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"Jes?"
"Yes?"
The bedsheets rustled when Wylan rolled over to squint at Jesper in the darkness of the bedroom, where the only source of light came from the moon shimmering through a crack in the shutters.
"Are you still awake?"
In the silence, Wylan could hear his own heartbeat. Quick, but steady.
Jesper sighed and ran a hand over his face. "What does it look like?"
Wylan sighed, too. He couldn't remember a single night since he had asked Jesper to move into the mansion with him where Jesper had managed to fall asleep before him - or, just asleep in general - and it was starting to worry him.
It wasn't like it completely surprised him. He, too, found his own thoughts circling around all the things that had happened in such a short time. About his father's arrest, Inej leaving, Matthias - it all bubbled up whenever he had a quiet moment and wasn't busy trying to make himself familiar with his father's business documents or stuffing his mouth with delicious food or kissing Jesper until they both nearly ran out of air because there was nobody and nothing to disturb them.
But Jesper - it seemed like even now, he was full of energy and ready for battle all around the clock. Wylan sometimes felt like he could literally see the cogs turning behind his forehead when he looked at him, like he was already mentally preparing the next shot, even though he had no idea who next his opponent would be. And it was always the worst when they went to bed. Wylan could see the results in Jesper's tired eyes in the morning, even though Jesper tried to hide it behind charming smiles and whispering things into his ears that made him blush in an instant.
"Does your mind ever get really quiet?"
Wylan propped his chin up on his hand and started tracing the pattern on the bedsheets between them. If this was going to be another sleepless night, then he would stay awake, too. They were in this together. So as long as he could fight his own eyes from drooping too much -
"It used to, when I was very little," Jesper confessed. There was a small smile on his lips.
Wylan paused. Curious, and maybe also hopeful. "Yeah?"
"Mhm." Jesper pointed at the wall. "My mother had a secret trick."
Wylan followed his finger with his gaze. "Jurda blossoms?" He asked, inspecting the soft pink wallpaper with the pattern of orange blossoms like he was seeing it for the first time.
Jesper turned his head on the pillow so he was looking at Wylan. There was suddenly a spark of child-like excitement in his eyes. "Have you ever seen what the Jurda plant looks like after all the blossoms have been picked and the plant is withering and dying in fall? Before the dead stalks of the plants get cut off and removed, so the field is ready for the new crops in spring?"
Wylan shook his head. "I don't think so. The blossom is all people really care about, isn't it?"
"It's certainly what makes a living for a lot of Zemeni farm folks," Jesper agreed. "But there's something special about standing in a field of blossom-less Jurda plants after the year's harvest is over. I used to love it."
Wylan scrunched his nose. "I have to admit, enjoying dead flowers seems more like a thing I expected Kaz to do."
Jesper snorted. "No, he would have probably ripped them out right away and tried to find a way to make some money even from the dead stalks. But I enjoyed running my hands over the dried leaves, and I especially liked it when the cold winds wandered over the lands in the late fall."
"I think I lost the connection to what all of this has to do with your sleeping problems," Wylan frowned.
"Now who's the impatient one?" Jesper teasingly nudged his leg under the covers. "My mother used to find me asleep in the middle of the Jurda field," he quickly steered them back on track. "I would make her grow sick with worry because she was looking for me all over the fields but couldn't see me between the high stalks of all the dried plants. But this noise, this quiet rustling the wind produced when it danced through the field of dead Jurda plants was so soothing to me that I couldn't help it. I just had to lay down and listen to it."
Wylan only just now noticed that he had stopped repeatedly tracing the pattern on the bedsheets because he was attentively listening, trying to imagine the picture Jesper was painting in front of his eyes.
"After that, she always set aside a bundle of dried Jurda stalks from the year's harvest, because the rest of them got burned once they were fully dried and cut off from the field," Jesper remembered. "She used to hang it up in my room, right next to the window so that the wind could play with it when I left it open a crack during the colder nights."
"And that helped to make you sleep?" Wylan asked, amazed.
Jesper shrugged. "Yes. It's not the same as a full field of them, of course, but it was mostly for the comfort anyway."
Wylan scooted closer so he could almost rest his head on Jesper's chest. "When...when was the last time you had dried Jurda stalks?"
Jesper paused just for a second.
"Well, after my mother was gone, I tried to keep it going with every harvest, but it reminded me too much of her, of the way she tied them together with this little red ribbon, tight enough that no stalk would fall out but loose enough that the wind could play with it. I could never fully get it right. But I do miss the sight of a Jurda field at the end of fall. I supposed the last time I saw one was before I left home to go to Ketterdam and after that..." He made a gesture with his hand. You know the rest of the story.
Wylan did. Which was why it made him all the more sad to think of the little boy Jesper must have once been. A boy spending his days playing around in dried Jurda fields, carefree and unaware of all that was about to come, just him and the wind playing its soothing lullaby, and -
Jesper looked up. "Where are you going?"
Wylan had thrown back the covers, slipped out of bed and was padding over the floor on naked feet, following a sudden idea that had popped into his mind.
His goal was the dresser in the corner, where he had placed his flute case after practising in the afternoon because he had been too lazy to return it to the music room - seriously, the size of this house was nothing for lazy people. The clasps on the slim case snapped open readily like it had been expecting him, revealing the inside padded with red silk. The metal of the flute shimmered slightly in the dim light of the room and the coldness of its material was soothing to Wylan's hands when he held it tightly and climbed back into bed.
"What are you doing?" Jesper tried to sit up, but Wylan placed a hand on his chest and softly, but firmly, pushed him back down.
"Shh. Stay still. I'm gonna create you some wind," he explained confidently while he put together the pieces of his flute, adjusting them for just the right tune.
Jesper looked like he wanted to ask some questions - he really could not let Wylan have the final word, ever - but then, surprisingly, he did what he was told and let his head fall back onto the pillow.
"Close your eyes," Wylan instructed and set the flute to his lips.
He waited until he was sure Jesper was actually trying and keeping his eyes closed, then he started to softly blow air into the flute. Not enough that it created a full, rich sound, but enough for that airy, sort of scratchy whistling to come out of the instrument, the kind he used to hate when he first started learning to play the flute because it meant that he couldn't yet control the air with his lips and the pressure with his lungs well enough to create a full note.
Now, it was exactly what he wanted to achieve. He closed his own eyes, imagining the field of dead Jurda plants Jesper had described in his head, playing with the air between his lips like he was making it dance between dried leaves and headless stalks under the blue sky of Novyi Zem. Teasing and scratching and twirling.
Even though it wasn't the well-rounded melodies and nice harmonies his ear was so used to hearing that it noticed any little imbalance in their harmonies with painful awareness, he found himself enjoying how it felt - tickling his lips and making the metal of the flute hum under his fingers while the air escaped through the holes with little gasps.
Maybe now he understood, why little Jesper - head filled with a million thoughts, fingers prickling with a gift he had yet to fully understand, and a heart already beating for causes bigger than he could ever imagine - had found peace in this little dance of nature.
It whispered to him the story of Aditi's laugh, of Colm's fierceness, of the cool relief from the burning Zemeni summer and a home filled with love to return to that awaited you with open arms. Maybe in the wind was a little bit of zowa, too.
Wylan had no idea for how long he had been playing when he finally let the last breath escape through the body of the flute and lowered the instrument from his lips, but the light creeping into the bedroom from the little crack in the closed window shutters was just a tiny bit brighter than before as it fell onto the bed, painting jumbled lines over the bedding.
It was bright enough that Wylan could see that Jesper's eyes were still closed and his head had rolled off to the side, cheek now pressing into the soft fabric of the pillow. His right hand was placed on Wylan's side of the mattress, palm open and relaxed. If Wylan wasn't mistaken, there was even a tiny bit of drool on the corner of his mouth.
With a smile, Wylan carefully placed the flute on his nightstand without taking it apart to avoid making any noise. He felt a mix of giddy excitement and warm affection spread from his chest all throughout his body, a feeling he had grown all too familiar with during these past few weeks of living with Jesper, of constantly being allowed to be in the presence of his burning flame. But right now, there was also something else to it, a little bit unfamiliar and yet fitting right into the mix. Pride.
He slipped under the covers too, making himself comfortable. His lips felt dry and he itched for a sip of water, but he didn't want to take the risk of waking Jesper up by moving out of the bed, and he was also just too tired for it. Even though he never would've admitted it out loud, Jesper's sleeplessness had taken a toll on him, too. It was like his own brain could never really fully relax either as long as there was a body tossing and turning beside him every night, like a dog that always slept with one ear on alert, ready to fight and protect if needed.
Right now though, he only felt calm and still, like sleep was slowly washing over him like the waves of the ocean licked at the stone walls of the harbour during high tide, step for step claiming what had once been fully its own and would again, an eternal dance of back and forth, of gaining and loosing until the end of time.
And when Wylan finally slipped into full unconsciousness, he dreamed of chasing a boy with dark brown eyes and a gorgeous smile through a field full of Jurda flowers in full blossom, heart beating and smile tugging at his lips, feeling alive, safe, and happy.