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Gil was twenty-eight years old when he encountered his first lapisphinx. It was a scrawny example of its kind -- more of an oversized hound than a lion -- but it crept through the narrow labyrinth hall with all the rapacity of a beast twice its size. The cheeks of its human face had sunken in, the skin gone dry and papery. Its jagged teeth were yellow with age.
Yet none of that decay had touched the pair of brilliant blue jewels which glinted in the hollow sockets of its eyes, and it tracked his motions unerringly, turning its face back and forth as if the stones could truly see.
"A lost little wanderer, out searching on his own?" The creature's voice was as cloying as an alleyway merchant's. It slunk closer with eager anticipation, forelegs bent low in a pretense of subservience. "A wanderer in need of... assistance?"
He hadn't replied at first. All of the Guild encyclopedias were fairly straightforward when it came to dealing with lapisphinxes; only the careless or ignorant actually fell prey to one. Some artificer king from ancient history had made the things to serve as tutors for his children -- inevitably to blind the creatures when they had refused to lie about the less glorious parts of his kingdom's legacy. Now, the survivors roamed the labyrinths, bitter with injustice and always hungry.
But no adventurer made it past D-rank without taking basic precautions, and Gil dug a hand into one of his pouches, rummaging around until he located the prizes from the previous day's maze. He hadn't had a chance to have them appraised yet; it hurt to think about losing them, even if being slaughtered was the alternative.
Kneeling carefully, he set them both upon the floor: two white pearls, forming a matched, unblemished set.
Instantly, the lapisphinx jerked to attention, coiling back upon its haunches. It harrumphed at the meager size of the gems, jerking its chin up haughtily -- but then settled down, fluttering its wings in agitation.
"Tell me what service I can grant you, master," it wheedled. "If it's treasure you seek, I know of several caches that have yet to be discovered in these halls. Only one route exists to get you there safely. I can reveal it to you. I am so very willing. Merely present the question, and I will speak."
Gil shook his head, lips pressed tightly shut. The less conversation he shared, the better. That was the trick with these beasts; they could do nothing to harm you in advance. Yet if they were allowed to provide an answer -- no matter how simple -- they would hunt that person down ruthlessly to seize their eyes as payment.
Their eyes -- or an adequate substitute.
By the look of it, the pearls were doing the trick of holding the monster's attention. It squirmed, unable to claim its meal without defying the very rules that gave it life.
"Gold," it insisted. "Fine weapons. The final chamber of the labyrinth itself!"
"I already have my bearings."
"Then something even more rare than wealth? Love! Yes, that would do," the beast pled. Its tail thrashed against the floor. "Adventurers often come in sets -- but here you are, so alone. Alone for so many days. Perhaps forever. Has the fear of that loneliness had a taste of you yet? Don't you want to know where your dearest companion is waiting, before it's too late?"
Like a sidelong blow glancing off his armor, the taunt should have been easy to deflect. Solitude was useful. It was a better partner than anyone else he'd found so far. No one in their right mind should care otherwise.
And yet, even after Gil reminded himself sternly of that fact, he couldn't manage to pull together a smirk. A strange uncertainty was dragging at him instead, like a wound so deep that it didn't hurt until it was far too late to staunch the bleeding.
"Impossible," he retorted. "People like that don't exist."
But the lapisphinx only continued to stare at him with the cold, blank facets of its false eyes.
"All you have to do is ask," it whispered.
The simplicity of it was so horrifyingly straightforward that it felt wrong -- which it was, Gil knew it was, this was exactly what spawned the rumors of adventurers stumbling back into town with their faces covered in blood, sobbing with revelations. But the warning was weak. Adrenaline had already begun to drown it out. In the same manner of a passageway turning upon its moorings to open new routes further inwards, the promise glimmered at him like the last light of a star willing to guide him home.
It's a trick, he thought -- but his own disbelief clamored at him anyway.
"Is that --" he heard himself begin to ask, and only managed to save himself at the last minute by warping the words into a clunky, convoluted statement on the spot, "or is that not a self-fulfilling prophecy -- is what I would tell myself later."
The creature leered up at him triumphantly as all its muscles tensed, ready to spring. "Would you like me to answer that for you?"
"No," Gil said sternly, and gripped the hilt of his sword anyway.
Any minute now, and he would come to his senses. Yet -- what would the harm be? He already had the pearls out; the creature wouldn't be able to hurt him. The opportunity would likely never come again. Most adventurers went their entire lives without seeing a single lapisphinx. Gil had never heard of anyone with the luck to catch one twice.
If he didn't do something about it now, the question would hang over him like an executioner's axe until the very end of his days.
Curiosity kept its grip on him, tightening like a vise until he couldn't think past its limits. Finally, he afforded himself only a single word, breathing it so softly that he could pretend he was not speaking it at all:
"Where?"
"He doesn't exist in this world," the creature snapped -- and then lunged forward, scooping up both pearls in its mouth before twisting away through the wall as if the stones were no less substantial than muddy water, vanishing completely.
The worst part was that Gil couldn't even really be angry about it.
He had tried -- more than once -- to force himself into teams with other adventurers. It had always turned out poorly. Either they were competent enough to be wildly arrogant about their skills, or they lacked the capacity to handle a single labyrinth at all, let alone the other common tasks that adventurers were expected to manage as part of daily business.
Like a wine connoisseur attempting to stave off alcoholism, Gil had started narrowing down his acceptable range with a mounting list of qualifications. At first, he only let himself entertain offers from adventurers who had netted at least a dozen successful missions. Then, only ones at his rank or higher. Then, ones that also came with a direct recommendation from a Guild master who'd been active in the last five years, give or take.
Even that hadn't been enough. He'd already earned the groundwork of a reputation by then, clawing up the ranks with the grim bitterness of someone who only cared about advancement because it meant escaping the dregs of what he was leaving behind. Meeting the strictness of Gil's requirements had started to become a point of pride among the other adventurers, a baseline bragging point all so they could say they'd made it that far. That he'd considered them.
He'd ended up taking some of the better prospects out on a handful of jobs, but nothing had stuck. Pairs, trios, entire half-dozen sets: either people would start getting careless in battle, or they'd start up some ugly argument that would inevitably end up exploding right in the middle of a labyrinth, and nearly get Gil killed.
Eventually, the verdict settled down in a tired, resigned place inside himself which just petrified further and further with every failed experiment. It wasn't hard to decide that he preferred being alone thanks to the highly pragmatic method of having tried it enough times to rule out otherwise. By the time his last birthday had rolled around, even the Guild had stopped asking if he would like his name posted up on the board.
It had felt like the emptiest gift he could think of -- and the truest one, too.
Now -- staring at the spot on the floor where the pearls had been -- Gil finally knew why none of his attempts had succeeded. The lapisphinx had laid it out with the same absolute coldness as its own makeshift eyes. The reason why Gil had never worked out with anyone else was because there wasn't going to be a companion for him. No one was out there, hiding like a treasure in the rest of the dross.
If he'd offered his own flesh and blood to the beast, he could have earned himself more details around the answer. There were plenty of stories of folks who'd done exactly that in exchange for wisdom, sacrificing their sight or that of the terrified prisoners they'd dragged into the depths beside them. The lapisphinx might have given him a name to pursue, a location -- only for Gil to end his quest staring at a gravestone in some remote village which bore the identity of a person he'd never known, and never would.
Lapisphinxes always spoke the truth. It was why they had been punished in the first place.
So: either the person was dead, or they hadn't been born yet. Or -- more likely -- they would never exist, not ever, and there wasn't any point to hoping otherwise.
Which meant that Gil was released from the responsibility of making even a token effort with any of the fresh-faced adventurers chasing at his heels. He didn't need to bother with any of the quieter B-ranks who had kept pace with him for a week before they had shaken hands and parted ways, exchanging hollow promises to meet up again later.
He was free. There was no point in trying anymore.
Not with anyone.
"I'm from another world."
Lizel, smiling.
Like hell you are, Gil thought sourly, eyes narrowed in scorn.
For a creature that shouldn't be real, Lizel slept like a regular enough person. Almost too much, in fact. He had none of the distress that should have been displayed by someone who'd just been unwillingly transported into an entirely different country, a different continent, a different set of rules that could easily be all that stood between you and death. There were plenty of opportunists willing to take advantage of any vulnerability they could sniff out. Grifters lingered in every city. Even with the aid of a tour guide, only a fool would bumble about putting strange food and drink into their mouths -- or without double-checking the cost, paying a fortune for a handful of crumbs.
The smart thing to do would have been to toss the job, write the coin off and go back to picking idly at the job board -- and Gil had made his entire career by being smart. This wouldn't have been the first time that a noble tried to eel their way into pretending to be a common adventurer. Otherwise, there'd be no ban against them at the Guild. They kept trying, however, coming up with all manner of ludicrous excuses: they'd been cursed by an enchanted mirror, their cousin had been turned into a marmot, they'd made a promise to their dearest grandparent to conquer a labyrinth in order to inherit the family estate. It wasn't out of any need to pay the bills, it was dabbling. People's entire livelihoods were something they could play around at, and giggle over later.
In the end -- if some sort of political manipulation wasn't pushing them along -- the whole effort merely amounted to petty games for them to pass the time with, having a laugh at everyone's expense.
Yet Lizel had met all of Gil's glares with a steady gaze back, the delicate lavender of his eyes as cool as a handful of stones that Gil had dug out of a labyrinth one day -- kunzite, Judge had called them, worth a few coins even in their unpolished state -- and Gil decided to let the man have a little more time to prove himself false.
Just in case.
On their first night together, Gil had seen the man to his room, glad that the inn had had enough vacancies that he wouldn't have double-bunk; being knifed or robbed by a stranger in the night was a common enough fate for travelers, and Gil had lived through enough attempts over the years to not want another round of tempting fate to gut him. In the morning, he'd woken up early on purpose, just in case he could catch Lizel slinking away back to whatever hole had spawned the nobleman, some pampered estate the next hill over.
Another world. Hah.
As Gil had pulled back the curtains to squint at the dawn, the sour taste of exhaustion coating the back of his mouth, he wondered -- again -- what the hell he was doing, anyway.
He'd waited patiently in the hall as several other adventurers had padded by, yawning and nodding their hellos as they headed off to wash-up and practice. Hours passed without any rustle of activity behind Lizel's door. Gil had shifted his weight to keep his circulation moving, resisting the urge to dig into his own morning exercises -- getting more and more irritated with each moment of wasted time -- before finally cracking the door to see if Lizel had vanished in the night.
But the bed was full. Lizel was a docile lump underneath the covers, hair spilling out over the pillow with his face turned innocently towards the doorway, revealing features which were recognizably his own and not a hired double. He didn't make a single twitch even as Gil continued to push the door open by gradual inches, an excuse held ready on his tongue for the inevitable moment when Lizel would rouse, and Gil would have to pretend that he wasn't a potential assailant this time around.
One step. Then another. Like a limp rag, Lizel lay quiescent on the bed. His breathing was steady: slow and deep, and utterly unguarded.
A heavy sleeper, then. The edge of the bedframe bumped Gil's leg, interrupting his forward motion in a reprimand. Forced to halt, he stood there frowning at Lizel as if the expression alone could manifest like a weapon, dangling over the pillow point-down.
Lizel didn't stir.
Not a myth. Not a miracle.
Just a man after all.
Shutting the door in disappointment, Gil turned to pursue breakfast downstairs instead. He was halfway through his third cup of coffee when Lizel finally stumbled into sight, glancing around the common room and heading towards Gil's table without waiting for an invitation.
Gil regarded him balefully. "You're still here."
Lizel couched a massive yawn behind the back of his hand, knuckles pressed in an arch over his lips: an elegant motion that looked as perfect as if he'd practiced it fifty times a day. It would have been unsurprising if he did. Most nobles would. "I did hire you," he noted. "It would be foolish not to make use of you as my guide, wouldn't it?"
Gil scowled, wondering which one of them he was more vexed by. "No, I mean here," he repeated, jabbing a finger at the table, and Lizel paused midway in pulling out a chair to sit down.
"Putting your faith in me is necessary for this partnership to work," the man said softly. His fingers were lax upon the wooden rungs of the chair's backrest, with the same deliberate relaxation of a master swordsman making a statement simply by touching a butter knife. Gil knew how soft they were; they lacked the proper calluses for violence. "Have you reconsidered already?"
Shaking his head, Gil pushed over the plate of biscuits and jam; he'd ordered enough for two, and they were still good even when cold. "You want me to trust you completely," he bit out, starting to feel the exact shape of the protest inside him. "But if you are telling the truth, then it means you're also going to just vanish into nothingness someday, doesn't it?"
Lizel's mouth didn't even bother offering the politeness of a frown. "I suppose. Do they offer honey here too for the bread?"
"Answer me. Yes, or no."
Lizel slid his gaze up, unruffled by the demand. "You're an adventurer, aren't you? You must be accustomed to people disappearing unexpectedly in your line of work."
Which was the exact counterpoint that Gil had predicted, the one he'd challenged himself with over and over during the night. Those people didn't matter, he wanted to say -- except that Lizel didn't either, apart from being a rich idiot who'd wandered into a city and had signed up with the first stranger who'd given him a considerate word.
"Not when I'm being paid to look after them," Gil defended gruffly, and took a healthy swallow of his coffee, tepid as it was. "This is a job, remember? It may not be official Guild business, but I mean to do it right."
With a deft crook of his wrist, Lizel tucked his hair back behind his ear and reached for the plate. "I suppose it would be rude of me to spurn your professionalism. I'll try not to be too troublesome for you," he chuckled, and spread an arc of raspberry jelly across a biscuit, the red of it glistening like a rich lacquer over the bread. "Or if the terms of payment are a concern after all, we could renegotiate the fee."
Gil snorted contemptuously. "If gold was a concern, I'd just go kill a few extra manticores this month and be done. You've got a kingdom waiting for you to get back to. It's not like you can keep hiring me from way over there. So what else do I get out of believing in you?"
It was a question he wasn't entirely ready to hear the answer to; he hadn't expected to ask it, either. Instinct alone had sensed the opportunity, like the whistle of air split by an arrow's flight, and had pushed him towards the strike.
But the attack took Lizel off-guard as well, deft enough that the man went still with surprise, those pale eyes regarding him with the same lack of emotion as a stone -- until finally, a glimmer of ruefulness shone through as the man performed a smile.
"I suppose," he acknowledged softly, "very little at all."
The next morning, it was Lizel who knocked on Gil's door first.
The craving started slow. A tickle in the back of Gil's mind, an urge that stirred dimly like a winter bear rolling over in its cave whenever he saw Lizel seated on the other side of the table. Really, Gil figured, it was less of a want and more of an -- an acclimation, his habits settling grudgingly around the fresh space being taken up in his life by another living person. He'd never liked having someone constantly underfoot before, including other adventurers. Partnerships had always felt like being saddled with a list of chores to keep track of, a slew of expectations that people held for him and how he was meant to measure up.
Single Stroke. A B-rank adventurer capable of hauling an entire party to glory upon his back, winning them fame and coin without any effort on their part except attaching their name to his.
In comparison, Lizel's approach to the world was both simple and utterly reckless. The man was like a finely-groomed wolf that everyone mistook for a laphound, towing Gil along behind him without seeming to care if Gil could keep up or not -- as if it was normal to witness feats of extraordinary talent every day. He tore through the world with a blitheness that made it feel that if Gil blinked for even a moment too long, Lizel would be over the horizon and gone.
Just a temporary hiccup in the world.
Gradually, Gil's appetite continued to gain momentum, making itself known more and more through specific satisfactions. He began to like seeing Lizel in various states throughout the day, relishing each moment when the nobleman was yawning and mussed, the hair at the back of his neck sticking out at odd angles. He liked having the intimacy of it — he wanted it. The promise of Lizel's continued presence strengthened its hold on him with each small crumb of company that Gil consumed, bolting each morsel down like a dog kept too long outdoors on a chain.
Even then, Gil wasn't worried. The desire itself was a curious novelty, but in the end, it was only another whim that would go to sit alongside the handful of others he had carefully cultivated, hewing them back to stubs with brutal discipline every time they threatened to grow past the point of convenience. He'd always taken a hard, cold satisfaction in his ability to control himself. Other people complained loudly of needing coffee in the morning or a certain amount of sleep without being able to function otherwise, but Gil had always been able to ignore those penalties — almost laughably so. Even his cigarettes were a pleasure he could put away when needed, never falling prey to the same jitters and withdrawal symptoms that plagued others with the same vice. He could drink several rounds at the tavern and cut himself off while others were sacrificing both coin and health in exchange for another round; he could play a round of cards and walk away when the losses grew too high, rather than empty his pockets night after night.
Nothing in the world had ever held dominance over him. Addiction was an abstraction, a fate that happened to other people. Less fortunate ones.
Wanting something had never been that important, not when the act itself was easily put aside and ignored.
So there could be no consequences in indulging briefly in this strange, puzzling compulsion -- similar to an itch or a sore muscle that kept Gil's thoughts spiraling back to Lizel like a mercenary absently fingering the hilt of their sword. Their partnership was too interesting to end right away. It was safe in the same way that it was safe for Gil to light up a cigarette whenever the impulse struck -- because, in the end, he could ultimately control it too, stowing the need away whenever he finally decided that he couldn't be bothered to pay attention to it anymore.
None of the jobs he tackled together with Lizel were bad. The tasks themselves -- tracking down lost items, clearing out petty packs of wild beasts, teaching Lizel the basics of adventuring life -- didn't require any effort beyond that of leading around any other pampered tourist who was dabbling in life outside their sheltered walls, fancying themselves so brave for having to work for a living, or having to ration their coin to count out how many meals they had left in the week. If anything, the jobs went extraordinarily well, particularly when taking Gil's previous relationships into account -- which only made the entire situation that much more excruciating. If Lizel had behaved rudely, or grated on everyone's nerves, then there might have been cause for Gil to cut ties with him anyway. World-traveler or not, it was safer to reject Lizel than to compromise based on speculation alone, and be stuck with someone miserable as a result.
Which Gil should do anyway. Each week they were together was a prelude to disappointment, an imperative that grew every day. Even if Gil did believe in Lizel's claims, then it still didn't mean anything that they'd met like this. A grain of truth was all it took to deceive the gullible; if there could be one visitor from another world, there could be others, dozens of potential partners that Gil would do better by. Lizel couldn't be the only wanderer on Parteda's streets.
But it became obvious only halfway through the month that it didn't matter if there were a hundred secret world-travelers all around him, or massive rifts lingering at the end of every alleyway for people to pop in and out of at their leisure. Origin alone didn't explain Lizel as a person. The man was the strangest noble Gil had ever met: foolish and cunning at the same time, completely baffled by matters of common sense while frolicking through A-rank puzzles at a glance. His logic operated perpetually off-center, but it cut through every test thrown his way: dangerously aware, and always, always in command.
The month ticked steadily down. Lizel continued his headlong pace of teaching himself the skills needed to be independent and strike out on his own -- and as he did, Gil found a new uncertainty pushing its way into his life. He'd been prepared for Lizel to be a con-artist, for the game to be over by the end of their contract. There should have been some kind of elaborate reveal where Lizel's naivety was discarded as proof that it was little more than bait to lure in strangers, exploiting anyone who was gullible enough to swallow down fantastical tales in hopes of encountering something new.
Yet when Lizel didn't give up the entire thing as an act -- when their tour guide, play-pretend month ended, and Lizel had rattled off his farewells with a shocking nonchalance, the mask of polite formality plastered back in place as easily as if it had been the truth all along -- Gil found himself lunging out to stop it. His hand had squeezed down on Lizel's wrist as tightly as it could, as if he was seizing fate itself and trying to break it, to snap himself in half so that he wouldn't have to bear the aftermath of what was happening.
He couldn't think straight. The cup had already fractured from the pressure of his touch. He could do the same to Lizel. A sudden chasm had opened up inside his chest, howling that maybe this was it: this was his only chance to find something he'd wanted after all, something impossible and elegant, and now it was about to sail out of reach while he was left abandoned on the shore. With the speed of an assassin's knife, the sheer scale of Gil's fear had devoured him before he could even register the reaction -- just like the time he'd been gored by a blackscale swine back when he'd been an E-rank himself, and the only thing that had saved his intestines from spilling out all over the floor had been a lucky twist and thick enough armor.
His mind had gone cold back then. It felt the same way now.
"Gil." The command came from a great distance: somewhere blurry around the edges, and yet impossible to ignore. "Don't make me order you."
He obeyed, a shudder rolling through him, and let go.
Afterwards -- as he was managing to smirk his way through a half-decent conversation while pretending to be fine -- he looked at the places on Lizel's skin where he had touched the man. The joint was delicate, but whole. The flesh was unmarred, but Gil knew it would only be a matter of time before bruises would begin to form, broken blood vessels slowly seeping through layers of skin to discolor them.
Lizel followed his gaze. The corner of his mouth twitched faintly in amusement. "Would it make you feel better if you kept holding on to me?"
Even as mild as it was, the question was sly; the implications made Gil recoil on principle. "I'm not --" he began, cutting himself short derisively, unwilling to admit to any of the ways he could finish his defense. Not that fragile. Not that childish. Whatever it was that Lizel imagined, Gil didn't need coddling.
But Lizel reached out, disregarding all caution, and set his fingertips on top of Gil's arm as lightly as a scorpion at rest. The position was precise; the noble's wrist was perfectly aligned above the hem of Gil's glove. A simple twist, and Lizel would be trapped again.
Gil couldn't stop staring at it.
His grip could snap human bones. He'd done it before. His entire life had revolved around learning how hard he could push.
His hand twitched with the effort of not latching upon the prize that had alighted on it, wanting to squeeze down hard enough to pulverize anything unlucky enough to be caught within his grip. There was an echoing tension in Gil's jaw, tugging on his mouth. He didn't know what kind of expression he was making. He couldn't lift his eyes away to look at Lizel instead, and see what was reflected back.
He heard Lizel make another noise, soft and thoughtful. The nobleman's fingers fanned open, skimming over Gil's skin. Everywhere they touched felt as if Gil's flesh had been cut open, nerves hot and simmering. He'd reached into a bonfire once, to snatch a key needed to escape a death trap of spikes filling up a hallway. That agony would have been a mercy by comparison.
"Gil," he heard again, the lone syllable descending with the same ferocity as one of Gil's own swordblows: a single stroke, precise enough to kill.
Gil swallowed hard before answering, making sure that his voice could manage to come off as bland. Disinterested. "Sometimes I have to remind myself that you really exist."
Lizel only chuckled. "I haven't found my way back home yet."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
Around them, the evening was beginning to settle. The tavern was becoming quieter as the drunkards either went home, or trundled upstairs to their rooms to pass out. The fire was starting to run low, its logs crumbling down to embers -- and Lizel finally lifted his hand away, allowing Gil to draw in a full breath at last, nearly choking on it. He reached for his glass of wine, downing half of it in hopes of loosening his throat.
"What would you wish for, then?" Not seeming to notice the tension, Lizel sipped at his juice and peered at the liquid in mild curiosity, swishing it around in the cup. "Tell me, if you'd like."
All you have to do is ask.
The question was too odd, too delicately phrased to take at face value. It felt like even more of a risk than the proximity of Lizel's arm against his own -- as if Lizel was seeing all the way through him, picking through Gil's brain in search of the most interesting treasures, and keeping any judgements private.
"Hn," was all Gil grunted, and tossed down another swallow of wine.
That night -- after all the lights had long been extinguished, and even the distant clatter of the kitchen had died down -- Gil lay awake in his room, unable to banish the memory of Lizel's skin pinned against his. The wine did nothing to make him muzzy enough to sleep.
In the back of his mind, he could hear the wheedling hiss of the lapisphinx, pathetic with need.
Even as he balled the pillow up into a hard wad and stared up at the splintering ceiling of his room, the memory of the creature mocked him, daring him to be capable of walking away first.
After that, it got worse.
Gil had never encountered a desire he hadn't been able to shut down -- not something real, something that hadn't come about as a temporary inconvenience from a labyrinth. This new need refused to be purged. It curled up inside his chest like a thorn in an inflamed wound, where the flesh took on a fever in hopes of finally ejecting the foreign mass. He'd been so accustomed to the silence in his life that he'd forgotten what it was like to have a choice in the matter: to have an opportunity to fill it, to feed himself with the pleasure of another day with a trustworthy person beside him who could hold their own ground, and face down fresh experiences together.
None of this was safe. It wasn't controllable. Being around Lizel wasn't like indulging in a cigarette or cup of coffee at all. This was the power of addiction, he realized suddenly as the full horror gradually began to roll over him. This was what drove the lapisphinxes to seek out jewels to feast upon, reducing them to wheedling and begging. They could never stop craving what they once possessed, even when they were reduced to living off the merest crumbs. No substitute could fill their need. For the rest of his life, Gil could pretend that he saw Lizel's same virtues in someone else — but it would be little more than delusion, in the same way that a lapisphinx swallowed down lumps of stone and promised itself it might finally become whole.
Ridiculous, he insisted to himself, but it made no difference. All his self-discipline was being devoured by his own hunger -- and it was a hunger, something that he couldn't shove off into a corner whenever he couldn't be bothered with it, something that would make him desperate enough to mouth at cheap substitutes. Minerals instead of flesh. Gems instead of eyes.
A need that would sit inside his belly and howl with terror, and no matter what outlet Gil turned to next, he would never, ever be full.
He tried anyway. Life settled gingerly into its new routine after that, as the space between them shifted into unspoken agreements. Lizel was getting better at learning the local streets, merrily striking out with an independence that might have worried Gil more if he hadn't seen Lizel charm his way out of a dozen tavern brawls. Between both Marcade and Parteda, there were hundreds of distractions to keep any traveler safely occupied until they perished of old age, all without setting foot in truly hazardous territories.
But that was the other infuriating thing about Lizel: he wasn't as simple as he should have been. Nobles were cunning, twisted bastards -- but they were largely focused on being that way towards other members of the aristocracy, while commoners merely served as tools to accomplish this. There was an impersonality about it all that Gil had always found reassuring. Adventurers who gained a high-enough rank earned their attention; they had distinguished themselves as potential assets. Otherwise, you were merely another faceless laborer, part of the sea that kept the system afloat.
Nobility was the same everywhere. The fundamental flaws in people were the same, every last one: cruelty, greed, ambition, all the pettiness that Gil wanted no part in. Animal instincts, which made up the baseline of everyone's behavior no matter how many titles they wore in front of their names. Self-centered impulses were what kept a person alive in the dead of winter. No matter how fancy a noble pretended to be on the surface, they were just as common as anyone else when the question of their own survival was at stake.
And that was the danger. The longer that Gil let this partnership continue, the more he wanted Lizel to be the person he'd been waiting for. He wanted it to work. A dozen labyrinths hadn't managed to convince him to willingly lay down his sword -- so instead, he was disarming himself like a fool, digging the groundwork for his own disappointment as he tried to remind himself that any day now, Lizel would either reveal himself to be a coward, or would simply disappear for good..
Each time, he was left waiting. Each time, Lizel pushed the stakes a little higher, beyond what a low-rank adventurer should be willing to wager. Like a gambler who had already explored the full spectrum of risk and failure, and was now compelled to run every contest right to the edge, Lizel wagered his own well-being as coin. He would impale his finger nearly down to the bone to demonstrate his willingness to bleed, hold his own gun to his head before pulling the trigger.
There wasn't anyone else like him on any world that Gil could imagine.
They kept clearing jobs with breathtaking ease, tackling errands together while gradually expanding the territories they explored, dabbling in different challenges just to see how Lizel could weather them. Before, Gil would have prioritized the work based upon the fee -- it was work, no more glorious than another form of ditch-digging, and there wasn't any point in wasting himself on petty change. Now, he didn't mind the smaller jobs, scrabbling for whatever gave him an excuse to keep the party together.
Every story out there -- the drunken songs and swooning promises -- claimed that finding a partner you wanted was a good thing, a source of joy that renewed itself with every moment you were around them. In Gil's case, all he felt was a sickening combination of dread and panic, each wrestling for domination over the other with his ribcage as their battleground.
If Lizel truly was from another world -- either completely, or just in metaphor -- then none of this would matter in the end. One month or two wouldn't change the outcome. Eventually, Lizel would go back to what amounted to his normal life again, which would be a noble estate somewhere out of reach. Gil was only hired help in the end. A tour guide, a tutor. All the things that he'd been hired for initially, and which Lizel had already shown that he was willing to terminate at the end of a month's employment without hesitation -- as easily as paying off a porter who had carried your luggage, to be forgotten about the very next day.
And, damningly, if Gil hadn't protested about it, if he hadn't fought against being put aside, then their involvement would have ended already. Lizel had demonstrated how easy it would be. The man would have cut him off as readily as a razor snapping a string. He wouldn't have looked back.
If there had been a single moment of hesitation on Gil's part, then they would have already parted ways for good.
The weight of that possibility itched. His hunger fed on it for fuel. Rather than becoming dull with time -- as it should have, as everything else he'd ever wanted had become -- it twisted and found new opportunities to crave. The soft exclamations of Lizel's delight, the precision of the nobleman's fingers as he plucked stems off of strawberries. Like a knife, the shape of that yearning cut a sheath out of Gil's body where it could lodge itself forever, wedged there permanently because its removal would mean bleeding out on the spot.
He would have to live with this now, he realized grimly. He might as well learn how to survive it.
With the same helpless inevitability of watching a tide washing higher and higher -- eating at the pillars of your home, your world dragged further into the ocean with each gentle wave -- Gil watched his former resistance continue to drain away. What replaced it was something softer, something straightforward in its needs. Now that their first contract was over, there was no longer a ticking clock parceling out a fixed ration of days before a final payment. Instead, a different count hung over Gil's thoughts: an hourglass in his chest where his heart should have been, a little more of himself lost each day.
Lizel continued improving, getting stronger after each job.
Gil didn't.
As a rule, they worked as a party of two. In their free time, they followed the same. It made sense for Gil to keep his schedule roughly aligned with Lizel's, either researching the next task they had picked up, or reviewing the puzzles and maps of the latest labyrinths. Gil had a twice-daily drill session he liked to maintain, and even though Lizel was utterly useless for physical exercise before noon, Gil was managing to drag the man to evening practice on a satisfyingly regular basis. Afterwards -- if they were in the city -- they would go for dinner or walk the districts together, performing small errands of maintaining their gear, or changing supplies and funds. Out in the wilderness, they would take to the campfire where Lizel would read and Gil could listen to the stirring of animals around them, strangely content with the work rather than impatient to be done.
All of it was becoming the new form of familiar: comfortable and comforting. Gil had always rankled at having company before whenever he wasn't on a job, burdened with a thousand small noises and actions that would stem from another person nearby. Lizel's presence there should have been grating, an unwanted intrusion. It had been, at the start.
The start seemed so far away now.
But even this routine was disrupted one morning when Lizel slid over a small note during breakfast that outlined the sparse details of a job: a pitiful F-rank solicitation, only paying for a single laborer and not even requiring basic combat skills as qualifications.
"The archival nature of it caught my eye," Lizel explained offhandedly, neatly sectioning his toast into equal pieces with his fork. "The client is a textile house east of Parteda which needs the inventory counts reviewed in its shipping storehouses. It's nothing complicated, but there's quite a large volume to cover -- I understand they include a remarkable quantity of rugs among their catalog. I should be back within two weeks, at most."
Gil scowled at his eggs. The paper crinkled under his fingers, taunting him with its low-rank stamp. "Something like this won't increase your adventurer's rating. The merchants can hire a clerk for that instead."
"But I want to." Cheerful as he speared a wedge of bread and used it to sop up egg yolk, Lizel tugged at the note. "What better opportunity is there to learn more about the local commerce? A little bookkeeping won't hurt anyone. It'll be fun."
It was maddeningly tempting to destroy the job request rather than surrender it back to Lizel's nonchalant enthusiasm. Gil let go before he turned it into a tug-of-war. He refused to lose the rest of his dignity by clinging to the nobleman, but he didn't have anything else lined up for them anyway, and Lizel had a habit of uncovering trouble by merely going out to fetch a jug of water.
"I'll come with you," he suggested, trying to sound casual. "We can get something higher-ranking for the way back. It'd be efficient."
But Lizel only shook his head tolerantly, and Gil could hear his own childishness in his voice, protesting about being left behind. Rather than humiliate himself further, he chose to frown into his coffee, and said no more.
For the entire first week, he couldn't sleep properly. Like a pet dog whining over an empty house, he felt restless over the gap where a person should have been, the silence which was no longer warmed by another person's speech. Hunger had its hands on his spine. It yanked him out of his own bed and shoved him along so that he was a puppet before it, driving him all the way into Lizel's room where Gil stood looking over the man's bed with its sheets tucked neatly flat and smooth. Perfect. Sterile. Like a shroud stretched across an empty coffin, holding nothing within.
It was pathetic to want to touch it. Gil did so anyway, hating himself even as he ran his hand gingerly over the fabric. This was what he could look forward to someday. He would once more return to a past that he had become so accustomed to -- only now, he would know what it was like to have this room filled, to have his days take on another layer of purpose in resonating with someone else's joys.
He'd told himself his entire life that he hadn't wanted it, and he hadn't. Not until Lizel had come along and had given him a taste of something impossible, something that hadn't existed in his world before.
It was only ever temporary, he reminded himself, feeling churlish and bitter all at once. He always would have left you behind.
His fingers reached the pillowcase, brushing against the cloth. For now, he could still pretend that the room had been recently vacated -- but it would only be a matter of time before the scent of Lizel faded from the sheets entirely, and the room would be empty again of the noble's presence, this time permanently.
Like an injured man, he pulled himself onto the bed; his limbs felt stiff and frozen. The sheets tangled messily as he tried to drag them around his body without bothering to crawl beneath them first, yanking them loose from their neat pinnings. He pulled them as close as he could, turning his shoulders to huddle into the blankets, and pressed his face against the mattress. With his mouth open, he drew in shallow pants of air as if starving for it, surrendering to the dull pain he could no longer protest against -- exhaling in a sharp, pained noise as he folded himself into the space Lizel had left behind, indulging in the only way he would be allowed before it would be erased forever.
Halfway through the second week, the door to Lizel's room swung open, and the nobleman stepped inside.
Gil had jolted upright the moment he'd heard the knob rattle. As foolish as it was, he had stayed in Lizel's room night after night, mulishly taking up the space as if he belonged there, a scavenger burrowing into the remains of a deserted camp -- and now, he was faced with the conundrum of being in Lizel's bed instead of his own, dressed only in a pair of light pants for sleeping, and all his gear flung sloppily at the foot of the wardrobe.
To his credit, Lizel merely appeared puzzled, not bothered by Gil's occupation of his living quarters; the nobleman turned to glance over his shoulder, as if he wasn't sure if he'd been the one to walk through the wrong door by accident. "Oh dear," he uttered after a moment, drawing his own conclusions. "Did we run out of funds for two rooms?"
Gil jerked his head in a sharp no. "The adventurers next to me were too loud to get a decent night's rest. You weren't using the bed, so I borrowed it instead."
It was a laughably bad explanation -- one that had made so much sense in the midnight hours, and now seemed pathetic when viewed by the light of day -- but Lizel accepted it after only a moment's reflection. "I can leave you in peace so you can catch up," he offered mildly, causing something in Gil's chest to twist. "I managed a nap on the carriage ride back, so I'll be fine."
Swallowing hard around the rock in his throat, Gil made an impatient wave for Lizel to enter rather than continue to linger at the doorway. "No," he decided. "I'll move."
But even though he said the words, they were disconnected from the rest of his body. His muscles locked up when he ordered them to obey. Every ounce of common sense he owned was screaming at him to get up and leave, to avoid the entire situation by physically escaping it -- but he couldn't do it.
Lizel only continued to stand there in the doorway, blocking the easy way out. His head tilted by the slightest fraction: a sign he was giving the matter serious thought, even though there wasn't anything worth consideration. "What if I stayed and read for a bit? Would that be too much of a disruption?"
Gil exhaled, and tried to ignore how it felt like a shudder. "As long as it keeps you here," he replied curtly -- the words clipped and coarse -- and refused to consider it a plea.
Oddly, Lizel regarded him for another long moment before turning aside to sling off his bags and then the rest of his equipment, stacking his supplies neatly against the wall before fishing out a book with a long leather marker that was holding his place. Gil -- easing himself back down against the pillow -- watched the nobleman with a renewed sense of dread. Normally, the nobleman would have been more than happy to chatter away after a job, sharing any of his observations, no matter how small. Instead, Lizel was silent as he stripped off his gloves and coat, pulling out the chair beside the bed and seating himself neatly upon it as he showed every indication of focusing on his book and nothing else.
It was useless to even pretend to sleep. The traitorous part of Gil's mind that had driven him into Lizel's room was refusing to allow him peace now that the man himself was back; the raw relief was tempered only by a need to have more somehow, more of Lizel's voice, more of Lizel's expressions. Gil had dozed off countless times before in the past when they'd been on jobs, packed side by side in their bedrolls or in arm's reach around the campfire. Now, he felt more restless than he'd ever been in his life.
Unaffected by Gil's turmoil, Lizel turned another page. "I'll miss it," the man volunteered suddenly, breaking the quiet. '"When I go home, I mean. All these labyrinths and the delights they hold inside."
"There's nothing to miss." It wasn't entirely true -- adventuring provided for Gil's entire livelihood, after all. Without them, he would have had to become a field-worker somewhere or a soldier, taking orders from officers he didn't respect. "They're nuisances."
Lizel only turned a serene smile upon the next section of his book. "I don't have anything like this back home. If nothing else, that gives them an unparalleled value. I know how to appreciate rarities when they appear."
There it was again: curiosity and interest for a matter so commonplace that Gil had long forgotten to find it remarkable anymore. Lizel had no such reservations. His willingness to cut through ordinary assumptions changed the world around him -- and in doing so, dragged everyone nearby into that same wonder, transforming simple ideas into the fantastic. No other person could do the same, Gil thought, with a cold certainty as if he was becoming a monster himself: something that skulked about in the deepest labyrinths and sneered at foolish adventurers who thought they could out-bargain fate. He would be the one shaking his head at them -- like the lapisphinx, knowing too much and sneering at those who had yet to fall into tragedy. Something pitiful and half-starved in the darkness, endlessly waiting.
The desperation of it felt like a bear's paw slowly raking down the inside of his chest, each claw snagging in his ribs and wrenching them carelessly apart. Gil scowled at it. Deeper, swimming within that pain, there was another question seething: one that he finally had the words for, but none of which would matter the way he needed them to.
He rolled over onto his back, staring helplessly up at the ceiling. He knew better than to give free rein to his voice. The price would be more than his eyes: it would be his hands, his tongue, every part of his body that he would throw into the abyss in an attempt to follow behind Lizel when the portal finally opened back to the man's world.
It would cost his life.
"Gil?" he heard: both a question and calm expectation.
He cleared his throat. His eyes refused to look at Lizel directly. If he stood apart from this moment -- unmoored from his surroundings, like an observer at a stranger's funeral -- then he could pretend he wasn't truly speaking. "If you had a chance to go back to your world today, would you?"
Silence filled the room. When the emptiness became too unbearable, Gil jerked his head up to see Lizel watching him with those clear, lavender eyes: too close to a violet hue to compare to the blue of a lapisphinx, but no less dangerous.
After another excruciating moment, Lizel gave a serene reply, as effortless as reciting a favorite line of poetry. "This is a vacation, remember? It's not my choice as to when it ends."
"But if it was." It was foolish to pursue the quarry further. Lizel had been gracious enough to give Gil a chance to escape, to back away from the doom waiting at the end of the corridor. He had his chance. He kept going anyway. "If the door back to your world opened right now and you could go through, you would."
He spat out the accusation as flatly as he could, unwilling to encourage any impression that he wanted clear confirmation. Lizel took his time deliberating over a reply, rubbing a thoughtful knuckle against his chin before reaching out to seize Gil's wrist: a mirror to where Gil had left bruises on him in the past, restraining Gil as effectively as a dog being called to heel.
Gil watched as those slow, methodical fingers closed around him. It took all of his willpower not to flinch.
"I might bring a souvenir back with me," the nobleman said at last. The tone of his voice was light, promising everything and nothing in the span of a few words. "Though I worry if I would be able to take care of it properly, away from its native environment."
The vagueness of it was enough to allow Gil room to breathe. He didn't know if Lizel was being intentional with the wording, or if Gil was simply deluding himself on the slimmest hope; the odds were lethal either way. Uncertainties could get a person killed in the field. "Then you should pick one that can handle itself on its own," he bit out, his nerves numb enough that the only thing he could produce was harshness, stemming from muscle memory like a parry in the dark. "So it'll do just fine no matter where it ends up."
"But that's still quite a lot to expect from a souvenir." Lizel's face was shifting now, turning warm with that same wretched playfulness that made him so lethal to confront: a nobleman poised on a field he had already mastered, raised from birth with the privilege of determining the fate of others on a mere whim. It was an imperious dignity, comfortable with directing others like pawns. Like possessions. "Whisking it away from everything it knows, expecting it to flourish in a world where it has to start all over again from nothing? Would that really be such a kind thing for me to do?"
"If you can manage traveling between worlds, then it can, too." Something was wrong; Gil's voice was rasping in his throat, husky. "So long as you wanted it there. Otherwise, there'd be no point."
The sensation of Lizel's hand on him felt like lava eternally burning him alive. "Even so, I'd want to make absolutely certain that its decision was made of its own free will." The man's thumb had started to run a slow stroke along the underside of Gil's wrist, but his gaze was fondly amused, as if he was watching some story play out on the stage that he already knew the ending to. "It would have to ask."
The soft, confident demand provided no room to escape. It was agonizing to have the affair pointed back towards him, over and over again like a volley which Gil couldn't keep parrying, but which he could only stare at head-on as it came for his blood. His entire soul was being put on a scale for appraisal, but there would never be enough coin for what he craved.
He swallowed hard. An entire lifetime of teaching himself to keep his mouth shut -- to not need, to not let desire play any role in his life -- and now he felt himself breaking against those very same walls like a moth battering itself to death against the glass because anything was better than being left behind.
Shutting his eyes wouldn't spare him from the consequences. It didn't protect against lapisphinxes; it wouldn't save him here, either. Gil closed them tight anyway, blocking out the world as he braced himself for a pain he never thought to armor himself against, for it had never been a possibility before.
"Then will you take it?" His doom -- held back for years and now finally uttered -- was strangely simple. "When you leave, will you take it with you?"
The pressure of Lizel's hand shifted, the palm sliding down Gil's forearm before suddenly lifting away. "That's quite a serious commitment you're willing to make." There was a creak of leather, a whisper of cloth, and then Gil felt the mattress sink under Lizel's weight as the man seated himself beside him, hip leaning against Gil's waist. Lizel's clever fingers were pushing the blankets down, exposing Gil's skin to the cooler air. They skimmed lazily over Gil's stomach, lightly tracing the lines of ribs and muscles, as if the nobleman was deciding leisurely which part of him to devour first. "Are you sure that bargain is worth so much?"
Gil's breath was coming fast. He shuddered as one of Lizel's nails brushed against his hipbone. Hunger was roaring in his ears, disintegrating the last barriers holding it back now that he had surrendered to it.
"Yes," he whispered, biting down a surprised gasp as Lizel's hand teased the edge of a scar. He arched up in invitation, a ravenous greed taking over as he caught and dragged Lizel's other palm to his mouth to kiss it, remaking his entire being into that very same word of permission: of desire, refusing to be tamed by anyone save its recipient. "I'll pay it all in full -- whatever the price."