Whirlwind | Camia, Jamil, & Leon
Because I can’t write a soft fluffy fic without immediately following it with an angsty fic, this explores Camia and Jamil realizing just how powerful Leon is, during the time before they received the vial that hangs around their neck in present day. The former two are around 21 here, and Leon is 19.
This takes place shortly after the events of All These Things That I’ve Done and Show Me What I’m Looking For.
Title: Whirlwind by JOSEPH 2.3k words
Not long after Rosabella’s wedding in Venterre, Camia, Jamil, and Leon all set off to travel again. This time, it wasn’t because they had to, but they wanted to. There were so many things they had seen and experienced over the past few years, that they wanted more, and they wanted to go together. They were heading through the desert to reach the Infinite Bazaar, the older two promising Leon that there were a great number of things they would find interesting there.
Camia wasn’t exactly sure what had changed between Leon and Jamil during the wedding—though she certainly had her guesses—but whatever it was seemed to make Leon happier, so she was happy watching them. She thought they were starting to finally feel secure around them, but she didn’t know the depth of the insecurities and troubles that lay just beneath the surface of their smile.
One night, as they traveled, she woke up shivering, which shocked her enough to sit straight up, feeling around for the blanket she had been sleeping with. But what she felt instead was wind whipping around the tent, almost strong enough to rip it off the ground, and she heard whimpering coming from her side, where Leon was sleeping.
They were curled up into a tight, painful looking ball, arms wrapped around themself, breathing ragged. She leaned closer to them, hearing them murmuring under their breath, but when she tried to wake them, touching their shoulder gently, they flinched, and lashed out towards her. She managed to duck just as a gust of wind flew past her head, cutting through the fabric of the tent, and a moment later Jamil entered the tent from where he had been standing guard outside.
He looked between them both, dark eyebrows knit together as the wind almost pushed him a step back. “What’s happening?” he asked, voice raised.
“I don’t know,” Camia said, but as the wind took her voice away, she repeated herself, almost screaming. “I don’t know!”
Jamil winced as sand started whirling around them, but started to move towards Leon, reaching one hand out to them. “Lee! Leon, wake up!”
Camia could see their mouth moving, still mumbling something, but she couldn’t hear them—at least, until Jamil’s hand touched their ankle, and then they screamed like he had burned them.
“No!”
Both Camia and Jamil’s hands flew to cover their ears, and as the wind picked up even more, the tent was ripped away, barely hanging onto one post. They fell to their knees to keep from being blown back, but it was getting harder and harder to stay close to Leon, where the wind was the strongest, Leon’s hair twisting around them in the air like ribbon.
Leon was no longer curled up, instead they thrashed on the ground, fighting off something or someone that neither Camia nor Jamil could see. Camia was sure they were still asleep, but had no idea what they were dreaming of, or how she could help. Before she had time to think of anything, Jamil tried, fighting against the wind, to grab hold of Leon again and keep them still, his hands on their shoulders.
“Wake up!”
Again, they screamed, voice breaking in a sob, struggling against him. Camia felt the wind start to pick up so much that the sand cut into her skin as it flew by, but Leon didn’t wake up. Instead, they continued to yell, bracing to lash out at Jamil like they had at her. “Let go of me, please, please, just, let go of me—"
A flash of red knocked both Camia and Jamil far from Leon, just as a blast of air went over their heads, something that would have killed them if it had landed.
Struggling to catch their breath from having it knocked out of them in addition to the vortex of wind that was now encircling Leon, Jamil and Camia looked up into the eyes of Fiasharya, Leon’s familiar. She had a clawed foot pressed to each of their chests, not to threaten them, but to keep them in place.
“Fish, what’s going on?” Camia cried, trying to sit up.
Fish shook her head, feathers ruffling in the wind. My baby is having a nightmare. A very, very bad one.
“And that’s causing the wind?”
Jamil glanced between them. “What are you talking about, what is she saying?”
The nightmare isn’t causing the wind, my baby is. He can’t control it like this, his magic. It’s too strong.
Unable to sit up against Fish’s weight, Camia peered over her to see Leon’s vortex start lifting them off the ground. “They’re going to get hurt—is there nothing we can do?”
We have to wait for him to wake up. Once he’s awake, I can take some of the magic away, but it would hurt him otherwise.
Jamil grunted, pushing Fish off of him. “I’m going to get them—”
Another wave of sand and wind pushed him right back down, and Camia reached out to him. “You can’t, we have to wait for them to wake up!”
“But you said they’re going to get hurt—”
Fish leaned into Jamil’s face, and Camia could tell by the way he winced that he could finally hear her voice in his head. If you try to get any closer, my baby is going to kill you.
“Wh-what?”
It wouldn’t be the first time his magic has killed someone, but it would break him if he hurt you. Stay back.
Jamil and Camia fell silent, staring wide-eyed at each other. Camia knew Leon’s magic was strong, she felt it every day, had felt it for years now, and she felt it even more when they first met and fought, but this was different. The growing power of the wind was almost taking the breath from her lungs, and the sand was still sharp against her skin.
A wail pulled all of their attention back to Leon, who was clutching at their head, floating far above them. “No—stop it—I-I don’t want this, I don’t want to do this—” Their eyes opened, flashing white, tears falling down their face, and they reached out with one hand towards where Jamil and Camia lay on the ground. “Fish,” they sobbed, “help me!”
In an instant, she was by their side, powerful wings breaking through the whirling wind, and they wrapped their arms around her as she slowly lowered them to the ground, the wind dying away. The white light in Leon’s eyes faded out, leaving behind their dark irises Camia and Jamil were used to, and tears as they cried, holding onto Fish tightly. She rested her head on their shoulder, trilling comforts into their ears.
Once the wind was completely gone, Jamil and Camia got up from the sand, running over to Leon.
Jamil got to them first, and Camia watched as he went to reach out to them but hesitated, his hand staying by his side. “Are you alright?”
Leon gasped, pulling away from Fish. “You—oh no.” They looked terrified, and before the next words were even out of their mouth, Camia knew why. “Did I hurt you? I—I didn’t mean to, fuck, I—”
“We’re okay, Lee,” Camia said, trying to keep her voice calm, though she was still shaken by the feeling of having her breath taken away, and her skin stung. But… she remembered, too well, the fear that ran through their veins. She slowly took their hand in hers, and they flinched, but didn’t pull away. “You didn’t hurt us.”
Jamil took their other hand, running his thumb over the back of it. “What was that?”
Leon hesitated. When Fish gently nudged their head, they sighed, voice shaking. “A really… really bad memory.”
“A memory?” Camia glanced at Jamil, who looked just as concerned as she felt.
They nodded, pulling their hands back to wrap their arms around themself. “From, um, before. You know…” their eyebrows furrowed together. “In Gekko.”
“What… what happened, Leon?”
Shaking their head, they curled up even tighter. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” As the words left them, Leon seemed shocked by their own volume, and buried their head in their arms, hair blanketing their shoulders. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Camia frowned, gently wrapping her arms around them in a loose hug, and Jamil joined her on their other side. “You don’t need to apologize. You don’t have to tell us anything if you don’t want to. We just want to help you.”
“Why,” they whispered, “why do you want to help me when all I can do is—is hurt?”
“That’s not true,” she said, a bit more forcefully than she meant, but it worked in getting their attention. “We want to help you because we care about you, Lee. And your magic, it doesn’t make you a bad person for having it.”
“But I can’t control it. And the next time I can’t control it, what if I—” they shuddered. “What if I kill you? Either of you, I—I don’t want to do that.” Before Camia or Jamil could say anything against that, Leon muttered something under their breath that Camia hoped she had misheard.
“What did you say?” Jamil asked, and they all pulled back enough for Leon to lift their head up, cheeks soaked. They were quiet for a long time, but the other two waited. Leon rubbed at their eyes, wiping away tears, staring out at nothing with an empty look on their face.
“I said… You should just kill me.”
Jamil took in a sharp breath. “Leon—!”
“Or leave me out here, maybe, maybe I could survive on my own again or maybe I’d just die, but who cares, it’d be better for everyone that way—”
“No.” Camia took Leon by their shoulders, forcing them to turn towards her. “No, we’re not going to do either of those things. And besides… I know that’s not really what you want anyway.”
Leon shook their head, trying to break away from her, but she held on tightly to them. “You don’t know that. I want—I want to not hurt you, I want you both to stay safe and happy and that doesn’t include me, it just can’t—”
“It does,” Jamil said, his arms wrapping around their middle as he pulled them against his chest, his voice breaking. “It does include you, Lee.”
A choked sob escaped them, but they still argued. “Even if I—if I do stay, what about my magic, what if this happens again?”
Camia cupped their face in her hands, feeling like she was looking at herself from half her life ago. “We’re going to help you. We’ll figure out some way to handle it, but we’ll do it together. Okay?” She wiped away a tear as it fell from their eyes. “Leon, I love you. I’ll never kill you or leave you behind—you are my friend, my family, and as much as you want us happy and safe, that’s what I want for you.”
Leon whined, even more tears starting to flow again, but before they could speak, Jamil did, his voice muffled by their hair. “I love you too, Leon, I—I know I can’t help much with magic, with finding a solution, but I’m never going to leave you. These past few years—” He cut himself off, and Camia knew he was crying, his shoulders shaking.
“These past few years,” she continued, “we have loved you and getting to know you, and neither of us can imagine our lives without you anymore. If you truly, honestly, want to leave, we won’t… won’t stop you. But we don’t want you to go anywhere if we can’t come with you.” She tucked a strand of their hair behind their ear, watching their lip wobble. “What do you want, Lee?”
“…You.” They paused, struggling to catch their breath, one hand resting over Jamil’s arms, the other reaching out to Camia. She took it, squeezing it gently. “I want to stay with you. I don’t—” their voice broke, “—don’t want to be alone again.”
“Okay,” she whispered, shifting close enough to let them lay their head against her shoulder, her arms wrapping around them and hands resting on Jamil. “Okay.”
The three of them sat, holding onto each other, Leon’s quiet sobs and Fish’s gentle trilling the only noises they could hear in the desert night. The sky had just started to lighten by the time Leon calmed down, though they didn’t move away from the other two, holding onto them tightly. Clearing their throat, Leon bit their bottom lip sheepishly.
“…I ruined the tent, didn’t I?”
Camia laughed through her nose. “It’s certainly seen better days.” Before Leon could apologize, she continued. “But if we leave at dawn, we’ll make it to the Bazaar by mid-afternoon, and we can always get a new one there.”
“Or… maybe, stay somewhere with a bed?”
Jamil hummed, pressing a kiss to Leon’s shoulder. “I think that can be arranged.”
A small smile tugged at their lips, and they felt around for Jamil and Camia’s hands to hold in theirs again. “I… I love you. Both of you. Thank you.”
Camia rested her forehead against theirs as Jamil kissed the back of their hand, and the three of them slowly laid down in the sand, their blankets and bed rolls long forgotten. Camia knew they would regret it in a few hours, but she couldn’t bring herself to mention it, as Leon started to drift back to sleep, their eyes red and puffy, but a smile still on their face. Jamil was just as tired, his arms still around Leon’s waist, and he kept them close to him as his eyes closed.
Fish cooed from next to Camia, and she turned slightly to look at the bird. Her red eyes had never looked more kind, more gentle, and Camia swore she was even smiling.
I’ll keep watch. Sleep, please.
Nodding, Camia turned back, resting her head against Leon’s, and as she faded into sleep, heard Fish’s voice in her head one more time.
Thank you for loving my baby.