Private Castles in the Sky

[Cellachán]

CASTLES IN THE SKY​

A continuation of Reflections​

Time, in Cellachán’s opinion, is a funny old thing.

It’s been three weeks since he arrived in Arpa. It didn’t even take him that long to get here from Cloud’s Keep: a few days by skyship into Crown’s Hold, and then a couple of weeks via the relative snail’s pace of horse-drawn carriage along winding rural roads. A fortnight and some change, and yet, all that time had dragged out to something so tediously more, it had felt like something which ought to be measured in months as opposed to weeks.

By contrast, the time he’s spent in Arpa seems to be slipping away from him all too fast. Well, that’s always how it goes when he has a project. Although this one has been a little different.

OK. It’s been a lot different.

The professor’s worked on his share of urgent, life-or-death projects before, but never actually from ground zero itself, where said threat is ticking away beneath his very feet in accordance to some infallible doomsday clock. And he’s usually worked from the insulated, well-furnished laboratories offered by Makari College. Arpa, however, does not ‘do’ laboratories. Arpa does not have state-of-the-art metallurgical, alchemical, and arcano-fabrication facilities, with teams of highly-trained specialists able to manufacture magitech components to Cel’s very exacting needs. Arpa has mud. It has mud, and mould, and rain, and a morbidly fascinating spectrum of condemned buildings, like some massive installation piece on the subject of entropy and decay. So it goes without saying that the working conditions here are a little subpar to what he’s used to.

It’s honestly been quite invigorating.

He’s never been challenged in this way before. Cellachán thought he was adept in the arts of frugality, but this is something else. Back at Makari, such a simple project would take three, perhaps four, days at most to reach this stage of trials. Here, it’s taken three weeks. Three weeks of painstaking measurements taken by hand and eye, setting up the glass furnace and lens-making equipment, producing mock blanks, grinding, polishing, experimenting with smoking and ambering agents and armonium content, testing their mock-ups to compare the refraction indices of these new materials to that of conventional optics, revising the original formulae…

And that’s just what the project has involved. Cel’s also made sure to set some of his waking hours aside for other things, because working yourself into the ground on one thing exclusively is a good way to cook your brain. As such, he’s also spent these three weeks on things which might seem, on the surface, a bit frivolous by comparison.

Yvain, the scribe who’s been assigned to him? It turns out the young man is also a tailor in the making. Cel had been wondering what the quiet fellow was scribbling down whenever he wasn’t helping with the project, and the answer turned out mostly to be: clothing patterns. This until-then reserved blond youth had opened up at Cellachán’s curiosity about the subject, and they’ve since had some rather pleasant chats. Quite a sophisticated craft, is tailoring. Something of a science, rife with intricacies which make the poor professor’s head spin, full as it already is with his own work. He appreciates their little talks, even so.

Cellachán has also made an effort to get to know Arpa, and to his relief, there’s actually a bit more to it than the mud. He usually takes a walk (during the day — he has no wish to learn first-hand why the town enforces a night-time curfew), and is now familiar enough with a few locals that they’ll stop and chew the fat whenever they cross paths. Doing that had also opened up an avenue to follow one of Walter’s suggestions; to have a look at the local burial rites. For the most part, Arpa’s populace have proven quite happy to show him. The professor has on a few occasions now been invited into a family home to look at their funeral ceramics, coated with ash glaze made from the cremated remains of their loved ones. And each time, he would be treated to stories. Fond, or formative, memories about the people he now saw as gleaming bands of fired colour. Tales about mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. Some, about sons and daughters. Always painful, especially the latter. But the stories still came, even through the tears and choked-up throats. The need to share was stronger than the hurt. Perhaps what was left of those departed souls — sharing made what traces lingered of them in this world a little stronger. Made them feel a little less… gone.

The ash ceramics had been related to Cel as bearing some unknown, stabilising effect on the Shroud. Of course he’d been curious, and has wanted to see if he could glean some of their effect for himself. But that detached, analytical interest withered away the moment someone gently pressed the sage-green statuette of their mother into his great leathery hands. He could feel something more important than his desire for quantifiable measurements, nestled there in his fingers. So that’s the way he decided to try and understand. Not by his usual methods of dissection, but, simply by the feel of it; by the stories their families shared, the looks on their faces as they did, and the emotion in their voice. After three weeks of that, Cel feels as though he’s learned a great deal. He doesn’t know what he’s learned, exactly. But it’s there; the vague monolith which comprises all those smaller, individual elegies of the lost, yet at the same time, is greater than the sum thereof.

Besides all that, the rest of his spare time seems to be taken up with Walter Thornley.

Lord Thornley continues to prove an interesting figure. Cellachán could almost believe the man with whom he shares coffee, quiet work sessions, and the occasional dinner, is someone entirely different to the one whom the Crown has delegated to command Arpa’s restoration efforts. The bodies in the gibbets have changed over a few times now since Cel got here, and it’s common knowledge that the Baron Thornley metes out those punishments himself. That man, who holds such stony-faced counsel from the alehouse, the grim rider who leads his Huntsmen out against gods know what… it hardly seems like he could be the same fellow who trades good-natured quips and knowing smiles with the professor from across their writing table. That man always seems so relaxed, so gentle, so — so content in those moments shared with Cel. Tired, as well. It was quickly apparent that Walter has a bit of an estranged relationship with sleep, and it shows. Cel would normally urge him to take a step back from the project and look after himself, but it seems as though their time spent working together gives him a much-needed reprieve in other ways. So, their collaborative sessions continue. It certainly speeds progress along. It appears to do the Lord Thornley some good. And if the professor is being completely honest, he takes no small amount of enjoyment from it himself. He’s become rather fond of Walter’s company over these last three weeks.

And that is why Cellachán is waiting, here, at the top of the hill. Because this trial run is a momentous occasion, the first real fruits of their combined labours, and it doesn’t feel at all right to start without Walter here.

They chose the hill as one viewpoint for a few reasons, but mostly because it’s out of the way — once they begin to take readings, they will need utmost stability to complete the work. It could take days of laborious effort to completely map out these ‘towers’ from one particular angle, and subjecting the telescope even to small vibrations from foot traffic over that time could cause small yet significant shifts in alignment, which in turn would skew their readings. But the hill sees little use, and while the buildings up here are not yet truly fit for habitation, they at least offer a handful of suitable viewing platforms. Cel has chosen one of the most intact rooms in the old furniture-maker’s house to turn into such a station: he’s sealed up its gaps, while cutting out a snug view port through the ceiling which just fits the big, fat objective lens of their prototype. It’s covered over at the moment; a small brass dome has been fixed in place over the roof-tiles as a means of protection, which can be flipped open or closed via some simple pulley system within the room itself. Otherwise, once the door is closed, absolutely no other external light can find its way in. The darker it is inside, the better their experimental little camera obscura should work.

The door is not closed. Right now, it stands propped open awash in watery, overcast, second-hand daylight. A human might find the viewing room still too dim to comfortably navigate, but Cel’s night vision is superior than that (one of the few areas where his sight actually has the upper hand), so he can make out the matt smudge of its two chairs, the glass-and-metal glimmer of their prototype refracting Shroudscope and, mounted in its sturdy, very protective frame right behind the eyepiece: the darker-black oblong which is their image sensor.

Cellachán occupies one of the chairs. He’s been occupying it for quite a while, long enough that he’s definitely starting to wish he’d brought a cushion. It’s just, he doesn’t really want to move around too much, given a) the delicate nature of much of this equipment, b) the relatively cramped confines of the room, and c) his damnably awkward antlers, which still haven’t reached the point where he can comfortably saw them off. Nonetheless. In spite of the discomfort, Cel continues to wait rather than get things over with. A little soreness is a small price to pay for being able to share this red-letter day with a friend, after all.

 

[Walter Thornley]

♬

Some color is brought back into his life.

Small, at first, seeking to assuage the desperate want for the nightmarish vision to cease, touching on a mutual interest, it's a throughline from there. It feels natural, and for once, he feels content in learning rather than presiding.

Their tendency to hold a wake past witching hour is discovered rather quickly. Walter is one of the few who dare traverse the night streets, and so, in the gloom, he learns the warm flicker of the light in that one window.
He'd suggested to keep to the daylit hours only, and when that would not keep - proposed a more agreeable option of only using draft paper after hours, so their meticulous work would not be skewed through shared sleepless delirium.

In mere days, Walter fashions himself into a guardian dog. Keeping out distractions when he sees the professor hunched over, almost swiping tines against the wall, deep in thoughtful scribbling. Attendants are not welcome after hours, either - there is something about having non-contributors in the space, even if silent... besides, the lads ought to sleep.

He learns to make coffee the way Cellachán does it. Learns the little shift of the leathery palm across the strewn out papers, as if looking for a quill - and timing, so that the hand finds a cup full of hot dark brew, and an encouraging squint as he settles back down with his own.

Anthea brings supper to the shared room, even if the lord isn't there. Delightful pies with thick gravy or honeyed berries, stews, little boats with fried egg or custard inside. On occasions that he is present for the vigil, Walter thanks her, in that same almost unfamiliar tone. Sometimes, when the weather strikes colder too harshly, he takes a minute and helps the old head maid, former Hound, down the steep stairs.
Anthea doesn't stay to talk much, gingerly going about her business most days - but she is sweet, and takes to calling Cellachán 'petal' with a smile crumpling her cheeks and eyes in a latticework of fine thin strokes. Walter lets it slip once that she'd been around Alfvig when the world was much younger, and that the man is afraid of her herbs because they work wonders when they rightly shouldn't.

The spot where the professor keeps misplacing that tall crescent-shaped pillow for his tired neck get checked in passing, always - the days move on, but he still doesn't dare suggest alternatives. It feels like there is a balance, fragile state of comfort, and Walter cannot help but hoard it, with selfish greed, as he double-checks the writings and shares a few remarks between project discussions.

The port and sourwisp liquor, and kegs of aging cider, are being collected on and about that same table, like a slowly growing prize - after that shared drink at dinner, they were going to stay sober until the trials passed. Took longer, though to little regret.

Walter does keep Yvain around, once, to run the formulas and how they should work as if explaining to him. The poor lad looks dazzled by the end of it, but the next day, he finds it in himself to make a bit of progress of his own. Despite the crippling shyness, he approaches Cellachán during a mid-day break. Another light glows dimly in the window, by the end of the first week - the tailor apprentice is working on a piece for the antlered academian.

Lord Thornley does his duty. One that will probably see him to his grave. One that strips him of his wants, demands that he put aside most instances of mercy. It cares not for his nightmares, carefully sedated away by Anthea. It demands he never loosens the grip on the fates of everyone under his rule. It wants him unyielding, cold as a blade, sober as a priest.

The new thing is still inside, too. The cold. Half-way into the river. It's more than just his Sight. It tugs at him, seeks more spikes of disturbance as the order of the tortured land shifts once again. It cares not for the scars or the wounds that he bears, only for how taut is the string on the weight of calamity. The outings that help spare the lives of Shieldbearers and Huntsmen at the cost of his own health.

Here in their space, he is not challenged so. He can be Walter, just Walter, keeping the fire going, making coffee and doing what he loves alongside someone who inspires him to learn more. He can be sincere, direct, and clever on occasion. He gets a thick warm blanket from his quarters, and it takes home in the study room, draped over the academian on occasions when he snoozes off over the drafts too close to dawn hours.
It's the best thing.

---

On that day, nursing the bruised ribs and scraped back after a doppel incident at the gate, he goes to have just a little nap before departing to Professor's side. It is the day. He just wants to be present for the-

He almost scampers up the hill, clumsy with the sleep still in his eyes and panic in his chest. He fell asleep. He's late. Forgot the cloak, too. Back still hurts, so does the stomach on the right, the forearm stings where teeth clamped onto it, but none of it matters, he's missing the fruit of all those sleepless nights of shepherding numbers! He goes full tilt to the door that once housed his residence. He'd picked the cramped, sectioned space for its seclusion, once, and now twice. It would be good to-

Walter's shadow obstructs the threshold, and he grabs onto the doorframe with one hand, the other squeezing something else in grip. Out of breath, face read and hair unruly, especially as the wind takes to it and passes around him. Light scent of fresh sweat mixes with dried blood, the ever-present white sage drifts over, too.
"Professor," he pants, and for a moment, does not find the deer-kin in the darkened room.

The halos on the outer rims of violet irises bloom with light of their own. He sees, and relief paints his face. It paints with a grin, even though his tone is of apology. "I'm so sorry, ..." he steps inside, one hand closes the door and the other shows the trophy brought along. Cel's neck pillow. Because gods know how long the poor man had to stall in waiting for him, with the weight of that whole rack of antlers making it impossible to move, much less stretch. "Tardiness is not... is not my regular companion, hand on heart."

Two will-o-wisps see the academian, and Walter drifts slowly towards him along the wall, cautious of the setup. His hand stretches out, not blindly, but, for one of the rare times, to try and touch the deer-kin's shoulder in a reassuring squeeze.
"How is?.." He is still quite out of breath. "How is your neck?.. How'd the night go on your side of town, quiet? Reggie was asleep after keeping watch, I didn't want t-... Gods..."
He sighed, ran a hand over his face, and chuckled to himself. An inhale, an exhale. Voice still hoarse, heart still drumming like it was trying to escape.
"I'm present and proper. Are we ready to begin?"

 

[Cellachán]

“It’s quite alright. I do know you have other obligations to juggle.” A touch of eyeshine flashes in the dark as Cel absorbs Walter’s flustered appearance. “And yes, ‘sleep’ counts as an obligation. I’m just glad you seem to have caught up on some. Ah! And you brought my pillow… thank you…”

Walter is relieved of the plush mass in his hand, which immediately gets sandwiched into position between Cel’s neck and the crumbling brick wall against which his chair is sitting. A tiny grunt of appreciation rises from the gloom; man was just beginning to develop a crick in his neck. Not that he’ll guilt the baron with that knowledge. Poor fellow’s clearly feeling bad enough as it is.

Now, if only he’d thought to bring a seat cushion as well…

With the door closed, not even Cel’s eyes can make much of this perfect blackness. His fingers dance in gestures he cannot see, and then the room and its variously gleaming, cramped, and frazzled contents appear once more in the soft amber glow off pinpoint twinkling lights at the tips of a couple of his tines. Not that it’s necessary for him to find Walter. The man is given away both by his own glow from his amethyst eyes, and also, by that comforting brace against the deer-kin’s shoulder.

“It was another blessedly uneventful night,” assures Cel, offering up a smile. It’s a bit awkward, though, as he can’t quite turn his head the whole way to face Walter. “I’ve got everything primed and ready. But… I thought you might like to do the honours, My Lord? Your eyes will be better for it, anyway.”

A hand reaches up and swipes one of those gold sparks off its tine. It sits upon the tip of Cellachán’s finger, which he lowers toward the pencil and notepad brought forth from his waistcoat pocket in his other hand. Another careful press deposits the mote near the pencil lead, where the same pages which it lights up act to shield the rest of their observation room from much of its glow.

“First step will be to remove all unnecessary interference,” he begins. Well, Lord Thornley most likely knows already the stages involved, but Cel has learned the hard way that it’s always worth going through the checklist in these situations, “from both light and weave. When Your Lordship is ready, I’ll dismiss my remaining tine-light and dull my writing one. Second step will be simply to operate the aperture via that lever over there. And third… well, we wait.”

Cel taps his pencil a couple times against the hollow drum of his notepad. In the second his marigold eyes rove along the prototype Shroudscope, it’s possible his pronounced, resting frown has deepened a little. Then his gaze shifts back over to Walter’s face, for which his tawny lips widen in another smile.

“It might take a little while for the image sensor to reach excitation phase. I’ll take count of that — could be worth knowing what the delay is if we want to make improvements. Fourth and final stage, I believe, will be to test different focal lengths by adjusting the eyepiece and sensor distances. We should be able to bring contiguous sections of the reflection into focus that way.”

The smile remains, but something else enters Cel’s face as he tilts his head ever-so-slightly, making the room’s shadows twitch aside.

“There’s no need to rush, though, if you’d like to discuss anything before we start. Or — goodness, even just to sit down for a moment. You look as if you ran all the way here!” Cel almost laughs, but some sort of survival instinct freezes it in his throat. Suddenly, his expression is a lot more awkward than it was a second ago. “Er. Did you run all the way up here, My Lord…?”

 

[Walter Thornley]

He takes the time to breathe properly - slowly drawing lung-fulls through his nose until his chest can no longer expand, and exhaling through his mouth. Head tilts back, rests against the cold wall - it could be feverish or overly active with running thought and agitation.
A good agitation. He made it. He can...
Do the honors? Not witness?
A touch of dread melts into something altogether different.
He can still... make.

Indigo eyes squint at Cellachán's tine-delier with a bit of pain, having already adjusted to the dark-piercing focus.
But he listens, his own eyes dimming and the dark enveloping the room where it is not lit once more, with a few blinks and a slow sigh to sign him settling. Nods along. Nagging suspicion that it's not about the eyesight, of course, ever there. But one has to consider the deer-kin's sprawling crown of antlers being quite hazardous at present, for any fine manipulation.
"I would be honored to," he utters.

The laughter cut short makes him look back quizzically. It stings, for some reason, the vague and brief notion that Cel has been here, has known him when on duty, if in passing... maybe, has come to fear him somewhere at the back of his mind. One of the few beings who did not come to challenge him, from a shared friend who vouched for him, whose eyes seemed to glimmer with wonder rather than snag like hooks, or try to paint the good things done in a cynical, hopeless sort of brush.
They will have to part ways, once this is done, but until then... until then, he can carve out hours to be part of - work, study, whatever this is. Being around Cellachán feels good. Gives him the lifeline of a different purpose, something beyond duty that brought joy, that the other, reserved companion, did not seem to mind.

"I'm ready like I've never been," he assures, a sheepish grin parting the lips. "I can keep these hands steady if I try, see here."
He offers both his palms raised to view. An inhale half-way, stillness, like an archer lining up a shot. No tremors. To an eerie degree.

"One of the few perks of my condition, I might die young but not decrepit," Walter laughs, hands lowering once the demonstration is complete. And stops. He said too much. Runs both hands through his hair, raking it back behind the ears and trying to fix the bird's nest on it in the same move. And admits blankly, with a bit of spacey tone, "Oh yes. Suppose I did run. I wanted to be here for the trials, and may have panicked at the notion that I'd missed you here, on the day." A glance up into the marigold eyes, still lit by cozy motes of flame. "Suppose I..."

He can't hold that gaze, and looks towards the dial, instead, finding it by the glint of its outline.
"You are going to depart, most likely, once the knowledge is gleaned to its fullest that would content us both. To somewhere safer, I hope. And if you were to visit me sometime, or write me on occasion, you would be most welcome. Until then, I would quite like to make the most of your company. I know I'm not an easy man, none in my line have been. But once, in my youth, I dreamt of being surrounded by people like you. Those who can still see the better future, and put in the work, even if the nights are dark and the weather is terrible."

A shrug is offered. He smiles, and gives space, slowly making to navigate to the opposite side and access the focus array.
"Let's take it for a spin, Professor."

---

He has been diligent, fingers guiding the dial with just enough pressure to the numbers gleaned, even in complete darkness. Made certain that everything was in place. Heart still beating out of his chest, excitement sparkling like bubbles in a fermented brew. Heady. Giddy almost, though Walter holds himself together like always. There is an unseen lightness to him that Cel already knows by better lit interiors, the smile on thinly pressed lips, hair falling in his face to be tucked away and fall right back again.

And then, he listens to the high-pitched whisper-noise of the Shroud condensing at the sensor. It goes slow, but it goes, like it should. Lips parted, an exhale escapes cautiously through the mouth.
A little bit of him still waits for it to fail. Somewhere. Somehow. Despite all the calculations and all the work, long hours put into knotting the brains and figuring out the very concept, the necessary measurements, and the work besides. He carved this lens, with thorough precision he applies to everything. And... and he's almost ready to be proud of it.

This works for Arpa, of course, but it matters to him more than the professor would ever know. Matters to him - that this would work. It's more than the nightmare he's been staring in the face for three months. It's every failure before this, looping into what seemed like a tendency. A curse. An inevitable way that he could never keep anything, anyone that mattered to him, by way of some miscalculation, horrible disaster. Or just the fact that he cared and they didn't. At best, they took what he had to give. They died. They left. He at least got to bury some of them. Almost bled to death over one. He burned the things that made him think about them. It didn't help. He swore off fondness.

But the evenings have been warm. And he avoided anything that would indicate anything at all but gentle care that was definitely dipping into familiarity. He likes to think that the antlered professor would enjoy him besides his spirited alternative views on magic, help at calculus, or anything that having a willing patron grants.
Must be good manners on the professor's end, to not really... express it?..
Must be intimidating, to deal with a lord.
He'd heard it all before, as reasons why he reached out and they never reached back.
No, no. It's been so very cordial. He has to hope that this is real. That it's some kind of friendship in the making. That if he were to withdraw - there wouldn't be a limp disappointed indifference, or an attempt to get what Lord Thornley's presence grants or get to share in the secrets that he keeps, rather than an interest in Walter.
Again.

He has to hope.
Look what they've made together!
For duty's sake, but still!
And making it was enjoyable, wasn't it? To be besides another person who is in the know, who shares the passion and made it their calling, is exhilarating! Doesn't bring it past work, but... isn't that enough?

He hasn't been too inappropriate, has he? Not to the point where any implications would be made, any expectations levied. No untoward jokes, strange compliments, or gifts besides what they could both ascribe to making their time more comfortable whilst still doing what they need to. He'd done his damndest not to impose in any way past being Walter, not Lord Thornley, around this one person outside his House.
He might care about Cellachán, and Cellachán doesn't have to... just to tolerate the habits until he's done here, and returns home. Probably recalls having an awkward time with a lonely lord who was too friendly but never did anything... something like that.

The thought stings deep.
But... well, he doesn't expect to be liked, so why is he even hurting?
What he's become, has no claim to humanity past the shell, anymore.
He is a monster. Monsters are bound. Monsters are killed. Monsters hide until they are found out.
He can just... do things, all the soft and gentle things Walter wants to do, and imagine he has a friend.
Read the polite smiles as warmth. Read the occasional look at him being flustered or excited as approval.
Keep running on his own excitement. On a hope to feel the warmth of the hand that reaches back, someday. Maybe.
But maybe...

Maybe there is nothing between them that runs both ways, besides receptive collegial pleasantness from his ward, and him, the patron, breaking etiquette because he's lonely and he wants to be himself just... somehow.
That should be good! For Cellachán, that is. And- and it would spare him heartbreak, too.
If so, there's nothing to take, nothing that can... go wrong, right?

He can keep the man safe. And then they're done. And then....

Even if there was some care, on his end, that might curse the whole affair - he's made sure his recent session of beating around the bush for horrors pushed the internal tension loose enough so that not even a smallest jinx would spark on him.
He made sure. Checked and rechecked. To the point of driving himself deeper into exhaustion that ruined his resolve and self-control, some, but has not yet broken. Worth it. He has to try. He has to see.

He is still waiting for it to go wrong as the projection forms.
It turns out crisp, lines within focus precise and neat. The whisper-noise of the sensor evens out, spiking and smoothing out every time the baron, with a quiet, audible gasp, shifts the focus.
His eyes shine in the reflected light. First with wonder that bordered on childlike, at touching something that obeys his hand, and then - with tears of sheer, unadulterated joy that flood his field of view.
Hope feels like warm sunlight after years of yearning.
Like a relief from pain that lasted for so long he'd forgotten how sharp it was.
It isn't breaking in his hands. He does not destroy everything he touches, after all.

"It works," he chokes out, overcome. "I never thought ah-I... c-could... do this again..."
A hiccup, his good hand presses against his own mouth, and the man lets out a sob that is heartbreaking in its relief. He tries to utter an apology, but it comes out so garbled and horse it's barely legible. An inhale forced. He is shaking, barely keeping his hand on the focus control steady, and tears glitter like clean silver-lit streams as they run down his cheeks.

He is so happy. And he thought this would not work. And it's just the first step.

The sobs stifle down to a choked noise before another inhale, face tilts up, not to any gods but to corral the deluge that stings his eyes as his heart hurts and wishes to unburden. He feels like someone. Someone, not just a body half-way in the river for a decade, only there to keep the river clean of sharp debris. Someone, not just a function and a set of duties.
I won't ask for anything more. Just let me have this moment. Please.

---

It is that moment that Cellachán spots the darker dots on the projection. Among the hallways, doorways... spots like gaps inside the rooms. Lined inside the walls. Trickling to the base of the structure in thickening veins that formed their own outlines. One of them is smaller than the others, and if one applied scale, perhaps, it is about the height of a tall human. And it starts moving, from one layer to the next.

"Wait," Walter murmurs, as the detail catches his eye, too, and leans over to inspect the projection lens, his voice still husky, raw with relief that now fades like morning mist, replaced with something entirely too fearful for the majesty of their success, "what is-"

Darkness crops up in unseen faces that see them, saw them from the moment they were reflected back to the watcher. The lens does not shatter. The shroudstone screams a high pitched, distorted noise as it is ground finer in whatever transmutations are occurring. In what little that eyes can track, there is a swift movement, and a wet, cracking noise that ends in a thud, as an obsidian-shining spike extends from the apparatus, curved, as if to catch Walter precisely by the stomach, like a fisherman's hook, and throws the baron to the wall, pinning him, gasping, there, just besides.

He can't pull a breath, but something escapes him, a desperate rasp, fingers clawing at the thing that ran him through, eyes burning in the darkness in violet and ghost-blue, wide open.

The shadows condense, become palpable, and the projection scatters into a nest of squirming pitch with contours of light for razors. They whip out of the surface, chaotic, until - they lock around the deer-kin.
One multi-branched limb that does not have bits of the sharpened shards of a mirrored castle on it - catches the antler. It closes around almost the entire thing, like a child too rough in handling a toy, and squeezes without tearing, and pushes it flat along the wall that groans and shudders with a threat of faltering. It doesn't.

The air is frigid cold.

It fixes Cellachán's head in place, and makes him look. Deliberate now that it has a clean hold, and knows that he, too, only needs a little illumination which the sharp things at the edge of shadows gladly grant.

Walter is struggling, pierced to the wall like a butterfly, by a shoulder that oozes blood even with the spike still piercing him; by the abdomen. His face is white, and as his unfocused eyes turn to a point where the utterly macerated antler is splattered against the wall while still attached, signalling him pulling back from the brink of succumbing to shock, he starts - changing.

Not that the professor has time to oggle, because a thing wraps itself around his wrists and squeezes, making Walter seemingly halt whatever was... going on with him, eyes falling deeper into the sockets, features sharper, almost sunken into that same blackness that reigned over them. The bone-white face with dark pits for sockets trembles, as if being forced, pulled through.The voice breaks, the agonizes rasps are in a multitude of voices, Walter's only one of them.

Cellachán's ribs crack. A set of teeth like lamprey curves in the way a pitbull head might and tears into his shoulder, over the entire thing and clavicle besides. The weight smells like frost, like damp soil and sharp stones, like rotten meat. A merciless number of hands with too many fingers, too many joints on those fingers, clasp around his leg, promising the same fate as the ribcage, but first - the claws sink in, slash behind the knees and across the calves, unevenly and deeply, damage one knee and leaving deep lacerated marks on the abdomen in the scramble to bring something out, give it more purchase in the living flesh... So many delectable bits that could bleed so painfully.

It is not even all out, comes the pallid realization. It is just getting through the loophole, and it already tastes like acrid malice and brimstone and blood, in the air...

A skeletal hand locks around the dial. Half a beat later, it feels like the abyss inhaled - the shadows shiver and squirm to keep their grip. The bladed reflection fragments that serve as scalpels, claws, and teeth, and ends of spikes, fade like moon glimpses through the oak's thick shade.
There is no rasping breath from across, from where Walter had been, just that horrifying, tectonic pull that concentrates on their newest invention, and makes the shroudstone sizzle as it is briefly encased in no Shroud at all.

And then. It's. Over.
Silence, unintelligible wispers of the weave that, in a few moments, change into a thud.
First agonizing attempts to catch a breath.
Scrambling across the floor.
"N.... n-n... n...nono... please, I didn't..." A soft, keening whimper. "...I didn't... I made sure... Cellachán?.."

 

[Cellachán]

“It works. I never thought ah-I… c-could… do this again…”​

Cellachán says nothing, but his eyes bore holes into Walter’s back. In truth, given what the man had previously mentioned about the loss of his ability to weave, and his eagerness to help with the project, Cel suspected that this chance — for Walter to engage with his old passion once more — mattered a great deal to Baron Thornley. But, to hear the shake in his voice, to listen to such raw emotion… perhaps this was even more important than the professor realised.

A soft little smile appears, briefly, and unseen. Waiting was clearly the right call to make.

While he gives Walter time to appreciate the moment, Cel’s eyes flick away toward the image sensor. It’s impossible to tell exactly which part of the reflection their Shroudscope has revealed, as it theoretically only brings a few metres’ distance into focus at a time; part of the trials will include a bit of range-finding and puzzle-solving in that regard. And though he’s further away from the sensor than Walter is, and though his eyesight isn’t as sharp, nonetheless — what he can still make out, is movement.

“Wait. What is—”​

Just when things couldn’t go more right, it all turns worse than Cel could’ve possibly imagined.

Something spears out of the dark, and suddenly, Walter slams skewered against the wall beside Cel. The professor leaps from his chair before he realises it, his body acting on unthinking shock. But, unthinking it is — the assault happens so rapidly that he can only gawp, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing, of the awful death-rattle noise he’s hearing from Walter.

Then it’s his turn.

First comes the indescribable agony of crushing grips locked around his antler, forcing him to turn toward the— toward whatever that is the sensor has become. The pencil drops from Cel’s hand, and though the mote’s light is weak, it sheds horrible new clarity on the situation.

Not that he can recognise much beyond pain.

An indescribable stabbing, at the side of his chest. The dull crush and tear of something lacerating into his shoulder, his stomach, gnashing his flesh and fur apart. A distant sort of sting down the back of his leg which steals its strength and drops the dazed professor to his knee. All while that grip on his mangled antler mercilessly persists — forcing that he keep looking at the impossible things pouring out that once-innocuous, paper-thin film of Shroudstsone. Away, too, from that other startling thing; be it hallucination borne of all this chaos… or a very real and morbid transformation which he glimpsed begin to seize Walter.

He’s trapped. Cel’s racing mind is just starting to catch up to all the damage scored across his body, beginning to piece together the predator’s shape it’s taken up from darkness. Just now seeing the slicks of blood beneath illimitable, rending grasps on him—

—and with a click so quiet it goes unheard beneath the violence, it’s over.

Cellachán topples forward. Manages to catch himself on hands and knees, though the pain which lances up that shoulder wrenches out a grunt. Which, in turn, cuts short from the unbelievable stabbing ache through his chest.

He can’t… he can’t breathe. The professor can manage tiny little gasps in before his fractured ribs protest in a voice much louder than the mere discomfort of suffocation. But Walter — he saw Walter run through the stomach. He needs, needs to…

“N… n-n… n…nono… please, I didn’t… I didn't… I made sure… Cellachán…?”​

The half-antlered head twists around, and by the dimness of his dropped writing light, he can make out the prone form of Baron Thornley dragging himself along the ground. Eight above, how did this happen? What even happened just now? No — no time. They need help. Walter needs help. Cel’s no doctor, but he knows abdominal wounds are bad news. There are… arteries and things, and lots of infection risks, and, and, gods, hopefully the man’s intestines are all still where they ought to be. They need to get help. They need—

—a signal. He can send a distress signal. Only, not from here. He’ll have to make it outside first. If only there was a, a window or something in here, something to offer a line of sight to the sky, but they deliberately sealed up this room for the experiment. No gaps, no windows to the outside.

Except… there’s one, isn’t there…?

Thank goodness it’s a small room. Even in his condition, Cel can just manage to lunge by his good leg to a point within reach of the scope. One hand clumsily bats the ruined sensor away, which teeters around on its tripod before, in no great rush, clattering down to the ground. Damn thing is just in the way. What he needs is to get to the eyepiece. Walter didn’t shut it down by closing the aperture; he went for what was closer at hand, in the scope’s adjustment dials. Un-focusing the image seems to have worked, but that means the tiny port window into which the Shroudscope is set, is still open.

Armonium glass lenses. That’s what they used to see the invisible, and that makes it a weave-conducting highway to the outside world.

A hand slippery with its own blood slaps over the eyepiece. Cel forces his lungs to draw in just enough breath for his needs, even as black spots swirl in blinding numbers at the edges of his vision. Just enough to let him rasp out a brief, emergency incantation.

Funny. He’d always thought he’d have to use it on one of the really big projects. Airship engine work or similar, where criticality accidents are an obvious and severe danger. Not for a little garage project like this.

Somewhere close above them, from outside, comes a garbled klaxon call. The spell’s probably a little warped from the lensing effect, but it’s loud, which is the main thing. And while Cel and Walter can’t see it from inside, the scintillating red light which ought to be hovering above the building now, well, that’ll make things easy for anyone who comes looking for the source.

Cel sags, expended. Though he manages, with considerable effort, to twist around toward Walter. He’s not sure he can manage another lunge, but he doesn’t need to. Falling backward on his arse is enough to get him in arm’s reach of the other man. A long, lacerated arm reaches out and helps the fellow haul himself in closer. Wraps about Walters back, supporting him, holding him snug against Cel’s bigger frame.

“Wal-ter…” The professor punctuates that with a horrible, wet little cough. “’S on… the way. Help is…”

It hurts to move his other arm, but then again, everything hurts regardless. So a red-smeared handkerchief is procured from his waistcoat pocket and held, perhaps futilely, against the reams of blood pouring from Walter’s stomach wound. Cel has no idea if it’s anywhere near enough to have an effect. Again. He’s not that kind of doctor.

Don’t let him bleed out, prays Cellachán. Please gods — let it be enough to last until real help gets here.

Why is his hand trembling so much…?

“’M here… Walter. Just hold on. Just a bit… longer…”

 

[Walter Thornley]

"I'm sorry," he whispers, pale lips barely moving. The tremors that are going through his body have to be a mixture of cold and pain, body unable to keep moving right under massive damage. But he seems to still be conscious, perhaps, due to shock, eyes wide open, ragged breathing fast and short-paced through the mouth.

A wave of almost fever, almost electricity, strikes through his broken body in a pulse of darkening veins, heat is briefly released and then reabsorbed, leaving Walter's skin lukewarm. The flesh of the most essential innards begins to shift, and knit together. More blood pours out.
"- bleeding. I'm so sorry... not you too, I wasn't even close, we just..."

But he did care, didn't he. Whatever he told himself, he did care about keeping the late hours and feeling human. He did care about having someone, having Cellachán, share the room with him, every day that he could carve out enough hours.
It's my fault.
It sinks in like a sentence. He doesn't want to believe it. It doesn't feel true. But everything before makes it feel like a right conclusion.
Something in him, something that feels like it was hanging on a single fractured splinter, breaks.

Walter's eyes find the slashes, blood darkening the fabric and fur all across the academian. So many wounds. That poor antler. He tries to move the handkerchief away from himself, offer support with the arm that wasn't pierced through the clavicle. He should not have been conscious by now, he knows that. But they have to wait for help to come all the way up the hill.

"Stay awake. Please." Another pulse, and this one seems to take from the man's own life force and his breathing rattles to a stop in a pained wheeze. Features draw sharper, skin clinging to bones, and it only bounces back a little. "Please, please, don't die, 'n' don't touch me, I'm- I'm an abomination." A sob tears itself out, completely broken as his mind's pieces crawl apart. There are no tears. There is barely a feeling in his body. He can't move to help properly, only tries to convince Cellachán to press that handkerchief against the deer-kin's own wounds by pushing softly against the leathery hands, trying to wrap himself closer for warmth without making it worse, pressing on broken bone, gods there is so much that's broken... "You're losing b...blood... no, please, I can't, not again..." His hands are slippery. Everything smells like blood.

Through the broken fabric, Walter's broken flesh begins to knit. Not neatly, not without trace. Like someone pinches the edges of a tear on a clay figurine, pulls the remainder as far as it would go, and then smoothes the seam back out. That large, barely noticeable scar on the front of his neck begins to make a horrifying sort of sense. But Walter can't help the academian. There isn't enough strength to tear clothes for pressure bandages.

It's cold. There is no fire in the dark room, and the baron's body is barely warm as Cellachán's own is losing life at an alarming rate. The wind howls against the roof. The air is filled with the fluttering of wings, above, and troubled, high-pitched bird shrieks. The room is still cramped, but the house feels so empty. They need healers, they need attendants, they need help now... and Walter could only hope it won't be too late when they reach the makeshift observatory.

His mind seems to unravel more than his body, hands growing cold and head feverishly hot.
Nothing he breathes out makes sense.
"I couldn't protect you. Couldn't... I should have known... I'm not allowed. No place anymore. No place. It just goes wrong. I thought I could... could deserve it. Just a little t-thing of peace... Couldn't protect anyone. They're all dead... Please... please forgive me. Please don't sleep. I'm so sorry."

Yvain bursts in first. Stands there, horrified but concentrated, assesses injuries in the light of the blue lantern, and leans over to Walter, unclasping a vial from his belt. Walter's gloved hand directs the vial to Cellachán, against resistance until the lord's mouth opens between rasps and utters 'by your oath'. The air thickens, not with a new thing, but one already there.

Walter's eyes close as the clotting powders fizzle and expand over the lacerations on the antlered academian. Yvain covers the lord with his own cloak, settles him on the floor as the breathing becomes less apparent - tense, working silently, but not panicking. He opens his mouth only when Mender pours in first, helpers behind her with stretchers and Reginald carrying supplies to operate on scene if necessary. The Shieldbearers' main healer is a weaver. And by now she knows better than to pour magic into Baron Thornley.

Instead, she begins to weave Cellachán's most grievous cuts closed while her helpers put the professor on the stretcher to bring to the lazaret. The Huntsmen, quiet save for voicing the damage observed on the professor, bring in the second stretcher, seemingly more concerned with privacy than urgent help. They intend to bring the lord to his quarters, help is on the way there. 'The kind he needs' is uttered and slips between instructions given, the rasping, pained noises, and the sharp scent of medicinal potions being applied.

The stretchers split paths at the foot of the hill.

 

[Cellachán]

What is he talking about? Walter is mewling in his arms with… with apologies, and something more by rambling words which increasingly fray apart, the sentences unstitching in Cel’s mind. What does he mean — ‘not you too’, ‘not again’; why does he say, ‘abomination’?

Does he think this is his fault? But these were the professor’s ideas, his designs. How can Walter blame himself for that?

Cellachán doesn’t have the breath to address every fractured plea. Instead, he replies with his body more so than his voice. He fights off the man’s attempt to move his laughable ‘field dressing’ away from Walter’s own wound, keeping it pressed firm over that awful stomach laceration. And he helps pull that broken form in closer, wraps the other arm a little more protectively around it, when he feels Walter seeking out that comfort.

“I’ve got you,” Cel croaks, face buried amidst a mop of inky locks. “’S alright, Walter…”

Though he’s wracked with his own pains, some distressing sensations yet find their way through from the outside. Horribly warm blood pours between his fingers, flowing quicker than he really cares to think about. How much of the stuff can a person lose before it’s all over for them? How much has Walter lost already? For a moment there, Cel thought he’d felt an odd flash of warmth thrum through the figure pressed against him, before dissipating. Some strange biological response, maybe… or maybe Cel’s bled out a bit too much himself. Started to hallucinate things…

But, at least he can’t smell all the blood so strongly here. With his face squished into the other man’s scalp, it mostly just smells like, well — like Walter. Of his strange, subdued human scent, a little stronger where his thick mat of hair traps it in, plus those bitter herbs which always seem to cling to him.

If Cel just focuses on that, he can almost push the everything else aside. Can almost ignore the dull throb of hurt throughout his body. He can avoid worrying overmuch about the light-headedness which is making it harder and harder to think.

Cellachán barely seems to register the crash of noise and light as Yvain bursts in. Can’t make much sense of who it is, nor what it is he’s exactly doing as he inserts himself between the two men on the floor. There comes a vague tingling, stinging sensation as those hands work him over. Must be that ‘help’ that he’d been hoping for, Cel realises, groggily. More bodies, more noise, more hands follow soon after. He loses track of Walter in all the commotion, and even though he’s still lucid enough to know they need access to their lord to treat his wounds, some unthinking, protective part of Cel fights, feebly, to hang on.

But he’s soon peeled away, whether he wants to be or not, and laid out on a stretcher. An unfamiliar face swims into view — and then, more pain. Cel gasps at the shock of weave flowing into him, knitting closed the worst of the debridements at a pace his body just isn’t built to reach of its own accord. That is nothing, though, compared to when Mender’s ministrations reach his ribs.

Fresh, nasty little snicks and snaps as the bones grind their jagged edges against each other back into place, an agony tenfold worse than what broke them in the first place. Cel can’t even choke out a scream of pain; all sound condenses into a faint ringing inside his head, and with black dots swarming madly up across his vision, he fades from the world for a time.

 

[Walter Thornley]

I've got you...
Floating, heavy, sinking deeper into a grey void where time does not matter. Exhaustion curls about him like greedy fingers, tears into the last shreds of fading hope.

Walter wakes up not knowing which day it is. Darkness behind the window. Worry setting in, as if only minutes, not days, have passed. Blurry gaze finds someone in the room before he knows where he is, or when, and he tries to grab onto them... only didn't count for the distance. But there was one thing that he wanted to know worth the attempt.
"He's alive, my lord." A low, gruff voice comes along with the swift movement of someone closing in on his bedside.

Then, pain comes like a muffling pillow, through the sedatives, all of it at once, and Walter dips into the grey void again before he knows relief. From the ribs that groan, as if all hinging on glue, the sense of starving, not just bodily, the drained feeling of having given too much and having burned some of himself to, himself, survive.

He wakes again dry-mouthed, with a headache, and a shaking realization that he hurts. All over, muscles tense, heart drumming forcefully like it is trying to break his ribs.
Unfocused gaze finds someone in the room.
"Reggie, ..." No, the figure is taller, heavier in the posture, it smells older, faint echoes of alchemical concoctions from the creaking leathers, cotton undergarments kept between herbs by a gentle caring hand. Garrick, the majordomo, is the one beside him.
A moment later, Walter realizes that about a minute has passed, and he is being sat, to receive his water. The old man is still strong, and waits, patiently, for his lord to come to again.

"Cellachán," Walter breathes, "...is he...?"
There's an answer to that that's been given, he remembers only vaguely. And so, it brings relief to hear the refrain.
"He is alive, my lord, and should recover."
"I must..." He swallows a hard lump in his throat, all of a sudden seized. "Bring me to him, I have to talk to him."
"Would that I could, my lord. Unfortunately, the Makari professor is not yet awake."
"What?.." A sharp intake of breath.

Half a year of dragging a body behind, hoping that enough blood, enough weave, might, just might bring it back to waking; dreading, that, perhaps, decay would find it, instead. It's neither. It's neither, and those druids paid for his stubbornness, and the tree, and himself, his blood, his breaking... and now, he barely even remembered the face, only the body, cocooned in undyed funeral wraps, the leather harness that allowed to carry its weight on his back where the cart would not go...

It floods him, then. The sheer exhausted, helpless grief. The feeling of breaking parts that were once Walter's heart and have been brought to, it felt, complete annihilation. The guilt, for clinging for warmth to the arms that held him, for needing that comfort in the dark. The revulsion, at himself, for not having seen, for allowing himself to think for just a moment, that he could...

He hurt Cellachán. That rasp of pain as Mender leaned over him and started weaving, echoes in his ears. The wet crackling of the ribs coming together. The small, agonized breaths, shaking hands. That desperate lunge, because one leg no longer held the academian steady. The bloody print on the lens. So... so much blood.

There is still coffee in his memory, and putting the warm cup into the leathery palm, to a smile on dark brownstone lips. The comfortable quiet, the crackling of the hearth, the shuffle of paper and scratch of the quills. Feeling that steady, deep contentment with progressing the kind of work that he, that Walter, loved, and that was welcomed.

...he could end this. His accursed nature that ruined everything brilliant and everyone good, because he could not stomach loneliness, and reached out, again, again, again...

As he breaks down, wailing low and sobbing through the raw throat, rocking forward, he disturbs the wounds, and blood stains the blanket through the bandages. Darkness comes.

The next time he wakes, he is quiet. There is an apathy of an empty house, to his gaze. He doesn't speak, anymore. He doesn't eat.

...Damned Garrick. Damned bull of a man with instincts of a fox.
All sharp implements are removed from the lord, after the majordomo felt a disturbance in the air, no less, and hurried back into the room he'd just left, and barely made it to the bronze sgian dubh in the lord's withered hand, trying to get a firm enough grip to plunge it deeper into the neck. The lord had good aim, and somehow managed to get that hand steady enough to draw blood. But Garrick had speed and strength on him, this time.

Anthea puts him on soothing herbs, and tries to talk to him, when he wakes again.
The room smells like a cleansing rite, not a lazaret.

Only two days later, Reginald has to deal with the Masons arriving, and finding none to speak to. They occupy the large building next to the lord's quarters, are treated and talked down to waiting for the lord.

One of them goes to seek out the other one whose weave is imprinted on the empty building, in just a day. The earth speaks, especially at dawn and dusk. If they can't speak to the lord, they will demand answers from a more credible source - a weaver who works for the lord, and must know why the shadows run much deeper than the Guild was made to believe.

 

[Cellachán]

Piece, by muted piece, a world stitches imperceptibly together.

It begins with the sounds.

A standalone scrape and drawn-out rustle. A short sharp sniff. Idle noises, the kind which someone might not even register they’re making, if they’ve been stuck sitting in one spot for long enough. And below that some steady, susurrating, sketcher’s scritch, scritch, scra-a-a-awl, periodically punctuated by the papery perturbation of a page. An indeterminate amount of time after that, comes recognition too of fire’s cosy crackle.

Fire. Heat. Yes; there is warmth here. Warmth and soft weight, running near all the way up. Its comfy envelop is somehow more prominent than the background sting throbbing throughout. Throughout… where? It feels like, judging from the mindful movement of mutilated muscle and tender tendon’s tell-tale twinge — somewhere low. The leg? Then, up, more pulsing pain across the belly. Until higher to… to…

With the pace of eons, Cellachán pries his rusty eyelids open.

At first they yield but a sliver of blurry shapes, awash in mellow marigold glow. He redoubles his efforts, and with one big painstaking heave, at last lifts his long lashes aloft. That hazy indefinition persists while his vision struggles to adjust to the influx, but after a few refreshing blinks, Cel finally finds his focus. He sees a familiar set of dark rafters above him, with that knot in the wood which looks a bit like Anthea giving him the old side-eye. Familiar stone walls, set into which is a familiar little fireplace roasting merrily, beside which sits a familiar pock-marked face scribbling away at his pages.

That soothing scrawl suddenly stops as sheets shift, and Cel gingerly twists his head toward the young man in his room.

“How… bad?”

Cel’s creaky, rasping voice slurs with drowsiness, but he’s lucid enough. The workpad flips softly closed in Yvain’s hand, and the young man stands up. His timid countenance swells in the professor’s vision until the blond fellow is beside his bed, and reaching for a pitcher upon the nightstand.

“You have severe abdominal lacerations and significant damage to your right knee.” Water teems out into a cup, briefly filling the room with a sharp, brittle tinkle. “That’s the worst of it. You’ve been given surgery, and the healers were able to mend some with weaving, but they say you still shouldn’t move more than you have to. At least for another day.” Yvain sets the pitcher down, but before anything else, his eyes flicker up above Cel’s crown. “There’s also…”

But the deer-kin already knows what awaits his questing hand. There’s a distinct lightness to his head which was not there in the lead-up to the trial, and it’s from more than just the lingering effects of whatever anæsthetic Anthea (or whoever) has blessed him with.

The antlers are gone. Reduced to stubby, tender, bandaged nubs atop his skull. Cel’s big, leathery hand flops back down to the mattress, and he lets out a pained sigh.

“Thank goodness,” comes his exultation. He thought he’d have to deal with the bloody things for at least another fortnight. But relief is soon fraught with fresh fear, and he flits his fretful face full to the fashionista. “Walter — I mean, Baron Thornley, is he—?”

“He’s alive,” Yvain quickly interjects, “and expected to make a full recovery. Please don’t worry yourself, professor.”

Dazed, coppery eyes blink groggily up at Yvain as the news settles in. Cel realises he was making ready to propel himself out of bed — though ‘pratfall’ would have been a much more likely result — so, amidst the whine and squeal of protesting muscles, he lets himself ease back into the welcoming give of the mattress.

“Good,” he murmurs, faintly. “That’s good…”

Yvain, too, lowers a warding hand from its readiness to push his bed-bound charge back down by force. “And yourself?” he asks. “How are you feeling?”

Cellachán stares up at Anthea’s suspect visage watching back from the gloomy beams overhead, and mulls that question over for a good, long while.

“I feel,” he says, intoning every word with thoughtful, laborious deliberation, “like I’ve been beaten bloody by a belligerent briar bush.” Cel pauses, and lets out a giddy little giggle. “And I’m ailing from alliteration, apparently. Are Anthea’s anæsethetics to answer? Or, do symptoms stem from sanguine subsidence?”

Yvain doesn’t seem to share in the man’s silly amusements, looking more worried than anything else. Cel doesn’t much notice, though, and his mildly manic episode abates quickly enough, allowing the scribe to help him sit up just enough to get some fluids into him. But by the time that Yvain returns with a small mug of thin yet nutritious broth, the professor has passed right back out again, and is drooling contentedly onto his pillows.

* * *​

Cellachán wavers in and out of consciousness like that for the next twenty-four hours. As the narcotics addling his mind recede, and all systems slowly come back online, the professor’s garrulous delirium likewise begins to fade. And even though it means the buried aches and pains come sprouting up like spring weeds, he’s thankful to largely have his senses back together. He’s sure Yvain is, too; poor man seems to be there every time Cel opens his crusty eyes, and has probably borne the full brunt of his ramblings. But some milder analgesics prove adequate enough to keep him merely uncomfortable as opposed to agonised, and a supplementary hypnotic in the evening means he even manages to get some fitful sleep. All while leaving him increasingly clear-headed.

There is much to think upon, after all.

Once he’s able to string two thoughts together, the first thing he does is write to Walter. When, as usual, Yvain helps him sit up to take ‘lunch’ (he’s graduated from broth to a sludgy gruel; how exciting!), he asks the Huntsman-tailor-scribe-aide to fetch his stationary and something he can lay across his lap to use as a writing surface. Then, while the slop gently congeals beside him, Cel focuses instead on his sluggish, slightly uncoordinated penmanship. He worries less about maintaining propriety than usual, too. If worst comes to worst, he can always blame it on the drugs.

Yvain takes the letter when he’s done, promising to deliver it straight away. Which is how Cel, already convalescent, medicated, and now, glumly watching the porridge-stuff cake onto his spoon… is also entirely alone when the bloodhound sniffs him out.

 

[Walter Thornley]

A golden silhouette enters, diminishing in the glowing aura as the door closes, but not in the amount of yellows and muted browns worn. The man's wheat-blond beard frames a habitually smiling curve of the mouth, his hands resting on a belt, thumbs hooked between the tools looped in and the ochre-orange patterned waist scarf. There isn't gold thread, but the patternwork on his garments looks quite expensive, not to mention the fine sheen of fabrics. A magnifying glass of citrine with a small brush and inkwell strapped besides - clinks, reflecting light, against a small hammer of black spinel set onto a handle that looks like it might be used for jewelry work.

"Good afternoon," the man greets, eyes finding the deer-kin in dim lighting. They assess him, quickly, for whether the man is lucid to speak. "Farbeit from me to wish to interrupt your convalescence, Professor Cellachán of Makari, but I am afraid we find the matter pressing enough, and of the two to have witnessed the incident, we only find you reachable at this moment. Marius of the Masons' Guild, a pleasure to meet you. We were led to believe that Arpa was sufficiently secured for us to work, and that further investigations were underway - the eruption of Shroud within its walls has come as a rather worrisome discovery after a long journey. Has Lord Thornley availed you of the issue with the specific structure that he sought our help with? And, if it is not too much to ask, would you please elucidate for us, what exactly is the real state of affairs?"

*

Yvain watched the tendons on Lord Thornley's neck move as the man swallowed, but did not turn his head, eyes still trained on the overcast sky, occasionally closing for long periods of time. This was one of the calmer periods, from what Reggie told him. A good time to at least convey the message.

But the young Huntsman watched those hands on top of the blanket, one bandaged and one thinner than he remembered, bones of the knuckles more prominent. And he felt that, though the message was conveyed, and probably listened to, it may have not been heard.

Always someone in the room, now.

The letter sat besides the bed for a moment much too long, and it was a relief to watch the heir of the house finally move to collect it into clumsy fingers, and blurry eyes focus on the page. It seemed that Walter had to read it twice over, maybe more, to let the words sink in. Something like a smile showed on his mouth, a momentary quiver of the lips - and then his eyes have overflown with tears again.

"Leave," came a whisper, the first word stifled out in several days.
Though not entirely sure it was said in a way to send him off - Yvain obeyed, bowing to the lord, nodding to Reggie. Perhaps, a reply could come at a later date. The Huntsman set to trek across the district, within the quarter of the hour.