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He forces himself to focus, to take in every line yet again, to look over the diagrams, to trace the formulas describing the movements of celestial bodies. Again. He notes it down, trying to understand every step. His eyes sting.
Again.
Ink drips on his hand. It smudges as he moves it, and then smears onto his arm, his tunic. It does not matter, as long as the text is legible. No, not even that, because he remembers the text, in stark detail, but he simply does not yet understand, does not yet see how the pieces connect, how this geometric play of forces forms the night sky.
A night sky Callum hasn't seen for some time.
Perhaps he should ask. Then again, how could it help? His eyes cannot take in the distances at play- he cannot understand the vastness of space with his senses. His best chance is to embrace the arithmetic of it, to internalize the motions into himself, as elementary as breathing- until the caprices of time and space are as familiar to him as his own body, as natural as moving.
"Callum?"
He startles, his hand jerking, tipping over the vial of ink, painting the desk with another splotch of black. It does not splatter on the book, thank goodness, and he hastily pushes it away with his clean hand.
"Oh, you made a mess." Claudia steps towards him, eyes full of concern. "It's alright, I have just the spell for it." She withdraws something from a pouch, speaks some incantation, and soon, the wet ink vanishes, the table mostly clean.
Callum's hand and tunic are still stained, dry now, mottled black.
"Callum?" She frowns. "Hello?"
Stars swim in his mind. Planets, movement, the shapes of orbits, a system, another, systems upon systems, an entire sky full of them- there's a hand on his shoulder. "I- I was focused. Sorry." The world comes into focus, and the world is Claudia, standing over him, clearly worried.
"You missed dinner." She purses her lips.
"Not hungry." He replies on reflex. He might be. He's not sure. Planets have no concept of hunger, unless he counts light, cosmic radiation, the heating and cooling as planets rotate their faces to the star-
"And supper." She adds. "And it's past midnight."
"I'll be fine." He replies. "I got really focused." He's close. It doesn't make all the sense he would like it to make, not yet, but he'll get there. He'll get there. He has to get there.
"Studying star?"
"The world. The planets. I feel like it's almost coming together. Just a little more..."
"I think you should take a break tomorrow. Maybe come with me, gather some supplies outside-"
"Can't leave without bracelets, and I don't want to." He rejects the offer. "It won't help. There's nothing I can see, nothing that senses can help with-" Not with that kind of abstraction. Not with the mind bending distances and light and the way it bends, the way the world is one enormous tapestry of forces and interactions-
"Just one day. Really, a walk. Outside. To see the sun-"
The sun. A star, one star of many, itself rotating around some greater center, another expanse impossible to concieve, and he only has this truncated, barebones idea of what it all means- he's falling-
He sits. The world is Claudia, and the Archmage.
"It's quite late." The Archmage speaks. "Both of you should head to sleep." He ruffles Claudia's hair.
The Archmage. Their local sun.
The sun acts as an anchor, forcing the planets of their system to move in elliptic orbits, ever in motion, but ever bound to a larger celestial body. And so it grows, the system in a larger system, and larger yet, layer upon layer, and then down, on the other side, cells and atoms, all of it, he sees it, he finally- sees- all-
Reality breaks.
The second Callum slumps over, slack, she knows he's gone.
She didn't want to admit it, but she's been seeing it, too.
She's been trying to distract herself, to go outside, to gather materials, to stay upbeat, to focus on the work and research- all the things Callum shied away from, the dark and the gory, but necessary, while he delved into books and paper and increasingly disjointed notes.
She's been seeing it.
The runes come together in her mind, the way the fields ripple and bend, she feels them, as viscerally as she feels the drain of dark magic, the living essence of things around her, the way it's all tied together, the forces Callum kept speaking of, forces she can feel.
Callum broke. It cracks something in her, to see it, and Aaravos only grins, and she can feel his happiness, and not all that much surprise.
The world bends.
Claudia bends with it.
They are. They- he? She? The world is one, the distinction between them and all arbitrary, one is all, all is one being- they can think. If they can think, that's one delineation between them and the all.
The all is more things, entwined, large and small, and one very large thing, very close, and they're-
The world is smaller.
No, the big thing is around them. Like a shield, and that's a concept, a thing, denoting protection- protection is- it coils around them, a serpent, and that's another idea, another thing that is not the all, and there are more things, more not-all-
They disentangle. He. She. They exist as separate entities.
He exists.
She exists.
She emerges first. Shaking, gasping, chafing at the constrained limits of perception, threatening to expand again, to escape the limits of this tiny, inconsequential spec of dust her physical body is-
She grounds herself. Breathes. Takes in the simple, geometric shapes in her vision, the flat plane she can see, a tiny part of the world, an incomparably minuscule slice of the terrifying monstrosity of reality. She's still shaking.
"There, there." Something strokes her hair. "Congratulations, and welcome back."
She closes her eyes. The world, the space around her, the shapes, it's all still there. She feels it, like touch, every surface, every crease, every bend, every swirl of air as she breathes in and out.
Space. She can feel space itself.
He takes longer. She speaks to him, tries to help him come back, tries to pretend again she's not one giant crack that's more break than person, clinging to herself, and maybe that redemption, whatever it means, lies in this desperate attempt at still being nice.
She's not sane. It's an interesting realisation, and not obvious to admit- she feels sane, but then her perception shifts and breaks and she sees things that aren't there, that can't be there. Or maybe they were always there, and she never saw them.
Couldn't.
See.
Them.
"I told you you should have taken a break. Go outside for a bit. You're too pale." As if she isn't pale herself, as if her hands aren't trembling faintly.
That's not a bad idea, to go outside. Maybe that'll help. Touching trees, and grass, like Terry used to show her. Maybe there are flowers to smell. He's too light, she thinks, especially for her, just a shade too thin, because it shouldn't be that easy to move a person.
The sun is there. She lies him down in the grass. It doesn't seem to do much, but then he stirs, one hand shielding his face from the brilliant light, and- he's not quite there yet, but more there, and Claudia smiles.
The world ripples, bends, fractures into colors, and then back again, and she lies down herself, the firm ground solid, unmoving, even though nothing is ever unmoving in the world.
It's bright. He shields his eyes from the brightness- he has eyes. Hands. Head, torso, legs, and he breathes, gasping, suddenly there again, one person, one mind, separate and whole and aware.
The light is relentless. He turns on his side. "Mmmph." He groans.
"Hi!" She greets him.
"Claudia?" He mumbles. He pushes himself up, looking around. They're outside. Huh. He hasn't been outside in a while. It's nice. Nicer than he rememebers. "Hi. Where- why-" He's not sure what to ask. "Um." His stomach rumbles.
"I'm not hungry." She mimes him, then pokes his stomach.
"Ow." The sun is shining. The sun is a star- a thing so massive, light bends around it, time and space itself- she pokes him again. "Ow!"
"No daydreaming." She smiles, but her eyes are slightly unfocused, like she's not really seeing him. "Feel the ground. The grass. The bark on the trees. It's really nice."
He tries to take the advice. The ground. Grass. He stands up. Looks down at himself. Has he always been that thin? He's thirsty. He walks to the nearest tree. Reaches out. Feels the rough, uneven texture, slightly scraping.
He turns around. It's not only Claudia there now, but another sun, another well of gravity, forcing everything to orbit around it, endlessly circling-
"Welcome back as well." The sun pulls him close, too close, and it burns. "I'm so proud of both of you."