under different circumstances and never found, but returned by his own volition. Is Merosiel to be another failure of mine?
I did this but he is alive.
I am overwhelmed.
I cry silently without moving.
----
As I sit in this uncomfortable human chair, I am uncertain how much time has passed between the moments that the mage left me here to the moments when boot heels clacked on the wooden floor boards.
The sound is familiar, though, and the wait no longer matters. I am both startled and confused at the way my heart thrums suddenly in my chest for that particular cadence of footsteps behind me. Even though my hearing knows it and my pulse knows it, turning to look for confirmation seems as necessary as breathing.
The strange manner in how my throat closes and words are stolen leaves me staring up mutely at the elf hovering a few feet away. The mage did not lie. My eyes close. He is here, in Stormwind, he is here, he is safe, he did not kill himself, he is alive--
“Yo,” is the husky, soft greeting, as full of hesitation, nervousness, and defiance as the emotions flowing out of him in a palpable miasma. If I were not already seated, I think I would have fallen under the weight of it.
I open my eyes. The heavy burden of his anxiety and dread is staggering, blots out the tiny flickers of hope and relief that whisper when he stares back at me.
At first I believe this is the source of my unfamiliar reactions to him: surely the runoff of his anxiety is what stills my breath and quickens my heart, because if it is him, then it is not me, and then it makes sense. How could it be me? We were friends before he vanished, nothing more. I shared a bed with him because he asked, and stayed because it kept us both from feeling so lonely. Our friendship was one of convenience, was it not?
Absence should not have strengthened what I had believed to be a weak bond in the first place. We were friends. Are we friends, still? Are we less?
I remember Lady Windila and her words, and my eyes drift from his face--his hawkish features are thinner than before, as if he has not been eating well. From face to chest to the gently rounded slope his embroidered silk shirt makes over his belly.
Time is slow once more, slower than is normal for me, and I wonder again. Are we friends? I did this to him. I have spent these three months believing I killed him, yet he is here and not dead and are we friends? I did this to him.
My gauntleted fingers are in my line of sight suddenly; did I extend my hand to that sloped curve just out reach? I do not remember doing so, yet my fingertips hover and falter under the wash of dread that spikes and darkens and sinks into me, a pit in my gut that wrenches me into nausea and fear that cannot be mine and has to be his but it is confusing and I cannot split it apart and--
“Don’t.” Strange mist curls like smoke from his lips, both with the word escaping, and with each exhale. I do not know what to think of this, and I do not know what is more startling: his rediscovered ability to speak or this lich-mist that accompanies it. Something tremulous worms through me. Panic or despair? Is he dead? Am I staring at a resurrected corpse?
I want to know if I killed him, and my fingertips brush the shirt draping his belly. He flinches, repeats, “Don’t,” in a thinner tone that has me abruptly motionless.
This is as far I am allowed. If I touch, he will run. I can see it in the nervous twitch of his lips as they fight the grimace of teeth for a warmer, crooked smile instead. It is evident in the slouched, yet tense posture: his feet are lightly planted, his weight is on his toes, and his arms are hanging loose to his sides.
He will flee if I flatten my palm. I drop my hand, slow, sluggish as ever; I find my voice, a paltry little whisper. “Thorje Merosiel.”
No, no, that is all wrong, is it not? Formality has never sat well with him, and suddenly the lines crinkling the corners of his creased eyelids show as he closes his eyes, cringes. The tense posture is shifting minutely. Time ticks down by seconds and I cannot get to my hooves, pinned by the emotions he will not or cannot rein in.
“Xi Buras,” is the next whisper to steal past the barrier of my teeth and lips, and that has him pinned, in turn. Silvery eyes open, flick down to me, and suddenly he lurches forward a step, all grace in those long limbs of his thieved away.
He has remembered, the apology lining his mouth says so, and the emotion mutes enough that now I can stand. I am on my hooves in a rustle of leather and plate, and the chains attached to my kilt and belt rattle quietly against the libram strapped to my hip.
The space between us is met; he is a steady pulse of relief behind my eyelids, and little more. This is a headache I should be able to bear, but the way his thin face is now a gentled expression mixed in confusion and weary sadness makes it hurt more, makes me hurt more. I did this to him. But he smells of life. Smells of life, not death.
Curling my arms around him takes time, too; movement is so hard for me some days, when I feel as if I slog through tar just to breathe or think.
I press small palms to the middle of his back, the highest I can reach, curl my fingers around the thick rattail trailing down from the nape of his neck. He sucks in a soft breath, a hiss of air escaping inward rather than out like it should.
Before I can wonder if my embrace is unwarranted, unwanted, he is enfolding me in those lean arms and sliding into a crouch so that his face presses to my throat, my shoulder. The fabric of my mask is turning damp, and his shoulders shiver, tremble, under my fingertips.
“Xi Buras,” I breathe again, breathe for him, perhaps. “Shi lok revos.” These words taste bitter on my tongue, a memory of how it felt to say this to another friend: another missing under different circumstances and never found, but returned by his own volition. Is Merosiel to be another failure of mine?
I did this but he is alive.
I am overwhelmed.
I cry silently without moving.
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