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Fen
▽ Read First ▽ Chrono ▽ Next
Fen wasn’t yet willing to admit that he’d made a mistake.
A pale green glow was the only indication of the cave breaking the rain-slicked surface of the cliff wall. A not-distant-enough voice nagged at the back of Fen’s mind about how he’d known better than to start a climb like this with the omen of dark clouds churning overhead. True enough, even those he’d left behind at the stable had warned him to stay another night— ‘Wait out the storm a little longer,’ they’d insisted— but the practice of sitting still while the world fell to chaos around him had never won out before and tonight was no exception.
Furthering that note, scolding himself was the sort of thing better left for when he wasn’t clinging to the side of a cliff, half-frozen to death in a torrential downpour.
It came down upon him in merciless sheets of frigid ice, broken only by the sudden crack of deafening thunder or the snap of too-close lightning that offered brief but blinding illumination. He could no longer feel where his fingers clung to the rocks and that numbness only made him dig his nails in deeper— stubbornly, desperately. The alternative would have been dying horribly and, well, he didn’t frankly have time for that.
The cave was a blessing, undoubtedly, and while he had no idea the size or scope of it, he knew at the very least that the break in the stone would be enough of a fissure to cram himself into until the worst of the storm had passed. So he climbed— by the light of the tempest’s flashes, he climbed. In brazen defiance, he refused to think of his own fatigue or the protest his weary fingers put up as he reached for the next bluff— only the stones beneath his fingers, the roosts and crags his booted feet experimentally found on the way up.
Half of the effort seemed to be the singular act of pulling himself up over the ledge without slipping off entirely. He let his exhaustion finally take hold of him as he managed the feat, falling forward, out of the storm and into the damp, but safe space within. For a long moment, he did nothing but lay there, breathless and subject to the torment of a dozen stitches that had worked their way into his limbs and lungs.
The snapping pop of fire pulled him out of his reverie and Fen turned his cheek against the wet stone to finally regard the chamber he’d deposited himself into. The fire was a small thing— barely enough to illuminate the little cave beyond the dozens of luminous stones that grew in clusters along the walls and ceiling— but its light threw shadows dancing about on the stone floor and the face of the person who sat just beyond it.
Fen almost laughed— and he would have, had his lungs deigned to allow it— as his gaze settled on that same startled expression he’d received across a tavern two nights before. Fen offered him a relieved grin, sheepish and weary, and pulled himself to sit up. His companion did not smile back.
Fen rolled to his knees wearily and pushed back the mess of dripping bangs from his eyes with a few fingers to card through his sopping hair. His hands moved to sign a greeting, then paused halfway as he realized himself. The stranger said nothing at all as Fen stared down at his hands like their loss was a physical weight that pressed down upon him.
It took two tries to get the words out and it felt like it sounded: like he was speaking through a throat full of gravel. Still, his hands moved in time with the words— out of habit, out of necessity.
“M-ay— May I take refuge here with you?”
The other man blinked, gave an almost imperceptible tilt of his head, and hair the unusual color of petals fell over his face in the light of the fire. A beat passed, then he asked in a small, wary voice, “What would you do if I said no?”
Fen hesitated. It wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. Though, perhaps it had been assumptive of him to expect any singular reply at all. Traveling had become a treacherous thing long since before either of their time; it was only fair that a stranger might distrust another. Especially when that stranger was armed for bear and had appeared as suddenly as Fen had. But even with the odd look of him, this was another fragment of light, Fen was sure of it. Didn’t that inherent kinship mean something?
Perhaps not.
He turned slightly to glance back out into the storm and the torrent of wind and rain that slapped against the alcove. His tired limbs groused their protests at the proposal, but it would not have been his first time waiting out a storm on the side of a mountain.
“No, no, wait—” came that voice again, frantic and stumbling over itself as the other man quickly rose from his seat. “Don’t go back out there. I can’t believe you’d actually— I didn’t mean it,” he assured Fen with hands raised as if to soothe a skittish animal. “Come in. Away from there,” he added with a worried glance at the ledge behind Fen.
It was enough of an annulment for a tentative smile to return to Fen’s lips. He thanked his patron in hoarse words behind the fingertips he’d brought to his lips in the same sign and pushed himself to his feet once more. He felt the other man’s gaze on him as he stepped into the small chamber, stooping slightly to avoid the low ceiling and its shards of bioluminescent stones, and it wasn’t until Fen had sat himself on the other side of the firelight that the other finally returned to his own seat.
It was an unyielding sort of silence that settled into the cracks and crevices of the cave thereafter. Uncomfortable in all the ways Fen wasn’t sure it should have been, but not altogether unpleasant with the paltry fire providing some much-needed warmth to his chilled bones. It played harmonies with the storm outside, crackling and popping between the crashes of thunder that fought to tear the mountain down around them.
His companion seemed adamant on not speaking to Fen at all— with those downcast eyes and busy hands tending to some dubious concoction or another. That should have been fine. After all, it meant less forced speech on Fen’s part, but the other boy’s hands moved in quick, agitated motions as he worked, and he sat with hunched shoulders and an anxious grimace twisted at his freckled features in the glow of stone and flames.
He startled when Fen shifted forward to tap him on the shoulder, lurching back and away from his reaching fingers so swiftly that the bowl the boy had been fussing with toppled and spilled a strange glowing goop onto the cave’s floor. Fen retreated quickly, hands raised and empty palms born to show he wasn’t a threat.
The reaction had startled Fen almost as much as his almost-touch had apparently startled the other. They stared at each other for a broken moment, eyes wide and searching, then Fen’s shredded voice cut through the stillness.
“Y-ou’re scared,” he rasped slowly as if realization came with the spoken words. His brow twitched into a slight furrow and his signs followed. “Of me? I would not hurt you.”
In the chaotic light of the chamber, it was almost difficult to catch the way the other boy blushed, but his eyes cut away and the shame was clear from the look on his face.
“No,” he said, and he seemed to be assuring himself of that even as he said it. “No, you wouldn’t. I know that. I’m not afraid.”
It was not a convincing display. Fen frowned a little and gestured slightly to bring the other man’s gaze up to his once more. “But you are unhappy that I’m here.”
There was that shame again, a full, blushing display that burnt his freckles darker on his cheeks as his eyes immediately dropped again. He said nothing. Fen nodded.
“I will go.”
“No!” he insisted as Fen began to stand. “Please— I’m sorry. I’m not unhappy with you, that isn’t it. Stay,” he pled in a mumble that was almost lost to the storm. He raised his hands in that soothing way again and he averted his gaze to the far wall; embarrassed. “I’ll be more upset if I run you off and you just get killed in the storm.”
Fen eyed him haltingly, then carefully sat once more. The other man nodded slightly in some solemn approval and shifted forward to clean up the mess he’d made. Fen watched him as he did so, quietly considering the array of tools laid out on the slated ground. There were two more bowls along with the glowing muck that seemed unsalvageable from where it’d spilled. In the light of the fire, Fen could make out the telltale coral glints of salt grains in one and, in the other, a loose powdery substance. The man froze again as Fen pulled a glove free with his teeth and sampled the bowl with his fingertips.
“Flour?” he guessed. The man blinked.
“Oh— Oh!” he said again, turning with fingers that glowed a pale green to rummage through his satchel. “Are you hungry? I, um, I have some berries in here. And an apple. I imagine it’d taste nice if you heated it by the fire first— you don’t want to eat that,” he motioned to the flour with a grimace. “It’s filthy.”
Fen’s laugh was a mere breath escaping him. He waved his hand to soothe the other’s fretting and signed along with his words. “I’m fine. I ate.”
The other paused. “Oh.”
Fen gestured to the bowls again. “You are making paint?” He pointed to the illuminated stones overhead. “With these?”
Another pause. Then a nod. “Yes. For my arrows.”
“Ah,” Fen mouthed the word more than he said it, his head rocking back with a nod of understanding. He smiled again. “That is clever.”
The other man shrugged at the praise, his head ducking down further as he pulverized some bits of the glowing stones in a bowl with a mortar, agitated again. “Not really,” he mumbled. “They’re easier to find in the dark, but the added weight affects the trajectory. And it doesn’t do much for stealth—”
“You like them,” Fen guessed again, touching his ear to indicate his companion’s own where miniature cuts of the rock gleamed softly in the form of earrings. The other man covered his ear with a reflexive hand but nodded again.
“I remember you,” Fen pressed on carefully. “From the stable on the outskirts.”
The boy said nothing again and Fen fought not to sigh. Carrying the weight of conversations was an easier task when you had the actual voice for it. “You don’t have a slate,” he observed after catching the boy’s attention again. He replied with a shake of his head, pink hair flicking wildly.
“I do,” he countered and kicked the bag at his side dispassionately. “I just don’t use it unless it’s in private.”
Fen tipped his head. “You keep it hidden?”
“I don’t like people thinking I’m the right person to go to if they’re in trouble.”
Again, that hadn’t been the reply Fen had expected. A silence settled in around them again as the boy worked with a bowed head and Fen looked on.
“I’m Fen.” He held his gaze and signed the letters out slowly. F-E-N. The other man’s eyes glittered with curiosity and he looked down at his own, glow-stained fingers.
“Sign language,” he blurted, blushing anew. “You can’t— And I’ve been making you talk this whole time.”
Fen waved that off. “It’s fine.”
“It isn’t,” the other boy insisted. “I’m sorry. Don’t talk anymore. It hurts, doesn’t it?”
Fen shrugged. “Not so m—” The man pointed a glowing finger at him and Fen let his voice die off again with a small chuckle. He pinched his fingers in a lame pantomime; not quite signing. ‘Only a little.’
Not using his voice seemed to mollify that stern look and the man relaxed visibly again, his hand dropping back to his lap. “I don’t know how to read those,” his companion admitted sheepishly after a beat. Fen was used to that so he waved it off again.
“Fen.”
Fen cocked his head again as the other said his name slowly, like committing it to memory and testing the weight of it on his tongue all at once. He bent forward again and this time the other did not jerk away at his approach. Fen tapped the boy’s chest once, then mouthed the words as he signed. ‘What do I call you?’
His eyes lit up as the question registered and his hand immediately went to the place where Fen’s finger had just been. “Theln,” he said eagerly, cheeks and eyes gleaming with intensity. There was a weight to the way he said it— just like there’d been a strange weight to the way he’d said Fen’s own name. “I’m Theln.”
Fen paused, then carefully signed the name back to him, his lips moving silently. ‘Theln.’
Thunder crashed outside and another flash of lightning turned the cave into blinding white brilliance. It left them both blinking dazedly and rubbing at their eyes as the light faded. As clarity came creeping back to them, their gazes met again. Theln paused as Fen offered him an easy grin, then slowly, he smiled back.