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He ought to be more bewildered, probably.
No, no - he was bewildered, beyond belief, to see the figure standing just beyond the doorway to Hal’s home, looking around the room, streaks on her cheeks and exhaustion in her bones and a dried smear of blood running the length of her human-sized left arm. But she was so clearly Thimble, even without her wings, her feet planted firmly on the floor. And whatever this strange magic was didn’t seem to matter as much as it ought to, not the way it would’ve any night but this one.
She was here.
Here, in Hal’s house.
Here, with two bodies in her arms, Teor and Cyd, and -
Had she just - she’d carried them here?
Occtis watched as Thimble dropped to a crouch to lower them both to the ground, steady hands cradling Teor’s head as she placed him down, some of the others in the room stumbling forward to help her as he stood, motionless, on the other side of the room.
The blood crusted up the length of her arm couldn’t have been hers, not with the way she was moving it. He doubted the smears across her armour belonged to her either - he could see the wounds littered across Teor and Cyd’s bodies now they were on the ground, some still bleeding sluggishly through damp, matted fur. Thimble lingered in a crouch, head down, before she rose to her feet once again, fresh moisture glistening across the faint twinkle of her freckles in the darkened room. Her shoulders shook, almost imperceptibly, before she steadied them.
The others had immediate questions; she gestured to the bracers she had on, the vague imitation of an answer. There was talk of some monstrosity, there was a sword, passed to Julien, there was Kattigan, on his knees in front of his fallen friends, useless magic all he could offer them. Occtis watched through the haze of it as Thimble wavered on her feet, as lost as he felt, caught at the epicentre of this and unable to fly away even as the darkness of the night closed in around them all because her wings weren’t there and they likely wouldn’t have been able to carry her anyway, not as she was now. His fingertips trembled of their own accord at his sides, the shadows that had crawled up his throat the second the Manor had loomed into view refusing to relinquish their grip.
Hal’s home couldn’t be further from his family’s, with its comfortable-looking, well-loved furniture and thick rugs, overly full bookshelves and empty mugs strewn over the table. And yet it still felt as though he was there, the adrenaline he and Julien had fled with muted but refusing to fade. If Ethrand hadn’t taken a knife to him, hadn’t reached into his chest and pulled out his heart, the thudding beat of it would be loud enough to rattle the remains of his ribcage.
“It was my fault,” Thimble said quietly, and Occtis swallowed, forcing his voice through the others.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Her eyes were so wide. So sad. Another two of the Torn Banner gone, so soon after losing Thjazi, people she cared about falling thick and fast around her no matter how desperately she fought to save them. Her fingers were shaking too, he realised, visible only because they were a similar size to his.
And yet his comment pulled her attention over to him, and as she looked, as she saw, something crumpled. She was halfway across the floor in a heartbeat, the shape of his name on her tongue, her lips fighting to curl into a bittersweet echo of a smile despite the sheen in her eyes. Her breath caught on the inhale, and he hardly had a moment to brace before her arms wrapped fiercely around him, holding the pieces of him together. He curled his fingers fiercely into the back of her tunic, holding her back with all he had, attempting to do the same.
His knees threatened to buckle beneath him as belated relief finally made itself known.
(I wish, he’d whispered lifetimes ago, to a Thimble so much younger than this one. One day, she told him, her arms fiercely wrapped around his fingertip in a poor imitation of this.)
His lungs fought to suck in air they no longer needed.
“I was so worried about you,” he managed, as a warm and steady hand came to rest against the back of his head. That house - his father - her melting off into the shadows - watching from the walls as Hannan’s form crumpled -
“I’m here.”
She said it softly, her words too quiet to be overheard. Then, as if she could read the fear rolling off him as clear as day, her lips moved closer to the curve of his ear and she softly, but surely, promised “he didn’t hurt me.”
He had the power to. Primus could have snapped his fingers and had her falling from the air, lifeless. He would have taken her body, her soul, and -
Occtis closed his eyes, swallowing down words that threatened to find their way into the space, all of them threaded with terror and none of them helpful, none of them for the ears of the people gathered here. Just hers. Later.
When he reluctantly extracted himself from her arms, her thumb lightly brushed his cheek, her smile softer than it had any right to be. (One day, she’d promised, and he’d imagined being small, some strange magic or curse shrinking him down so they could have this. His arms careful to avoid the glowing gossamer wings that should spread out behind her, the soft light of pixie dust illuminating them as they both sank into an embrace that previously existed only in whispers, in wishes.)
This was nothing like those decade-old daydreams - her cheeks weren’t meant to be wet with tears, their clothes shouldn’t be smudged with blood, their friends weren’t meant to be lying on the floor a few feet away, lifeless and cold. She'd never been his size, when they’d been off on his imagined adventures together; he was meant to be pixie-sized, so that their problems could be shrunk down too, tucked away somewhere safe where they’d be unable to hurt them.
“Why are you big?” he whispered, as if that said what he meant it to.
She laughed, tearful and wondrous, her hand slipping down into his and squeezing it, not letting go.