Chapter Text
He drifted back and forth within the grey, surfacing briefly at first, then for longer periods, as his body healed. He marked his waking and the passage of time largely by whether the drink left at his bedside was bitter and herbal, shot through with green and oddly glittering flecks - the medicine from the healer, and as apt to knock him back into the grey as anything, or a cup of sweet soft cider or some sort of juice - or, his favourite, when Torinn returned for the evening, the rich and savoury broth - strained at first, then gradually loaded with shreds and chunks of vegetables he couldn’t always identify, and occasionally with meat.
He’d known for a few days now that he had been recovering on a pallet of folded blankets on the dragonkine’s breakfast table, within the wagon that Torinn called home. For someone as small as he was, and faced with the toothy reptilian grin that Torinn was all too happy to flash at anyone, that fact might have disturbed him - but the big fellow had been nothing but gentle. He occasionally heard others speaking outside, through the shuttered windows; this morning as he woke, he could pick out Torinn’s voice amongst the rest.
An unfamiliar voice approached, with a brusque shout of “Hoi, Torinn - you know we’re coming up on our next camp.”
Torinn’s voice, a little strained if he was any judge, said “Yes, and I know what we agreed. But… Master Merryshoulders… hear me out. I know, you’re going to tell me about the village just up north.”
The other voice - Master Merryshoulders - replied. “Yes. The lad should be with his own kind. Maybe his kinfolk.”
“Have you seen Fel? I saw … what he looked like when I found him.” That sounded more like a snarl. “If he came from there… they treated him bad enough that he ran away. You want to throw him straight back into it?”
Fel listened, propping himself up so he could peek out through the slats of the shutters. The name - wrong though it might be - had stuck. At first, he was just too sick to argue. Then he thought about it more, took the name back down into the grey with him. Rolled it over and past the dim watching shapes that lurked there - and they did not react. A hiding-name. And perhaps just enough to keep whatever waited on the other side of the grey from finding him again.
Outside, Torinn was looming over a broad-shouldered, stout man whose head barely came up to the bottom of the big dragonkine’s chest. He was angry, Fel realised - his earfrills were pinched tightly to the sides of his head, and his tail whipped back and forth in an irritable sweep. Master Merryshoulders snorted and put his hands on his hips, then tilted his head to look up at the other man.
“Not hardly, but I’ve already sent a runner to see if they’re missing anyone.”
The hissing, spitting tirade from between Torinn’s clenched teeth was impressive in length, variety and the clear implication that - even if the language was incomprehensible to Fel - it was positively obscene.
“If the lad wasn’t awake already, Torinn, he is now.”
Torinn spat one more harsh invective, then drooped. “I wish you hadn’t done that, Barnum. If they’re the ones that did that to him… he isn’t going back unless he wants to. And… if they’re not the ones who did it… they’re farmers up there. You think they can afford to feed someone who can’t earn his keep?”
The shorter man reached out and laid one stubby-fingered hand on Torinn’s arm. “I won’t make him go. But he deserves the choice.”
Torinn nodded, slowly, and replied “And if he chooses to stay?”
“The Togglefidget boy’s been asking after him, and that’d seem the logical place - Jella and Tanbis have a couple of spare berths in their wagon, which’ll do the little fellow better than your kitchen. But until he’s earning his own keep, you’re responsible for that.”
Their palms met, stubby pale fingers gripping clawed copper ones, as they shook on Fel’s fate.