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⚝
Night fell slowly over Trades Ward, the sounds of the calm evening embellished by chirping crickets hiding between the gaps of wood and stone. The city’s denizens were finishing up their errands, with workers heading home for an evening’s rest and friends parting ways in the streets to hail carts and hitch rides to their next destinations.
Jonas laid on the roof of the Sleepy Owl, looking up at the expanse of stars as the last streaks of sunset faded away to blackness. The city noise surrounding him was dampened from inside the alley where he had hidden himself from the bustle, up on top of Amiya’s home and business. He listened to the ambient sounds that accompanied his view, admiring the stars where they popped out like pinpricks of light through a dark sheet of parchment.
Things had been tense in recent weeks. In spite of their ventures chasing down lost coin and dodging the eye of city crime syndicates drawing to an abrupt close months ago, Jonas still felt a lasting anxiety from all they had contended with in those two short tendays. The persisting nervousness that accompanied being recognized on the street for his deeds—people he didn’t know—the fear of being watched by the Zhents even now, and the growing weight of work to be done getting Trollskull running smoothly after the honeymoon phase of it’s reopening had worn off… it was all wearing him thin. His mind was being burned away at both ends, and it left him with precious little time to relax and find some of that old normalcy he was growing to miss.
At least he could savor the moment he had right now.
The cool breeze of the oncoming night was beginning to lull him to rest where he was reclined on the soft thatch rooftop, and he couldn’t help but begin to doze off.
A gentle thump from down the roof line broke through his peace and quiet, abruptly pulling Jonas back out of his drowsy state. He sat up with alarm, whipping his head around to look for its source, breath held and body tensed.
A dark silhouette stepped out from behind the chimney stack and Jonas’s gaze locked onto it immediately. His eyes flew wide with panic before the figure raised both palms to him in a soothing gesture.
“Hey, it's okay, it's just me.”
The familiar voice immediately released the tension from his body, and he watched as Scriv pulled back his hood to show his face as proof, his golden eyes wide and his brows pinched with concern. Jonas let out a shaky sigh.
Scriv’s eyes shot to Jonas’s side, then back to his face, his expression turning apologetic. Jonas followed the elf’s gaze down to the hand he hadn’t realized had flown to reflexively grab his dagger—the one Scriv had given him for a circumstance like this—and quickly pulled it away to his lap.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you so badly,” Scriv said gently, lowering his voice.
“It's alright, I just…” Jonas looked down and rubbed the back of his neck, closing his eyes against the dissipating buzz of anxiety, “What are you doing up here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Scriv said as he approached him, his soft leather boots barely making a sound as he stepped across the dry thatch, “I was looking for you back at the workshop. I thought to try here when I couldn’t find you.”
He stopped when he was a few feet away, wringing his hands with a bit of nervousness before looking to the space next to Jonas.
“Is it okay if I sit with you?” he asked, his voice still tinged with remorse.
Jonas simply nodded, easing himself to lay back down like he had been before, tucking an arm behind his head to return to his stargazing. Scriv closed the distance and sat down next to him, leaning back on one palm and crossing his ankles to gaze up at the sky as well.
“So, what brought you up here tonight? Usually you’re bustling around inside the Owl, not sitting on top of it.” Scriv asked, twirling the end of his braid in his gloved fingers. Jonas drew in a long breath and sighed, recalling his current circumstances.
“Clement has a guest over, so I’m staying over here for the night,” Jonas said with his typical frustrated pout, “The weather was nice, though, so I didn't want to go inside during busy hours and miss it all. Amiya didn’t particularly need the extra help.”
“Well then, I suppose I must keep you company while you are temporarily homeless,” Scriv said as he reclined on the roof with a slight grunt, folding his arms behind his head once he was laying comfortably, “It's a very nice night to be lost in thought, at least.”
“Mhmm, the stars are amazing. It hasn't been this clear in ages,” Jonas mused as Scriv settled in next to him, close enough that their arms brushed together slightly.
Jonas watched him from the corner of his eye, hoping to not be noticed. Scriv’s presence was warm, bringing with it the scent of leather and oil that Jonas was slowly growing accustomed to, and somewhat comforted by. After so many years of their fabricated distance, having him within arm’s reach now felt like knowing him for the first time, complete with all of the nervousness of a new friendship.
“You were looking for me, did you need me for something?” Jonas asked, looking away to the sky once more. He could feel Scriv’s shoulder brush his own as he shrugged.
“Not particularly. I just wanted to see you. I finally had some free time tonight.”
“Oh, well I’m glad you found me, then,” Jonas hummed happily, letting his eyes fall closed. Scriv lightly bumped his foot against Jonas’s with a small smile. He felt something in his chest flutter.
They sat in the quiet together for a few minutes, admiring the stars and the nighttime silence, though Jonas found it difficult to focus on the sky with Scriv so close to his side. He felt compelled to move closer, to spark conversation or find some excuse to take his hand, but he pushed them back down his throat for fear of crossing some undiscovered line. Instead he trained his eyes back up at the stars and tried to ignore the knots tangling in his chest.
They laid together and watched the stars as they slowly came into view in the blackening sky, and shared the occasional chuckle over odd snippets of conversation from passers-by on the street below. Jonas’s awkward feeling gradually faded.
Scriv eventually turned his head to whisper to him, pulling Jonas out of the daydream he had begun drifting into.
“Do you know any constellations?” he asked, breaking the silence. Jonas opened one eye and looked over to Scriv’s eager face, and nearly burst out in a giggle at his change in expression.
“A few. We’ve made those star maps for Simril so they kind of burned into my mind, but I haven’t exactly committed them to memory past where they are on Clement’s master copy.”
Scriv grinned widely at him, rolling to one shoulder to face Jonas with his entire body.
“If you feel like a game, I’ll quiz you? It’s the perfect night for it,” his eyes were practically twinkling with excitement, and Jonas couldn’t help but smile.
“We’ve never played one of your games in person before... Sure, I’ll bite,” Jonas said, raising his brows with interest. Scriv’s smile looked like it could have split his face cleanly in half, and he quickly rolled onto his back again to face the night sky, rubbing his hands together thoughtfully.
“Alright, so, I’ll start with some easy ones and see how far we go.”
Scriv’s eyes searched the darkness intensely for a few seconds, leaving Jonas to look up at the stars calmly while he waited. Scriv pointed out to a cluster of stars to the east soon afterwards, tracing them with his gloved finger so that Jonas could make them out.
“Do you know what that one is, with the three lines of stars?”
“That's the arrows,” Jonas said with confidence, giving a curt nod of his head. Scriv gave a hum of affirmation as he searched the sky again.
“What about… that one?” he asked, pointing west to a collection of blue stars, and Jonas let out a short laugh.
“Those are the eyes, everybody knows which ones the eyes are.”
“Alright Geddarn, let's try some harder ones, then. What do you think that one is?” he quizzed as he gestured to another smattering of stars. Jonas picked his brain for a few moments before responding.
“Um… Either Tiamat or Bahamut? Some dragon. There's too many of those damn things.”
Scriv snorted with amusement at his tone, shaking his head.
“It’s the Dragon of Dawn but I’ll give it to you. There are a lot of them, to be fair,” he mused as he hunted around the stars once more, narrowing his eyes with consideration until they landed on something satisfactory.
“Alright, last one… There.”
Jonas squinted upwards to follow the point of Scriv’s finger with his eyes, but he couldn’t make out which stars he was gesturing to.
“Ah… I don’t think I can see it. There is a lot going on over there” Jonas mumbled, tilting his head. Scriv glanced over at the movement, noticing his strain.
“Here—”
He shrugged himself closer to Jonas’s side, shifting over and tilting his head until their temples softly rested together. Jonas held his breath, the flutter in his chest returning with a vengeance at their closeness. Scriv didn’t seem to notice as he took Jonas’s hand and reached their arms upwards, aiming one long finger up at the sky again.
“Close one eye and try to follow where I’m pointing.”
Jonas blushed, trying to focus against the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. He followed Scriv’s finger with his eye, squinting up at the mess of stars in the sky for some sort of shape as Scriv traced around.
“See it? One two three four, that big pink one, and the line of brighter ones?” he narrated as he moved their hands in tandem to mark them out. Jonas squinted up at the stars until he caught what he was describing.
“Oh, yeah, right there?” Jonas asked, retracing the shape with his own finger next to Scriv’s. The elf grinned again, humming happily in confirmation.
Jonas stared up at it thoughtfully for a while, trying to remember the shape and pattern from something he had heard or read before. He was beginning to feel the weight of drowsiness again, and brought their hands back down to rest on his chest as he thought. He didn’t notice as Scriv stilled next to him, idly rubbing his thumb over his gloved hand in thought until he eventually gave up.
“No, I don’t know that one. I remember marking those stars out on paper, but not what they mean.”
“That one is Jassa’s dagger. They say she was a queen in some far off land, and when she was killed in a siege, she threw her dagger up into the night sky, and it's been up there ever since.”
“Hmm, she must have had a damn strong throwing arm to get it stuck that high…” Jonas mused, mostly to himself. Scriv burst out with a surprised laugh, turning his head away so as to not make such a loud noise right in his ear, and covered his mouth with his free hand until it subsided.
“You would be surprised how many constellations have ‘something thrown into the sky and just got stuck up there’ as a key element in their stories.” he said with a slight chuckle still in his voice.
Jonas snuggled in closer to Scriv’s shoulder with a soft laugh, closing his eyes and bringing his head back in to rest there after he had moved away. He rubbed his face against the fabric of his cloak tiredly then settled his cheek on his shoulder, their hands tucked under his chin and his arm rested on Scriv’s chest.
“Do you know any other ones? Stories about constellations, that is.”
Scriv blushed at how close Jonas suddenly was, looking down at him with surprise. He cleared his throat quietly to answer.
“I do.”
“Can you tell me one? I want to listen to you talk…” Jonas mumbled, his voice slurring slightly.
“Hmm, alright…” Scriv settled in, some of the heat leaving his cheeks as he picked through his mind for a good constellation, eyes wandering the sky. He pointed up after finding a satisfactory one.
“See those four white stars there, with the four blue stars in the middle of them?”
“Mhmm…” Jonas hummed in confirmation without opening his eyes to look. Scriv smirked, deciding to let it slide just this once, and placed his free hand over Jonas’s arm before beginning.
“Well, those are called Lavarandar’s lantern. The white stars are the lantern, and the blue stars are his daughters. Lavarandar was a king, and they were princesses who were turned into werewolves…”
Scriv continued his tale, and Jonas listened quietly with the feeling of his voice softly vibrating against his cheek.
⚝
It didn’t take long for Jonas to doze off, escaping Scriv’s notice until he had finished his story. He paused when he felt the change in Jonas's breath, angling his head to look down and see that he had fallen asleep.
Scriv couldn’t help but stare, his features soft and peaceful, the eternal pinch in his brow smoothed away with his sleep. He watched his hair gently float on a nonexistent breeze and let his mind drift along with it. It was strange being able to look at him so closely now, to look at him and be able to pick out his features—the angle of his nose, the sparkle of dew across his skin, the way the curves of orange that rose on his cheeks stopped just short of where his lashes could reach—it made his heart race in a way that he hadn’t anticipated. Knowing that he could do so now whenever he wanted to, just walk right up to him and say hello, was a change he was still getting used to, and despite how happy Jonas was every time he had made an appearance these last few months, he still second guessed how much he was truly wanted every time.
The sudden creak of the ladder leading up to the Owl’s roof startled Scriv out of his thoughts. By the time he realized, it was already too late to make an easy escape, and the top of a head peeked into view over the edge of the thatching. He braced himself as he heard Amiya’s voice call over the eave.
“Jonas? I closed up the tavern for the night. If we can get the kitchen cleared up before you get too tired, I could make us some—“
Amiya froze mid-sentence as their head came over the top of the ladder, catching sight of the figure lying next to Jonas that stared back at them. Their expression flashed through a series of emotions in rapid succession—shock, rage, confusion—but finally settling on some level of understanding once they took in the scene in front of them. Jonas was calmly asleep and nestled up to the stranger’s side, half of their arm clutched against his chest as though it was his security blanket. They could put the pieces together in their mind easily enough.
“Oh, well pardon my intrusion, I didn’t know Jonas had company,” they said in a hushed tone, taking a moment to get a good long look at the elvish boy in the low light, “You must be the friend he has been mentioning to me… um, Skip?”
“Uh, Scriv…” he was barely able to push the sound from his throat with the sudden nervousness. He had spoken to Amiya before, or course, but never as a friend of Jonas’s, never as someone they had been told about.
“Scriv, yes, that was it,” they gave a short nod, leaning forward comfortably on their elbows, “I am sorry to interrupt your evening, Scriv, but I would like to borrow Jonas so that he can sleep on something a bit more suitable, if you don’t mind. It is quite late.”
Scriv nodded, if a bit reluctantly, and eased himself to sit up without jostling Jonas as Amiya climbed the rest of the way onto the roof and took a seat.
“He speaks very highly of you, you know. Quite highly for someone he has only been close with for a number of weeks,” Amiya mused, giving Scriv a knowing glance from the corner of their eye, “I can only hope that he is making a more accurate judgment of you than he has with some of his other recent friends.”
“I–I assure you I have his best interests in mind. I won’t be dragging him into any sewers or things…” Scriv could feel heat rise on the back of his neck under their stern eye.
“If Jonas is able to put his trust in you, I suppose so can I.”
Amiya finally released Scriv from their gaze, turning their attention to Jonas and giving his shoulder a gentle shake. The genasi took a sharp breath, opening his eyes a sliver wide and turning to look at them, seeming to still be half asleep.
“You should come sleep inside. Say goodnight to your friend,” Amiya all but cooed, gesturing to Scriv with a tilt of their head. Jonas simply grunted, heaving himself to sit upright and rub at his tired eyes. He continued leaning until his head met Amiya’s shoulder, and they wrapped an arm around him to pet the back of his head, drawing out a soft sigh. He eventually peeked back over his shoulder, still less than coherent, and waved the fingers of one hand at Scriv.
Scriv returned the small wave, unable to help the amused smile that made its way onto his face.
Amiya began slowly guiding Jonas back down the ladder to the alley below, pausing to address Scriv one more time with a warm smile.
“You are welcome to come by for breakfast, you know. Friends of Jonas are always welcome here.”
Scriv simply nodded as he stood and brushed the stray grass off of his clothes, unable to think of what to say, and watched their heads disappear over the side of the roof. He waited until he heard the tavern’s back door shut and lock before letting out a deep exhale.
He ran his fingers over his arm subconsciously as he found his way back across the rooftops, still able to feel the phantom sensation of Jonas holding onto it.