Work Text:
“To think, that was all it took for you to properly focus.”
Sylvien is so startled that he flinches, his chisel slipping from his fingers—only to be deftly caught by Beatin standing at his shoulder and placed safely back on the workbench. Beatin regards him with an eyebrow arched just above the frame of his glasses, and Sylvien blinks back at him, feeling strange and awkward and flustered.
They are alone in the workshop, and Sylvien had not even noticed. He had made a quite strenuous effort not to notice the Timbermaster for most of the day, as it was difficult to do so without remembering—
Beatin had left him that morning with a key placed on the bedside table, a request to lock up when he left, and a kiss to his forehead—Sylvien had been too groggy to demand more. Sylvien had not stayed in bed long, but he had dawdled for the remainder of his morning, returning to his apartment for a soak in the communal baths and for breakfast, then discovering all manner of little errands that suddenly could not be postponed, criss-crossing the city on various trivial missions with Beatin’s key weighing heavily in his pocket, before finally strolling into the carpenters’ guild a little after noon.
He returned the key, surreptitiously, at the first opportunity—it was beginning to feel strangely intimate in his pocket, despite having been granted only as a matter of convenience. If Beatin’s fingertips brushed his a moment longer than necessary, Sylvien was incapable of determining so—the moment stretched so interminably long in his own mind, measured in the rapid beats of his heart, that he trusted not his own perception. He swallowed the squirming feeling in his chest and hastened to his workbench as soon as he could, where he managed to absorb himself in his work out of what could only be sheer desperation.
Sylvien does not like this. Having gotten precisely what he wanted, he should be only satisfied, victorious, even, yet instead he feels possessed by a fluttering, clamoring flock of questions and hopes, a brood he has no right to harbor. He had not thought about what he wanted from the Timbermaster beyond last night’s achievement—rarely must he consider any sort of “beyond” at all, and now all he knows is that he wants something, for it is hooked in his chest behind his heart, an ache both unfamiliar and troubling.
Now, Beatin looks past him to the half-finished project on Sylvien’s workbench—not a commission, but a shelf he was intending to bring back to his own cramped apartment. It is a functional piece, bare of any ornamentation, but Beatin’s attention settles on it with all his usual intensity nonetheless.
“Oak is a good choice. It can be tempting to opt for pine, but that will only do for trinkets.”
Sylvien had thought so as well, and the little burst of satisfaction at the small success of wielding his new skills to make a decision distracts him for a moment, so he does not notice right away when Beatin’s eyes flicker to him around the edge of his glasses.
When he does, he feels a flush creep up his cheeks, and he wonders again at this strange discomfiture. Beatin is hardly the first man to take him to bed, and he rarely finds himself fidgeting like this in the presence of any of the others—though the others rarely spare him a glance in the aftermath to begin with.
But after a moment, Beatin’s expression softens. His lips part slightly, he leans a little closer, and Sylvien practically leaps to catch his kiss.
Beatin grasps his hips, sparking echoes of the previous night, and Sylvien arches into him, all his jittery uncertainty evaporating in an instant under the sureness of his touch. Despite his dismissal of the concept the previous day, Beatin nudges Sylvien around to brace him against his workbench, pressing close and settling a leg between his, his kiss devouring—until there is the sound of a door falling closed and footsteps in the front room.
Beatin steps back from him swiftly; Sylvien still feels a little dizzy, and so stays where he is, so the scene is not entirely unsuspicious when Hartford steps into the workshop.
But the man barely looks at him, his eyes seeking out the Timbermaster instead.
“Oh, good, you’re still here.” He looks harried, his hat askew and his face slightly flushed. “Bit of an emergency. A tree caved in the roof of a storehouse over at Bentbranch. There’s rain coming, and a season’s worth of stores in there that can’t be allowed to spoil.”
There is no question of doing aught but rushing straight to Bentbranch. Beatin oversees the repairs; Sylvien finds himself employed in the gathering and organizing of materials, as he has little skill in large-scale construction. They all return late and exhausted to their beds just as the first trickles of the impending storm begin to fall, and no doubt all sleep soundly, satisfied with the knowledge of a job well done, save Sylvien, who lies awake far too long imagining how differently the night could have gone.
And so the days pass. Sylvien does his utmost to tamp down a frustration he had promised not to feel; of course this city of wood keeps the Timbermaster extremely busy, and to complain would make him no better than Gairhard.
It might have been prudent to avoid the Guild for a time, but his increasingly frequent commissions bring in much needed coin. But he feels it must be obvious, painfully, each day he arrives at the Atrium, that his yearning must radiate off of him in waves, a distraction to himself and an annoyance to Beatin, who has not caught him alone since the night of the crisis at Bentbranch.
Such is his preoccupation that he almost misses it when a convergence of season and weather prompts the conditions for a rare fungal bloom deep in the forest. Though he is hardly the only botanist to know of it, he has his own secret spots, accessible by narrow caves and forgotten Gelmorran passageways, where others are less likely to tread. The excuse to leave the city is welcome—with a pack of provisions and a bedroll on his back, he prepares for an excursion of a few days.
As soon as the last well-traveled road falls out of view, his nerves finally seem to settle—or rather, they redirect to productive avenues, into the necessary alertness required when venturing so far into the woods.
Sylvien has never feared the Twelveswood, but he has never been especially grateful to it, either—not, at least, as an entity, as something with a will. He does not think it spared him as an infant on his own merits, rather, he has always sensed that his sister had passed a trial in rescuing him, of which he had been a mere piece. The forest is indifferent to him, and he prefers it that way.
To be beloved of it would be only another unwanted distinction from his peers. In not fearing it, neither in awe nor terror, he feels he can evaluate its bounties with a more objective eye, and that distance has served him rather well, in his opinion, even if it earns him the distrust of devout Gridanians and fearful Duskwights alike.
And as such, he draws no hard distinction between the abandoned subterrain of Gelmorra and the jurisdiction of the Elementals above—it is all one place, and he passes over the boundaries with impunity. The upheavals of the Calamity inconvenience him little, the fractured ground still familiar between the cracks, and in the years since he has learned to navigate the fissures, finding that the disturbance has opened as many new paths as it has severed.
He passes settlements by and camps out for the night instead; even if he can afford an inn, he has greater confidence in his ability to pick a safe spot in the woods than he does in the integrity of the strangers with whom he might have shared a bed. The sounds of the wood—different, since the Calamity, but nonetheless familiar—lull him to sleep as he settles into his bedroll, and when he wakes to birdsong and the nearby snuffling of a curious antelope, he feels more refreshed than he ever does after a night in the city.
He has grown accustomed to Gridania, slowly but surely, but he is most himself out here, alone and unobserved, unrepentant of the space he occupies. Though not unconscious of the inscrutable gaze of the Elementals, he has in practice found himself largely beneath their notice—not always the case in the city, where his presence, when minded, is cause for special wariness, at least outside of the Atrium. Beatin has never tolerated such attitudes within the guild, and even from Sylvien’s first day, the difference had been apparent.
A place he might be allowed to belong—if he has not cocked it up entirely with his impertinent desires. The thought dims the dewy beauty of the morning somewhat, and he packs up his camp and forages for breakfast with a furrow lingering on his brow, before setting off in search of mushrooms.
As expected, when he reaches his little grotto, it is entirely undisturbed, a spectacular bloom of faintly glowing caps spreading across the mossy ground. He plucks enough to fill his bags, stepping carefully to avoid disturbing the moss, and even with his bag full nearly to bursting, the glow of the little cavern is barely diminished. Mission achieved, he spends the afternoon bells properly packing and securing his bounty, and sets up camp in a nearby cave, deep enough to avoid any sheltering beasts or brigands, whittling by firelight until settling down for sleep.
His morning is another peaceful trek through the wood, eyes peeled just as much for danger as for other treasures he might pick up along the way. But as the paths give way to dirt-packed roads, Sylvien’s thoughts rush ahead to the city. He has nothing to bring back to the Atrium; the mushrooms will be sold via the botanists' guild, still a reliable source of income despite his increasingly infrequent appearances there. Will Beatin be disappointed? First all his awkwardness, his lack of focus, now a long absence with nothing to show for it; perhaps he will even be angry—
He cannot help but imagine it, a miserable indulgence that blooms readily over his fertile melancholy like a carpet of fungus on moist ground. Though he had feared the same as a consequence of his flirting, the feeling that grips his chest to think of Beatin’s ire now is exponentially more potent. He imagines the accusations that might fly—that he loiters in the guild for the wrong reasons, that he fouls the art of woodworking with his motivations—and he would nearly be inclined to believe them himself, for is it not uncharacteristic of him to apply his efforts in this way, to dedicate himself to the tedious process of learning a skill that allows him to be part of the city in which he had only dared exist before?
And yet somehow, he still wants to hurry back, pausing at a crossroads and opting for the more direct route, even if it passes through a bog that many travelers avoid due to the poor maintenance of the bridges spanning the water. Beatin may be disappointed, but is it not disappointment born of expectation? And no one has expected anything of Sylvien before, not even Irienne, who had all but raised him and yet had never demanded that he make anything of himself. He can bear disappointment, as long as it is not the end, as long as he yet has a chance to prove he can be something worthy of that intent, appraising gaze—
Resolved such, Sylvien presses onwards, and then the world explodes.
Wood splinters beneath his boots and water erupts around him, only an instant before a noxious gust hits him like a wall. Dazed, he cannot prevent himself from gulping a lungful of it, choking on water and poison as he loses his footing and tumbles not into the bog, but into the seething mass of animated vines waiting for him.
The stroper snatches at his bag, and he wriggles free of the straps just in time to avoid being submerged. But it has found his limbs by now, holding him fast as he fruitlessly tries to struggle.
Sylvien has survived in the Twelveswood not because he is strong, or skilled with a sword or lance or bow, but because he is observant. He has never had to fight off a carnivorous seedkin because he knows how to avoid their traps and give their spawning grounds a wide berth. Now a lapse in that concentration might kill him, and for all his present misery, Sylvien very dearly does not want to die.
But observation might yet save him, or so he prays as he desperately marshals his panic under control and forces himself to go entirely limp.
There is little chance that he will fool the beast—it can still feel the heat of his body and the pulse of his blood through its sensitive tendrils—but if he can only convince it that the fight is won, it might—
The locomotion of such seedkin, as much as they resemble animals, is still largely reflex. Movement takes enormous energy, and energy must be conserved, so if prey ceases to fight back…
The tendrils relax, ever so slightly, and Sylvien still waits. His throat burns with the effort of suppressing a cough, but he cannot act prematurely, for seedkin have their own measures to deal with this sort of trickery, and he has watched an anole try this exact gambit, only to flinch too early and be devoured.
But he has no choice but to take the gamble, for sooner or later the poison in his lungs will choke him before he even encounters the creature’s teeth. The moment has given him enough time to orient himself, to recall exactly where on his belt his hatchet should be hanging…
(…should be, but if it is not, he wonders how long it will take anyone to wonder about his fate…)
…and with one feeble prayer to gods he has never spent much time honoring, he acts.
He pulls one arm free of the loose coil encircling it, reaches for his belt—and grasps the smooth wood handle of his hatchet. With nearly the same motion, he swings to chop at a tendril holding his leg, connects, slices through, and then he can only flail as he starts to fall towards the water and the remaining vines.
But the stroper’s reactions are blessedly sluggish—as he had hoped, it had decided to redirect its energy away from pointlessly restraining the “unconscious” prey and towards the next stage of the process. Large globs of saliva drip from its teeth as it prepares for digestion, landing on Sylvien’s shoulders and face as he tumbles from its grasp, and though he knows it is a sign of the biological instincts that might save him, he still can’t help but gag at the sensation.
But he is unrestrained and in the bog now, so when his boots hit the mud beneath the water, he lunges, water in his eyes, chest burning, legs tingling as he dives towards dry land. The heel of his hand strikes stone and he hisses in pain before scrabbling up the boulder in front of him, hearing the shifting and squelching of the stroper in the mud, nearly blind and knowing he could be stumbling into the maw of another, less exhausted beast—
He tumbles down the far side of the rock into a bed of leaves, losing his grip on his hatchet in the process, then rights himself and keeps moving, with no objective but to put as much space between himself and the bog as possible. But after a few staggering steps, a pang of vertigo sends him veering to the side and he ends up planted against a tree trunk, cheek pressed to the rough bark through a slime of stroper spit, uncertain if he remains upright or if he has fallen against a log.
Distance from his attacker does naught to save him from the poison already seeping into his veins. His head swims, vision fogging as he slumps against the tree, and though he doubts the confused seedkin will manage to reach him itself, he is all too aware that he is easy prey for any other wandering monster in his current state.
And then he is aware of nothing, as the powerful sedatives in the creature’s breath and spit seep at last into his blood, and unconsciousness sweeps up to claim him.
… … …
Sylvien wakes sluggishly, at first.
Beyond his eyelids, he is aware of light, and sound, but little more. Then nausea grips him—with speed he does not logically feel capable of, he bolts upright and retches over the edge of his bed, the urgent strength immediately draining away as soon as his stomach is empty, leaving him to fall back to the pillows entirely spent.
There is a flurry of motion nearby, but Sylvien cannot muster the effort to open his eyes to see it. Then—the press of a warm, damp cloth against his brow, then his mouth, wiping away the bile, and finally the touch of a hand against his forehead, oddly calloused, he muses, for a healer…
He drags his eyes open as the thought crosses his mind, and Beatin withdraws his hand, though he still leans close, one hand braced against the cot, brow drawn, but eyes invisible behind his spectacles.
“What are you doing here?” Sylvien asks, at the same time that someone nearby utters a sort of inarticulate moan—when Beatin arches an uncomprehending eyebrow at him, it occurs to Sylvien that the sound came from his own mouth. He marshals his lips more sternly, and whether or not he succeeds in clarity, Beatin seems to understand him on the second attempt.
“One of Gairhard’s conjurers informed me that an Elezen she thought she recognized was lying senseless in a bed in the Adders’ infirmary. You have been missing several days; should I not have assumed the worst?”
Slowly, Sylvien is coming to an awareness of his body. He is very sore, his skin tugs at bandages when he moves, and his head is pounding, an insistent beat that seems to jar his vision with each thump.
He closes his eyes, seeking some relief, and slumps back against the pillows.
Doesn’t answer the question, he thinks, for Beatin should not be here himself. It would have been far more sensible to send a less occupied carpenter, or even a child from the Orchard to check on him, not to take time out of his day to sit at Sylvien’s bedside like—
“I worried for you, child,” Beatin huffs, and Sylvien realizes he must have mumbled something aloud after all. A hand grasps his, cooler than Sylvien remembers—he must be feverish. “You vanished without a word, and—”
Sylvien wants to open his eyes, to investigate that strange note in Beatin’s voice, but he thinks he could not bear to only see himself, reflected in his lenses. Beatin lets out a sharp breath.
“Oh, this is ridiculous. You clearly still need a healer.”
Beatin releases his hand; Sylvien feels he reaches for him, but it must only result in a twitch of his fingers. There is the sound of a chair scraping wood, and several sets of footsteps—and then the warm tingle of aether settling through his skin. The aches remain, but his head seems to clear slightly, and he blinks his eyes open to a much more distinct view of what appears to be an infirmary.
Beatin stands by the door to the small room, speaking to another healer and looking increasingly cross, if the set of his lips is anything to go by. In the Atrium, such an expression would immediately precede a threat of saw-inflicted violence—Beatin looks as though he is barely restraining himself, now.
“Very well,” Sylvien hears. “He is clearly still unwell, but if you need the bed so very badly—”
“He only needs rest now,” the healer is protesting, but Beatin has turned back towards the bed. He startles a little when he sees Sylvien staring back at him.
“Well he looks better, I suppose,” Beatin admits, though his tone is still rather acidic. His glasses flash, but his brows tell of a softer expression beneath them when he adds, “can you stand, child?”
Sylvien is a little surprised to find that he can, with support, though he still feels queasy. Beatin helps him from the room, and despite the heaviness weighing his limbs and begging to allow him to simply lie back down, he finds he is rather relieved to be out of there, away from the mistrustful eyes of the healers.
“They must not have noticed at first,” he muses, half to himself, though Beatin glances at him questioningly.
“I must rather look like a Wildwood who has lost some blood, no?” Sylvien clarifies. “They got uneasy when they healed me and the gray remained. Thought they had rescued some bandit by mistake.”
Beatin clicks his tongue, but he does not dispute the point.
“Where can I bring you?” he asks instead.
Suddenly a little conscious of the figure Beatin cuts, tall and, more noticeably, outside of the Oak Atrium, Sylvien insists on walking to his apartment without support, though Beatin stays close at his shoulder. The effort, though, taxes him more than he expects, and by the time they reach his door he is swaying on his feet, and Beatin has to take the key from him to unlock it.
Sylvien retains just enough presence of mind to be embarrassed by the sight of his tiny apartment, one corner a veritable forest of plants both living and dried, another piled with all the tools he owned that were not now sunk in the depths of a bog, and lastly his bed, untidily made up with lumpy blankets and sandwiched between the wall and a dresser whose drawers have never properly closed. The dresser, especially, makes him cringe, for really, he should be quite capable of repairing it at this point, and he assumes Beatin’s evaluating gaze will narrow straight in on the shoddy construction.
But Beatin says nothing, only helps him to the bed, where Sylvien sits and determinedly starts upon untying his boots before Beatin can try to help him with it.
“I should be alright now,” Sylvien ventures, trying not to sound too strained at the effort of pulling his foot out of his shoe.
Beatin’s eyes sweep the room then, and Sylvien braces himself.
“Have you any food?”
Sylvien glances doubtfully at the cupboard half-hidden behind a sheet of dangling vines. “Er…likely not.”
“Then I shall return shortly.”
Sylvien’s eyes widen, but his left foot is trapped halfway up his boot, and he can hardly rise to stop him. “You don’t need—”
But Beatin is already gone, and Sylvien can only stare despairingly at his door, his limbs too heavy for him to even consider trying to run after him. He finishes with his boots and wavers on the edge of his bed for a moment, but his pillows seem to draw him in like a lodestone, and he find himself slumped sideways in bed before he can do much to prevent it.
Despite his exhaustion, his mind still races to Beatin, somewhere beyond his door. The burden he is placing on the Timbermaster seems to inflate with each passing second. Catastrophic enough that he had caused enough concern to draw Beatin away from his work; now he has him running errands, and for days he has no doubt been forced to deal with Sylvien’s neglected customers, which will reflect poorly on the guild, and cause loyal customers to question the Timbermaster’s judgement in his recommendation, for really what had Sylvien been thinking, taking a space for himself when he knew he did not deserve one—
He flinches when the doorknob clicks, and the words spill out of him before Beatin is even fully in the room.
“I’m sorry,” he gasps, and he hopes it is clear that he means for everything, his distraction, his pining, his absence, his stupidity, his failure to simply allow the stroper to swallow him, which would have left everyone better off—whatever fault might exist, he wants to apologize for it.
Beatin pauses in the doorway, gazes at him for a beat, then places a parcel down on Sylvien’s table before crossing the few paces to the bed.
“It must seem I just ignored you,” Sylvien goes on, half-rising from the tangled position he has settled into. “I didn’t, you know. I understand, I’m content to—”
Beatin leans in to press his palm to Sylvien’s forehead, stilling his movement, then sits upon the edge of the bed with a frown. “You are feverish again.”
“But it’s alright, really,” Sylvien babbles on. “For you to love me only as you can. In between everything else. I only must know if you…” A lump that does not quite form a sob rises in his throat. “If you will love me at all, or rather, it doesn't need to be love, but if you want me, and if it’s alright if I—well if I only know, I will be rather undemanding, I can swear it—”
His words are not even the right ones. Even now, with everything that has gone wrong, he cannot say what he must, that Beatin should simply forget that night, that this has all been a mistake. Instead he is begging, clinging to whatever scrap of his attention he can claim, for as much as he knows he does not deserve it, nothing seems more dreadful than to return to a life where he did not know it at all.
“Child, you are half-delirious—might we discuss this when—”
“I will not be in the way, I swear it, I only—"
“Sylvien.” It cannot be the first time Beatin has used his name, but it washes over him like a balm nonetheless. “I fear I would not recognize you.”
Sylvien just stares at him, barely comprehending the thread of his words—which must be obvious on his face, for Beatin sighs.
“You have rather stubbornly placed yourself in my way for nigh on three moons. Should you stop, I would wonder—well, I did in fact wonder, and had my worst fears nearly confirmed! You of all my apprentices should know—”
He pauses abruptly, no doubt noticing the tears welling in Sylvien’s eyes as a result of his burgeoning tirade.
“I worried for you, child,” he goes on, more softly. “With each passing day of your absence I feared it was my neglect driving you away. I always learn this too late, it seems, and I am undeservedly relieved that it was not entirely the case.”
“Not neglecting me,” Sylvien murmurs. He is beginning to feel as though his skull is full of cotton, but he scowls through the fog to mumble the rest of his last lingering thought: “You look at me more than anyone else.”
He has closed his eyes at some point, so he cannot see Beatin looking at him now, brow lifted, lips parted on some undefinable emotion. Then a warm and calloused hand settles against the side of his face, thumbs wiping tears from his eyes—and lips brush his brow, barely there at first, and then again, a soft and tender kiss followed by another to his cheek, his nose, and eventually his lips, a chaste pressure that nonetheless makes tears spring from Sylvien’s eyes anew, for he knows not what to do with the onslaught of gentle affection.
Beatin catches the fresh tears, then takes to stroking Sylvien’s hair until his crying subsides, gently tugging his finger through lingering snarls and plucking out a few stray leaves and briars. Then he sighs, a chiding sort of sound, before sliding a hand under Sylvien’s legs and arranging him a little less awkwardly on the bed, tugging the blankets around him until he is properly settled. With this done, he goes to retrieve the parcel he had brought, unwrapping a loaf of bread, a wooden bowl with a lid, and a fire crystal glowing faintly with contained power, placing all three on the bedside table.
“Rest now,” Beatin says softly, tucking the blankets neatly around Sylvien’s shoulders. “Be sure to eat something when you wake. We will speak when you are well.”
And for all his efforts otherwise, Sylvien’s tears have at last exhausted him, and he is asleep before the door closes.
… … …
He wakes hours later to dim morning light, oddly clearheaded and ravenously hungry, reaching across to the bedside table to devour the bread before he can even remember how he came to have any. The privy is the next order of business, and when he returns, he heats the stew, then settles cross-legged in his bed to eat it, thinking dolefully of his lost mushrooms.
The attack is a blur—vines and teeth and water and gods, the smell—and he does not remember at all how he returned to the city, whether he made his own way in a poisoned haze, or if he was found. And after…
A dream, he would think, with absolute certainty, if not for the stew he had just devoured. Otherwise, he could simply dismiss the memory of a calloused hand brushing his forehead, and the distinct sense that he had babbled on about something…
He looks around his room, at the riotous plants, the shoddy dresser, the laundry (clean, at least) hanging from the rafters, and decides he absolutely must return to the Atrium before Beatin can get it in his head to come back here to check on him.
But a bath, first, a long soak to scrub the faintly lingering stench from his hair. He stays until his fingers and toes thoroughly resemble raisins and the attendants are casting him impatient looks, returns to his room to spend rather longer than usual brushing and drying his hair, and admits that he is procrastinating as he stares contemplatively into his wardrobe as though there are more than three nearly identical flannel shirts to choose from.
When he reaches the Atrium, he wonders if it is too much to hope that his arrival will go unnoticed, and he goes so far as to wait for a merchant and his assistants to enter the lobby so he can slip in behind them and at least make it to the workshop without Corgg and Ferreol noticing him.
And at midday, the mill is in full swing. His fellow carpenters are all busy with their own tasks, Beatin is barking occasional instructions, and in the bustle and noise Sylvien reaches his workbench without being waylaid, where he resolves to put his head down and catch up on—
“Sylvien.”
His name rings across the room like the strike of a hammer, impossible to ignore, and with a sigh, he slinks sheepishly up to Beatin’s post.
“You were missed,” Beatin says shortly, by way of greeting, “by clients and your fellows alike.” Sylvien would quail at his tone, if not for the fact that he senses no ire behind it. “Two commissions have been asked of you personally; I shall go over them with you later. For now, we are engaged in a rush order for the Adders, who require, in two days’ time, thirty brass spears. Though it may seem trivial, I would ask that you assist Mera in the preparation of the lumber, for a reliable base will speed along the process significantly.”
“Yes, sir.” Sylvien is quite proud that his voice does not shake, though it is more a relief than he expected to simply have Beatin speak to him as he would any other day, brusque as ever, but not without warmth.
Beatin nods, then adds, “Have you any plans tonight?”
Sylvien blinks at him.
“If you are sufficiently recovered, that is. I would be glad for your company.” His voice is low enough that in the din of the workshop, only Sylvien will be able to hear him.
“For…dinner?” he wonders.
Beatin tilts his head. “At the very least.”
A flicker behind Beatin’s lenses, the kind of tell Sylvien has learned to spot as surely as the trembling of leaves that betrays a bird hiding in the underbrush.
“I believe I am,” Sylvien replies, “though I may need some help making quite sure…”
Back to impassivity, though Sylvien feels he can recognize a shield by now.
“You have much to catch up on,” is Beatin’s only reply, and as he turns away, Sylvien notices what is taking shape on the Timbermaster’s workbench: the frame of what appears to be a short chest of drawers, curiously shaped as though to fit perfectly into a very particular corner…
“Beatin—” Sylvien starts to say, unwilling to voice his suspicions but unable to keep his protests to himself, but Beatin purses his lips and interrupts him with a stern glare.
“The spears, Sylvien. Did I not mention we need thirty of them?”
“You did, Timbermaster,” he responds obediently, but he cannot help the smile that catches his lips as he retreats down the stairs.
Mera nearly bursts into tears when Sylvien joins him in the lumberyard, though Sylvien suspects it has more to do with his offered assistance than his return from his mysterious absence. With the best maple logs selected, they return to the mill to split and plane them, and by the time they have handed the pieces off to Hartford to round them into shafts, Cemi has returned with a crate of spearheads shipped from Limsa Lominsa.
When the first of the lot is completed, they present it to Beatin, who balances it in his fingers and gives a few experimental thrusts while they all hold their breath—and when he gives a nod of approval, they all sigh in relief and hop back to work.
“Sylvien!” Cemi exclaims, when they end up side-by-side sanding down shafts. “You’re back!”
“I am,” he laughs, not altogether surprised that she has not noticed until now. The atmosphere in the Atrium is one of intense focus, and he imagines that the Elder Seedseer herself could step through the door without any of them realizing.
“Beatin was useless without you,” Cemi goes on. “Make sure you tell him if you’re going to disappear again, okay?”
Sylvien blinks, then glances up at Beatin at his post. Cemi is known to exaggerate, of course, but—Beatin’s slow survey pauses as he notices Sylvien’s attention, and though his eyes remain invisible, even at this distance Sylvien thinks he can see the trace of a smile on his lips.
“I will,” he promises Cemi, then arches an eyebrow at Beatin, who usually does not allow his gaze to linger quite so long. Sure enough, Beatin shakes himself slightly and resumes his observation of the workshop, and Sylvien bites his lip against a wider smile.
“We’re all glad you’re back,” Cemi is saying. “What happened, anyway?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sylvien tells her, for truly, the bulk of it does not feel worth retelling, and the only bits of it he wishes to preserve in his memories, foggy though they are, are ones he wants to keep for himself. “I’m glad to be back, too.”