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It's been two days since anyone has seen Cyrus. Olberic awakes on the morning of the third to the sound of birdsong and an ocean of trees swaying in the wind. It should bring him some measure of comfort, of peace, but his head and heart and the other side of the bed are a void.
He dresses, forcing down the pang of sorrow he feels at the absence of nimble fingers aiding him.
When he nears the doorway to the common room, he lingers there, edging around the frame as he overhears his comrades bickering. They are the only patrons; Duskbarrow sees little traffic.
“-his hunt is ended,” H'aanit is saying, as she stares at her porridge with disdain. She is growing restless, frustrated. Linde paces around the table, tail swishing, matching the huntress's mood. “Yet he hath beginen a new pursuite, one where we can followen not. T'is well past time we departest.”
“What, are you saying you wanna leave him?” Therion says incredulously. “No way, he's an idiot. He'll starve himself. Or end up in another pit. Probably both.”
He's grateful to their thief. Olberic can see his stout loyalty and concern behind the barbs.
“...I wolde not leaven him to such a fate. But what of us? Our coine runnen thin while we languishen here, thief,” she says, solid, steadfast, ever the voice of reason. He is grateful to her, as well. “His hunt is done. If thou both art too craven-” Therion spits fire at this but H'aanit storms ever on- “to speaken with him, then I shalt marchen in there and dragen him out by the eare, but it will bringen to none of us joye!”
“I will speak with him,” Olberic says resolutely as he joins them at their table. The only table. He pours coffee, filling a cup for himself and a flask, for later.
The two pass an uneasy look to each other, and then to him. He's been far more reticent in the past couple of days. Those may well have been the first words he's spoken in that time.
“You sure that's a good idea, pops?” Therion asks warily, as Olberic adds spoonful after spoonful of honey to the flask. “He seemed pretty pissed at you.”
“That is precisely why it must be me,” the knight answers, grim. “H'aanit is right. We cannot stay here forever.”
“Dost thou require reinforcemente?”
“Nay. I'm going to speak with him, not do battle.”
“So thou sayeth…” she says dubiously.
#
After breakfast, Therion shows him the trick with the stone door.
“Good luck, old man,” he says, quiet, earnest, arms folded as he looks at the ground. Olberic can't help but smile. The thief's secret sweetness always catches him off guard and tugs at his heartstrings. Never one to be caught being too sentimental, though, Therion quickly adds: “If you're not back by tonight I'm taking all of your stuff. His too.”
Olberic says nothing, pulling him into a crushing one armed hug, and he feels rather than hears the thief's muffled “Fuck off!” against his chest. After wriggling free, Therion storms away, thoroughly tousled.
When he steps through it is eerily silent, with all the deathly stillness and finality of a tomb. Some of the torches have guttered out, but the sun peaks through the crumbling ceiling in places, allowing greenery to bloom amongst the stone. Dust motes whirl like wisps where the sun lances through the shadows.
Piles of rubble and steel, once guarding the ruins with single-minded purpose, scatter the floor. Some of them are still smoking. Whatever force animated these constructs is no more.
Lantern held aloft, he retraces the path to the heart of the ruins, his footsteps sharp on the stone and echoing ominously in the quiet.
Along the way, he peers in the side rooms, looking for the scholar. Instead what he sees in each one is books, and books and books and books. Stripped from the shelves and arranged in towers, rows, piles, a few rare singles, one on the stairs, dropped and open. Though the shelves here are modest compared to the atrium up ahead, the quantity of tomes seems vastly multiplied when seen like this. They are no doubt ordered in a manner Olberic has no hope of understanding.
What if such a towering pile had collapsed, trapping or crushing the scholar?
He should not have left him so long.
“I just need some time! A day, maybe…”
Foolish man. But more fool him.
He passes through the long hallway, the one with the hideous mural, staring at it as he goes. Some books have migrated their way here, too, with reams of parchment scattered about, peppering the hallway like a breadcrumb trail leading to the mage.
When they had entered this room as a group, Cyrus's eyes had lit up. He'd run from shelf to shelf, excitedly rattling off the titles of these rare tomes, as if anyone besides him could grasp the import.
The room lies in total disarray, the shelves here well pillaged. This is the kind of thing he's seen the mage refer to as ‘organised chaos’, more than once. In his house in Atlasdam, for instance. Something of a physical manifestation of the scholar's mind, something only he can make sense of.
That is where he finds Cyrus, surrounded by books. His bedroll is laid out by the wall, yet he's on his side in the middle of the floor, robes pooled around him, head propped up by a tome in a way that cannot be comfortable. Sleeping, but clearly because he passed out.
Relieved, Olberic lets loose a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding as he cautiously approaches, carefully setting his lantern down next to Cyrus's dying one.
He could just carry him out of here. But that's no good; he'll likely just dive right back in the second he wakes. The scholar's singular minded focus is both an admirable trait and no end of frustration.
“Cyrus,” he calls out, quietly, as if afraid to wake him, unsure how the scholar will react to him. He needn't have worried though; Cyrus is the heaviest sleeper the knight's ever met. He'll work himself into a frenzy for hours with unmatched energy, well into the night and the morning beyond, but once he is down, he stays down.
There's a book in his hands, still… When Olberic gently pries it loose, he sees it is the one that Cyrus had been searching for. ‘From the Far Reaches of Hell.’ A loathsome thing, he knows in his heart without having to open it that this weighty tome contains the fell magic that he has always feared so. Yet, without this tomes' existence, they likely would never have met…
What to do?
He begins by storing away all of Cyrus's belongings into his pack, including that dire tome, noting that he's low on water and lantern oil, and that he's exhausted his rations. Would he truly have worked himself to death here in the dark, without intervention?
Enough is enough. Olberic won't give him another chance to find out.
He straps the lantern to the pack and shoulders it, leaving his hands free to lift Cyrus at his knees and shoulders. It's not the first time he's had to carry him away while he sleeps, but he's never liked it. Not like this, without him so full of life, laughing, putting his arms around Olberic's neck. It reminds him too much of when the scholar had teetered on the brink of death, bleeding fire in the snow.
Instead of heading back to the entrance, he carries Cyrus up the long, once grand stairway, to the strange grassy reverie. They are still surrounded by books here, but the tops of trees can be seen for miles from this vantage, and there in the distance, the blue of the ocean. It is warm and bright and peaceful, and it is his hope that the rays of sunlight will gently rouse Cyrus from his deep sleep.
After he lays the scholar down in the sun warmed grass, he sits next to him, keeping watch, though he's unable to keep from fussing over him. He strokes his hair, still so soft, and bright with radiant coppery undertones in the sunlight. He smooths his thumb reverently over the dark circles under his eyes, over his cheeks, the line of his jaw, drawing a sigh from the sleeping mage.
Olberic can't help but notice that even here, some of the shelves lining the walls, where the floor has completely crumbled away into nothing, now stand empty. He wants to laugh, imagining how Cyrus might have gotten them down. Anything for knowledge. This man is truly mad.
He loves him, though. More than anything.
#
It's around noon, when the sun is high above them, that he stirs.
“Mmnhh…” he grumbles, eyes barely open. “...brik…?”
That might have even been his name. He smiles.
“Awake, are you?” The only answer he gets is something like “ghhkkg…” He eases him up by the shoulders into a sitting position, where he slumps forward, sluggishly rubbing at his eyes. Olberic runs his hand over his back in soothing motions. “Easy, now…”
He nearly falls asleep again sitting like that.
“Here.” He brings out the flask from his pouch, uncapping it and holding it out in offering, to which the scholar hesitantly accepts.
They sit together in silence as Cyrus drinks his honey with coffee, gradually becoming more alert. They look out over the creaking trees, and in this quiet place, it feels like they are the only two in Orsterra. Peaceful, though it remains awkward. Cyrus doesn't look in his direction, and where there was once easy affection passed between them there is now that cursed void.
It is his own doing, and that is perhaps the worst part of all. Following the defeat of that witch, after studying that tome, Cyrus had confided in the knight that he would be returning to Atlasdam soon, and had asked that he join him, hopeful and sweet.
“One day, perhaps, but not yet.”
Stupid of him, but he thought that they'd discuss it further. Olberic had never seen him so angry, so upset… then he'd pushed them all away, drowning himself in his research, in his books, as he was wont to do. Olberic had let him, thinking perhaps the space would do him good.
He was wrong, as he usually is when it comes to this complicated man. He only wishes to understand him better…
“Cyrus,” he begins, tensely. Perhaps he lied to H'aanit, and himself; this will be a battle, of sorts, he thinks. He must strategize accordingly. “Will you talk with me?”
“If you wish,” the scholar says, uncharacteristically standoffish. He hides behind his coffee so he needn't be the one to speak first. Fine. Olberic will lead the charge then.
“I am in love with you.”
Cyrus spits out his coffee, an action that would have been most amusing, if not for the way the mage rounds on him, seething with fury. It's rather terrifying, in honesty.
“Stupid man! Then why-?!”
“I am not ready to retire yet!” he growls, unable to stop himself matching the mage's anger. This is going very poorly, very quickly. So much for strategy. “There are those who yet have need of my blade. There is more of the world I would see. There is a place I would return to-”
“Well, then, that's sorted!” Cyrus stands, looking down at him. Olberic hates hearing that bitter edge to his voice, hates that he is the one responsible for it. “Go on, now, bugger off! I've work to conclude here.”
“Blast your work!” He matches him again, drawing up to his full height, a full head above Cyrus. His pulse is thundering. “You've been sulking in here for days. You are coming with me, one way or another.”
“Try me.”
Once, Olberic had stifled laughter at this slip of a thing vaguely threatening him. There is no humour to be found by it now. There's a dangerous glint in his eyes. The mage is hurt, furious, seemingly looking for an excuse to lash out. Force will not serve Olberic here. He will not rise to his bait.
“What shall I tell the others, then?” When he sees Cyrus's eyes widen, he knows he's hit his mark. “That you've no more need of them, now that your mystery is solved, aye? That you will not even see them off yourself?”
“That is not-! I…” he falters, deflating. It feels cruel, but he presses in on his weakness.
“...Cyrus. Be cross with me, if you must, but they deserve better from you.”
The mage turns away, though Olberic catches the pained downturn of his mouth.
“They will not understand- I do not understand…”
His shoulders begin to quake. He shudders, a choked sob escaping him.
Olberic pulls him around into a crushing embrace right as he crumbles, body wracked with great, heaving sobs. The fight goes out of him, and Cyrus buries his face against the knight's chest. He can feel wetness seeping through his gambeson, fingers digging into his shoulders. Again, Olberic patiently and silently strokes his hair, his face, his back, soothing him as whatever is tormenting him runs its course.
The angle of the sun hasn't changed drastically, but it feels like they are locked that way for hours. When his anguish subsides, Olberic pulls back slightly to assess him. Cyrus is visibly exhausted, broken, hollowed out in the wake of his fury and sorrow.
“Talk to me. I beg you.”
“...how,” he croaks, voice wrecked, breathing laboured. Blue eyes meet Olberic's, finally. “How am I to return to my life as it was? Yet… I must, eventually. If not now, then when? Why postpone the inevitable?”
So there's the rub, Olberic thinks. Cyrus fears their journey's end, their parting of ways. A return to a solitary life. To him, the pain will be less so if he is the one leaving.
“I had thought that you might… might agree to live with me, and then…” His breath stutters, eyes screwing shut, expression pained. Olberic's mouth twists; he feels like a monster. “Before all of you, there was only my work. Beyond that, I had- I have no one-”
“Shh. Hush,” he says, kissing him firmly, first on his forehead, then his mouth. “Perhaps that was so, once, but not anymore. You have us. You have me. Have faith; even if we part ways, t'is only temporary.”
“...as all things are, I find,” he says quietly, gazing at the floor now. He's not sure which pains him more; Cyrus, brimming with self-righteous fire aimed directly at Olberic, or Cyrus, so small, so subdued in the wreckage following it.
“Just so. That is what makes life so valuable, is it not?”
The scholar says nothing to this, withdrawing back into himself. Olberic draws him tight against his chest, and Cyrus goes without any resistance.
“Cyrus,” he rumbles, face pressed into his neck. He still smells so good. "I love you.”
“...stupid man.” He sounds defeated, and so very tired. “I love you.”
Gods, his heart soars hearing that. T'is a much needed balm for his soul, after enduring the man's absence, and anger.
They've overcome much and more, to make it here. They shall surpass this, too.
“Come back with me. Please.”
They remain that way, until finally the scholar murmurs in agreement, and after Olberic gathers their things, they descend the stairs, hand in hand.
#
“Olberic,” Cyrus murmurs against the skin of his broad chest. “I owe you a significant apology.”
“Hush. That is not what I desire of you.” Olberic mumbles, nuzzling into the scholar's soft hair. "I would ask for your trust.”
“You already have it, of course-!”
“Confide in me, then. You must let me in, share your feelings with me, else I will not understand.”
Cyrus is silent for a long while, fingers tracing over old scars.
“...I have never been in love before,” he admits, sighing. "It is… difficult. What I feel is not always pleasant. Seldom do I understand it, myself…”
Olberic smooths his hand down the scholar's back, the other joining Cyrus's, where it rests over his weary heart.
“I thought that, perhaps… the reason you would not join me…”
“You thought that I did not love you,” he finishes for him. Cyrus nods against his chest.
He feels him grow tense, and he's supposes he's pried enough for one evening. It is not something that will change after one argument, in one evening. They will need ample time, and practice.
“You needn't ever think that again. I love you.” He brings his elegant hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to his fingers. “But you are not a book. I cannot simply read you; you must be the one to make me understand.”
“Mm. Wouldn't that be so much simpler…”
Yes, if men were books, that would make life all the easier.
Yet, he thinks, even if that were the case, then Cyrus would be one of his spells tomes; richly adorned on the outside, indecipherable inside. Teeming with magic. Dense.
Such things will likely remain beyond his grasp, but Olberic has faith that, given time, they will unravel the mystery of him, together.