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She is unusually quiet as you leave behind the clinic and emerge onto the streets. She hasn’t spoken much in general these last few days; she’s always seemed distracted, even though she’s hardly left your side. Her silence suits a town at dusk shrouded in the gray of a late-winter storm. Sound and vision alike are hampered by the soft slow drift of snowflakes transforming the landscape into a series of featureless mounds.
She walks a little ahead of you, head turning from side to side as she scans the ground. Even then you still feel as if she should speak at any moment. She will raise her voice in idle chatter about shared acquaintances, perhaps, or point out interesting sights that you would never have noticed on your own. But she does not so much as tell you to watch your step, only gestures wordlessly for you to follow her.
You do so. She strides along at her usual restless pace, too wrapped up in her worries to spare much thought for you. You manage to keep up somehow, though the effort sets your lungs to aching.
When she is so unlike herself, it falls to you to break the silence. You give an overdramatic sigh, though it too is swallowed up by the snow. “At last I am free to leave. It is no small favor you ask when you drag me across the star without warning. I have work to do, you know; I wish you would stop interrupting it with your emergencies.”
She ducks her head and does not answer. Concern wells up within you, and you turn to regard her fully. For a rarity, you are barefaced in public: This is one of those distant, eccentric towns where you would stand out all the more if you did wear your masks. Even so, her expression is completely closed to you.
You say her name questioningly. She shakes her head, as if coming out of a reverie, and stops walking. Her smile is distant, soft and cold as the snow all around you.
“You should be able to reach your laboratory from here,” she says. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”
You do not move. How can you move—how could you leave when she is standing before you looking like a stranger?
When you only look down at her, awaiting an explanation, even that smile falls. She sighs, her breath stirring the flakes in the air. “Hades, I’ve been thinking.”
Her tone makes your stomach drop. In an attempt to lighten the mood, you say, “That’s rare,” but she shows no reaction.
She swallows. She lifts her gaze and looks directly at you at last. Her eyes are exactly the same shade as yours, a burnished gold bright in the gray darkness. It is with clear difficulty that she says, “I won’t summon you anymore if that is your wish.”
Your jaw drops.
Swiftly she adds, “You’re always complaining when I do—I know it’s a great imposition on you—and you’re not accustomed to it. The sorts of things I ask of you, I mean; the battles and the disasters and the great works of magick. It’s unfair of me to ask so much of you.”
That’s not what you meant, or at least that’s not how you meant it, even if that’s how it sounded. You weren’t telling her to leave you alone. If anything, you’re telling her to be more cautious, to stop putting herself into situations that require you to come to her rescue.
“Don’t you dare.” The words come out choked. This loss of composure is unlike you, but you cannot bring yourself to care. “We’ve discussed this before. I would see you safe—”
“And I would not see you dead on my account!”
Her outburst cuts through the dampening of the snow. You stumble back, caught by surprise at her sudden vehemence. Her breathing has grown ragged and her eyes are aflame. There at last is the life and vigor she has been lacking, but now it is turned on you in the form of outrage.
“You were stabbed in the lung, Hades.”
That’s what she says, but you hear something different. The self-recrimination in her voice is impossible to miss. “I got you stabbed in the lung,” she means, and it is so wrong and so upsetting that you hiss in a sharp breath. Your back twinges in answer, but you ignore it. She does not face you—almost as if she is afraid to face you, and isn’t that laughable, the idea that your dearest friend might be afraid of anything.
You seize her by the shoulders and turn her towards you. Then you stop. Her face is contorted in a way you’ve never seen before, as agonized as if she were the one injured, and you want—
You want to make her stop looking like that, no matter what it takes.
You say her name, as gently as you know how, and she winces; you say it again, this time loosening your hold on her, though you do not yet release her. “I do not hold you at fault. There is no reason to blame yourself.”
Still she remains closed to you. Not for the first time, you curse your ineloquence. Honest words have never come easily to you; now again you find you don’t have the means to make her understand.
“This was my problem to solve,” she says. “It didn’t need to involve you.”
“You called me because you need me,” you retort. It’s a truth neither she nor you can deny. She needs you.
But even that does not convince her, and so you persist, “You needed my help. Or are you saying it would have been acceptable had you been the one stabbed?”
She jerks back, pulling away from you with the movement, and studies her footprints in the snow. “…I wouldn’t have been stabbed.” You snort, but she continues, her voice growing stronger, “I’ll figure something out. If it’s not something within my power to handle, I’ll ask Azem next time. Or…”
Her words are weak and unconvincing, and she must realize it, because she falters and trails off. She wraps her arms about herself, and if not for your argument, you might think it due to the cold.
In her place, you pick up. “You are as self-absorbed as always. Do you spare so much as a single thought for us on your travels?”
Her brows draw together. You’ve annoyed her. Still, it is a marked improvement from her previous expression of defeat. “I send you souvenirs all the time.”
“Souvenirs,” you echo. “As if they are sufficient recompense for what you put us through.”
What she puts you through.
“I said I’ll stop summoning you—”
“Not that,” you interrupt. The sharpness of your tone makes her wince and step back. You lower your voice, remembering where you are—that just because the snow falls in a shrouding curtain all around you, that does not mean you are unobserved. “You go haring off without a care in the world. You throw yourself gleefully into danger somewhere far out of sight and far out of reach, and we never find out till after the fact. Do you think we enjoy it? Knowing that at any moment you might be risking your life and we would never know?”
Her mouth opens and closes. She reminds you of an experimental fish you saw in the Words of Mitron once, one that was continually trying to gulp down air but had not yet grasped the art of breathing.
The distance between you has widened into a gulf. She no longer stands next to you with the comfortable familiarity of close friends; she is several fulms away, so far that the sight of her figure begins to blur through the snow. You take two steps forward, catching her hands and squeezing tight before she can retreat further and disappear entirely.
Her hands are cold. So are yours, but at least she does not pull away.
Your voice is low and strangled. You will only say this once. You may never be able to admit to these feelings outside of this moment. “We worry more than you know. We tolerate it because we know you can live no other way and still remain yourself—but I can bear it only because I know you will call for me if you need me.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she says—but her words have gone soft again. She realizes that she is saying the same thing you are. She does not want to call you because she is afraid you will be hurt. You want her to call you because you are afraid she will be hurt.
The two of you cherish each other deeply, and there is nothing more precious than that.
You shake your head. The motion sends snow sliding from your hair into your eyes, but brushing it away would mean releasing her, and so you endure the discomfort. “If you fear for my safety, it’s because I am weak.”
She starts to protest, but you only raise your voice. “Don’t. It was I who failed to live up to your expectations. It will not happen again.”
There is doubt in her eyes but none in your heart. You squeeze her hands. “I swore once before that I would protect that which I hold dear. I do so again now. Call me to your side whenever you need aid. I will grow stronger—into someone you will never hesitate to rely upon. You need not worry about me then. I will protect myself and you as well.”
She lifts her chin—and ah, there it is at last, a flash of that familiar stubbornness in her gaze. “Then I’ll grow stronger too, strong enough to protect the both of us. And, er…”
She hesitates. Her eyes dart to the side. “…I’ll work on my healing too. Just in case one of us does get stabbed.”
“The entire point is to avoid being stabbed,” you say.
You mean to scold her; instead it comes out almost as a laugh. She laughs too, and only then do you realize how much you’ve missed the sound. You haven’t heard it ever since she called you in the midst of a battle that ended with your injury.
She twists her hands in your grasp so that she is holding tight to you as well. Her face is flushed from the chill, as is yours. You sigh and offer her a smile, hoping to set her heart at ease. “Come. It is far too cold and dark to stand about outside. I seem to remember you rambling about the delights of hot cider on a snowy evening; let’s find a place to sit down and have a drink.”
“I thought you were in a rush to return,” she says doubtfully.
“I’m several days behind already. A bell or two more won’t make much difference.”
“…Well. If you insist, I’m sure I can find a place.”
You can hardly walk if you’re clinging on to each other, so you release her with reluctance. She sidles up to you, indecently close as is her custom, and you sigh again but this time offer no protest.
“Thank you, Hades,” she murmurs.
“Find me some of that cider and we’ll consider ourselves even,” you say.
She loops her arm through yours and tugs, and you go with a will.