Work Text:
Palamedes had just put the finishing touches on Chapter 23 of The God Emperors of Tisis, the penultimate volume of Arc Five of The Necromancer’s Marriage Saga. With every wall now covered floor to ceiling in pencil, he was finally forced to scrape diligently against the floorboards. He’d been dreading this part of the process for some time, but the fans demanded it and who was he, Septennial Times Bestselling Author Palamedes Sextus, to deny his public. At the book tour they would ask him about his process and he would tell them, humbly, that while he’d written everything in advance, this one had been the most satisfying to re-draft on flimsy. A lot easier to revise too. He knew where every typo sat on the wallpaper, but the ones on the floor humiliated him the most. When it takes so agonizingly long to write “you’re” only to discover it was the wrong conjugation, it stung as easily as his nails did every time they slipped off his pencil and onto the floor. A ghost of a sensation. A neat idea of what pain maybe felt like to someone who may or may not have lived an indeterminate amount of time ago.
Then something happened that had never happened before. Somewhere in Palamedes' little bubble a door creaked open. Were he corporeal he would have shat himself. As is, his body contracted sharply in a simulacrum of evacuating one’s bowels as he made a sound so embarrassing he was almost glad no one was there to hear it. Like if a scream and a squeak had been stranded on a deserted island for years and years and years and, without anyone but themselves to keep them company had made love and produced a child. That progeny sprang forth from Palamedes lips, raw and strangled and new. He had not spoken, even to himself, in quite some time. In response he heard a chuckle. The voice was old and new all at once. Once again, how magnificent his soul was at replicating the feelings of a body long abandoned, his heart beating so fast, his throat sealing up. He heard footsteps and, from his spot scribbling on the floor, scrambled under the bed like a stupid animal. It had been so long since his last visitor that the hope which once filled him had begun to grow fallow and rot; sat like a gaping wound in his stomach and then, at last, had slowly scabbed over. To feel it open again now, fresh and hot and red was an absolute horror. He had hoped against hope that someone would come find him and now, in this moment, it was the most terrifying thing he could imagine. And that voice. That voice.
The footsteps moved in slow, heavy pads. Although he possessed neither, he felt his heart in his throat as the door creaked open. From under the bed he could see the boots in the doorframe and he bit his lip, hard to keep from screaming again. The figure had stopped, slow and heavy, looking around. And then that laughter came again, and Palamedes knew, and Palamedes cursed himself for knowing, and he cowered.
“Warden, you silly little boy, get out from under the bed.” He shivered. He bit his lip harder. He shook his head. “Please?” No mouth but he swallowed, no blood in his veins but it ran cold, no eyes, but by god. “Warden,” she said again, and oh how he wished she hadn’t, “I’ve come a long way. Get out from under there right now, or I’ll pull your scrawny arse out myself.” There was no running and no pretending now. He shuddered. And slowly, carefully, he crawled out from under what once was Dulcinea Septimus’ deathbed. Or rather, Cytherea’s base of operations. He looked down at the floor as he stood, and heard her breath catch.
“Well, fuck," The voice said in familiar tones, "Harrowhark had warned me as much, but it’s really true. You haven’t aged a day since you died.”
Palamedes fingers dug into his palms, eyes fixed on the floorboards. That “you’re” in Chapter 14 caught his eye again. How do you white-out an etching? If he crossed it out it’d just look like a little “x” between the “o” and the “r” which would be so much harder to transcribe when he wrote the books for real. When he made it back home. When they rescued him. When they solved the mystery of Canaan House and the lyctors and everything besides. When he had a new body, stranger to be sure, but sound enough for the important work left to be done. With his cavalier primary by his side, the best fighter he’d ever seen, the best friend he’d ever had, the woman he’d spent his whole life ignoring and even now, even now, could not bring himself to-
“Could you look at me, Pal? Please?”
“No. No I’m sorry. I don’t think I can.”
“I haven’t asked much of you, Warden.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Look at me, you fucking idiot!” He jolted, her shout made her voice sound the way he’d remembered it. Her hair was a luminescent white and her body was wide and round and soft. The gray vestments of his house fit snugly around her. He knew this person like a place, but the architecture had changed. Not fallen into ruin, but lived through decades of stories and changed beyond their shared history. But those eyes, brown and grey and furious and alive, those eyes hadn’t changed a day. Just like a painting, or a touch, or a truly good meal, Camilla Hect was even more beautiful than he remembered.
“Better late than never I suppose,” he grinned, “You’re just in time for me to finish the twelfth volume.”
“You kept yourself busy,” she said, glancing at the walls and straining just as he was.
“I'd have told you about it through the hand, but I've been worried worried it’d get lost in translation through morse code. Now that you’re here you can read it yourself! I think I really hit my stride right there beside the bookshelf,” he gestured, “Or I could just read you my favorite bits if you-if you’d-“
The sound that came out of him now rose from a dormant place inside the hollow of his being. When had he cried last, now that he had a proper measurement of time. Forty years ago? He felt his legs give way but Camilla caught him. Still so quick, so steadfast. It was the first hug he’d had in over half a century and he gave into it, letting go. He sobbed the name "Camilla" and it came out strangely at first, like a language he hadn't spoken in years, a forbidden word, a quiet taboo of the bubble. Now he couldn't say it enough as he clutched her as tightly as he could bear. He couldn’t hear her over himself, but he could feel her. The way she shook, the warmth of her tears against his chest. What a strange thing, the river. What feelings he sensations he was left with and what ones he wasn't. When his sobs grew quieter he heard her whispering, “It’s okay. It’s okay. I found you. I finally found you.”
He withdrew from her shoulder to look at her face, cupping it in his hands, the warmth, the color radiating from her, that smile, that old familiar smile. He moved his fingers along her face and she let him, looking about as destroyed as he felt but beaming all the while. “What even is all this,” she chuckled even as she cried. “A multi-part genre-defying epic saga based on The Necromancer’s Marriage Season. It really peaked around Arc 5, Volume 3, everything else has been filler, truthfully.” He traced his pointer finger along the lines in her forehead, down to the frown lines below her lips and along her neck, mapping rivers, making them familiar to himself.
“I know,” she smiled ruefully, “I’m old.”
“When you dueled with the Cavalier of the second,” Palamedes murmured, “All I wanted. All I wanted more than anything in the fucking world. More than piecing together the grand theorem, more than Dulcinea, more than all of it, was for you to live to look like this. And you have, and I hate it, because I wasn’t there for it. I wanted to be there for every line on your face and I wanted you to be there for mine, and I spent my life believing it was such a foregone conclusion that it didn’t even matter. It was just what would happen. You would be by my side because you always were.”
The look Camilla gave him was indescribable. It said more than Palamedes had covered the walls in. But all she said in reply was, “I’m here now, Warden.” And then she kissed him and he had no idea how the bubble still stood, because Palamedes Sextus was obliterated. He nearly knocked her over leaning in, stupidly, hungrily. He didn’t know what to do with his mouth and Camilla couldn’t help but giggle. “You’re a mess,” she crooned, “Slowly. Slowly.” And he acquiesced, following her lead. How strange; she’d had decades of practice and here he was, long dead, having his first kiss. It wasn’t as though either of them needed air, but Camilla broke away out of habit, blinking back more tears. She touched his face now, and Palamedes reveled in the warmth of her soul.
“You should have done that ages ago,” he grinned. Camilla’s eyes widened and King Undying, she looked so incredible when she was angry.
“Palamedes Sextus, I should kill you twice for saying that to me.”
“Or you could make up for lost time.”
And they did. And Palamedes marveled at just how much a revenant could do, most of it on the bed where a Lyctor once slept. Time, which Palamedes had so long felt moved at a snails pace, now felt as though it was hurtling by. There were too many moments he wanted to savor, to draw out for as long as he could. But then, the moment came that he had been dreading. They sat on the edge of the bed, hand in hand, and Camilla whispered, almost apologetically, “It’s time for us to go, Pal.”
“Now?”
“Now.” They stood up together, a boon to Palamedes whose legs shook.
“I don’t want to lose you again,” he almost whimpered. He turned to look at her and felt, in those eyes, a comfort he couldn’t name.
“I’ve spent my whole life looking for you, Palamedes. You’re not going to get rid of me now.” He was still terrified, but that was enough to steel his resolve. He gave the room one last look, the walls of words, the pencil, the bed meant for someone who was never meant for him. He gave a long breath, for the habit of it, and maybe also to let something go. He looked at Camilla again and she nodded, assuring, her face already more familiar than the old one. And then together, they did something that Palamedes had never done before and walked out of the room and out of the dream and onto the bank and into the river.