Chapter Text
The long walk helped. Azune trekked all the way up as high as he could go into the mountains, staying close to the river Vrosh. The roar of its water helped drown out his racing thoughts. And there were falcons up there for him to watch. It wasn’t their nesting season, so there were no chicks for them to take care of, but they still used the cliffsides as roosts in between flights down into the city to catch pigeons.
By the time Azune returned to Hal's home, it was late enough for breakfast to have turned into lunch, but there was still a bowl of granola sat out on the table for him along with a strip of cold but still crispy bacon and sliced fruit, covered with a cloth so the flies wouldn’t get to it. Milk hadn’t been added to the bowl, so his granola wouldn’t get soggy. It was probably still nestled in the chiller next to Namai’s milk. That was thoughtful of Hal. Azune liked granola better dry anyways.
There was also a note left on the kitchen table. “Went to theater,” it read, with a little drawing of a stage next to the word. “Took Namai with me. Will be home before the kids are back from school.” It was signed by Hal, and there was also a little drawing of a baby next to Namai’s name. Azune had been working on his reading, but he appreciated the care Hal put into helping him understand it even if he didn’t know some of the words or names. Theater was a hard one, because he didn’t know if the first letters made a sound like Thjazi or like Thaisha. He knew Namai without the picture, though, because Hal had pointed out that it had a lot of the same letters as Nahami, and he knew how the name for the lake looked from his maps.
Speaking of his letters, he should probably practice those. Hal had been kind enough to not only teach him to read Rungjani better, but gotten him a notebook and pencils to practice his writing with. His handwriting was still awkward, as the pencil didn’t fit as well in his hand as a sword did, but he was getting better. Enough to be legible.
Which meant he could make useful lists now. Azune went upstairs to get paper, and then brought it back down to the kitchen and began cataloging the milk that different parents in the neighborhood had made for Namai. Some of the bottles were from Aliyna, Namai’s mom, herself, but there were also bottles from three other parents. He faithfully recorded each name and date and arranged them carefully in order in the icebox. Then, while he was at it, he wrote down everything else in the chiller and when he remembered it being purchased and when he estimated they should eat it by. And then moved on to the dry goods in the rest of the kitchen. He had almost finished when Hal came home. The dad always made sure to call out that it was him when he entered the house, and anyone else who was with him, so Azune managed not to jump up even when Hal came up behind him from where he was sitting on the floor.
“Hello,” he greeted. Azune looked up to see him peering down at the paper in his hands. Namai was in his arms, held carefully against his chest. “Are you… taking inventory of the kitchen?”
“Yes,” Azune agreed. “Well, I’m writing it down. I already knew it all.”
“Oh,” Hal said. “So when you pointed out the pears this morning, that wasn’t just what you happened to notice? You have the whole pantry memorized?”
Azune nodded. He knew that was weird, but he didn’t think Hal would mind.
“Huh. Well, that’s a nice thing to have written down too,” he said, and something in Azune preened at the confirmation that he was being useful. “How long ago did you get home? Did you get some breakfast?”
“Not long. Yes,” Azune answered in order.
“Good. And how are you feeling? Any better?”
Azune nodded. “The walk helped.”
“Good, I thought it might. Let me know when you’re done with that list.”
“Okay.” Azune hurried to finish up as Hal settled Namai in their basket on one of the kitchen chairs and began to make up a bottle for the baby.
He had a feeling he knew why Hal wanted to be informed of when he was done. The man was polite enough not to interrupt what Azune was doing, but he probably wanted him to be the one to feed the baby.
Although he was gentler about it, Hal shared Thjazi’s ideas about having to try something again as soon as possible after one failed at it, so the feeling of fear and intimidation didn’t have time to build up. It made sense, and it did help. Thjazi had managed to keep Azune from getting too scared of the medical tent and trained him out of his instinctive flinching whenever someone bigger than him (which was everyone except Thimble) came at him with a weapon in hand. Hal had used it to keep Azune from being intimidated by the market, accompanying him repeatedly to its outskirts and then to the center of the hustle and bustle and not letting him beg out of those excursions even when he was normally very permissible to Azune’s excuses. Azune was amazed, though, that Hal would still employ the strategy when it concerned the life of another being.
But he wasn’t wrong in his guess. Once he finished his list and stood up from sitting on the floor of the pantry, Hal pulled out a chair for him at the table.
“Would you be up for feeding Namai?” He asked. He gave Azune a moment to object, but didn’t wait for explicit confirmation before handing him the baby. At least by now, Azune was comfortable enough holding them that he didn’t freeze up upon the living weight being deposited in his arms. He arranged them comfortably along his arm and held up a free hand in time for Hal to put the jar of warmed milk in it.
Namai must’ve been hungry from their outing with Hal, because they latched onto the spout of the vessel immediately and began hungrily sucking down the milk. Azune trailed his thumb over their arm as they drank. “Good job, little one,” he whispered. “You’re gonna grow up big and strong with that kind of appetite.” It sounded like something Hal would say. Azune was just too relieved that Namai was eating better than last night to think of anything original to say.
He startled as Hal set a plate of cheese and bread down in front of him. He had said he’d had breakfast, right? Maybe the man had just forgotten. Azune couldn’t bring himself to remind him. Because that would be rude. It wasn’t that he couldn’t bear rejecting offered food, even when he wasn’t hungry.
“Anything on there we should use up tonight?” Hal asked, gesturing to his listed inventory of the kitchen. “Olgud is going to come for dinner, along with Elodie.”
Azune remembered what he’d written down instead of reading it, since that was easier anyway and he didn’t want to look away from Namai in his arms. “There’s some root vegetables on the edge of going soft, and a beef bone in the chiller from that roast last week,” he said.
“Want to make a stew?” Hal suggested out loud what he’d been implying. “That sounds good. Do we have any barley?”
“Yes. It’s in a ceramic jar in the pantry, third shelf down on the left,” Azune recited.
“Wonderful. That’s a plan, then.”
Hal puttered around pulling out ingredients and supplies as Azune fed and burped Namai and had some more to eat himself. By the time he put the baby back in their basket cradle to hopefully nap now that they were fed, all the things he would need to make soup were laid out. Including the root vegetables on a cutting board with a large chef’s knife.
“I hate to ask, but I’ve got a lot of work to do this afternoon trying to cast for the new play. Would you mind terribly working on dinner?”
“Are you sure?” Azune asked. He was, of course, happy to help, and he liked cooking, but his gaze kept being drawn to the knife. Hal really wanted to hand him a tool that could so easily be made a weapon, after everything he had confessed earlier this morning?
Hal followed where he was looking, and sighed when he must have realized what Azune was staring at.
“Oh, Azune. What’s it gonna take to get you to understand that I trust you?”
“I think you’re going to need to explicitly say so a few more times,” Azune answered honestly. For some reason, though, Hal seemed to find that funny. He laughed, startled and delighted, before letting it fade into a chuckle.
“I can definitely do that,” he agreed. Azune had gotten good enough at reading him by now that he could hear the affection and amusement lingering in his words. “No one has ever accused me of being reticent, after all.”
He brought the cutting board over to the table, presumably so Azune could sit down while he peeled and chopped the vegetables instead of standing at the counter. Maybe he thought he would be tired from his long walk through the city. Even Dol-Makjar’s hills had nothing on long days of marching and then setting up new camps at the end of it, though, nor on the pure exhaustion that came after a battle. Especially now that Azune was getting a lot more to eat.
Leaning over behind Azune, Hal picked up the knife in his left hand, and Azune’s right wrist in his right. He gently but firmly placed the handle of the knife in his palm, curling his fingers over Azune’s so that he had no choice but to take hold of the knife.
“I trust you,” he said clearly. “I trust you with my children, I trust you in my home, I trust you with this baby, and I trust you with a knife in your hand.” He must’ve caught the way Azune’s breath hitched and quickened, as he added, “If it’s easier, don’t think of it as a weapon. It’s just a tool for making dinner. I trust you with it either way, but I want you to feel safe using it too.”
“Okay,” Azune agreed. He could hear his voice shaking a little, but he pushed away the embarrassment of that because he knew Hal wouldn’t care. Might even be proud that he was doing this even though he was scared. This didn’t feel like feeding Namai had done, even though that had been what prompted his bad thought. The feeling of the knife in his hand was much more familiar than that of the baby or the bottle, but much worse. He tried to think about it like Hal said. He was making food for people. Not threatening to hurt them. Those things were like the opposite of one another. Unless he was planning to poison them, which he never would, because he loved them.
He let out the breath he’d been holding as he brought the knife down through the top of a carrot. It got easier as he sliced down the carrot, cutting it into chunks. Careful to mind his fingers and make sure they were never under the blade, the whole vegetable was soon cut with no blood.
“Alright?” Hal asked, watching him. “I can bring my work down here if you’d like the company.”
“That- might be nice,” Azune admitted. Hal had told him he could ask for things, and that he wanted him to feel safe, and right now, Azune thought he needed to be watched to feel safe. Not forever. He knew that wasn’t sustainable, that people would get tired of him too quickly if he demanded to be near someone all the time, and that he needed to get back on the metaphorical horse before he got scared of it, but for now maybe he could ask for help. Sometimes when he was working, Hal liked to talk out loud anyway, so maybe Azune could be a helpful sounding board while he made dinner.
“Okay. Let me go get my papers and I’ll be right back.”
And so for a few minutes, Azune was left alone in the kitchen. Well, alone except for Namai. There were so many things here that could hurt the baby if they were misused or someone was careless. Knives. The stove. Himself. But he could be careful, and intentional, and even as the possible dangers passed through his mind he knew they would both be safe until Hal got back.