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It's yet another rainy day on Mythag's campus, and Pollux is peering out the window as the heavy sheets fall. His joints ache, in the muted sort of way that comes with rain, and his chest aches sharper, in the way it does when the rain falls too heavily and Pollux is forced to breathe deeper than his normal habit.
"Do you. . . want an umbrella?" Caecus asks, from Pollux's side. He looks rather well, Caecus — a rare moment where the humidity hasn't dried out his scales, where he gleams brightly and his fins trail elegantly through the air and just-quite-off-the-ground.
Pollux tilts his head. Considers. "It's not worth the effort." Pollux did not think to bring an umbrella with him, and the nearest one must surely be far away, or far enough that searching for it would be made more difficult.
Caecus frowns. (It makes his face look harsher. Not cruel. But harsher.) "You don't like getting wet."
"It's not worth the effort." Pollux repeats — folding arms over his chest, ignores the way his ribs twitch (the way the Sacred Heart flutters, jolts around, the heavy rain dampening the spiritual energy from his surrounds to the point all the Heart wants to look at is Caecus). "I will survive. I have survived worse than being damp."
Caecus scowls deeper. Lifts his arm, until it's held above Pollux's head — fins draping over Pollux in turn. (It's almost a feat to do so — not that Caecus is that much shorter than Pollux, but he's short enough that he has to reach even still.) "Will you accept this effort?" He snaps, scales raised just enough to be visible, shifting spiritual energy enough to feel.
Pollux dips his head. This fight, he will not win. "This is acceptable."
Caecus huffs, but the scowl slips away. "Good." He turns his face away, but the slight flush beneath his skin is visible all the same, his tail loosely drifting to rest behind Pollux's legs, almost a cradle. "Are we going to your room or mine?"
". . . could we go to the library first?" Pollux's arms slip loose, falling down to his side. His heart beats, beats, beats (pulsing, made not of flesh but smooth crystal and Silver, always watching the shift of spiritual energy), and he's tired, but there's research to be done.
"We can go to the library." Caecus agrees, the hand not held above Pollux's head reaching across, somewhat awkwardly, to hold Pollux's own. "If we get food first. I don't care if we go to the cafeteria or we go out somewhere or I cook you something, you are going to eat."
Ah. How the tables turn (now it's Pollux's turn to get nagged at to eat, after all he'd pestered Caecus to do so). Pollux dips his head in another nod, agreeable enough. "If you insist." He's content to let Caecus lead the both of them, opening the door to the outside and walking through the pouring rain.
Caecus' fin doesn't quite stop all of the rain from getting onto Pollux — but it stops most of it. The chill of the air has Pollux's hair and few feathers on end, and his scars ache, but it's much better than if Pollux was damp and cold as well. (Caecus, at least, looks happy about the rain — he's positively basking in it. A fish indeed. Pollux is glad he's happy.)
He's grateful for even small moments like these, Pollux things. Small joys and kindnesses, that he never would have had under the Lantern's cold grip. (Pollux doesn't know how to put into words the way it makes him feel, not entirely. He'll show his gratitude in other ways — the small gifts for Caecus, the way he blunts his claws and fangs and tears down the pedestal he'd been raised on in hopes of being merely human, merely another potential friend, to all of Mythag.)
(Even as the rain and howling wind chills him, Pollux feels warm somewhere inside. It will be a good day, he thinks.)