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It’s not often that Abner hears the voice of his father, that even, resonant tone humming in the back of his mind when he’s reminded of his younger years. But when he is, nowadays he finds it’s usually when he is in the presence of Leucis, when he finds himself peering at the other man just a little too intensely, and distantly he hears his father chuckling and feels the warmth of his smile.
“You better watch yourself, son; curiosity killed the cat, you know…”
His father meant well by it, and Abner is grateful for the infinite patience the man seemed to have when Abner came to him with a laundry list of questions, questions that he often only received the answers to decades later, long after his father’s disappearance. At the best of times, his curiosity is a pig rooting around the forest floor, turning over leaves and loose stones, chasing the earthy scent of truffles. At the worst of times, he is caught in the throes of obsession, shoving his hand into the narrow mouth of the cookie jar, uncaring even when the glass shatters around him, so long as he gets every last crumb. It’s a useful trait to have as an adventurer and has led him to become the de facto leader of his party, guiding his friends forward with his careful focus.
Abner likes to occupy himself with small questions throughout the week, most of them pertaining to whatever adventure his group is currently engaged with, but as of recently, his attention has been held by only one thing—one man, the man currently sitting on the other side of the room, his fingers flitting over a metal contraption on the table.
Leucis is not unlike the device currently ticking away in his hands, an artfully complex series of gears and switches, the functions of which can only be determined by interacting with it. Sometimes Abner feels as though interacting with Leucis is like holding one’s hand in the mouth of a crocodile, waiting for either the silence of trust or the snap of jaws.
Abner’s search for his father brought him into contact with many people, some of whom he will be thinking of on his deathbed, when the lantern he keeps tied to his belt flickers and fades altogether, but he has met no one quite like the Tiefling he now travels with. He is secretly grateful to be sharing a room with Leucis at this inn because it gives him time to consider the other fully without the mother-henning of Flare or the vigilant, broad-shouldered barrier Iraelias creates around him. Abner wonders if Leucis is aware of how deeply his friends care for him, or if that too is something he keeps out of sight and out of mind.
“You’re staring.” The other man says, and despite his flat tone, Abner can tell he is growing restless by the way his lips twitch in the absence of a cigarette.
“Sorry, I was just thinking.” He apologizes, and he means it, though not as deeply as he probably should.
“About me.” Leucis says, like stating a fact, and Abner smiles.
“Ah… caught in the act…” Abner puts his hands up slightly, as if in surrender, before standing from his bed by the door and moving closer to Leucis, watching the way the man stiffens even though he has hardly approached, his feet turning to angle toward the door as if to dart past Abner at a moment's notice. Abner doesn’t give him a reason to run, however, instead sitting on the very edge of Leucis’s bed, near the table, to get a better view of what Leucis is working on.
“Any luck?” Abner asks, gesturing to the device, and he can feel the man’s empty white eye picking him apart. Abner needs only half his keen sense to know that Leucis doesn’t trust him, perhaps trusts him the least of the group, and Abner wonders how much of his distrust comes from valid observations and how much is paranoia. Abner respects this aspect of Leucis particularly, his pervasive suspicion, because he knows it has likely kept the man alive.
“Yes, actually. It should do what we need it to.” He says, taking out a small screwdriver from his kit and using it to secure a panel over the open gears.
“Which is…?” Abner asks, having little experience with any form of engineering. He knew they needed the device to get into the ruins they were traveling toward, though he did not see how this hunk of metal would help. Once fully assembled it appeared little more than a polished silver box, ancient runes engraved on its uppermost surface.
“It should reverse the direction of the arcane wards around the ruin, allowing us to enter. Though I wouldn’t have minded using it for its original purpose.” And when Abner tilted his head, Leucis sent him the ghost of a smirk. “Until a few hours ago it was a one-ton runic bomb.”
Abner felt his jaw go slack, shock and awe distracting him from the triumphant look on Leucis's face, which he had never seen before. “Was there a chance of it detonating while we had it?” He was quick to ask, disapproval coursing through him as he thought of the tiefling carrying a live explosive in his satchel as they traveled through the busy streets of Sundabar.
“Not really. I disabled the trigger mechanisms as soon as we picked it up.” He said, then added with mild offense, “I’m not an amateur.” He sealed the box shut with a final twist of a screw, lifting it to inspect his handiwork in the fading sunlight cast through the window.
“No, of course not. I’m impressed! I would never have been able to do that.” Abner said earnestly, watching Leucis’s reaction to the compliment like a hawk. Not to his surprise, Leucis frowned, and a shadow fell over his expression. “Yes, well. I would have been able to fix it faster if my fingers worked like they used to…” He muttered darkly, not looking at Abner, whose mind grabbed onto his words like a fisherman holding his line.
“Used to…?” He echoed, and Leucis flinched very subtly, and Abner wondered if the man had meant to say that out loud to begin with. The tiefling peered at him from the corner of his eye, his red knuckles paling where he held the box.
“Old injuries.” The man ground out as if saying the words could crack his teeth, and Abner nodded silently, though he maintained eye contact with Leucis until the other man broke it, looking back at the box.
Abner found his gaze drifting away from the man’s tight expression down to his fingers, which pressed against the runes of the box as if he could interpret them through touch alone. He had well-sculpted, dexterous hands, larger than Abner’s own, though that made sense considering their height difference. The only thing that really attracted Abner’s attention was the scarring, which was thick and jagged, in lines wrapping around the base of each finger and leaving the skin there a discolored pink. The skin around his fingernails was misshapen and warped, but it was the lines that caused him the most concern. It looked painful, even now, and Abner wondered how much the scarring restricted his movements.
Then, not for the first time while sitting in their shared room, Abner thinks of his father, the man cutting firewood behind their house in great, powerful swings. Abner thinks about the man’s rough, heavy hands and the pink ring that wrapped around the tip of his pinky finger.
“I caught the tip of it with a hunting knife,” his father had said sheepishly, wiggling the offending digit. “The local cleric was able to repair it for me though, nice lady, ain’t she…”
Abner’s eyes widen, so distracted by the memory he almost doesn’t hear the words leaving his lips. “Someone… cut them off...” He mumbles, and he jumps at the loud bang as Leucis slams the box down on the wooden table, a screw slipping loose.
Abner watches as the man’s body contorts, his whole body rippling with some unseen effort, like the kinking and writhing of twine twisted too many times around itself, before he rounds on Abner with those jagged teeth bared and glittering, his hands suddenly more threatening than they had been before.
“What are you fuckin’ doing here? Is there something you need?” Leucis hisses airily, as if the effort of restraining himself is restricting his ability to speak, and Abner is stunned for a moment, leaning away from the man now poised to strike.
“No… sorry I was just…” the word curious dies on his tongue.
He leaves the room hastily after that, shame hot in his bones and feeling none of the satisfaction of his guess being right. His lantern flickers gloomily against the dim hallway walls as he makes his way slowly to the room he knows has Tam and Wilbur in it, feeling the full weight of his cat-like hubris, sticking his head in the jaws of the crocodile.