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Jamil's eyes flutter open, dry and stinging.
He's slumped on a cold stone floor that could've frozen water, shivering weakly. A few blinks clear his vision enough to realise he's in Kalim's room, the golden scene of a young version of the Sultan from the overarching tale of the Sorcerer stringing his bow and aiming right toward the traitor of his tale.
When his eyes land on the scene where the arrow would've been released, a dull, pulsing ache around the bottom of his hairline like someone's repeatedly knocking a smooth rock into them.
Where's Kalim? The sun's high up already, he should be joining his father for meetings soon...
His throat is parched. It hurts, like the skin in his mouth is about to crack open and spill the color of Kalim's eyes.
The world spins when he gets to his knees, one steadying hand on the floor as his blood seems to be magnetically stuck to the tiles, refusing to rise into his head.
To make it quick, he leans against the wall and wills tension to his legs to lift himself up. Then he stands straight, locking his arms behind his back, palms pressed to the opposite elbow.
He won't faint, he won't faint, he will not faint...
Slowly, it gets easier, but the Viper still keeps his back straight and holds the position until he's certain he isn't going to drop like a stone the moment he doesn't.
Moving into the hallway, silence greets him.
But that can't be, the place is never quiet. Not at midnight, not at three or eleven. Never. Silence would mean everyone and everything was slaughtered, because he knows two who'd fight to the death for their masters, one who wouldn't escape the former and one who would stand in a burning wreckage, trusting that his best friend would come and get him if the door to freedom was open right behind him.
A sharp pulse of instinct gets him to try move in the direction of the heir's room, but a sharper ache in his head makes him falter for the fraction of a second.
No. Kalim is fine. He always scares Jamil. But he is always grinning and warm in his arms when the chapter finds its end
Five days of no idea where he was or alive, never allowed to know if he'd been found, alive or dead, and be returned to him, his insufficient vigilance and care.
Two weeks of stagnation where there was always, always movement. He was water to the passive wallflowers, oftentimes he drowned them. But his throat'd been parched sitting there, clenching the braids of his long hair that marked him a servant.
Don't make me take them out.
Having too much was better than having nothing. He thought he'd sleep better without the noise in the back of his head that constantly demanded he check on the Al-Asim. His master. Instead it blared ten times louder, shriller with every day and every time his certainty of the Oasis would turn to a mirage and dissolve if he didn't reach for it often enough.
I wouldn't redo them for anyone.
The braids were done two dozen times over already, always renewed in sections because they were undone and fixed again one at a time and it'd take hours otherwise.
He opens his eyes, suddenly in his master's room. "...Kalim?"
His headache is blinding, seeming to open the skin of his neck by sheer persistence of battering the bruising that surely forms, his eyes are dry... the room is bare.
His hair feels loose.
No.
He blinks... and it's all there.
Kalim sits in the high, open window, back turned and Jamil won't find his voice to thank the Sorcerer. He never does, frozen until the voice in the front of his mind tells him he should've known he wouldn't be free of this son yet or ever.
The boy stays turned away, golden jewelry miraculously missing. Especially the bare back of his hand bothers the Viper. How're they going to find him if he gets kidnapped again? He wouldn't even hear it.
Not to mention the window is much too high in the building for his liking, Kalim has jumped out of it before and he's always landed on the flying carpet, but his servant never gets used to that particular recklessness. The heir gets his life threatened enough without him making it easier for any asassin with a spark of magic in their veins to manipulate the enchanted thread and let him fall to his death.
He doesn't think it is under him now.
But he still can't move nor speak, call out to the boy whom holds his family suspended in service and life, whereas Jamil only gets to hold the latter for his master.
I hate you. He thinks, leant against the doorway. Never did you look over your shoulder to see me. He shivers, vision going blurry. Easy to fool because you couldn't bother to look at me instead of a friend.
Then he feels a jolt in his gut and the floor is much closer than before, and he can't lift his gaze. He is where he belongs, as far as the Asim estate is concerned.
...
???
...
His eyes flutter open. A warm body is laying below him, breathing steadily and slow, and for a moment Jamil is unsure about what bothered him for a minute.
Kalim is in his arms, safe and whole. The younger boy has little to no current injuries. His jewelry's all off. He ate before bed, solid and hearty... wait, this isn't about him for a moment.
There are hands in his hair, fingers at the roots, slowly moving in tiny circular motions, firm and steady in a way that always makes him float in hazy, content pleasure after a while. Kalim swears he saw his eyes cross once or more.
Jamil can't help it, the braids feel so tight and keep pulling at his scalp. They were done just two days ago, for the first time, of course he's not used to them, the firm circles are bright spots of relief.
He looks up, turning his head to meet half-lidded rubies. "Morning Mimi." The heir greets him, grinning proudly. "I don't think I woke up before you more than twice... three for me!"
The attendant-in-training only responds with a soft hrmpf, tongue darting out over his dry lips. There it is. Sorcerer, he's thirsty. Feels like he didn't have a sip for a whole day when it's been trained into him to do so every one and a half hours no matter how he feels unless he's sleeping. They live in the desert, and to fight back it's reality one needs to take care with their routine.
But he's parched beyond just the usual eight hours.
And he really doesn't want to get up and mess up the perfection of comfort they've built... he tugs at Kalim's sleeve, pointing toward the saphire-esque magestone upon the nightstand. While a Unique Magic could usually be casted just fine without a magestone and only relatively minor repercussions, Jamil'd rather that risk is off too.
His neck aches too, come to think of it. But that's okay, while the other's finger work there. They ease it up a good bit, making it bearable.
He'll ask his mother if the braids near his nape pull at the skin that much. Even she and father have a quarter inch of space between the roots and the beginnings of the tight patterns. Or did she just grow it out and her son too will have to wait?
Kalim tries to sit up to reach for the stone–he should have a red one instead, to match his eyes–but his servant simply leans more weight on him to keep him where he is. He can't let the Asim leave his sight or sense of touch, or he'll disappear again...
"Come on, Mimi, what's up?" The boy pouted, cute even after he should be broken already his attendant never looks properly.
His Viper instead pulls the stone closer with a short wind spell, barely perceptible in the dip of his magic.
Large quantities of water the young master can and needs to let rain down from above. But they'd worked on smaller ones for almost a year now.
Kalim winds the little gold-plated steel chain around his wrist, stone resting just below his pulsepoint. The spell activates without fuss, a stream of liquid flowing down his palm like a miniature oasis which decided to spring out the dry sand of their homeland.
He tilts his hand down, bringing the three most middle fingers together to form a path for the water with pointer- and ringfinger forming the walls, resting the nailbeds between Jamil's canines.
And it's okay, because this Viper doesn't bite.
How else could they do it, anyway, and it does work.
Water is life itself, The expression always held truth, of course, but he was never quite so aware of it. Rational knowledge and emotional experience are different things, it seems.
He cuddles into the warmth when the flow halts, gentler touches stealing his aches and pains away.
Time seems to stretch for his comfort, allowing him to rest for once in his life and settle and recharge. My Oasis.
Kalim shoves him off, suddenly, horror in his eyes, leaving his friend still on the freezing floor. He's backing out the door, eyes fixed on the other. "N-not again. No, not so... not so soon!.."
By the time Jamil's looked over his shoulder and found no one, the heir has taken off running, the jingle of golden plates and links getting farther away. His own heartbeat feels like a drumbeat next to his ear by the time he's out the bare room and following.
Either of them are fast, but fear always gave his master an edge even over the adults. He doesn't look back once, his Viper does. There's nothing behind them, he knows that much through the drone in his head.
What're they running from?
Somehow, Jamil catches up just when they round a corner and he takes Kalim's arm, the red fabric on his hair flashing in the light.
The idiot digs his heels in, but his slave's the one who's kept some of his kidnappers away, he's stronger than that. "AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE DONE FOR YOU, NOW YOU DARE FEAR ME?!"
There's hisses next to his ear, small bodies reeling backwards. A glow, red as Kalim's eyes, shines from the staff in the former Housewarden's hand. He swings, but the snake's hood doesn't hit *him*.
The flash finds it's target somewhere far above his head, a series of loud cracks fills the air, and Jamil jolts.
His grip grows weak and Kalim escapes, abandoning him to the thick, black flood enroaching upon his limbs. There's three red lights visible through the sheen for half a second before it pulls him under completely.
Only a mirage, in the end.
His vision is blurry, but the inherent familiarity of the dining hall and common room, the first room any student or visitor will find when they first cross the mirror, is too familiar as to not recognize.
He spent so much time setting cutlery and food here, after all. On parties, which were every week, he'd transferred the tables and chairs into a storage room and take them back out when dinner'd arrive.
But the walls shimmer, a weak glimmer that crawls down the walls and ceiling.
The wind picks up, a howl that lifts in volume until nothing else holds importance. Blurred shapes shiver at the side of the table, fall over or bang against it.
Ten thousands of tiny sand kernels follow the path of the worlds breath, coating everything in a yellow sheen until the original colors of the dorm all but disappear.
First pieces lift off the floor and fly past the mirrors view. They shatter there with audible breaks, crunching when the journey repeats.
The long table flips over.
And finally, a familiar scream with an unfamiliar cadence rises above the worst storm in Scarabia history, wordless and enraged.