Chapter Text
Like the last five times, Will becomes aware of his breathing before anything else; his eyes remain closed as he wakes, the fabric of the mattress below him and the blankets above coming into focus. The motion of his lungs against his chest in these early mornings always seems pronounced, more difficult, slower and more powerful, like the slumber of an ancient beast instead of a boy not yet even two decades old.
Heismay and Basilio both prefer to sleep in the runner, so Will shares the inn room with only Strohl, which is just as much a blessing as a curse. Strohl is a late riser; Will is not. There’s always been too much to do, too little time. And yet, his body beckons him to stay, to rest in the warmth of his own skin for just a little longer.
So when his eyes seem content to lay open, Will stares at Strohl’s back, the lines of his shirt that he’s memorised over the past few minutes or so. The dawn peeks through the shades, shafts of light spilling over Strohl’s legs where his blanket is tangled between them. His foot twitches in some unknown dream.
Will manages enough force to pull himself free of the bed’s embrace, feet touching the cold wooden floor. He changes into his day clothes and slips out the door before Strohl so much as stirs.
Hulkenberg is the first awake, as always, taking her morning meal. She greets him, and Will returns it mindlessly, slipping past the tables to exit the inn.
Days begin early for many in Sunshade Row, but not all; merchants and tradesmen prepare for customers, and the occasional apprentice or courier bustles past as Will walks, paying him little heed. The people of the Row usually do; they’ve enough concerns without adding an eldan boy to them, seemingly. It’s part of why Will likes the place.
It’s only as he thinks of this that he realises his destination lies elsewhere, trailing up the steps to the higher parts of the city, cleaner and wider but just as stained by the red sky. Sunlumeo Street welcomes him with double-takes and stares as always, all too visible as he makes his way to the bench near Brigetta’s storefront.
He sits. It’s strange to be here without Gallica, but coming here alone only made sense.
Passerby spare him less glances than they do a more visible figure. The attention he gets had been made sense of for months; the simple fact of being an elda in a place where they are seldom seen. Now, it feels new again; his skin itches under their gaze, heat at the roots of his hair in some kind of self-conscious flush.
Ever since the sanctum, everything has felt achingly raw in its newness, yet resignedly familiar. Layers of a self he struggles to fathom; patches of flesh and sets of organs arranged in a careful, disorderly pattern he has no understanding of. The old and the new and the ancient and the young. Even the parts of him that feel as fresh as budding daisies are exhausted of life and its troubles. And even the parts of him that are as worn as thousand-year oak bark look at the world with fear of the unknown.
He’s never felt particularly as a tribesmen, something he dismissed as a symptom of his ostracised status. Sitting here, watching the busiest street of the nation’s capital and well aware of his origin and role, he’s never felt less like one, let alone a person, in the simplest concept.
Nor more alone.
That day, Will ends up doing chores; it suits his state of mind, to do things which need to be done without speaking much. He checks over their supplies, repairs some frayed garments, probably wipes down each of the inn’s tables at least three times by the time the lunch rush is over; the others seem to sense his desire to be left alone. Except, of course, the one exception.
“You seem quiet today,” Strohl notes, sitting down next to him at one of the smaller tables. “Something on your mind?”
Will grunts in response. Strohl waits.
“It’s nothing,” Will says finally. “I’m just… getting too caught up in my own head.”
Strohl nods. “I know what that feels like. Care to talk about it?”
Yes. “No, sorry.” Will’s gaze flickers across the room. “I have to focus. We’re not ready to head into the palace yet, and I need to make sure we are.”
“I usually find that talking about something helps get it off my mind,” Strohl offers. “But I won’t push. If you say you don’t want to talk about it, I trust you mean it.”
Will notices his heart rate increasing.
“I do,” he says monotonously. “I should get back to my chores.”
“Alright.”
Will rises and walks a little too quickly back to their shared bedroom, sinking into his bed without a sound, staring out the window.
A few pigeons mill about on the street below. Will watches them, sees their beady eyes, bobbing heads, ruffled feathers, scaled feet.
Scales.
He’s tearing his coat off before he knows what he’s doing, unbuttoning his vest and hurling it to the floor to stare at his alien arms, covered in patches of silvery scales. Patches that have been growing the past five days, ever since they’d appeared, when he noticed them the night they returned to Grand Trad.
Will thinks of the dragon they’d slain at the Mage Academy, its freezing breath and jagged teeth. More than once they’d snapped shut all too close to him or his friends. He thinks of its wings and the image of himself aloft on limbs of muscle and feathers attacks his consciousness so immediately that it forces a grunt out of him.
It would be free, to fly. To catch the wind and race it in equal measure. Clawed hands grasping prey or treasure or supplies, face carved in an artful slope of teeth and bone and tongue, eyes that sweep across the plains and see threats and promise in equal measure, a nose that reads the whispered gifts the wind brings him.
He digs his nails into his scalp. The pain grounds him, and the vision fades to a fantasy.
He’s going insane. Body dysmorphia — he’d read of it, in the books he found in the banned section of the palace library. People so ill of mind they see their bodies inaccurately. None of the others have seen the silver trailing up his neck, he must be going insane.
Why of all the things to lose his mind over, must it be a single offhand comment about the nature of his magla-made old self?
And why must it feel so appealing?
He doesn’t want to be a dragon. He wants to stay with his friends, as their peer, something they can speak with and touch and look upon with affection. He wants to take up the mantle of kingship he’s fought so hard to grant to a misremembered version of himself — to keep it out of Louis’s hands. He wants to change the world for the better, for every victim like himself yet to be born into it.
He wants to be free, and as good as flying would probably feel, being a creature feared by all would not grant him that.
Will rolls onto his stomach, arms in front of him, and stares at silver until his eyes lose focus.
“If I looked weird,” Will says, “would you still be my friend?”
Strohl doesn’t look up from the dish he’s washing. “Of course.”
“I mean like, really weird,” Will clarifies, towelling off a mug. “Like if I had four arms, or antennae like a bug.” He presses his lips together briefly. “Or scales instead of skin.”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“Just thinking,” Will says with a shrug.
Their eyes meet. Strohl frowns, brow furrowed. “I would still be your friend, yes,” he confirms. “It doesn’t matter what you look like to me. You’d still be you.”
“Oh,” is Will’s response, and he was expecting relief, but the twinge of disappointment throws him off. “Like… even if I was really ugly?”
“Yes, Will.”
“Okay, okay.” Will accepts defeat. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
A silence neither entirely awkward nor comfortable hangs between them. Strohl is the first to break it. “I don’t think you’re ugly, for the record.”
“Oh.” Well that explains the disappointment. “Um, thanks. Same to you.”
Something clatters against the countertop; Will glances over to see Strohl rescuing a dish from sliding off it. “Close one,” he says. “Good catch.”
“Uh, yeah, thanks,” is Strohl’s reply. He’s a little flushed, and turns back to his work quickly. Will watches the back of his head for a heartbeat or two before turning back to his own.