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“What is it, Bahram? What’s wrong?” Isfan places a comforting hand on the canine’s back and attempts to calm it down in a hushed tone while combing through the wolf’s thick coat.
The wolf cub with reddish-brown fur has been restlessly pacing around the camp site for the last half hour, whimpering and pawing at the ground, and while its brother Kayvan stays alert and remains close by Isfan’s feet, its brilliant onyx eyes are flitting nervously towards the dense darkness of a coniferous forest in the northeast direction.
“Northeast…” he murmurs softly to himself, the crackling of the burning ambers before him almost concealing his voice.
The image of a young wandering musician – lips upturned with a cheeky grin or leaving clever but at times inappropriate insults behind, and vibrant, mirthful eyes that sparks up with delight whenever a topic catches his interest – slips into his mind, and Isfan remembers the man’s last words before he departed for his mission about three weeks ago.
“Protect your master in my stead while I’m gone, Bahram, Kayvan,” Gieve patted Bahram on the head and the wolf rubbed its nose against him with warm affection in return, licking his fingers once before trotting back to Isfan. Kayvan, on the other hand, was less expressive than its sibling, though it seemed to perfectly understand Gieve’s words from the way its intelligent eyes were trained on to the dark-haired musician’s figure.
“And don’t miss me too much, Isfan-kyou,” Gieve gave him an off-handed smile and a casual wave, all flippant and teasing, the syllables of his name dipped and rose like gentle waves of a summer lake, mischievous like fingers dancing lightly along heated, sensitive skin.
“Don’t get yourself killed,” Isfan had replied curtly then, and turned around.
According to the initial plan, Gieve was supposed to meet up with the rest of the Parsian troops located at Gilan five days ago with information concerning the movements of the Turks, who had been spotted several times lurking close to Pars’ eastern border. He was only accompanied by thirty cavalrymen when he left, as he claimed that he worked much more efficiently by himself anyway, and would only required the soldiers to act as extra lookouts and correspondence in case something should happen to him.
So far though, none of the Parsian soldiers who had left with Gieve have returned, but there’s nothing they can do while they wait.
The sky is clear tonight, with constellations smattered across velvet black, but the humid wind from the coast is much colder against his skin than it was during daytime. Isfan can’t understand out why his two wolves are so agitated; he figures it must be something that only animals are keenly aware of that escape humans’ duller senses, and so, pulling his cloak tighter around himself and making sure that his sword is lying close within his reach, he carefully surveys his surroundings every so often and observes Bahram and Kayvan’s reactions.
Bahram’s distressed whining grows louder as minutes passed by, and even Kayvan is standing rigidly beside its brother now, its dark eyes staring intently at something in the distance that Isfan is still unable to discern, but as an experienced fighter, he’s learned to always prepare for the worst, and so he pulls out his sword in a graceful arc, the silver of the metal glimmering weakly in the moonlight.
Isfan hears footsteps to his left: unsteady, carelessly loud, and not at all attempting to hide its presence. From the way the person’s dragging their feet, it seems like they may be injured or tired, but he’s not taking any chances.
A shadow, crooked and shaking, emerges from the shadows of the trees, and Isfan’s stance stiffens as he calls out cautiously, “Who goes there?”
A pause of silence, and Isfan’s grip on his sword tightens marginally.
“I-is that you, Isfan-kyou?” A voice that should have been familiar to Isfan’s ears replies, but contrary to the impish tone he’s been so used to, Gieve sounds exhausted, voice cracking like a curled, dried leave almost at the end of its life. He stumbles into the campsite where the flickering orange light of the flames barely touches him, and Isfan swoops in just in time to catch the musician as he staggers into his arms with a pained groan.
“Gieve-kyou?”
Isfan’s sword clatters to the ground, and the first thing that the brunet notices is his blood-soaked clothes and how cold and clammy his skin feels when Isfan gently lays him down by the fire and touches the back of his hand to the injured man’s cheek. There’s a shallow cut on one side of his face, the blood having dried some time ago, but there are deeper and longer incisions – from enemies’ swords, Isfan presumes – on his upper arm and abdomen.
How he has managed to escape from the Turks’ pursue while losing so much blood and enduring such level of pain is beyond Isfan’s comprehension, but he makes it back alive, though just barely.
He knows he needs to keep him conscious until he can get help from one of the medical officers.
“Gieve-kyou, please,” Isfan lightly taps the musician on his cheek, and the man gradually blinks his eyes open at the nuisance, confused green irises unfocused for a few seconds before finding Isfan staring down at him with a worried frown. Despite the throbbing ache, Gieve can faintly feel the two wolves lying down on either side of him, their fur tickling the bare skin of his arms and emitting haloes of warmth from their bodies. “What happened? Where are the others?”
“I’m sorry,” Gieve swallows with difficulty, eyes squeezing close as another wave of nauseating pain washes over him that almost pushes him towards the edge once more, but he holds on – the fingers that are clasped tightly against his is his anchor, his core. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to –– ”
At the thought of the thirty brave men who had lost their lives in order to give him the time to escape, their voices urging him to keep running, blood splattered and soaked the soil where they once stood and fought, and the light of their eyes slowly dimming to nothingness, to death, Gieve’s heart gives a guilty tug that causes another fit of coughing to rip from his esophagus that doesn’t stop until Isfan is able to feed him a few mouthfuls of water from his canteen.
With a brief but firm command to Kayvan, the wolf with a dark patch of fur around one of its eyes quickly rushes off into the darkness in search for help.
“Don’t worry about that right now. We’ll figure this out once we patch you up,” Isfan’s tone remains calm, but his entire frame is shivering and it has nothing to do with the temperature. He still sees blood oozing out from the hastily wrapped bandages, and he’s about to release Gieve’s hand so that he can tear off one of his sleeves as a temporary bandage, but the musician’s hand, fingertip calloused from years of playing the oud, only squeeze tighter around his.
“Need – need to report to Narsus…” Gieve continues, the glassy teal of his gaze seeming faraway and not seeing anything before him. A burst of strong wind, briny and sultry from the southern coast, sweeps up Gieve’s disheveled hair and causes the campfire to waver violently as ashes and smoke swirl in the air with a chaotic choreography.
“Gieve, damn it,” Isfan murmurs fiercely, lower lip having bitten raw as he leans over even closer so that with every word the man speaks, Gieve can feel the reassuring warmth of his breath against his cheek. “Just shut up for a moment and concentrate on me.”
The musician turns his head, a lock of his violet-tinted hair falling limply into his eyes, and even the slight motion makes him wince and gasp out in discomfort, but it doesn’t stop Gieve from giving Isfan his infamous smirk, though the blood and scratches on his face may have ruined the effect of his usual insufferably poised expression.
The confused haze in his eyes clears up a little at Isfan’s insistent voice.
“Since when did you become so possessive, Isfan-kyou?” A raspy, breathless voice accompanies the obnoxious words that under any other circumstances, Isfan would have scoffed at and stalked away in disgust. But if Gieve is still capable of making such a foul joke, then it must mean that his injuries are not as serious as Isfan may have first imagined.
“Since you failed to show your face here on time,” Isfan replies, not even bothering to defend himself, because it’s true, isn’t it? They don’t need the sweet words of reassurance and fragile promises – language becomes nothing but a hindrance at times like this, and Isfan is never good with expressing himself in the first place, not like Gieve with his flowery poetry and pretty compliments that easily spring from that sharp and talented tongue of his.
A stolen touch of fingers pressing against inner wrists as they pass by in a crowd of flurried soldiers, a brief kiss to the temple when political matters get too suffocating, or the unbearable heat of skin against skin, the broken, ragged sigh of a name that’s not quite a name, just jagged syllables and shards of emotions – a strange and unfamiliar territory for both – carving stars and scars invisible to the naked eye.
Words are too much, too difficult. So they don’t talk about it – what they have, what they are. But Isfan knows, and he thinks Gieve does, too.
“Always have to make your entrances and exits dramatic, don’t you?” A shaky smile tugs at Isfan’s lips.
“Got to make it memorable for you, don’t I?” Gieve returns with a feeble laugh, so delicate as if the softest wind will carry it off. Isfan’s hand, still clasped to Gieve’s, is wet with the wandering musician’s blood that continues to seep through the cloth stained almost black.
“Narcissistic bastard,” Isfan scolds him, not without a hint of exasperated fondness, and Gieve doesn’t even deny that accusation. Isfan has called him worst things before after all.
“What if you were to forget me the moment I’m gone?” Gieve blinks up at him with a small grin, less sharp than his usual one but still has the same sentiment – teasing, light-hearted – but Isfan notices that the interval between each blink is growing longer with every labored breath the injured man inhales.
“Impossible,” Isfan traces the line of his cheekbone, careful to avoid the cuts, and Gieve opens his eyes dazedly at the tender touch.
The thought that leads up to the previous question seems to have caused Gieve dismay, however, for his elegant brows dip into a displeased scowl as he mutters, “I will not allow that to happen.”
As if to agree with him, Bahram licks his other hand soothingly, and Gieve raises his palm a little so that the wolf can duck his head under for the musician to give him a small pat on its snout.
“I just can’t seem to shake you off, try as I may.”
“You’ve never stood a chance.”
And once again, Gieve is right.