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As the party winds down to rest for the evening, Essek feels himself seized by the same urge to pace as he had while waiting for their arrival at the Vurmas outpost. He can’t pinpoint why he feels this need but feel it he does, a restlessness that thrums in his veins and down to his bones. There’s no wandering away from the group, not with unknown dangers lurking around every corner, but Essek stands and begins circling at the edges of the area they’ve chosen to bed down.
It feels like the ice above them is physically weighing on his chest whenever he tries to lie down, so he’s been upright every night as he trances. It’s been doing absolutely heinous things to his joints. His thoughts are so preoccupied that he nearly glides right into Caduceus.
“Hello, Essek,” Caduceus says, with the same serene smile he often wears. “Would you like to meditate with me?”
“I have never been very good at prayer,” Essek says, bringing his hands together as he focuses his attention on Caduceus.
“Well, you don’t have to pray,” Caduceus says. “Beau says she’s no good at meditating too, but she is.”
Essek remembers holy days in Rosohna, sweating through his black clothing under the blazing sun and trying not to fidget too much. Here, where heat is barely a dream, Essek supposes it might not be so bad. Caduceus does have quite the calming presence, after all.
“Very well,” he says, settling down next to Caduceus. “I suppose it is worth a try.”
“All you have to do is breathe,” Caduceus says, his smile a little brighter. “It helps. I promise.”
“Right,” Essek says, exhaling slowly and trying not to look at Caleb. As Caduceus begins leading him through some guided breathing, his mind still wanders to what Caleb said to him, when Caleb had touched his face so gently.
Time, Caleb had said. There would be no easy solution, but there would be a solution, with time. With patience and effort, Caleb hadn’t said, but Essek had inferred. Time. Essek tries to focus on that as Caduceus counts every inhale and exhale they take together.
“Inhale for four...hold...exhale for seven,” Caduceus says, demonstrating. “Don’t try to keep yourself from thinking. Just let it happen.”
It’s easier to breathe between the memory of Caleb’s words and the way Caduceus teaches him to breathe anew. The weight of Aeor’s icy sky begins to lift from his chest. The guilt that sits heavy in his stomach has lightened its load with every hour he accompanies his friends, and it lightens even more as he closes his eyes and breathes. He’s scared of Caleb’s judgement more than anyone else’s, but his breath has caught every time he’s looked at Caduceus since they discovered what he’s done. Caduceus has passed little judgement, has been one of the more graceful about his presence after Jester. Still, Essek has worried.
Now, he closes his eyes and lets Caduceus look at him, look into him. He hopes Caduceus doesn’t find him wanting and tries not to worry that he will.
When it’s over, when Caduceus finally lets out a content sigh, he opens them again.
“That was nice,” Caduceus says, giving him another bright little smile, floppy ears perked. “We should do that again. You’re much better at sitting still than Fjord.”
“I cannot promise to be so still every time,” Essek says, but he finds himself smiling back this time. An invitation for more time spent like this lifts his spirits as much as the meditation itself. “But I will do my best.”
“That’s all any of us ask, Essek,” Caduceus says.
“Then I will try to answer satisfactorily,” Essek says, his own ears twitching with happiness in a way he’d thought trained out of him decades ago.
Caduceus brightens ever so slightly more and Essek lets his ears twitch again. It feels good, he decides, to be seen.