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The comb in his shaky hand, carved from pine, catches another tangle. It pulls, a sharp pain across his scalp, like pin-pricks, as he yanks it through.
Caduceus clenches his jaw, the edge of his tongue bitten between molars, and tries his best to push through the terrible, awful pulling sensation… Tries. Because then there’s another knot, and another, and he really can’t deal with any of it right now. Too tired from all the dreaming and the loud dinner-chatter, so he throws the comb back inside his pack, and wishes he threw it harder.
He braids his hair anyway, ignoring the knots as he tears it into threes before weaving it together again. At least then it’s out of his face. At least he can go to sleep comfier, even if it takes a long time. (Even if he knows it won’t last.)
He climbs into the bed, quilts impossibly soft beneath his paws, and settles on his side. His cheek sinks into the moss-soft pillow. Sinks and sinks, head so heavy.
A yawn.
(A silence.) And eyes that won’t stay open.
(A sensation like floating, warm and womb-like. Smelling of earth… Then — )
Eyes. Hundreds.
The knowing that he’s being hunted, alone in the dark — A stalker behind.
A watcher, a breather. A something out there, noticing.
The space he floats in now goes on forever, and is cold, the something always approaching. Always there, its eyes on him.
All of it’s far-off eyes.
When Caduceus turns it isn’t behind him.
When he turns back around again it’s right where it was — impossibly far away and terribly close. And — He stops, because… Because. Because his realisations are so terribly loud, his own heartbeat a thunderstorm, and he’s sure it can hear him.
How else would it watch him from an infinite distance?
Caduceus stares at the something — its shadow-movement — until the jagged raking of bramble across skin startles him back, and he’s already running. Tearing, all of him, as he sprints through the Grove. He’s Belle but not, young and terrified and wanting so badly to reach out and comfort her — Himself. Her, with rainbow hair and smaller, stained hands. More agile than he is, ducking beneath the grasping trees, winding through the graves.
But h e isn’t as agile, so he trips — And then there’s falling. There’s red, scrawling, and there’s an opening in the moss that means he doesn’t stop when he hits it. He passes through, with nothing to hold onto — and the motion jerks him awake in his bed, hands up to brace himself. Sweat-soaked and shivering. He blinks in the dark and imprinted on his eyelids is the last thing he saw — T he other side of the moss-blanket, the emptiness filled with infinite almost-stars. All red and blinking.
Caduceus scrubs at his eyes, too hard, and sends spirals and light-spots across them. For a while he just lies there on his side, hands pressed to his eyes, letting the light-spots dance, waiting for a whole breath. Waiting. (Please.)
A shudder. An exhale.
He lets his hands fall away from his face, limp on the quilt as he shivers in his cold-sweated nightgown, the blankets all tossed around. Hair halfway undone.
He pulls at it, caught beneath his shoulders, tangled round his throat. (A panicked breath. A slower one, after a moment.) He yanks it free and there’s a snap or two, thin strands of pale hair left on the pillow.
And that’s a thing — he gets out of bed, wrestling his way out off his damp-cold nightgown, sore as a button catches his jaw, then catches his hair. He tears it free with an angry, breathless little noise. And then it’s just quiet, his shuddery breathing distant, lost in the middle-of-the-night silence. It’s a sort of a cocoon, surrounding him, muffling things. He likes that idea more than it being a fog, heavy and blanketing. Instead it’s sort of like he’s inside a lantern, sat on the front step, waiting for someone to come home…
Caduceus stands alone in a lovely room, made just for him, and isn’t sure what he was going to do. So he pulls a throw from the bed and dresses himself in it, wrapping it around his shoulders as he crosses the room to the fireplace, burning low, painting a warm-dark glow outward from it. He bends to toss a handful of kindling to the embers and his hair falls over his shoulders, tangled and in the way and, Oh —
He digs his bitten nails into his palms so he won’t just tear it out. Clenches his jaw as he tosses a log to the fire. And he takes his heavy head back to the bed-end to go digging in his pack, past the comb and instead to a small sheathed blade near the bottom. He pulls it free, though it isn’t the sharpest. And, without thinking, pulls a lock of hair taught and cuts right through.
He ends up on the ground, a mirror propped up on the chair by the fireplace. Cutting and cutting and cutting. Slipping the knife through pale hair until it rests ragged and uneven just below his jaw. His undercut is overgrown, getting long enough to tuck behind an ear — he doesn’t trim it. Just leaves it be. And he leaves a single small braid too, to hang by his ear, decorated with beads from home. Two, slipped on over the thread that ties it — wooden, swirls carefully painted on the dark grain.
Then, he finds, after struggling with the back until his arms ache, he’s reached an end. There’s no more to hack at. Not much else he can do. It’ll only get worse if he keeps on going, so he lays the blade in his lap, and pushes all of his hair back from his face. Just… to see. It’s terrible, but part of him (a large part) is glad for the recklessness, and the hair all over the floor. He turns, brushing the last of it from his shoulders. And he sighs, slow and exhausted.
He feels (sort of) better for it. Lighter, maybe. Mostly…
Better than before, at least.
He stands with some effort (and asleep feet), taking his lighter-head to find his kettle and something calming to steep inside it. Chamomile, partly, with fuzzier things from home mixed in. Slowly, he makes tea crouched on the carpet. Slowly, he drinks, and is struck by the feeling — like candle-smoke ghost slipping beneath his skin — that he’s done this before — has dreamt, and torn off sweat-soaked clothes to stand naked and see-through in an empty room. He has made tea after, huddled on the floor, trying to breathe in the dark.
Though, he doesn’t know when, or how long ago when was. But, probably, it was at home, all alone; it feels a whole lot like home. But, then again, he’s been at home a lot.
(And he can only wonder what the dream would’ve been.)
(Dreams, he wants to correct himself. And can’t quite figure out why.)
Fingertips cold, he clenches his hands into fists, because even tonight’s dream is bedroom-familiar. Under his skin and caught on his ribs like the rest of it.
(Eyes in the dark. And the recognition of something without an end.)
(Sinking with petals in his mouth.)
He shakes his head to clear it, suddenly dizzy — All of back then was dream-blurred anyway… He was barely even a witness to it.
After a time, because he’s still all sweat-damp, still adrenaline-jittery, Caduceus wanders to the bath, with it’s steaming water, ever-replenishing in the copper tub. Maybe — he trails his fingertips across the rippling surface — maybe he ought to wash out his hair too, so that it sits better, and to get rid of the itchy cuttings caught in his fur.
Yeah…
He scrubs at his tired face and drops the quilt onto the floor. (Okay… Okay.)
Wobbling on one leg, he steps in, and sinks down deep, pulling his nightgown into the water to wash it alongside himself. A deeper inhale… and he goes under, fabric bundled in both hands, and no long hair floating above. He empties his lungs to feel the air escape and sits up again, spine against the bath-side to sit and scrub at his and the nightgown’s armpits — taking turns. (He smiles at that.)
And after he scrubs soap through his hair and between toes, even though he washed before bed and doesn’t really need it. It’s just, like… It’s something like routine, like a ritual, and it soothes somewhat. Especially this far from home, where there’s apparently no routines at all, not even always tea for breakfast in the morning. So even a small routine, a repetitive, reliable movement, stops the shaking. Steadies still-trembling hands. Slows the hammering of a heart against sore ribs.
(A quick pressing of a spell to his chest works too, if said small routine doesn’t.)
(Even if it’s only for a brief, floating, moment.)
But that isn’t necessary, not right now. It’s reserved for the road, where there’s no hot baths. And only when there’s a little extra of the Mother’s energy to spare. If he could, Caduceus thinks, he might use it more, which, is probably not the best response to things. But, then again… Then again…
Caduceus lets the thought trail off. And soaks in the steaming tub a little while longer, considering falling asleep right there, in the warmth. He’s not sure he trusts his sleeping body not to slip down, though, so instead he stares at his bruised knees ahead of him. In the water, through the haze, they’re boney, barren islands. No seabirds or anything. No spindly birches. Only wet-fur seaweed. (And cut hairs drifting on the surface.)
. . .
Eventually, reluctantly, he leaves the bath, dripping on the floor as he dries off. He dresses in socks and a blanket round his shoulders again, and he hangs his nightgown up in front of the fire.
(Mother, he halfheartedly asks, let it be dry in the morning.)
Which, speaking of — The morning could very well be soon. Or could be hours away. With no horizon, no moon or stars, it’s impossible to know. (And a little frightening on his own.)
So Caduceus sits down in front of the crackling flames, legs criss-crossed. And he feeds it another log, gently. Followed by a handful of pine-needles, tossed from a trouser pocket, to listen to the snapping sound they make. They fill the room so briefly with their sweet-sharp scent, and then its gone again, replaced by the constant earthy wood-fire smoke.
Caduceus sits very still and lets the fire warm him. Slowly outstretching each forearm, each calf, his tail-end, and a bowed head of shorter hair, to dry the thicker sections of his patchy, wintery coat. And, after, he gathers pillows and a quilt, curling up on the floor to watch the light dance as he gets just a little dripped on by his nightgown above him. Sort of like the stove back home, he’s hot-faced, mid-winter cocooning.
Sort of.
—
He’s not sure when, or how long it takes, but he must fall asleep again, because he’s woken by knocking at his door. Followed quickly by Jester’s sing-song voice:
“Caduceus?” she calls. “Ca-du-ceus?”
It takes a while to find a reply, like digging down into the earth to pull up difficult tubers, fine roots all tangled and stubborn. He manages, almost. A croaked out Yeah.
Too quiet, he tries again: “Yeah. I’m awake.”
“Okayyy. Just checking,” Jester replies. “Caleb says we should all get ready to go soon.”
“Okay.” Caduceus has nothing else to say, propped up on his elbows. He’s just tired.
Jester calls one more Okayyy, sounding tired too, and then she’s gone, and Caduceus is still by the fire and beneath his night gown. Still on the floor, arms so heavy.
He should really get dressed, and he should really brush his hair, and braid it, and —
Oh. Oh, yeah.
His hands find the ragged ends, fingers running through it. It’s so much shorter, running out far sooner than he’s used to, and dried all sticking up on one side, where he’d slept on it.
He sits up slow, after a time. (It takes a moment, a grumbling.) And then he’s face-to-face with the mirror and his tired eyes and aching shoulders. His kind-of terrible hair, all hacked at and ragged, is shorter on one side, too.
It’s… (It wasn’t one of his most thought out moments.)
Despite the uneven lengths he shakes his head side to side and doesn’t miss the tangles. The bouncing round his jaw is maybe even nice, odd-pleasant.
He finds his comb in his pack again, to brush out the looser tangles. And he ties it back, half-up, half-down while he washes his face, then leaves it like that while he does everything else.
First, for clothes, is a thermal layer, with leggings that make him almost-claustrophobic and sort of suffocated. But without them he’s just cold, and soon-to-be hypothermic, this far north. So he wriggles his way into them and wool socks, into more layers overtop, and is sweaty again.
Still, he pauses, heartbeat loud as he stares at the cut-off hair on the floor. He lifts strands carefully, three roughly the same length, and knots them together at the ends. Quickly, without thinking, he braids them, tying them in place with a leather cord.
The thin braid is slipped into a pocket in his middle-layer trousers. Protected from falling out, not easily reachable. But still, near.
(And that’s more than enough.)
Caduceus leaves his room with his pack on his shoulders, heavier coat and furs in his arms. And with a red face, all hot and embarrassed suddenly — about his hair and its torn-at, break-down, raggedness. He knows the Nein will ask about it, of course. Or, worse: be worried. But there isn’t time for hiding. The tower will have to disappear again soon, and they’ll have to keep moving. So Caduceus smiles despite it taking more and more effort. (And despite the ache in his temples.) And he ties back the tired like a tourniquet, eyes gentle, and covers his upset with a heavy wool hat, pulled down low.