Inks
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Word Count [1,471]
1063 | 19
The Esquilinium District lay quiet and still. Gone were the throngs of people filtering through on their way to or from the airship docks. Gone were the shopkeepers peddling souvenirs to wide-eyed tourists and familiar amenities to returners to the great metropolis. The cobblestone streets were empty, dark with shadows between the lamplights. Aside from the occasional candlelit window, the neighborhood had, by and large, retired for the night.
The nameless man stood in one such candlelit window, slouched against the windowsill with a soft, if thin, fleece coverlet draped over his shoulders. The Terminus chill was pressing, and despite builders’ no-doubt best efforts, a draft seeped in from small gaps in the sill. The man was used to cold - the sort of familiarity that bred contempt. Already he missed Pelagia’s tropical heat. Still, despite the chill, he couldn’t pull himself from the window - gazing down on the district’s silent streets and lamplit storefronts. It truly was the darkest just before dawn.
Perhaps he should’ve been sleeping. It was certainly what the rest of the world seemed to be doing - including the other tenants of the boarding house he currently stood in. He could hear the faint snores of whoever occupied the room below. But sleep was...
Well.
As useful as it was for passing time, sleep didn’t seem to hold the same sway over him as it did others. He had no real pressing need to sleep - and right now, he couldn’t. His cot lurked in the corner of the room like a menace, beckoning towards fitful dreams. The sort that inevitably twisted into nightmares.
Suffocating in the dark deep. Salt burning in his eyes, on his tongue. Blood in the water. Nonsensical, hissed words. The sharp, mindless agony of being stabbed. Tortured. Executed. Struggling. Failing. Counting days by crusts of bread. Again and again and--
The man, once called Liaelty and now called Lea, pressed his forehead to the cold glass and exhaled, watching with detached interest as his breath fanned out across the windowpane. He couldn’t sleep, but he was tired. In a way far beyond the physical. He never wanted to go back to before, but the ‘after’...why was the ‘after’ proving so difficult as well? Was it too much to want to be calm? At peace?
Was this what it felt like to heal?
I can’t breathe. His pulse jumped. Lea’s eyes fluttered shut. Yes you can.
Please, why can’t I breathe? I can’t breathe, I- Lea took a deep, deliberate breath in. He focused on the cold against his temple. The minute shifting of his lashes against his cheek. The curl of his hair, tucked behind his ears and heavy on the back of his neck. He exhaled. Opened his eyes, watched his breath fog the glass once more. Yes. You can.
And yet on his pulse rose, heartbeat loud in his ears. Stupid, he hissed at himself. You’re fine. You’re free. It’s safe. What are you doing?
Except part of him didn’t believe it.
He wasn’t fine - he had no idea of who he was, where he came from. He had no idea why he healed the way he did, why death only ever grazed him before retreating. Sometimes his own emotions felt foreign and dangerous to him.
He wasn’t free - the memories of the Dry Rock clung to him like burrs, sharp and painful. He flinched from sounds that weren’t there. He caught flashes of light that only ever sparked at the edges of his peripherals. He felt the phantom touch of metal against his skin.
He wasn’t safe - he knew nothing of this world, the people in it, the laws that governed it. What people killed for, what people fought for. What would get him thrown right into a cell just like the one he’d been in for the few years he had to memory.
You're fine. You're free. You're safe.
No. Part of him didn't believe it at all.
Lea reached out, snuffed the candle in the window between his fingertips, and turned. He paced the length of his room, arms folded, one hand pressed firmly to his mouth as if in deep thought. When he reached the other side, where the door remained firmly shut and latched, he turned to pace back the other way. Back and forth, back and forth.
It didn't help. And when it didn’t help, fear curled tight around his chest. Lea returned to the window. He flipped the latch on the side and pushed it open. The night air poured in, bitingly-cold, a soft breeze pushing at the curtains and rustling the coverlet at his shoulders. Sighing, Lea leaned out over the sill, taking in the fresh air. Better. ...Almost.
It took but a few moments for the restlessness to settle back in - which was how Lea found himself climbing out onto the awning below his window. Neither his Pelagian clothes nor the coverlet did much against the full brunt of a Terminus night, but he couldn’t handle the walls anymore. From the awning he made his way up to roof peak, clay shingles clattering beneath his hands and boots. The breeze kicked at his hair as he settled; knees to his chest, arms folded on top of them, he turned his gaze up to the star-strewn midnight sky.
“I end up here because of my dreams.” The memory of a voice, soft and confiding, loosened the knot of fear that had been choking him. He breathed.
And there he stayed.
--
“Oy!”
Liaelty startled. The dark sky had somehow, without his notice, lightened to dawn - gathering delicate hues of pink and orange on the far-off mountain peaks. Gone were the stars, although the twin moons were still visible, tucked just behind the opposite mountain range. Birdsong trilled through the air. He’d lost time, then.
“Oy! You up thar!”
This time, the voice registered. Liaelty blinked and looked down to find a weathered old face turned up at him. One of the - the -- his mind grasped absently for the word. The ones with fins and scales. Velen. Below him stood an older velen man with dark skin and darker eyes, a flat cap laid over deep-blue coral dreadlocks and a peacoat buttoned up to his throat. He felt familiar - was that the one in charge of the boarding house? Aeria had set up everything for him. She’d pointed out the proprietor before she’d left for the night, but...
Lea stared down at him. “Huh?” he said.
“Yeah, you!” The old man made a beckoning gesture that Lea didn’t like at all. “Git on down here!”
A sharp prick of panic dug into the back of Liaelty’s neck. You can’t just run, he whispered to himself, even as that other voice hissed, Run, I - I need to run I need--
“Alright!” Lea called down with a bright, nervous smile. “One moment!”
He made his way down slowly, dropping from the second storey roof to the awning outside his window, and from there to the street.
“What on Araevis were ya doin’ up thar, son? Ya coulda--oh!” The velen’s eyes widened with recognition as Lea finished his descent from the clay shingle rooftop. Lea straightened, one hand still holding his bed cover in place. “Yer the one what came in on the heroes’ boat!”
“Uh,” said Lea, nonplussed. “I-”
“Don’t mind me, don’t mind me, then! Just an ol’ fogey worryin’ himself fer no reason at the arsecrack of dawn.” The velen clapped him on the shoulder with enough force to stagger him, a broad snaggle-toothed grin on his face.
An emotion spiked through Lea’s chest. Don’t touch me.
“S-still, I’m sorry to have worried you!” he said brightly. “I...Well, sometimes the walls are just too, uh...”
“Ah, right. Right.” The proprietor’s expression sombered quickly into something more commiserating. He looked off down the empty street, webbed hands tucked into his coat. “Feel like they’re closin’ in on ye sometimes, aye?”
Lea studied the man’s profile. “...Something like that.”
The velen nodded. “Fresh air help?” he asked.
“A bit.”
“Well!” The sudden, boisterous boom of the man’s voice nearly made Lea jump. “A bit’s better than naught at all, aye?” He turned back to catch Lea’s eye. “...But you’ll catch a cough, out here dressed like that. Let’s get ye back in front of a fire for a bit. I’ll get a cuppa goin’.”
Liaelty let himself be led back inside, the ghosts of the night still heavy on his shoulders.
.