Chapter 23: Throw Me Away
Throw Me Away, KoRn
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I have always been dying, Morgyn. That is one of the only constants we’ve ever had in our lives, and I could feel it drawing closer. Don’t be too angry with me. You’d be mourning either way. I want my death to mean something. Please, help me make sure that it isn’t for nothing, either. Find the truth, and set us all free.
I love you, and I always will.
6 Months Earlier
San Myshuno, 2019
Gosh, this cat was loud. Ezio groaned softly, in that stage between waking and sleeping, and then rolled over and smacked the alarm clock. It was set to go off in a few minutes, but Mayor Whiskers had decided he didn’t like the alarm clock, and would endeavour to awaken his human before the screaming box began its cycle of screaming. The cat chirruped in what seemed to be joy, and then jumped onto the bed and bonked his head against Ezio’s nose.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ezio said, sounding amused, reaching up and scratching around Mayor’s collar. “I like you, too.”
Mayor Whiskers then moved around, jumped off the bed, and padded out of the room, presumably to go climb onto the counters and, if he was feeling adventurous today, perhaps the fridge. Ezio fell back over in bed, his arm falling off the edge of the mattress. The morning rays of sunlight splashed across his skin, warm and bright.
It was a good day to be alive.
The sounds of the city were something Ezio had to get used to. Magic realm wasn’t very loud, at least, not in the same way, and the bright lights, slight smog, and the sound of the car traffic had been things Ezio wasn’t used to. Of course, he’d been out on the street, for a while, and that was a little rougher than an apartment in the Spice Market. His life was easy now that Drake had moved back in.
The idea was that Ezio wouldn’t need Drake or Morgyn to babysit him. Unfortunately, it turned out you couldn’t just build a house on a bit of land somewhere without some serious challenges, and Ezio was new to this new way jobs worked. Eventually, Drake had figured out he was sleeping under bridges and cooking on barrels of fire (which, he’d like everyone to know wasn’t that bad, it had a unique flavour), and had decided Ezio wasn’t allowed to do that. Drake had been publishing books for decades by the time Ezio had come out here, and only a year ago, Drake had used the money he’d been saving up to get an apartment.
Now they were here. And Ezio went and adopted a cat. Not just any cat, he was a very loud cat. Ezio thought it was charming. Drake’s stronger vampiric senses probably didn’t think it was so charming.
Strangely, Lilith and Caleb had moved next door, too. Mrs. Rasoya was going to love that. Vampires!
Ezio would say that at least they were the only ones, but, they weren’t. San Myshuno was crawling with vampires. Ezio would know. He’d met a few of them over the years. There was a big coven here or something like that.
For the most part, Ezio was here because it was closer to medical care. He’d since left Dr. Sommer’s practise, given Dr. Sommer had developed a case of dementia and retired for the sake of his patients, but his office had given Ezio a few referrals to look into. As it turned out, one of the friends he’d made out on the street had become a doctor, and Ezio was now a patient of hers. Troi was the L to Ezio’s Morgyn, some days. She wasn’t afraid of telling him the truth, and Ezio knew it was out of respect and care, and took it better from her than he might a stranger. Ezio at least knew himself well enough to know that much.
Finally, he sat up, stretched out, and then got out of bed. He still had bad days, but they were far less frequent than before. There were times when, his heart was so stable that he could almost convince himself that he was normal. And then, he collapsed, like always he did, and the illusion was gone again.
As he stepped out into the kitchen, Drake looked up from the dining room table, and smiled. Ezio smiled back.
His smile still made Ezio’s heart do funny things.
“I made tea,” Drake said, nodding at the teapot. “If you’d like some.”
“Oh, thank you,” Ezio answered, shifting around the counter and Mayor Whiskers’ food bowl, intending to get himself a cup.
“You’re welcome,” Drake answered. Things were far from easy, and rent was a little tight sometimes, with Ezio in university, but Drake wouldn’t trade it for anything. Ezio may never understand why, but he had every intention of being here, for as long as Ezio still needed him to be. It was strange, though, how little interest in that changing Ezio seemed to have.
“How goes the book?” Ezio asked, somewhere amid getting his tea made.
Drake shrugged. “It could be worse,” he said. It could be better, too, but he’d long given up on publishers.
“That’s Drake-speak for, Honestly, I’m dying, but don’t send help because we can’t us both sink,” Ezio said, sounding quite amused.
“That is not what it means,” Drake insisted.
Ezio snorted. “If you say so.” It didn’t mean Ezio was going to believe it, though. “Oh, Morgyn’s coming by later today.” Morgyn had been meaning to come visit for some time now, but hadn’t had the free time. Being as Morgyn was sage of untamed magic, and all that, it was hard to get that free time, Ezio understood. University had Ezio so busy, he usually couldn’t drop into magic realm, either.
It’d be nice to see Morgyn, finally. This whole living apart thing was beyond weird, and when Morgyn did manage to come by, it was like the blond had never left. How easily they clicked back together, how readily the time apart simply melted away, it made the separation a bit easier to deal with.
“Yeah, speaking of that,” Drake started, “is Morgyn taking the couch or staying with you?”
Ezio snorted, stirring his tea. “Morgyn’s taking my room, and I’m probably sleeping on the couch,” he answered. “Morgyn kicks people when asleep and I’m really not interested in getting too familiar with the floor.”
What? He was getting too old for that.
* * *
It was hard to believe they’d only lived here a year now. Ezio still remembered sleeping under bridges, and trying not to get too soaked when it rained and the water flooded the streets. It wasn’t like he regretted that time. Many would, he supposed; it was hard, for sure, but nothing worth anything was easy, Ezio always figured that. He saw it was an opportunity to learn, and perhaps life got hard sometimes, but it was a chance to grow. When he asked Morgyn about that, Morgyn thought he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had. Drake thought the same thing, to be fair about it.
Maybe he just wasn’t meant to live alone anymore. Truthfully, Ezio had never lived alone, not really. It was Morgyn and their parents at France, then it was Drake and Jean and Jean’s dozens of servants, and then they were in magic realm and no one was ever truly alone in magic realm. It was just as well. Even when he was alone, he wasn’t very good at it. He wasn’t like Morgyn. He didn’t need other people the same way, but he did still need them all the same.
Classes were as they always were; it wasn’t to say Ezio didn’t enjoy them, because he did. His major wasn’t his favourite subject, but right now, he wasn’t about pursuing his dreams. First of all, Ezio still didn’t have dreams. It was hard to have those when it was a well-known reality that he wasn’t going to make it very long (on the other hand, he’d made it ten years longer than they’d thought he would). Secondly, he could worry about dreams and personal goals when making the rent wasn’t occasionally a painful thing. Drake was helping a good deal, but he shouldn’t have to be paying most of Ezio’s rent.
Drake didn’t see it that way, Ezio knew. Ezio probably shouldn’t see it that way, either, but knowing something and managing to do it were often very different things, and Ezio was beyond apologising for who he was.
The snow was falling. Ezio had another term paper to work on, and wasn’t looking forward to that, but he’d survived the last one. He supposed surviving this one wouldn’t be so difficult as it sounded, either. If nothing else, he was getting better at this language thing. One unfortunate side-effect of taking university classes was, he had to figure out how to write better, and Ezio wasn’t very good with words, to say the least on the matter. Ezio was more of an action sort of person rather than a words person.
The only bright side was, Drake didn’t seem to mind proofreading his gibberish for him.
Ezio paused outside the apartment building, closed his eyes, and enjoyed the sound of the snow falling. Since the leather-bound mystery book had gone silent some thirty years ago, they hadn’t had too many problems again. Maybe Morgyn was right, and their problems back then were all the book’s doing. Ezio didn’t know if he believed that. Ezio didn’t know what he believed. Mostly, he didn’t have the leisure to think about it too much, and it was for the best that he didn’t.
“Hello Mrs. Rasoya,” Ezio greeted, as an older woman stepped out of the door and down the stairs.
She turned to look at him, and glared slightly. She and her son Raj were on the same floor as them, and to say the least of it, they didn’t get along very well. The Rasoyas were constantly making noise, and Ezio was always flying across the hall in a rage because he had a class at eight in the morning.
Of course, the first time it’d happened, Ezio had threatened them, and quite firmly meant it. That likely didn’t help any. Did he care about that? Not too much.
Geeta didn’t say anything, just continued on her way with that glare on her face. Ezio eventually released a breath, and it sounded a lot like he was blowing raspberries.
She glanced over her shoulder to glare at him more directly for a moment, before disappearing around a corner. Well, nothing he did managed to make her pleased with him, rather the opposite, so perhaps it would be best for his blood pressure to simply let that one go.
He had a paper to write. Ezio shook his head, more to himself, reached out to let the snow fall onto his gloved hands for a moment, watching the tiny ice crystals melt. Then, Ezio turned and headed up the front steps and into the apartment building. The sudden blast of warm air was almost too much for him to deal with, but, he should be glad for it. He was more glad for the cool air in the blazing summer, because Ezio had no heat tolerance to speak of. Drake didn’t seem bothered by anything. Apparently, vampires didn’t feel temperature changes.
That was entirely unfair, for the record. Ezio wished he just didn’t feel it.
Ezio took the elevator upstairs, waiting for it to reach the floor he and Drake lived on. It was awfully quiet upstairs with Geeta gone and Raj at work, he thought to himself, snickering slightly. He wondered when Morgyn would get there. Morgyn was still somewhat resistant to modernity, and hadn’t ever really mastered finding one’s way around San Myshuno. There were maps and signs but, we wouldn’t want to use those.
The door was locked, so Ezio pulled his keys out, looking for the right one, and opened the front door. One hand reached out and turned on the lights. Mayor was up on the fridge, yet again, in a very dead sleep. Ezio smiled softly, and then refilled Mayor’s food bowl. Drake didn’t seem to be home, so Ezio wandered into the study, grabbing a book off the bookshelf (far fewer books than they owned; most of their books were at magic realm in Morgyn and Simeon’s care), and headed out to fall onto the couch.
He’d read for a bit, until Morgyn got there.
* * *
One of these stone buildings was the right one. Morgyn had never mastered which one it was, but the blond had only come by a small handful of times. Perhaps it’d been two or three times by now, Morgyn had lost track, and Ezio and Drake had only lived here for the last year or so. Had it really been so short a period of time? That was what the sage’s memories were saying. To be honest, however, the memory became quite rusty over time and began to forget things seemingly at random, so it was hard to say what Morgyn had forgotten.
The blond held a piece of paper in one hand, following the street. Snow wasn’t Morgyn’s favourite thing, but wading through it wasn’t so difficult. Soon enough, Morgyn would find the right building and would be in Ezio and Drake’s apartment, where it was presumably much warmer.
Ah, this one looked rather familiar. Morgyn squinted at the numbers on the outside, and then smiled, folded the paper, and put it away in a pocket. That was indeed the building the blond was looking for. Morgyn headed up the stairs, and then took the elevator to the right floor. The second-hardest thing was remembering which door was Ezio’s, but then Morgyn heard Mayor Whiskers’ feline screeching, and smiled wider, stepping forward to knock on the door it was coming from, setting the single suitcase in one hand down on the floor.
“Coming!” Ezio’s voice answered from the other side, and a moment later, the door opened.
Ezio smiled, and Morgyn smiled back. Then, somewhat quietly, they both started squealing under their breath. After a moment, Mayor started to yowl in time with their squealing, and both started laughing, instead. Morgyn bounced up and down and then attached to Ezio in a very tight hug.
“Ack!” Ezio protested, stepping backwards. “Oh no, I’ve been caught, choking, not breathing!”
“You can complain, you can breathe just fine,” Morgyn said, but let go all the same. “How have you been?”
“Fine,” Ezio said. “Come on, come in.” Ezio reached around Morgyn, picking the suitcase up off the floor, and holding the door open. Morgyn looked at him funny, but did go around him and head into the living room.
“I’ll make tea,” Drake said, closing his laptop, sitting on the coffee table, and getting up to go do that.
“Hi Drake,” Morgyn greeted. “Thank you.”
“Hi,” Drake answered, smiling. “And you’re welcome.” Morgyn was more into coffee, rather than tea, but they didn’t keep coffee on-hand, and only had it when Morgyn was around. It wasn’t good for Ezio’s heart. Or his sleeping patterns, for that matter.
Ezio set Morgyn’s suitcase down in the corner of the living room, opposite Mayor’s cat tree. “So, how have you been?” he asked, looking at Morgyn.
“The usual,” Morgyn answered, sitting down on the couch. Mayor hopped up onto the seat next to the blond. “L’s been yelling at everyone for existing, Simeon probably doesn’t get paid enough, and I’m still impatiently teaching everyone how to set fire to their enemies. And, you know, their fireplaces.”
“That didn’t really answer the question,” Ezio said, quirking one eyebrow upward, as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against one of the counters.
“I thought it answered the question just fine?” Morgyn replied. The blond’s tone made it sound like a question.
Ezio snorted. “How have you been, you know, personally?”
Morgyn turned back around, looking at the wall. “I’ve been better,” the blond said softly.
There. That was an actual response. Ezio’s lips shifted to one side, and then he pushed off the counter, shuffling over to the couch. Lazily, he picked Mayor up, and sat down, setting the cat back in his lap. Of course, Mayor promptly jumped off the couch altogether, but eh, no one could say Ezio didn’t try not to displace him. “What’s wrong?” Ezio asked.
Morgyn glanced at him, and then shrugged. “I don’t really know,” Morgyn answered. “I just get this weird feeling that… never mind.”
“No, come on,” Ezio protested. “You get this weird feeling that…?”
Morgyn sighed, reaching over and taking Ezio’s hand. “That something’s wrong,” Morgyn said. “Just, it’s this weird feeling of dread. Like something’s just about to suddenly shift, and the peace will end.”
Ezio smiled, just slightly. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I get that feeling sometimes, too.” He hadn’t gotten that feeling anytime recently, but he also knew that didn’t mean anything. Ezio hadn’t had the time to stop and think about too many things recently.
“This is what it’s like, for you?” Morgyn asked.
Ezio shrugged. “Sometimes it’s like this,” he answered. “Other times it’s weird moments where time seems to slow down. Like I’m watching everything in slow motion, and, if I think about it long enough, I can see all the pieces. Where they’re all sitting, and where they’ll all come down.”
Morgyn’s expression turned pensive. Every time Ezio talked like that, his eyes both sharpened and clouded over at once, like in that moment he became someone else. Morgyn thought it was unnerving, but it was another part of Ezio and the blond had to accept that part of him, too. All their lives, he’d known things that no one else did, seemed to have some idea of where things were going mapped out in his head. Like the world had opened up to him and poured its secrets into his head.
“Is it always like that?” Morgyn asked.
“Nah,” Ezio answered, shrugging. “I haven’t felt like that in a long time now. Whatever fate’s up to, it’s been quiet about it for a long while now.” And it was just as well. Ezio had other things on his mind, now, but still, there were moments when he felt like he was waiting for something. Times when it felt like, perhaps, everyone was waiting for something. The whole world holding its breath all at once.
* * *
The sound of rapid tapping on the keyboard was the only sound in the room. Drake had a book signing, and Morgyn was still asleep. Or at least, presumably, Morgyn was still asleep. Ezio was lying down on the couch, with the laptop sitting on his stomach. He paused in his typing flurry, long enough to listen to the sounds. He could vaguely hear someone across the hall checking their mail, and very soft snorting from his bedroom. Morgyn was indeed still sleeping, then.
It wasn’t like Ezio minded the quiet. It was a nice change of pace, sometimes. Not that the Culpepper apartments weren’t generally quiet, but he had four university classes this term, and university was most certainly not quiet. Then again, the Rasoyas liked to play music randomly, and get into fights at midnight. Well, Ezio and Drake couldn’t hear it anymore. He’d enchanted their walls a long time ago into utter silence. The other neighbours were glad for it, too.
Ezio went back to typing, the rapid sounds of key clacking filling the room again. Normally, this was Drake’s laptop, but he was letting Ezio use it to write his term paper. Ezio could theoretically just go to the library-it wasn’t even like there wasn’t one on campus-but he felt a lot more comfortable doing this sort of thing at home. In the most unexpected ways, perhaps, he was still a skittish little thing at times.
Other times, he went across the hall, banged on the Rasoyas’ door so loud it woke up every floor of the building at once, and said something about you can shut up or I can make you and I promise you won’t like it. For some reason, the Rasoyas didn’t like him very much. Lilith thought it was hilarious. She and Caleb had moved out of Forgotten Hollow (at Vlad’s suggestion, actually), a couple weeks ago. Maybe it’d been a month, by now.
What was time? Ezio didn’t know her.
He heard a loud thunk, somewhere amid the incessant clacking from the keys, and paused. After a moment, his door opened, and Morgyn sleepily toddled out into the kitchen. Mayor, wisely, moved out of the way and jumped onto the fridge, far out of the way of clumsy human feet.
“Morning,” Morgyn said, yawning.
Ezio smiled. It was strange and also very nice to have Morgyn around again. “Morning,” he answered. “There’s coffee, if you would like some.”
“Oh, thank the stars,” Morgyn grumbled, shuffling to the pot to pour a cup. Morgyn was well-aware neither Ezio nor Drake really drank coffee. It was bad for Ezio’s health, the caffeine, and Drake was never much into the habit of doing anything that Ezio couldn’t. Morgyn had to wonder why that was, but, the blond supposed that was obvious. Morgyn ran a hand through loose, short blond waves, sat down at the dining room table with the cup of coffee in hand, and fell onto the wood.
“Still that tired?” Ezio asked.
“You know how things get in magic realm,” Morgyn answered. These days, Morgyn was physically somewhere between male and female, and frequently got mistaken for one or the other. It was both nice and took some getting used to. The blond sat up long enough to drink some of the coffee, and then fell back down. “I had to make a copy of myself just to make it out here because we’re so busy. Someone has been being awfully liberal about how many random humans they give magic. Not sure who it is, either.”
Ezio moved his head on the couch armrest to look at Morgyn properly. “Maybe it’s just bubbling out,” he said. “You know a lot of family lines probably have magic in their blood somewhere. With everything going on right now, and magic being on the edge of starting to die off, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were seeing a sudden resurgence.”
Morgyn grumbled into the table. “Don’t use big words like ‘resurgence’ right now,” the blond said.
Ezio snorted. “Can’t keep up with it?”
“No,” Morgy answered. “My brain forgot how to do English when it woke up this morning.”
“Francais vous est-il plus facile?” Ezio answered, asking if French was easier.
Morgyn stared at him blankly, for several seconds, and then snorted. “Wow, that took me way too long to parse out,” the blond said. “Apparently, no, French is not easier whatsoever. How do you even remember that much of it?”
Ezio shrugged. “I still think in French,” he said. “Don’t you?”
Morgyn didn’t answer, but the blond didn’t really have to, either. The answer was fairly clear by Morgyn’s silence alone. “What are you working on?” Morgyn asked, instead.
“Oh, a term paper for one of my classes,” Ezio said.
“Right, you’re in university, now, aren’t you?” Morgyn answered, pausing to drink some of the coffee and set it back down.
“Almost graduated,” Ezio said. “After this, I’ll have two more classes, and then I’ll be done and can start my job.”
Morgyn made a face. “I still think you shouldn’t need to work,” the blond said, nose turning up just slightly. “Drake’s doing fine with the rent on his own anyway, and working would be a strain.”
Ezio frowned. “I’d rather not leave Drake to do this on his own,” he said. “He wasn’t even supposed to move in with me.”
“I would’ve, if I wasn’t already stuck in magic realm,” Morgyn said. Pesky pesky Alls deciding on certain French blondies as Untamed Sages. Really, what a hindrance.
Ezio released a sigh. “Morgyn, you both have lives you could live that I have no part of,” he said. “And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Morgyn clearly didn’t agree with that assessment, because the blond straightened up a little more. Morgyn didn’t immediately argue with it, though. Ezio was as Ezio would be, and he didn’t tend to place a lot of weight on himself. Morgyn had figured that out a few hundred years ago, and likely, had Jean to thank for it.
It was almost unfortunate the beast was likely to be dead now. Morgyn would love to set him on fire.
“What other degree programmes do they have, anyway?” Morgyn asked. It was of the blond’s not-so-humble opinion that Ezio would do much better in something else. He, of course, had decided to pursue a law degree, but why exactly he’d decided on that one, Morgyn didn’t know, and had never asked. Maybe the blond should ask.
“Lots of other things,” Ezio answered. “The University of Britechester is better known for art programmes, and Foxbury does science, but they both offer the same degree programmes. It’s just that getting an art degree from UBrite will get you further than one from Foxbury, and the same with science for Foxbury.”
“They have science courses?” Morgyn asked. “What kind?” Ezio was far better suited to the sciences, if one asked Morgyn.
“All kinds,” Ezio said. “I remember seeing um, computer science, economics, psychology, biology, and physics. From those, you could probably get into other things.” He’d kill for an astronomy degree, but if he wanted to go up there and see the stars himself, there was always physics… not to imply he thought he could handle space travel, given his heart condition. Maybe space walking wasn’t a good idea for him.
Still, sometimes, he maybe almost had a dream.
Morgyn, however, was very interested in that mention of biology. Wasn’t that the study of living things? So theoretically, one of those living things they could learn about might be human living things. And it was theoretically possible that, somewhere in there, Morgyn might learn how to save Ezio.
And there was nothing Morgyn wanted to do more than figure out how to save Ezio. Maybe that was what Morgyn and Drake had been missing, before. The proper understanding of the science behind what they were trying to do with magic.
“So, the better degree for a science programme would be gotten in Foxbury, right?” Morgyn asked.
“Yeah,” Ezio said. “The University of Britechester does science but not as well.”
Right then. “But you go to Britechester, no?”
“I do,” Ezio answered, tilting his head back slightly. This sudden interest in university was very unexpected, especially given Morgyn was already pretty busy.
Well, Morgyn would never dream of going to a university Ezio wasn’t in. Britechester it was. But first, getting in. And perhaps the semantics of why Morgyn was suddenly interested in science of all things, that was unimportant. One would figure a magical sage would be wholly incompatible with the mere idea of science, but actually, most things that were science, now, Morgyn was learning, were once called magic. There was a science behind magic, too, Morgyn simply didn’t know it.
And just maybe, learning the sciences would make Morgyn a stronger spellcaster somewhere along the way, too.
* * *
Ezio should probably take a break sometime soon. He shifted around, pinning the paper in his hand to the presentation board, and then glanced up at the wall. Oh, jeez, it was eleven at night. Ezio shook his head, and then moved around the board towards the couch. Morgyn had already turned in, but, Morgyn tended to be a morning person. Ever since they were kids, and there was no telling if this was because of their lifestyle, or because Morgyn was just a fire elemental of some kind trapped in a human body, but Morgyn awoke with the sun, and slept when it was gone.
Ezio was the opposite. It took work and discipline to stay on the morning schedule that he was on. If left to his own devices, Ezio would wake with the moon and sleep when the sun rose. He felt strongest at night, especially at night in the winter. But he always felt stronger in the winter, in general.
Morgyn was a fire elemental, and Ezio was a water elemental, or something to that effect. Were ice elementals a thing? Sure. Why not. Ezio had never met an elemental before in his life, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. There were a lot of things that one couldn’t see with their eyes, but had to see with their heart, instead, and yet that thing still existed all the same. It was hard to put words to it. But the more Ezio studied words, the more he found that, words were entirely unsuited to their purpose.
Ezio settled down on the couch, pulling the blanket over himself, trying to get comfortable. Actually, by now, he was too physically large to fit on this couch, but that was fine. It wasn’t like he wasn’t already accustomed to making small sacrifices for Morgyn, anyway. In some weird way, maybe doing so made him happy, somehow.
He never claimed to understand himself.
As he got comfortable, though, a loud keening melody tore through the silence. Ezio sat bolt upright, one arm throwing the blanket off, breathing hard in surprise. He hadn’t heard that in so long… why now? It’d been silent for thirty years, maybe longer, he hadn’t kept track of it, and now it was awake.
Grey eyes glanced at the bedroom door. Morgyn hadn’t woken up, apparently, and he could still hear the quiet clicking of the keyboard keys from the office. Drake hadn’t noticed, either. Ezio set his feet down on the floor, and stood up, shuffling over to the coffee table the television was sitting on. In the cabinet, tucked into the back, was the leather-bound mystery book. Ezio reached in, pulled it out, and set it on the floor. The cover was alive with swirls of dancing lights.
He sensed something watching him, and he turned around. A strange pattern of stars sat outside the window, hovering above the street. Ezio’s eyes grew wide. It was so close, he could almost make out the shape the stars went in. As he watched it, however, he could see the faint outline of its body, marked by the stars. It looked, perhaps, like some kind of a winged fish? Some sort of a dinosaur, maybe.
Ezio went over to the window, watching the brighter stars that he thought were its eyes. The end of its snout was pointed, like a beak, and Ezio reached out, his hand going right through the glass, to touch it. Just before he would’ve, everything shifted, and he was surrounded in darkness, the star creature gone again.
He recognised where he was. A glance down told him he was in the blackened cloak with the fur trim, again, and he raised a hand. The frost hadn’t attached to his hand yet, but he knew it was waiting. He could feel it, this time.
Maybe he’d gotten stronger.
Ezio took a breath in, the exhale hanging in the air as vapour for a moment, before vanishing again. He looked around, and then followed the pull that he recognised as Makana. She’d been silent, thus far, just like she said she would be, leaving him in peace thus far. Apparently, something had changed. Even as he wondered what it was that had changed, Ezio had a feeling he already knew.
The sounds turned from snow crunching to the tapping of heels on glass flooring, and soon enough, he found her. This time, she looked like herself, and not Keisha. A long braid, of many colours and stars in the strands, fell down her back. Her skin was darker than Keisha’s, her features notably different, more her. He didn’t know how he knew it was her, he just did. Maybe everyone knew their spirit guide, when they saw them.
“Makana?” he asked. His voice echoed around slightly, but he could barely hear himself, or the echoes, over the constant roaring that came from the twisting darkness.
Her dark eyes turned to look at him, and then her head turned, too. She seemed sad, about something, but he knew better than to directly ask, either. She didn’t tend to give him direct answers.
“Makana, what’s wrong?” he asked.
Makana tilted her head, and then smiled sadly. “The storm has come,” she whispered, but even though she whispered, it echoed in his head, grew louder the more it bounced around in there. The roaring amplified, became harder to ignore, and just as Ezio’s head started to hurt with the force of it, he jolted awake, and hit the floor with a loud thud.
Oh, ow, damn it… Ezio sat up, finding himself sitting next to the coffee table. Papers were scattered across it, from working on his presentation.
“Are you okay?” a voice whispered, and Ezio startled and turned to find Drake in the study doorway.
“Fine,” Ezio said. “I’m fine, sorry, I just, fell asleep.”
Drake looked concerned, but he didn’t argue. “Maybe you should turn in,” he said.
“Yeah,” Ezio agreed, nodding. “I will.”
Drake closed the study door again, and within a few moments, Ezio could hear the sound of the keyboard clacking. Morgyn’s occasional snorts and giggles came through the bedroom door, and Ezio stood up. He heard it, again, the melody that he’d almost forgotten what sounded like, from somewhere beyond here, crying for help even decades later. And though he couldn’t see it, he turned towards the window, as he sensed, rather than saw, something very large moving past.
The storm, indeed, had come. And that feeling that, if he slowed down and watched, he could see all the little Dominoes lined up, and ready to fall, had come back.
Ezio thought they were calling it dread anymore.
