Night-Blooming Flowers [Flower]

[Sivan]

1 Frost 120

Winter had come while he had been sleeping. Some people thought the calendar to be entirely arbitrary, and certainly there were periods of overlap, of wake, as the ever-moving progression of the seasons continued. The motion of the moons had something to do with it, though their spirits were too large for him to commune with. But he knew it was past midnight because the lesser nature spirits were gossipping about it like bored fishwives.

Grumbling, he pulled on his boots and gathered repurposed his coat as a coat instead of an extra blanket. IX stirred.

"I just have to piss," he said. It sounded prettier in Mythrasi than it would have in Common, the elven tongue being more mellifluous in general. He was really going to have to learn Common more properly if he was going to stay in Kalzasi. Once he had spent some time there, he would decide. But he would have to find a place to stay, a sort of employment. Before that, he would have to get some proper gloves. He blew into his hands, chafed them together, and then stuck them under his armpits where his body heat was slowly seeping through the heavy wool. IX did not follow as he tromped away from camp to find enough privacy to relieve himself.

The merchant was asleep. The caravan guard on duty didn't speak any elven languages, but Sivan could manage "Piss" in Common. The woman nodded acknowledgment and that was that.

Walking through the trees, he heard the dreamsongs of the trees, slow at the best of times gone sonorous with the season change. In a small clearing, he found a tree whose position meant it might not get as much water as others and selected it for the gift of his water. Gazing across the clearing, he saw nothing of note, but if someone or something snuck up on him, he would see it, at least, when he turned. He cursed under his breath at the shock of cold air on his tender anatomy. A spirit, quicker than the trees, commented on his presence.

Yes, he said to it. I see you, too.

That gave it pause, which was a nice respite while he did his business, trying not to wake up so entirely that falling asleep again would prove problematic.

You hear, it noted. The good thing about spirits, at least, was most of them didn't really speak any language at all. One just got used to a language of concept, impression, intention, and the like.

He sighed, shook himself, and put it away. I hear. Time to sleep.

Trees sleep. You come.

He cursed again. Its communication came with a sort of urgency he recognized. The spirit wanted something and Sivan wasn't likely to get sleep tonight until he helped it. His pants buttoned, his hands once again shoved under his arms, he turned.

Lead. No danger?

The spirit assured him that there was no danger and that mollified him somewhat. Minor spirits could be mischievous, but he hadn't encountered one vicious enough to lead a person into danger without some kind of warning. Malicious spirits were generally recognizable as such. And so he walked farther from camp into the woods. While they were in the mountains, though, thankfully the path was relatively flat. He would rather not sleep until dawn in the safety of the camp than break his neck trying to mountain climb in the cold and the dark.

[Flower]

The change of seasons came with a cost. Truth be told, he did not know how long he had been in that precise spot. He remembered the sun rising and falling in some vague part of his consciousness, but there could be no certainty. So cold. His teeth chattered, and thin arms curled closer to his body. Every movement was lethargic, sluggish. Where was the sun? He tried to process where he was, what, exactly, was going on, but his thoughts were as cumbersome as his movements, and, at length, he gave up the effort and allowed the comforting embrace of unconsciousness to claim him.

When that flickering sentience returned, the stars danced above him. His breath rose and fell from his body in mists. Each puff seemed weaker than the last.

Where was the sun?

At some point, dew formed on his hair, and the chill intensified. His chest hitched, and a strangled sound escaped him, somewhere between a gasp and a sob. Why was he so cold? Nearby, the tattered tent which had once served as his base of operations hunched. Though still in relatively good repair, it was clear that the camp had not been utilized in several days time. From where he lay, he could see the outlines of the slumped tent, but he could not make sense of what it was.

Nothing made sense.

Somewhere, nearby, a foot crunched on a twig. Instinct bid him move, bid him conceal himself, but instinct could not overpower exhaustion. Where he lay amidst loam and undergrowth, he was clearly visible to passersby.

Or at least to wanderers curious enough to follow a friendly spirit.

He turned his face towards the source of the sound, but discern nothing more than the faintest of bleary lines in the dark. In the dark, the pale shape might not have looked like much more than a cadaver in rags, and in truth, there might have been little left by the end of the night. Pinkish-tinged fingers tightened weakly against the scrap of fabric that had once been a carefully-sewn tunic. Winter came, as it always did, early to the mountains, leaving behind frost-bitten flora in its wake. Most creatures that called such places home had protections against such cold, but this particular flower had very much been caught off guard, and now paid the price for it.

Another sound. A rasping breath. A call for help or the agonized rattle of a dying soul?

[Sivan]

The spirit led him to camp that looked only recently abandoned. Its firepit hadn't even glowing embers in it, but the tent looked servicable. In the gloaming, it felt rather melancholy and lost, like a graveyard. Then he saw what looked to be a body. He froze.

Dead? he asked.

Soon, the spirit replied, mournful.

The spirit had said there was no danger, and he didn't sense any with whatever powers of intuition the Gods had seen fit to gift him with. He knelt down, carefully checking for a pulse. Not feeling any sort of throb in response, though also not a physician, he was more worried perhaps by a sign he could not get wrong, even without medical training. His fingertips were cold compared to the core of his body, but this body was cold to the touch. But the spirit assured him that this person was alive, and the spirit would know better than him.

He cursed. Even that was beautiful in his native tongue. He didn't know what to do about the pulse, but he could do something about the temperature. Sivan picked up the body, which was far lighter than it ought to have been.

Body and soul, the spirit corrected.

"Are you critiquing my inner monologue?" he asked incredulously, using spoken words so the spirit wouldn't hear his cheek. He didn't want to upset it. Regardless, he carried the body and its soul into the tent. Not much of a survivalist either, he only knew what to do because he had overheard a scout talking about it on a winter evening years ago. While smiling prurient smiles, the scout had said that when bodies succumbed to hypothermia, the way in which heat was returned to it mattered. It could be a delicate thing if one wanted to revive the person. One couldn't just throw a blanket upon them, one hand to strip both bodies down to the skin and share as many blankets as possible, with fewer boundaries between the body sharing the heat and the body borrowing it.

"I didn't agree to this," he complained to nobody in particular. The spirit might pick up on his trepidation, but wouldn't truly understand him unless he spoke in the manner inherent to his mother's Dratori bloodline. But he removed the person's clothing, apologizing to the air for doing so without consent, then removed his own and cursed at the biting cold on his sensitive flesh. He had heard the Avialae were immune to extreme cold. He wondered aloud why his mother couldn't have fucked an Avialae instead of his own shitty father. It all sounded so pretty in Mythrasi.

"The spirit says their soul is still bound to their body, Sivan," he said, talking himself into this strangely uncomfortable act that was, if it went well, life-saving. "You're definitely not a necrophiliac, as if you could even rise to the challenge in this cold if you wanted to..." He continued to grumble. In the dark, he couldn't even tell they were a man or a woman, young or old, beautiful or ugly, whether he should have been half-mast or turtling in response. "Oh fucking holy Dragon Gods, they're cold..."

He lay next to this stranger, trying to feel like a savior and not an unwilling sexual predator, pulling the blankets over both of their bodies and wishing he had taken up Elementalism so he could conjure a fucking fire like any self-respecting magus, but one dealt with the Runes one was inscribed with. Shivering at first, his body eventually began to tremor, a reaction he could not control as his own body took it upon itself to generate as much heat as possible to save him from his own stupidity.

"Come on, friend," he said, distracting himself by talking to someone who probably couldn't hear. "Don't die. The spirit might curse me if you do, even though I'm going to such lengths to prevent that. Notice that I don't know whether to gender you because I have respectfully not touched any of your reproductive organs despite our compromised and compromising situation, though I would not gender you at all without you gendering yourself. I don't know how those things go in Kalzasi, but I, at least, am not a barbarian. If I was, I would be wearing so many bearskins and we would both be toasty by now and laughing at how awkward this is.

"Also, please don't give me the lover's pox if you have it, because I am not touching you like a lover and I shouldn't be plagued with boils for trying to be a hero..."

This went on for a while, his tremors not stopping, though he thought perhaps he might have felt the ghost of an answering warmth in the stranger's soft skin—not old then. He did from time to time, chafe a slender arm with his hand, or a leg with his leg, trying to create more heat with friction as well. He hoped it wasn't hopeless.

Perhaps an hour later, he had begun to drowse. They were warmer under the blankets. He didn't know if the person were alive except the spirit assured him they were, but his body only infrequently began to tremor. But his weary bitching ceased, and he began to hum a lullaby that he didn't know he remembered from his own time before creche, before his mother had left the land of the Hytori, taking him with her because they were not as his father was and duty called.

[Flower]

Hazy shapes moved towards him. Hands were no different than any other shadows in the dark. A sudden, jarring memory sliced through his consciousness. Laughter, as cold and ruthless as the night air that threatened to steal his last breath. A frightened, sharp yelp left his lips, a clear sign that life was there, weak as it might have been, much like the desperate cry a rabbit might utter when snatched up in the jaws of a wolf, helpless to combat its fate. But, strangely, as quickly as that fear overwhelmed him, it was replaced by a primal recognition: warmth. Though conscious of very little, he felt the dance of fingertips seeking his weak pulse, and for a moment, it was almost as though the sun shone upon him, and the chill of the mountains had passed.

Faces flashed through his mind, hazy and distant like dreams. Their voices cried out to him, but he heard nothing of what was said, at least not on a conscious level. Some part of him took comfort, though another entirely, and for reasons he could not understand, wished to recoil in shame. The visions in his mind muddled together and faded, and he noticed, at last, that he was being moved.

He opened his eyes.

In this proximity, even in the dark, he could make out the shape of a face, but his teeth chattered so violently that he could not even begin to attempt to speak. He heard the voice speaking to him, but he did not fully comprehend the words being spoken, nor did he truly realize what was happening when he was unceremoniously hefted into his tent and stripped bare.

The bedroll in the tent was comfortable, albeit a bit dirty from being left in nature for several days without use. He did not respond to a word spoken to him, and scarcely seemed to understand. Sivan bemoaned his poor luck, trying to assure himself that he was helping, rather than harming, but his rescuee maintained obliviousness. Whether that was the cold shutting down his brain or another source remained to be seen. It took a long while for the chattering of his teeth to calm, and longer still for his breathing to level out.

Silence. For a long, painful while, there was only the heavy silence between them, and the little fellow receiving Sivan’s aid. Outside, birds were still. The night air did not so much as rustle the leafless trees around them. There was only that silence.

At last, some sign of success. The strange, little creature curled towards the warmth and at last released a tiny, breathy sigh of relief. His fingers moved, and he angled back his head to try and get some sort of grasp of the situation. The lullaby was unfamiliar to him, but it soothed him, whether he was the intended audience or not. Another sigh, this one marked with weariness. His head dropped against Sivan’s arm, and he managed a single word.

“Finally…”

[Sivan]

The signs of life over the course of that hour were gratifying in that he was definitely not a necrophiliac. The size of the body led him to worry he might be dealing with a child, which was troubling in a different way, but then, he had none of those intentions and it wasn't like the nature spirit was going to tell on him—it likely wouldn't even understand those connotations.

"Finally?" he murmured, the movement having tugged him back toward full consciousness. "Finally!" he hissed. "Hi, hello? Thank Wraedan, not today." They had even spoken in Mythrasi, which was a good sign given this wasn't Sol'Valen. "I'm sorry to meet you like this. I promise, nothing untoward has happened. I just had to get you warm. You were a block of ice."

He shivered in remembrance but also because, even now, he wouldn't say they were toasty under the blankets.

"I'm Sivan. There's no need to worry. My camp isn't very far from here. There's food and fire and the merchant has caravan guards. We're only a few days out from Kalzasi, so we can get you proper attention from a healer there. Right, don't worry about responding now. You need your rest. We can pick our way back when it's light out."

It was only then that he heard his name echoed back at him, not from the quiet fellow in the blankets with him, but echoing through the trees.

"SIVAN. SIVAN. SIVAN." It wasn't loud yet, but it would be. IX was rather fixated on him now that their master was gone. He supposed he should be gratified that the caravan guards would come looking for him if he didn't come back from a routine piss. While he still wasn't sure how emotions worked for an Awoken, he supposed he ought to feel good that it cared enough about him to shout loud enough to frighten all the birds and beasts and even insects into silence.

"SIVAN. SIVAN. SIVAN." They were closer now, and suddenly he was warm under the covers, a flush of impending shame firing up his skin. He scrabbled for his clothes, which were mostly under the blankets, trying to clothe himself without releasing any of the accumulated heat.

"SIVAN. SIVAN. SIVAN." Their artificial voice was artificially augmented, and it was really starting to make him panic. He didn't know why he cared. A little ridicule wouldn't kill him.

"I would dress you, but at speed in the dark, that might feel like molestation, so..."

"SIVAN. SIVAN. SIVAN." They were like the alarum waking one from a nightmare of sexual humiliation. Except shouldn't there be derisive laughter? He carefully slipped out from under the blankets without allowing the cold air in, then started tucking it around the other person like a burrito.

As he pulled his boots on, he said, "Don't worry. We'll come back in the morning for your tent and whatever else you have here. Your possessions. And up..."

"SIVAN. SIVAN. SIVAN."

He picked the light, lithe body up, swaddled in blankets, their own clothes trapped inside with them. It actually made him feel rather strong. He might walk a little taller for a while, thinking of himself carrying people to safety from certain death. But for now...

"SIVAN. SIVAN. SIV—."

"Here!" he shouted. "I'm fine!" Then, more softly, just sleep. "I've got you now." He pulled the blanket over their face so they wouldn't lose any heat there, then tried not to stumble, but walk in the direction of the noise. His mystery find seemed compliant enough, or just so weak and weary that they fell asleep. At least, they didn't stir again until the next day.

The next day, Sivan packed up the ragged camp. Not entirely pleased, the merchant agreed to empty out enough space in a covered wagon for Sivan and his little friend to huddle. The good removed were carried by the uncomplaining IX. But at least the covered wagon grew warm after a while, the winter sun gentle on the canvas, and his own body's heat reflected back at them. But it was cramped. Sivan was seated, his friend curled up in the blankets between his legs. He wasn't about to attempt getting naked in here but he held them close, teasing dabs of honey into their mouth on the end of his finger. They needed to eat, but he didn't want to risk drowning with tea or the vegetable broth someone else suggested. This seemed to work. It dissolved in their mouth, and if it was slow, well, Sivan didn't have anything else to do.

He had seen their face now, and still wasn't sure whether they were male or female. It didn't matter really, but he had glared at anyone who suggested taking a quick look or cop a quick feel.

The spirit wasn't quite as present as before. Roads were the work of creatures that such spirits mostly avoided, but he could feel it nearby. It didn't speak. And so, the only person to speak to was himself, but rather than do that and sound crazy, he hummed lullabies. It had seemed efficacious earlier, at least.

[Flower]

There was a strange, almost empathetic surge of relief. At first, he was uncertain if it was relief for himself or simply a natural, ancient tactic of survival through which ones emotions mirrored those of the individuals around them. Why did he feel relief? Oh, of course, it was nice to be alive and not freezing to death out under the stars, but he had no sense of identity, no concept of who he was or how he had even come to be in that position in the first place. How long had he been there? Why was he in the mountains to begin with?

He simply smiled and nodded as the other jabbered on. While he understood the language, everything was fuzzy even now, and trying to comprehend what was happening when this stranger spoke a mile a minute was something else entirely.

The jarring, mechanical voice was unlike anything that he remembered hearing. After months alone in the mountains, it was strange to hear speech at all, let alone the synthetic voice screaming in the night. Thought birds slumbered moments before, they awoke now, scolding and fussing at their disturbed rest. He closed his eyes, hoping that the sound would go away, but it seemed, instead, to draw closer, and before he fully understood what was happening, he was swept up in the arms of his rescuer, and carted out into the night.

Night passed without incident. He did not offer anything in the way of words or explanations, but stayed snuggled up against Sivan (that must have been what he was called). He did not care much for whether or not it appeared decent. He was finally warm, and that was what mattered most in that moment.

When the morning came and they were at last able to move on, he stayed nestled in a wagon, an experience which was somehow unfamiliar and recognizable all at once. He felt an odd sense of gratitude and attachment, though he hardly knew how to begin telling Sivan that he was grateful to have been plucked from the earth where he might have frozen to death or starved. Held close, he knew, instinctively, that he now had a protector, and that he might allow himself to rest, and thereby heal.

The honey was sweet on his tongue. Though there was not much to it in the way of quantity, it was sufficient for the moment, and the sweetness helped to reestablish some sense of alertness. He was able to lift his head and look around the wagon. Chilly though it might have been, the covering helped to contain some of the sun’s warmth, which immediately helped him to perk up. In fact, by the time Sivan started humming, he was bright-eyed and peering at his new surroundings like a newly fledged chick. He did not speak, or make any actual effort to verbally communicated, but when he found himself ready for another bit of honey, he reached up, tugging lightly and insistently at Sivan’s sleeve and opening his mouth.

The pretty flowers in his hair, too, seemed to have taken note of the change in fortunes, and though they had been closed tightly the night before, they began to open, turning their faces towards the sun like errant curls.

He would, it seemed, survive.

[Sivan]

The flashes of consciousness hadn't been consistent until now, which made sense given the bone-deep cold that had taken over the little one's body before he found them. Well, before the spirit led him to them. He was reminded of his siblings when they were infants, when their needs made sense, before their affections were spoiled by the prejudices of adults that filtered down into children around them—even within the home, really. He didn't really want to fall down that rabbit-hole right now. But hand-feeding him honey, promising more substantial foods later when they made camp, the mystery addition to their caravan was at least eating, at least grabbing his sleeve when he wanted more.

There had only been the one word, and Sivan might have imagined it, dozing and trying not to freeze. That was all right, though. Most people talked too much for his tastes.

When the fae creature turned their face away from a proffered dollop of honey, he frowned. "Are you certain? All right." He sucked the honey off his finger and then shifted to pull a waterskin out from where it had lodged halfway underneath him. He opened it and took a mouthful himself. Warmed by his body, it wasn't cold and refreshing, but tepid was probably best given how cold it was outside and how skinny the fae was.

He offered water, his nose brushing hair as he tried to look them in the face. He sniffed, smelling flowers. Well, they had budded and begun to bloom. Fae creature indeed.

"Fae'ethallan?" he asked, not expecting a response. "Water?"

At least different words and different offers might elicit different responses, and then they would better be able to communicate without words if the creature really was a mute as they seemed to be. Sivan yawned. At least the bouts of consciousness faded frequently into slumber. They needed to recuperate, and Sivan wouldn't mind snatches of a nap here and there to recover the sleep he had missed out on last night.

Perhaps tonight, he could pitch his tent farther away from the road and with a little meditation and maybe a small offering, he could coax that spirit closer to ask more questions. Mists, but the spirit's presence might set something off in the little fae. He didn't know if Fae'ethallan were supposed to have similar gifts as the Dratori, but from what he understood, they were keenly aligned with the natural world, so it wouldn't surprise him, exactly.

"I need to ask your incorporeal friend some questions that you probably won't be able to answer until we figure out how to communicate better."

[Flower]

With some sort of substance in his system and sleep, his thoughts processed more coherently. The night before, death’s fingers curled about him, seeking to draw him into eternal slumber. But the sun rose, and he was safe at last.

This little wagon was, in that moment, the entire world to the little flower. He was warm. He was safe. For the immediate instant, this was all that mattered. Though he could not clearly remember why he had been alone in the mountains, he could now, at least, recall that he had been there for a very long while without communicating with another soul. He remembered hiding from any passersby, doing whatever he could to avoid being seen, but...why?

His thoughts turned in circles as he was fed the honey, and for a moment, he seemed almost to drift away mentally, brought back only when the offer of water was made. Immediately, both hands shot up with more animation than he had demonstrated thus far, and curled around the canteen. He was keen to drink, and it showed as he took several gulps in quick succession. Though his people required less in the way of intake, one could not entirely go without, even when they were very small to begin with.

With the water taken, he eased himself back, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. His eyes settled on Sivan, head resting back against his shoulder. Perhaps it was the glint of the light through the canvas of the wagon, but he seemed like a ray of the sun himself. That thought was oddly satisfying. Warm and bright.

For a long moment, he considered Sivan’s words. His brow furrowed, his effort to process clear. At length, he opened his mouth and spoke in a whisper scarcely audible above the creak of the wheels, “...Friend?” As far as he knew, he had been very much alone on that mountain, facing the elements alone in his little camp. He did not know of any spirits coming to his aid, and most of the previous night was still a blur, though bits and pieces of his memory flickered to consciousness.

When he turned his head, a bit of golden pollen drifted from the flowers in his hair, settling on his curls and shoulders. A little hand slipped out from beneath the blanket, and he echoed the word once more. “Friend?” Long, thin fingers touched Sivan’s cheek, tinged from tip to wrist with a deep, maroon, which faded away as it crept up his arms. His brows furrowed. What friend? Had there been another person present? His nose wrinkled as he tried to think back on the time spent in the mountains. As far as he could reason out, Sivan was his only friend. He could not recall having traveled with another person…

He took a deep breath, shaking his head again, and managed another word: “Alone.” There was a tinge of sadness to the word, and it echoed in his eyes. There was no friend, at least to his knowledge. He could not comprehend what sort of miracle had led Sivan to him, or who might have taken compassion on a dying Fae’ethalan in the woods.

[Sivan]

"Friend," he agreed, blinking back at the strange flower of a person. He gently clasped there hand in his and gave it a little squeeze. "Friend," he repeated.

He let go, not wanting to alarm the little creature. But he didn't know how to explain things using only looks and gestures, so he spoke.

Tapping his pointed ear, he said, "Hytori father. Dratori mother. Got his looks, got her ability to speak to spirits. One of the local ones led me to you. It doesn't like the road, though, or to be close to so many people. I will try to say hello tonight when we make camp." With the flower's back to his chest, he couldn't rightly see how they reacted. He didn't know if the Fae could sense nature spirits as the Dratori could, but he supposed he would find out when the spirit manifested, if it manifested.

"I doubt it will follow us into the city, but it seems to care that you are taken care of, at least. So I'm going to take care of you while you recover from whatever happened. Don't worry. No pressure. Take your time." He hummed thoughtfully. "I'm curious what you did to have a guardian spirit so motivated to keep you alive, though." He laughed softly. That was something that would be handy, but he supposed he had IX for that, and he was motivated to keep IX alive as well.

"You aren't a talker," he observed. "That's fine. I will try to do right by you, but if I'm doing something you don't want, please let me know so I can cease and desist and we will find another way to muddle through, all right?" He hoped he could at least depend on nods and shakes of the head for yeses and nos.

[Flower]

The Fae’ethalan might not have been much of a talker, but that did not seem to be an issue for Sivan, who seemed to have a great many things to say. The little flower watched him, though the angle was awkward. In spite of his exhaustion, he couldn’t help but smile a bit. He...knew about the things about which Sivan spoke. Hytori. Dratori. He remembered those things, so why could he not recall who he was? His brows pinched, and he sighed. Every time he tried to push further, the mental path became, somehow, more disorienting, as if a terrible fog had fallen, or a veil had been drawn over his mind’s eye.

Blinking, he shook his head, willing himself to return to focus, to the moment. Sivan was still talking. He tilted his head, like a curious animal trying to figure out what, exactly, was being said to him. He understood the words well enough, and he knew spirits existed, but his kind did not have the same sort of connection as Sivan expressed, and he certainly hadn’t been aware of a spirit looking out for him. As far as he knew, he had been very much alone, just the trees and the sky.

He released a low breath, and, opening his mouth, pointed to it and shook his head, hoping that Sivan might understand that communicating verbally was incredibly difficult. Not impossible, but difficult. But he smiled, motioned to Sivan, and nodded encouragingly. It was nice to hear another voice after so long. Animals did not need to communicate in the same way, and their voices were certainly different, and so, hearing someone speak was a welcome change.

Slowly, he scooted slightly apart from Sivan, so that he could see him better. It was a little difficult to communicate, after all, when they could not properly see one another. The blanket stayed held close to him, but his arm poked out, gesturing to his rescuer. “S-Sivan?” He whispered. “You? Sivan?” That tiny voice remained scarcely audible, though it was evident he sought very much to be heard. He gestured to himself, then, and shook his head again. A shrug followed.

Once more, he motioned to the other. “Sivan.” And again to himself, with a shrug and a shake of his head. It was like trying to communicate with a baby, though he realized that he was the baby in this situation. Sivan seemed very much capable of communicating, though he himself could not. A small sound of frustration left his lips, and both hands raised, covering his face. He wanted to talk. He wanted to explain what had happened, and to understand it himself. Sivan spoke of healing, but he did not know if such a thing was even possible.

He did not even know his own name.