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Timing is everything. Easy to fumble. Moments missed. Notes are a common way of bridging the gap in the Lighthouse. Lists of groceries needed, communications about various objects and artefacts, opinions on goings on, a betting pool about who may start wandering around without pants—Lucanis likes to keep them. The ones that have fulfilled their purpose and would otherwise be discarded pile up in a little box in the corner of the pantry where he spends too many hours fighting sleep.
But those aren’t the only notes he keeps now.
When he returns from Arlathan, blood caked under the panels of his leather armor, a scuff on his brow, and a bruise along his ribs, he limps into the pantry to divest himself of the filth, but stops short when he sees one. Not the first, and Maker willing, not the last either. It’s there, sealed with wax, resting against his worn out pillow. Rich vellum with his name scrawled across it in slanting script. A note.
He yanks his gloves off with his teeth, not wanting a single smudge to mar the perfect surface of this little gift. He doesn’t know why, or even which of them truly started this little habit; months of running around trying to save the world tends to make things blur. But it’s a habit worth keeping. A light in the dark, a crackling hearth on a cold night. Like the first sip of coffee he’d had after leaving the Ossuary, each note warms him from the inside and provides so much comfort.
Lucanis picks up the note and runs his thumb beneath the folded edge, lifting the wax seal. His stomach flips, butterflies dusting off their wings, his breath coming short as he scans the page.
Emmrich’s handwriting is artful and tidy. Precise. The sort one would expect from a career scholar. His ink shifts in the light, glimmers of green shimmer in the blackness that can only be viewed at just the right angle toward the flickering flame of the nearby candles. Lucanis wonders what it’s made from. It’s so beautiful. Befitting for the necromancer. Maybe he’d like a new quill, another pot of something similar, something lovely and smooth and rich. Lucanis might just need to make a trip to the markets to look.
But first… first he savors every word left for him in the mage’s absence.
My Dear Lucanis,
I will likely be away by the time you return to the Lighthouse. Taash informed me of some strange undead in Rivain that I simply must look into. Harding is coming along to assist, so between the three of us, I’m certain we’ll be quite safe. But I shall miss you, just the same. Please avail yourself of any creature comforts you might require in my quarters. Including the bed. I worry about you, sleeping on this cot all the time. It can’t be good for your back, you’ve seemed quite stiff as of late, and after going anywhere with Rook, I’m sure you’ll need proper rest.
I know that it’s difficult to trust yourself to do so, even now, but I see the way this wears on you. If current circumstances would allow, I’d sleep beside you each night, to ensure you’d get to do so at all. Perhaps someday soon, when all this ugliness is behind us, and the world can rest peacefully again, you and I can, too. Together.
Do you think the esteemed First Talon might have room for a visiting Necromancer in Treviso?
I should hope.
All my love,
Emmrich
It’s another, added to the ever growing collection. A different box, one that Lucanis keeps tucked away behind the shelves, a sacred secret. It’s not as if they’d face judgment for this entanglement, but for now there is something to be said for keeping it quiet, close, letting it grow without the pressure and prodding of observation. Secret rendezvous, sneaking around, leaving love notes behind. It feels a little scandalous. A little perfect. The aches and pains Lucanis feels melt away as he reads through the brief note once more, then places it with care amongst the others.
As he begins to divest himself of his armor, he begins mentally drafting his reply.
Dear Emmrich,
There will always be room for you in Treviso…