Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i.

Occtis is thirteen, and he’s getting caught.

“Oi! What do you think you’re doing?!”

He’s hungry. He’s been hungry for a couple of days now, and it’s finally made him desperate enough to try to do something about it. Unfortunately he’s made his move right in front of a member of the Revolutionary Guard in his desperation, though, and his attempt to nab a piece of fruit from a cart is going to be his downfall.

With the patrolman’s armored grip tightening on his collar, Occtis knows his ill-advised attempt to run away is about to come to an abrupt end, and in an even worse way than he’d imagined it would. Crawling back to House Tachonis to avoid complete starvation would have been bad enough, but now someone will be forced to take precious time out of their day to come rescue the forgotten runt of the litter. And whoever draws that short straw won’t be happy about it.

As Occtis actively works to avoid picturing the look on Lord Primus’s face upon his return to Obrimus Manor, a deep voice rumbles behind him.

“What seems to be the problem, officer?”

Occtis turns to see another member of the Guard, this one a tall orc, well groomed and even more important looking than the human man currently grabbing him by the scruff of his neck. That man’s grip loosens slightly as he stands up straighter under the scrutiny of what must be his superior officer.

“This little street rat was stealing from—”

“Street rat?” the orc cuts in, his hand drifting up from the pommel of his sword to brush against the sash depicting his elevated rank. “Officer, surely you recognize this young fellow?”

The human raises his hand a bit to look at him more closely. Occtis gulps as his feet leave the ground, the toes of his shoes barely brushing against the pavement.

“Huh? No?”

“This is young Mister Tachonis,” the orc says patiently, waits for a look of recognition that never comes, then explains further. “Heir of House Tachonis? You can see right here, his family’s very prominent sigil…”

He points down to the symbol sewn on the shoulder of Occtis’s coat, then up to the string of banners that hangs over the street. A banner for each of the Sundered Houses dangles over their heads – the matching symbol of House Tachonis looking down from directly above the dumbstruck human officer.

“Oh. Right, uh…”

“I’m sure his family would be rather…cross…with an individual who handled him in such a way. Would not reflect well on the rest of the Revolutionary Guard…”

“I wasn't—” The man cuts himself off as he drops Occtis to the ground like a hot iron. He jerks his head dismissively. “Just go. Get outta here, kid.”

“No, no. Allow me,” says the orc, reaching down to help the crumpled and defeated Occtis off the street. “Come on, son, let’s get you home.”

Accepting his fate, Occtis dusts himself off and follows the orc away from the young officer. They march down a few blocks wordlessly, but then, instead of turning right toward the Manor, the orc leads him left, in a direction totally unfamiliar to Occtis. Not brave enough to voice his confusion, he follows the man down several more blocks and around multiple corners, doing his best to remember the route in case he has to get back on his own. Though the longer they walk, the more that seems hopeless.

Eventually they come to what seems to be an abandoned storefront on an otherwise busy street. Everything within Occtis is telling him not to follow the man inside, as he’s less and less sure by the moment that this is really a member of the Guard, but he doesn’t see any other choice.

“Come on, we’ll just get you cleaned up a bit before you head home. Wouldn’t want you showing up looking like a street rat after all,” the orc says, arm outstretched to allow Occtis to enter first.

Driven more by curiosity than a sense of self-preservation, he enters as the orc guides him inside. The shop is indeed abandoned, but the orc leads him to the back, past several rows of clothing racks and piles of crates. Eventually they reach a room resembling a kitchen, and the orc turns to face him.

But when he turns, it’s not the same man he’d followed. The orc that stands here now is a bit shorter, scruffier, and his Guard uniform has been replaced by tattered adventurer’s garb. Something like a thief would wear, surely. Occtis has no idea what’s happening, but he knows he’s in trouble.

“I-I-I don’t have any gold…” he squeaks, throwing his hands up in defense as he backs up as far as he can into a row of cabinets.

“Yes, that was quite obvious, what with the stealing and all,” the orc says, and his amused voice is slightly higher than it had been on the street.

“I’m not the heir either, I'm just—”

“Calm down, kid,” the orc says, palms out as if approaching a wild animal. “We’re not trying to harm you.”

“We're not?” a new voice asks, and from the breast pocket of the orc’s jacket pops a very small, glowing head. Occtis’s jaw drops open in stunned silence.

“Thimble…” the man says with a sigh as from his pocket emerges the rest of a very tiny young woman, including a pair of fluttering green wings and a puff of iridescent dust. A pixie, Occtis knows, though he’d never realized such beings were actually walking – well, flying – among them in Aramán. This is turning out to be a highly confusing day indeed.

“I'm just sayin’, Thaz…” the pixie states, landing on the man’s shoulder and gesturing toward Occtis. “A Tachonis heir? If we ransom him back or something, that could be a big score.”

Again done in by a lack of self-preservation, Occtis scoffs.

“Not as big as you might think,” he mutters. “They probably haven’t even noticed I’m gone.”

The orc smiles slyly at him. “Curse of being number eight, eh…Occtis?”

Occtis’s eyes go wide as he remembers to be afraid. “How did you know my…”

“I pay attention,” the man says, nonchalant as he brushes past Occtis and begins rummaging through the cabinets. “Well you’re right about one thing, Thimble. This kid could be very valuable to us if he wants to be.”

“What? How? Thjazi, look at him.”

Dumbfounded, Occtis watches as the orc – Thjazi, apparently – takes the pixie’s suggestion and stops his rummaging to look back at him. He frowns, but only slightly.

“You're right, he’s awfully scrawny,” he muses, then reaches into the cabinet and extracts a few items – an apple, half a loaf of bread, a couple sticks of dried meat. He produces a plate from another cabinet, tosses the food onto it, and slides the whole thing across the countertop toward Occtis. “Here, boy. Eat up.”

Occtis merely stares down at the food, then back up at the man, then back down at the food. His stomach rumbles, but he can’t put aside the feeling that this could just be part of the plan to ransom him back to his family. Not that anyone would need to poison his food to overpower him and hold him hostage, but still....

“If you eat, I’ll teach you some magic,” Thjazi says after a moment of watching his hesitation, and Occtis’s eyes whip up to look at him skeptically.

“What? You can’t teach magic. Either you’re born with it or you’re not,” he says, helpless against the picture of Ethrand that appears in his mind as he thinks of the first time his brother informed him of that awful truth. His head hangs, as it did then. “And I wasn’t…”

He looks up again to find Thjazi exchanging a glance and some unspoken words with Thimble.

“Is that what they’ve told you?” the orc asks with gentle eyes, and Occtis can only shrug in confirmation. Thjazi crosses his arms, shakes his head, and lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh. “Yeah, kid. I’m gonna teach you some magic. But you gotta promise not to say a word about it to your family.”

He’s still not sure about a lot of things. He’s not sure whether this man is lying to him about being able to teach magic, not sure why the man is even helping him in the first place or how Occtis could possibly be valuable to him and his little partner.

But Occtis is sure about one thing, and that’s that he can easily and happily keep a secret from his family.

“No problem,” he finally says, reaching for the apple. “It’s not like they’d listen to me anyway.”

Thjazi gives a wide, tusk-toothed smile, and Occtis tries not to notice that there’s more pride in the orc’s eyes than he’s ever seen in his own father’s. As he eats, Thjazi informs him that he’d had his eye on Occtis all morning after spotting him in the market, curious as to why the youngest Tachonis child was out in the city unaccompanied. He’d guessed – correctly – that Occtis had run away without much of a plan, and then he decided to disguise himself and step in when Occtis got himself in trouble. Thjazi doesn’t push Occtis for an explanation about why he’d run, but he tells him he’s no friend to his family and he’d understand any number of reasons why it might have been necessary.

True to his word, the moment Occtis has scarfed down all the food Thjazi can find for him, the orc asks if there’s anything specific he’d like to be able to learn. Occtis racks his brain for an answer, thinking of all the spells and tricks his siblings know and have been able to do for years, but none of that feels useful to him at this point. Not if he’s supposed to hide it.

He thinks back over the morning and what he’s seen Thjazi do, thinks about the way the man’s entire appearance changed right before his eyes.

“Can you teach me to look like someone else?”

Thimble scoffs. “Boring! At least learn a fire bolt or something.”

Thjazi tries to hold in a snort, but he nods his head and otherwise ignores his companion’s suggestion.

“That is an excellent choice. Might take some time to master, but you seem like a capable kid,” he says, then covers his mouth and addresses Thimble in a not-so-hushed voice. “Plus that will be far more useful to us than a fire bolt.”

“Pfft. Whatever.”

Thimble flits away from the kitchen and back out into the shop area, and Occtis watches with an unexplainable fascination as her glowing form disappears from view.

“Don’t worry about her, she just loves a good scrap is all,” Thjazi tells him, then starts to follow. “Come on. Let’s see what you can do, kid.”

They move out to the shop where there’s a full length mirror standing in the corner, and over the next hour Thjazi walks Occtis through the basics of learning a spell. He shows him the hand motions and has him repeat the vocal component over and over until it’s burned in his mind. He casts the spell on Occtis himself, and Occtis swallows down the unexpected motion sickness caused by watching in the mirror as he transforms into a smaller version of Thjazi.

“Oh no, now there’s two of you,” Thimble quips, landing on his shoulder.

Occtis finds himself laughing – laughing! – along with the others, until Thjazi snaps his fingers and the disguise drops.

“Alright kid, your turn,” Thjazi says. “Picture how you just looked, hold that image in your mind as hard as you can, and go for it.”

Occtis lets out a deep, shaky breath and closes his eyes. With the almost imperceptible weight of Thimble on his shoulder and the much more substantial weight of Thjazi’s gaze on him, he tries to concentrate on that image just as he was told. When he feels like he has it, he begins muttering the incantation at the same time he moves his hands in what he hopes is the precise motion he needs. There’s a little tingle as he feels the magic envelop him – an intoxicating feeling he doesn’t have time to ponder just yet. Then it stops, and he keeps his eyes closed for a second, scared to look.

When he finally opens his eyes, his reflection is…well, not quite familiar. Not quite unfamiliar. He’s still in the same shape he’s always been, long and gangly, and his hair and eyes are the same. But he now sports one small tusk peeking from his lip and his normally pale skin is pocked with random blotches of orcish green.

Before anyone else can react, Thimble erupts in giggles at his poor attempt. It’s a musical sort of sound and despite the fact that it’s directed at him with no small amount of derision, Occtis thinks it’s something he wouldn’t mind hearing over and over again. The thought is enough to soothe the red hot embarrassment creeping up his neck.

“Well…it’s a disguise in its own way, I suppose,” Thjazi concedes, clearly doing his best to hold back his own laughter. “For a first attempt, though, honestly not a terrible one. Not like, good, but not terrible.”

Thjazi tells him how to drop the spell, which Occtis does, and then encourages him to keep practicing until he can do it perfectly. Practice once a day every day, he says, and Occtis promises to do just that.

Then, intriguingly, Thjazi tells him that if Occtis is interested in helping him out, he can use that spell to slip away from the Manor every once in a while to meet up with him and Thimble at one of their other hideouts. He doesn’t say how that helps them, but Occtis doesn’t press. He’s in without even knowing why.

This has been by far the most interesting day of his entire life. The promise of more days like it is all he needs.

Occtis agrees to return, and Thjazi shows him to the door armed with a new spell and the location of where he’s most likely to find them over the next couple of months.

“Don’t be a stranger, young man,” Thjazi tells him as he steps outside.

“I-I won’t.”

“Hmph,” Thimble grunts from the orc’s shoulder, apparently still not fully convinced they shouldn’t have just used him as ransom. But she smirks and gives a little wave. “See ya later, kid.”

“Okay. Bye…” Occtis says, waving back shyly at the glowing pixie and the smiling orc.

He makes his way home through the city, no longer so scared of what awaits him there.

Chapter Text

ii.

Occtis is fourteen, and he’s early.

“What are you doing here?”

Thimble’s not-so-welcoming greeting causes Occtis to cringe. It had been clear upon getting to the flophouse a little ahead of schedule that Thjazi was not yet there, but he hadn’t even thought about searching for the man’s pint-sized pixie partner before taking a seat to wait. Over the last year or so since he met them, Occtis has only seen Thimble one other time – in the past he’s just happened to come by when she’s been busy elsewhere – and she doesn’t seem to have warmed up to him much. He can’t quite blame her. He’s not much more than a dumb, sheltered kid and as nice as Thjazi has been to him, he still can’t fully put together what his presence does to help them. He comes by to talk about his family, to learn a bit of magic he can’t really use, and then he leaves. Perhaps someday he’ll be let in on the secret of why Thjazi keeps him around, but for now he’s too scared that asking will make the orc reconsider.

In the meantime, he’s been doing what he can to correct what he’s realized is a staggering ignorance of the world around him. He’s been careful; he knows asking certain questions of his tutors will raise suspicion, so he mostly avoids the subject of magic. But he’s asked to learn more about the history of Aramán and Dol-Makjar, about gods and orcs and wars he’d never thought about before.

And in spite of Thimble’s indifference to him, he’s tried to soak up everything he can about her people too. Most of the books at the Manor that contained any information about pixies turned out to be completely unreliable if not outright fiction, but his most trusted tutor had come through with a tome all about Tír Cruthú and its history. The fairies described in it didn’t fully match up with his limited experience of Thimble, but everything he knows about her suggests she’s special even among that particular fey race. He certainly found her fascinating – more so than almost any other person he’s ever met – even though she’s ambivalent to his presence at best and opposed to it at worst.

The pixie in question crosses her arms and stares at him impatiently, and Occtis realizes he still hasn’t answered her question.

“Um, well, Thjazi asked me to come by and-and…tell him stuff about…about my family,” Occtis stammers under her unimpressed gaze. “Doooo…you know when he’ll be ba—”

“Oh, great. Still can’t believe we’ve got a big ol’ dweeb working for us,” Thimble laments with a roll of her eyes.

“Well, that’s, I mean I’m not really—"

“What do you even do? Can you even fight? And not with magic.”

Occtis can feel himself light up. “You can fight with magic?”

The light drains immediately as she buries her forehead in her palm with the smallest smack.

“Oh Shapers’ tits…” she mumbles, shaking her head. She looks back down at him where he’s sitting uselessly in a cushioned chair. “So you can’t fight with magic and you’re dumb. Do you even have any weapons? Do you have a sword?”

“I’m just a kid, why would I have a sword?” Occtis asks, choosing to ignore the pointed insult as Thjazi had advised him to do after the last time they’d interacted and she’d entertained herself by poking fun at his floppy haircut and general clumsiness.

“Why would anybody have a sword? To stab people when they attack you!”

“Why would people attack me?!”

“Well look at you,” Thimble says, gesturing at him. Occtis looks down at himself. Nothing special, but nothing so offensive. Or so he thinks. “You’re a rich kid and a wimp. Anyone would attack you.”

He frowns. “You would attack me?”

Thimble’s mouth snaps shut.

“Let’s change the subject.”

At a loss, Occtis can only wait for her to change the subject herself, and he watches as Thimble flits across the room to where a dusty old mannequin stands with a dagger plunged into its torso. She wraps herself around the hilt of the weapon and, grunting almost adorably with exertion, flies back to pull it out using all her strength. She spins in a full circle and heaves the dagger back toward Occtis. It lands with a clang maybe two feet from her but nonetheless closer to where he sits.

“Pick that up and come here,” she commands. “I’m gonna teach you some moves.”

Occtis isn’t entirely sold on the idea of learning “moves,” but doing as Thimble tells him seems to be instinctual. Before he even knows what he’s doing, he’s off the chair and picking up the knife, holding it gingerly at the end of the hilt between his thumb and forefinger.

Thimble raises an eyebrow at his grip technique but declines to say anything disparaging for now. Instead, she reaches behind her and unsheathes one of her own weapons. For a normal sized person it’d be a sword, but at her four-inch height the weapon of choice is the size of a sewing needle, and for the first time Occtis finds himself contemplating the connection between that and her name.

He doesn’t have much time to think about it, because in a flash she’s flying toward him with her blade out. He flinches, throwing his arms up to defend his face, and in doing so he drops the dagger back to the floor. Thimble stops just inches in front of him, raises her eyebrow again when he looks at her, then points down. Occtis looks – the dagger is stuck a good two inches into the wood floor, just millimeters away from impaling his foot.

He gulps audibly.

“Looks like you’re going to have to learn defense first,” Thimble says. “Pick it up again and try using your whole hand this time. Like this.”

She holds out her hand with the needle and shows him where she’s placed her fingers and palm to create a strong grip. Occtis nods, swallows down the fear of even holding a weapon, and slowly reaches for the dagger again. He makes sure to mimic her grip, and when he yanks the handle it comes away from its stuck position in the floor easily. Thimble nods in approval as he stands and shows her his improvement.

“Well there you go. Step one complete,” she says, and Occtis feels himself mirroring her smile in spite of his nerves. “Now. Have you done any fighting at all before? Not with one of those, just…like fists and stuff? You’ve got a bunch of siblings, right? Surely they like to—”

“They don’t give me much opportunity to actually fight…” Occtis cuts in, shuddering subconsciously at the memories of being set upon by most of his older siblings at the same time. To call any of those events a fight would be a gross mischaracterization.

For the first time since they met, Thimble looks at him with complete softness. She floats forward, places her tiny hand under his chin, lifts it from where it had drooped in defeat, and stares into his eyes.

“Then you better listen to me and learn how to make it a fight. Eh?” Her hand turns into a fist, which she gently nudges against his chin. “Don’t let ’em give you shit anymore.”

She smiles, her eyes sparkling with mischief, and Occtis grins back. If anyone knows how to help him learn how to fight back against people bigger and stronger than he is, it would be the brash little pixie girl who could fit in the palm of his hand.

“I mean, I’ll…I’ll try…”

“Good enough for now.”

He’s not sure how long their lesson goes on, but his whole body definitely hurts after a while. Thimble teaches him some basic skills to try to avoid getting hit by a single attacker. He’s barely quick or agile enough for that, so there’s not much point in trying to complicate it with attacks from multiple angles, but he’s agreeable to continuing to practice on his own, just like with the magic Thjazi teaches him.

Occtis also receives a brief lesson on making his own attacks, both with the dagger and without, but this goes even more poorly than the defensive lessons. The mannequin, unmoving as it is, is easy enough to land a weak blow on once in a while, but when Thimble challenges him to try to hit her he somehow finds himself flat on his back time and time again.

After about the fifth try, she finally lets him rest on the floor to catch his breath.

“Yeah, so that’s basically it,” she says, hovering above him with a contemplative look before she remembers one last bit of advice. “Oh, but if all else fails, you know, just threaten to chop off their balls and that usually de-escalates it all pretty quickly.”

“Uhh, right,” Occtis pants. “Chop off their balls. Sure.”

“Threaten to chop off their balls.”

“My, my. What have I walked in on?” Thjazi’s voice calls from the door, where neither of them noticed his entrance. He looks on the scene with genuine amusement, though it is laced with confusion.

Thimble flies over to him excitedly. “I was just teaching him some useful moves for a fight. Right, Occ?”

Occtis squints at her from the floor. “Occ?”

“Yeah? Short for Occtis? You know, your name.”

“I know my name. You’ve just never called me by it before. Much less a nickname from it.”

“Well, we’re friends now, aren’t we?” Thimble asks, fluttering over him again and cocking her head curiously.

Occtis chuckles to himself. “You’re very hard to follow.”

“Is that a yes?”

Still lying on the floor, Occtis flicks a look toward Thjazi, who simply shrugs.

He looks back at Thimble. “Yeah…I think so.”

“Great!” the pixie exclaims, flittering a little more intensely for a moment that leaves Occtis covered in a light coating of her glowing dust. She extends her hand down as if to help him stand, then realizes that’s not going to happen and frowns over at the orc. “Thaz, come help him up.”

“Yes, ma’am…” Thjazi agrees, clearly as helpless against a command from Thimble as Occtis.

Thjazi pulls him to his feet with a firm hand and a knowing look, and then they get down to the business of why Occtis is there in the first place. In truth, he doesn’t have much to share with Thjazi about what his family is up to – there’s a gala coming up, his father has had a lot of visitors and meetings, his eldest brothers have been traveling – but the orc takes it all in with keen interest and seems pleased by what he’s told. Occtis is glad Thjazi is at least pretending to think his information is useful. The time between his visits feels longer and longer every time, and he can’t imagine how excruciating it would be to never be asked to return. Especially now that both halves of the little duo seem to enjoy his company.

To that point, it’s harder to leave than ever when he’s out of things to report and the afternoon begins to give way to the darkness of the evening. Occtis drags his feet to leave as Thjazi waves him goodbye, and before he can get to the door, Thimble flies up in front of his face with a smile.

“Come back soon…friend,” she tells him.

“Really?”

“Well, yeah,” Thimble says with a shrug. “You’ve got a lot more to learn.”

She winks, then reaches up to pat him on the cheek.

“Alright. I will," he promises. "See you later.”

Occtis walks all the way home with a smile on his face and a dagger in his knapsack.

Chapter Text

iii.

Occtis is fifteen, and he’s anxious.

He’s been anxious for most of his life, really, but it’s been worse than ever lately. Everything is about to change.

He’d come by to give Thjazi and Thimble the news: he isn’t going to be able to report on his family for them anymore because, in short, he’s overstayed his welcome in said family. They’d never had much need for him, and now that he’s of age and still not showing any signs of natural sorcerous power, they’re sending him away. Off to the Penteveral to be someone else’s problem. To keep learning magic in the less sophisticated way – “If it is even possible to train such a talentless whelp,” as his father had so kindly put it.

Occtis’s burgeoning wizardry had been revealed a couple months ago after a scuffle with a few of his brothers – he’d finally learned that fire bolt after all, much to Thimble’s delight. Using it in self-defense and outing himself had gotten him locked in his room for nearly a month, and by the time he’d finally been allowed out, the family had made a decision. Occtis knows it’s the best thing that could have happened to him, short of his family having a complete change of heart about him as a person, but that doesn’t make it any easier to contain the anxiety about having to leave the only home he’s ever known.

Thankfully, he’d had a place to turn to as the world shifted beneath his feet.

Everything’s about to change. Everything but this. Everything but the safety of the hideaway and the easy silence between him and Thimble as they sit together and let the time pass at its own pace between casual conversation. He’s opted not to go home just yet and instead borrows one of her needles to work on mending his tattered jacket. Ever since she’d claimed him as a friend, they’d spent more time together like this, just hanging out by themselves while Thjazi runs errands or visits his own family. Occtis always likes spending time with Thjazi, but he’s found there’s something even more calming about the one-on-one time with Thimble. Now that she’s given up her futile efforts at giving him combat training, anyway.

Occtis quietly goes about his work at the table while Thimble absentmindedly picks through the pile of buttons he’s set aside. She lingers a while on a light green one that matches one of the bright hues of her wings, rolling it side to side in front of her on the tabletop where she sits. Distantly, Occtis wonders where that button even came from, as it matches none of his dark clothes, but he’s accumulated quite an assorted collection so he doesn’t question it.

The rolling stops abruptly as Thimble whips her head over to squint at his work of patching the elbow of his coat.

“Why are you even doing this?” she asks, and thankfully by now he knows not to take the offense in her voice personally. “Aren’t you rich? Can’t you just get a new jacket made?”

“My parents are rich,” he corrects, quietly. “And I’m their disappointing eighth kid with no natural sorcerous abilities like the first seven. Getting me my own new clothes is not something they’ve ever been very interested in. I’ve been wearing everyone else’s hand-me-downs for as long as I can remember.”

Thimble lets out a disgusted scoff.

“Gods, your family sucks,” she mutters, then adds, “present company excluded.”

“Never been happier to be excluded,” Occtis assures her with a grin. It fades quickly. “And trust me, it happens…a lot.”

“I know,” she says, and she does. Occtis has found her to be a great listener when it comes to his complaints about his family. Thjazi cares about what the members of House Tachonis are up to outside the home, the abuses they inflict on the rest of the world, but Thimble has been ready to take up arms against his brothers and sisters on his behalf alone for almost a year now.

As much as he’d like to see that, he’s never taken her up on the offer.

The silence settles in again, and Occtis tries to focus his mind on the task in his hands rather than his memories of home or his worries about the future. But it’s no use, really. Even as he finishes with the patch and goes to sew up a ripped seam on the other arm, he can’t keep his mind from wandering to what the next weeks will hold, can’t stop the shake of his hands as he wonders if his father is right about him being unteachable.

He tries four, five times to guide his thread through the loop of the borrowed needle, and still it eludes him. Thimble watches the failed attempts and then slowly gets up and walks over, taking the thread and guiding it through for him with her diminutive hands.

She looks up at him as he takes a shaky breath. “You’re scared, aren’t you?”

A small part of Occtis wants to cry in response to her gentleness, but he holds it back, keeping his hands still where Thimble’s rest upon his fingers.

“I shouldn’t be. I know it’s a good thing…” He shakes his head in frustration. “But…I don’t know, I mean. I-I don’t really know how to be anywhere else. Except maybe here. And it’s not like I’ve loved being there, but…”

“But what if you never get to go home again?” Thimble finishes, dropping her hands from his as she gives a rueful smile.

Occtis feels a pang of guilt in his chest as he remembers the story of the doors to Faerie closing. “Yeah. Shit. Sorry, Thimble, I…”

“It’s okay,” she assures him. “I know how you feel…”

Occtis falls silent as Thimble flies up to take a seat on his shoulder. He doesn’t watch her, doesn’t look over, just stares down at his hands and tries to will them to work again. It’s easier, he knows, for both of them to talk if they don’t look at each other. But even now he’s at a loss for what to say, until he realizes he’s never really asked her about home.

“What was it like there?” he croaks, then backpedals. “If…you want to talk about it, which you don’t hav—”

“So boring. Seriously. Just hunting mice and shit. Being with Thjazi is so much more fun,” Thimble blurts out all in one breath, then scoffs. “Even if people are trying to kill us all the time.”

Occtis smiles. “I think maybe I'd prefer being bored.”

“Yeah….” she says thoughtfully. “It wasn’t all bad, I guess. Definitely prettier there than in this stinking city. No offense.”

“It’s alright, I know I’m not that pretty.”

He can practically hear the eye roll. “Not what I meant, Occ.”

The silence nearly grows comfortable enough and long enough for him to get back to his work, but he breaks it once again.

“I’m sorry you can’t go back,” he tells her in his softest voice, and hears her sigh just as quietly.

“That’s not even the part that bothers me. Most of the time.”

“What is?”

Occtis peeks down to see Thimble fold herself up on his shoulder with her knees to her chest.

“When they closed the doors…I lost the connection to the light of Tír Cruthú. The light that’s supposed to keep me from aging and dying naturally. That was five years ago, and…and I can feel it. It’s really slow, but I can feel the light fading.” She pauses and sniffs, just a little. Occtis notes that this is the first time she has ever sounded scared to him. “And unless we can find a way to open the doors again…that’s it. I’ll just keep getting older. And eventually…I’ll die…”

“Well…the dying, that’s…that’s not good. Obviously,” Occtis says, wholly unhelpfully. He makes a mental note, though, to do plenty of research at the Penteveral. Being of the House Tachonis, he has been a student of death all his life. If his family could help guide mortal people peacefully between life and death, maybe it is possible to learn how to comfort a soul that should have been immortal, when the time comes. Or how to prevent the time from coming at all. He shakes off the thought for the time being. “But…as for getting older, I mean. Maybe that’s not so bad.”

“Easy for you to say. You always knew you were gonna do it.”

“Sure. But hey, maybe this means…we can grow up together,” Occtis suggests, daring to look down at her again to see how the idea lands.

He’s rewarded with a bright smile.

“Sounds pretty nice when you say it like that….” Thimble says, then the soft smile drops and she finds her signature attitude once more. “Okay but just remember, I’m always gonna be older than you no matter what it looks like.”

“And I’m always gonna be bigger than you,” he counters, and she lets out a laugh.

“Ha. Size isn’t everything, Occ,” she reminds him, scooting a bit closer until she can lean her head and shoulder into the side of his neck. He smiles.

“So I’ve heard.”

Their easy silence settles in once again, and Occtis manages to stay relaxed enough to get back to his mending. All the while, Thimble leans against him, so content and quiet that after a while he wonders if she’s fallen asleep, until he hears her humming softly to herself.

At long last, he finishes piecing together all the tears and holes in his coat and returns Thimble’s needle to her before starting to clean up the rest of his supplies. She helps gather up the buttons, but holds onto the green one she’d been fidgeting with earlier as the rest get put away in his bag.

“I’m keeping this,” she informs him.

“Oh. Okay…?”

“I normally don’t tell people when I steal things from them. But you’re my friend, so…”

Occtis squints in confusion. “You could just ask if you can have it. I’ll say yes.”

“No. I steal things,” she insists. “But, if it makes you feel better, I’ll pay you back.”

“It’s one button, I don’t…I don’t feel bad,” he says, trying not to laugh, as she seems deadly serious about the whole thing.

Thimble simply shrugs. “Well you never know when you’ll need another one, so I’ll pay you back.”

“Alright then,” he agrees, not knowing what else to do.

Button deal – theft? – in place and worries of the future put aside for the time being, Occtis makes to leave and head back home for the last time before he’s sent away. He finds he’s no longer as anxious about leaving home or starting this new phase of his life, only about how often he’ll get to come back around here.

“Don’t you let anybody give you shit at this school, alright?” Thimble commands him as he reaches the door.

“I’ll do my best,” he promises. He pauses for a moment, looking down at his feet before meeting her eyes again nervously. “I’ll see you later…right?”

“It would be hard for us to grow up together if you didn’t, huh?” She smiles at him, and he smiles back on instinct.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Plus, someone’s got to keep an eye on you now that you’re going off into the world,” she says, her smile sliding into a smirk, at which he rolls his eyes.

“Right. All that trouble I tend to get into.”

“That’s right,” Thimble confirms. She floats up toward his face and pats his cheek, as has become her habit upon seeing him off. “See you later, Occtis.”

He nods as he studies her face, wondering how much they’ll each have grown up by the time they’re together again, then backs out the door.

“See you…”

Chapter Text

iv.

Occtis is eighteen, and he’s lonely.

It’s not an unusual state for him, nor a particularly bad one – he quite values his solitude – but the end of another semester at the Penteveral has brought an acute isolation this time around. Most other students and plenty of the faculty have left the grounds until the next semester, and the campus is quiet and lifeless compared to the norm. Only Occtis and a few others with no welcoming home to return to have remained in the dormitories.

Just as well, he supposes. Fewer students means less security, and less security means his chances of being able to sneak into some of the more restricted libraries and laboratories have gone up. A dark cloak and a disguise spell could do wonders, so long as that Mag’nesson woman from the bursar’s office isn’t sniffing around. Frustratingly perceptive and no fan of his, that one. Occtis doesn’t even know what he’d look for specifically if he managed to get into the restricted library. At this point he’s hungry for anything on necromancy. Even after everything, there’s a part of him that believes that if he just works hard enough, just devotes himself to learning everything he was born missing, maybe one day he’ll be accepted back into his House. Maybe he won’t just be a Tachonis in name alone.

Sitting on his dormitory bed surrounded by books he can’t concentrate on, he shakes his head at the thought. He knows better. He knows the distance and the time he’s been away have helped to warp his perspective, and the lonesome night in his quiet room isn’t helping matters. It’s foolish, he knows, to miss a family like his. A family that was neglectful of him at best, actively abusive at worst. But a person only gets one family, right? Missing it must be natural, no matter how bad it was.

Occtis is so wrapped up in contemplation over it that he fails to notice his visitor until a sharp little voice startles him.

“Why is there a dead fox on your desk?”

“Shapers’ tits—” Occtis nearly jumps off his bed, tossing the book he was holding into the air in his surprise. Heart racing, he twists to find the source of the voice, a familiar glowing pixie, hovering just inside his open window and looking down with concern at the project on his desk. “Thimble? What are you doing here?”

“Thjazi said you sent a message. He thought you seemed lonely,” she tells him. Occtis doesn’t recall mentioning anything of the sort when he sent his most recent report of nothing to report, but Thjazi had always had a way of seeing right through him, even when he couldn’t see him at all. “I didn’t realize you were ‘making friends with dead animals’ lonely, or I would’ve come sooner.”

She finally looks up from the desk and smirks at him.

“I’m not making—” Occtis cuts himself off and jumps from the bed, shoving aside his pile of books and rushing over to clean up the mess on his desk, taxidermied fox borrowed from the cadaver lab and all. He picks it up and casts his eyes around for a better spot, but nothing seems right so he ends up just placing it down again in an unoccupied spot on the desk before turning back to Thimble with apologetic eyes. “Look, I’m glad you came but…technically I'm not supposed to have a girl in here after dark.”

The pixie just smiles, flies over to pat him on the cheek, and says, “You’re adorable, Occ.”

Occtis can only roll his eyes at himself. Even if it was possible for a tiny rogue like Thimble to be found in here if she didn’t want to be, he knows she’d only welcome whatever trouble it might bring.

He matches her smile. “I missed you too, Thimble.”

They both laugh, and she flutters her wings in his face adorably before turning sober again in an instant.

“Now seriously, what’s up with the fox?”

So he takes a seat on his bed again and tells her all about it. He’s been studying the anatomies of various creatures, first in his room like with the stuffed fox, and later in a slightly more controlled environment where he can practice dissections. It’s nothing to do with the magic he needs to practice, but he hopes that learning the science behind how bodies operate will help make the magic easier, more effective.

Occtis appreciates that, unlike his fellow students and his professors who ask, Thimble doesn’t seem to find his studies objectionable. On the contrary, she hangs on his every word and asks questions every time one pops into her head. They fall into the same easy conversation they always have, even though it has been longer than usual since he’s seen her. He catches her up on his whole semester, and she tells him about all the adventures she’s been on with Thjazi over the past half a year.

When she finishes giving him a rundown of her latest haul of stolen trinkets, she brightens as a thought hits her.

“Oh, wait! I got you something,” Thimble says, reaching to her side into what Occtis thinks must be the world’s smallest bag of holding. She rummages for a bit, then produces a pair of identical purple buttons, the same shade as his House color. She holds them out to him, one in each hand. “Never say I don’t pay my debts.”

Occtis is confused for a moment, until his eyes fall on a familiar green button hanging from her belt. The very one she’d “stolen” from him so long ago.

“No, I’ll just say you pay them three years later,” he quips, holding out his hand so she can drop the new buttons into his palm.

“Yeah but double.”

“Right,” he mutters, holding the buttons up to his eyes to examine them. They seem to be extremely ordinary purple buttons. “What am I supposed to do with these?”

Thimble puts her hands behind her back and gives a shy shrug.

“I dunno. Button stuff?” She peeks up at Occtis, who can only squint in confusion at her sudden change in demeanor. “I just…well it’s been so long since we’ve talked and I don’t know when we will again and I don’t want you to forget about me while you’re here learning all this stuff and being all important-wizard-guy busy studying and everything, so I thought…” She finally takes a breath as she thumbs the button on her hip, then makes a regretful noise. “Ah, maybe I should just give you this one back, that makes more sense—”

“Thimble…” Occtis interrupts before she can begin rambling again. He waits for her to meet his eyes and smiles at her softly. “You’re…literally the most interesting person I’ve ever met. How could I possibly forget about you?”

He holds out his hand for her to rest on instead of continuing to hover in front of him, and she lands in his palm but still keeps looking away with a shyness he doesn’t often see in her.

“I don’t know, I mean you must be meeting lots of cool wizards and magic people and…and new friends, Occtis!” she practically shouts at him. “You must have so many friends by now!”

He gives a lighthearted scoff. “Me? The weird, awkward rich kid who studies dead things?” With his free hand, he jerks his thumb toward the fox. “Nobody really wants to be friends with that kid. Even the professors don’t really like me.”

Before Occtis can blink, Thimble has her needles in her hands.

“Which ones? I’ll fuck ’em up,” she offers, every trace of shyness suddenly replaced by rage. He holds up his hand.

“That’s not…I appreciate it, as always, but that’s not necessary,” he assures her. It takes a moment, but she slowly sheathes her weapons and continues to scowl suspiciously. “The point is, I don’t…I don’t really have friends. But that’s okay. I’ve really only ever needed the one.”

He raises an eyebrow at her, and Thimble’s face twists up with a mixture of pride, embarrassment…joy. Occtis thinks she might be blushing, but before he can truly discern it, she glides toward him with her arms stretched wide and hugs him in the middle of his chest, right over where his heartbeat thumps in a relaxed rhythm. He gently covers her with his hand to return the hug as well as he can.

“You really know how to make a girl feel special, Occ,” she says into his shirt.

“You are special, Thimble.”

She looks up at him and releases the hug. As his hand falls away, she twirls a bit in the air, glowing brighter with the compliment. He watches as she flies over and sits down on his pillow, patting it invitingly in the space beside her.

“Tell me more about that.”

Still helpless to resist a command from his smallest friend, Occtis shuffles over to lay his long frame down on his side with his head on his pillow right next to her. She watches him struggle to make eye contact as he thinks about what to say, blinking patiently until he settles on a memory to share.

“Well…I never told you this,” he starts, “but after I met you the first time, there were times when I wished I was as small as you.”

“Aw, why? So we could cuddle or something?” Thimble moves to lie on her side, mirroring him as she gives a playful smirk. She reaches out for him, and Occtis slowly, nervously, brings his hand up between them, extending his finger for her to hold onto.

“No…not that....” he says, despite that being exactly what she’s doing to him at the moment. He’s definitely blushing himself now. He takes a deep breath and shakes it off. “I wanted to be small so that I could…so that I could hide away easier. So no one would ever notice me unless I wanted them to.”

Thimble’s gleeful face turns concerned as she hugs his knuckle tighter. “Occtis…”

“But then you taught me how to stand up for myself instead,” he continues, powering on before chuckling anxiously. “I mean, it never worked very well, but…at least I didn’t feel like I should hide to avoid my problems anymore. You taught me that being myself is the most important thing. Just like you.” He smiles as he uses his thumb to caress her arm ever so lightly. “So no, Thimble. I don’t think I ever could forget you. You’re…you’re my best friend.”

For a long moment, she simply smiles back at him with adoration in her eyes. Then she buries her face behind his finger and squeezes her arms tighter around it.

“I wish you could turn as small as me right now so I could give you a real hug,” she mumbles, and he chuckles.

“I’ll work on it. Maybe someday.”

“Okay.” She peeks up at him. “It’s a date.”

Occtis rolls his eyes lightly, but he doesn’t object. How can he? She may be the one holding onto his hand, but he’s always been the one wrapped around her finger.

They fall asleep just like that, and in the morning Occtis doesn’t move until Thimble gets up and says she needs to get back to Thjazi.

She hesitates by the window, looking back at him with worry. “You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm…sure. Sure I am. Going to be okay. Yes.” He ends strong, hoping she believes him. She doesn’t press, so he asks her back. “Are you?”

“Always,” Thimble assures him, though her eyes wander away. They land on the stuffed fox for a moment before finding his again. “Well. If your new friend over there doesn’t work out…you can always send me a message. I’ll come hang out when I can.”

“Alright. See you later.”

“Later, Occ,” she says, pats his cheek as usual, then turns and flies out the window and out of sight.

Occtis closes the window behind her, then sits and stares at the stuffed fox and the purple buttons on his desk for a good long while.