1k words. Written for day 1 of Asra Week, 2021: “Celebration”. In which Milenko is a fool in love.
This is set 8 years before the game, so Milenko is in his very early 20s.
You can find the rest of Asra’s and Milenko’s pre-game canon, ‘Like Thirst Holds Water’, here.
No cws apply.
Come spring, Vesuvia dressed herself with music and colours to celebrate the end of winter. September came with blooming flowers and cool breezes, the streets lighting up with lanterns and music. Milenko watched Asra dance with Anatole, a forlorn smile on his face. His cousin and his friend were hand in hand, spinning and turning and laughing.
Milenko never felt left behind by Anatole per se, ever. Thinking it alone would be a disservice to his cousin and, perhaps, one of the few people who understood him when no one else seemed to be able to. He had always thought Anatole touched the lives of people around him with more ease than he gave himself credit for, and Asra was an example of that. Anatole wanted to know the world so he could master his own life, Asra was always curious and learning new things and hobbies, finding ways to occupy the hours. It was a good combination: Anatole tapped into Asra’s potential but Milenko saw Asra’s loneliness, clear as a stream that runs from the melted ice of the mountains.
No wonder he clung to Anatole like he was the sun.
Milenko sighed. He could write epics about the light dancing in Asra’s amethyst eyes, like the colour of a dry wine which gathered friends around the table. How his hair curling like the ripples in the water, after Milenko was finally dropped into it, letting the water engulf him.
He could, but he won’t. Even if it was a little disappointing to not have his attention.
He didn’t notice the magician sitting down beside him, flushed cheeks and all.
“Where’s Toly?”
“I’ve never seen you sit alone,” Asra said instead, “are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, yeah I am. I was just watching you dance.”
“Oh,” Asra said, the flush on his cheeks now expanding to his ears. “Uh, Nana went to grab some water, I think.”
Asra was lying, not that Milenko could tell. Anatole had caught Asra looking at Milenko out of the corner of his eye, had smacked his head, rolled his eyes and had sent the magician to talk to him. Asra thought he was being subtle, but Anatole was hard to fool. Asra had no idea what Anatole set off for, but admitting the truth as it was, was a little embarrassing.
They fell into conversation, Milenko leaving Asra’s question unanswered without meaning to. They were in their own bubble as they tuned out everything but their voices, the background noise like falling snow around them.
Asra repeated his question catching Milenko by surprise.
“I always thought you liked to dance,” Asra said.
“I do! I love dancing!” Milenko was more enthusiastic than he intended, his own nerves bubbling past his lips. “I was watching you, that’s all.”
Asra looked like he was about to vomit his own internal organs, his voice barely a whisper when he spoke.
“Watching me?”
Milenko had one leg crossed over the other, his ankle resting on his opposite knee. He wrapped his hand around his own calf, his fingers squeezing what little fabric was there to squeeze, given the tightness of his pants. “Yeah… you. You move like water, it’s very hard not to stare. I’ve heard people say water finds the path of less resistance, but I don’t think that’s true. I think water finds a way.”
Asra moved his hand to rest it over Milenko’s knee, but Milenko spoke again, and he stopped. “Like light. Light and water are good compliments.”
The silence was heavy between them, the background noise that before was almost imperceptible, now loud and present around them. Milenko was holding his breath as Asra stared at him blankly, his eyes moving around, scanning for nothing in particular as he tried to piece his thoughts together, not understanding what Milenko was trying to tell him.
When the aspiring poet felt the silence to be oppressive he spoke again, blurting his words out.
“I mean it’s okay if you don’t feel that way about me, I mean it. No hard feelings, Anatole is a very fine person to have feelings for, and he deserves to have someone as good as you wanting to give him their attention.”
“Milenko…” Asra said, wincing a little and with concern etched all over his face.
“Asra, I mean it—”
Instead of letting him finish, the magician took Milenko’s hands in his, prying them away from the place they rested, squeezing them between his hands as he looked at Milenko with an intensity that made him swallow his words.
“Milan, I do have feelings for Nana: feelings of friendship and gratitude, but it’s not, it’s not like that, and I need you to know it’s not like that.”
Now Milenko was the one who looked at him unable to understand.
“What I’m trying to say is I like you too.”
Asra spoke fast, nervous, with urgency, consumed by the fear that Milenko would get the wrong idea and slip away from him. It was fine if he did, there was a flowing freedom to Milenko that made him enchanting and easy to be around; his joy was liberating, contagious. It made Asra want to open his heart so Milenko might live there and never inhabit another.
Admitting his feelings was terrifying, but it was less terrifying than Milenko walking away because Asra didn’t even try. However, now that Milenko was the one looking at loss and falling silent, Asra began thinking he must have misunderstood his words. Had he been brave for no reason? Perhaps he had to stop listening to Anatole and his also contagious hope that bordered spite. Perhaps he shouldn’t have had this conversation in the middle of a festivity. Perhaps—
Perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps it would all be okay because Milenko leaned into Asra’s space softly, giving him the opportunity to stop him if he needed. He took his face in his hands with the same gentleness someone cupped a wildflower that was precious to them, or fresh water amid a journey. To Asra’s growing surprise, Milenko kissed both of his eyelids, before resting his forehead against Asra’s and guiding his hand over his heart.
It was easy to find it, Milenko didn’t know what buttoning his shirts was, so Asra found himself curling his fingers over Milenko’s warm skin, his heart beating frantically inside his chest and against his palm. After asking for permission, Milenko kissed his lips.
1k words. Written for Day 2 of Asra Week 2021: “Touch”. In which Milenko and Asra share a conversation alone, in the night.
You can read “First Love, Late Spring”, written for Day 1: “Celebration” here. This is set some months after after that piece, so it’s set around 7 to 8 years before the events of the game.
You can find the rest of Asra’s and Milenko’s pre-game canon, ‘Like Thirst Holds Water’, here.
CWs: Feelings of displacement, parental disappearance.
Asra’s breath was shaky as Milenko stroked his thumb up and down over the pulse point on his neck. It was a weird place to touch a partner, the angle wasn’t easy, and the softness was soon replaced by bone if you didn’t get it right, but Milenko didn’t seem to mind the difficulties. He never did.
Milenko, Asra had come to find out, minded little, in general. There were so many things Asra felt vulnerable about, self-conscious and ready to either bury them deep inside himself, grief and wounds he carried alone, or twist himself into knots and untwist himself out of the question, leaving no trace behind him. Milenko never pushed him. Milenko never judged him. He, at most, offered some kind of solution for Asra to take or leave, gave him a kiss on the cheek and that was it.
Asra asked Milenko why he was that way once, and his reply was as simple as it was heavy.
“Who am I to judge?”
“That sounds oddly detached, when I know you aren’t.”
Asra didn’t understand at first, even if he had devoured the books left behind by his parents —those he could salvage— fervently reading about a faith and a culture he felt detached from and at the same time didn’t. Asra tried to trace back the lines and find answers to what his parents would do, always, at all times. Most of the times, it offered some kind of answer.
Answers and understanding weren’t the same. Undesrtanding required something Asra felt like he was left out of. Maybe it had to do with how all he remembered about his parents was love, warmth and knowledge. The encouragement for him to watch the world bloom like a flower in the desert, dearer for its mystery, while Milenko had gotten to live it.
Milenko’s faith, Milenko’s heritage, it wasn’t in books. It was in a remark in passing made to Anatole in Balkovian, if was going to the Synagogue with Aurora, one of his mothers, but also to the Mosque with his uncle, grandfather and Violeta, his other mother. It was the fact he had them with him. It existed in all the streams which fed the wide-flowing river that Milenko was.
Milenko once asked what Asra's name meant. He had an idea, but he wanted to be sure —he knew Zadithi, but claimed he wanted to hear it from Asra himself. Names mattered, and the interpretation of the name bearer mattered as well, according to him. Asra told him it meant ‘travel at night’, asking Milenko about the meaning of his own name, because Asra most definitely did not speak Balkovian. Milenko told him; he also told him he thought Asra’s name was fitting. The tides travelled with the moon who reigned the night with its silvery light.
Asra also thought it was fitting, but for a different reason: people who travelled at night did so because they couldn’t afford to stop. The inkling darkness muddled everything. Night travellers may be the stuff of stories, but they weren’t the story: the tale itself told in the evening to ease yourself and your loved ones from the fatigue of the day. Not that Asra didn’t try, he always told Muriel stories; stories he found, stories he knew, stories he made up, but it all seemed patched up, lonely, and above all borrowed.
He would do anything for Muriel, but two travellers weren’t an entire table.
So of course he didn’t understand what Milenko meant with “Who am I to judge?”. It sounded to him like a complete form of detachment, one that was alien to Asra, not that he felt part of the world at all times, even if he sure did try to exist in it, because it was what his parents would’ve done. It was what his parents did. He tried not to think too hard to think about how living in the world was what had taken them from him.
Milenko shook his head and gave Asra an easy smile as he traced his fingers over the fabric of Asra’s shirt. The magician listened to Milenko, trying not distract himself too much with thoughts of wanting Milenko’s fingers not over his shirt, but over his bare skin.
“What I mean with ‘who am I to judge’ is not that I don’t have opinions or I don’t think there are things worth condemning—”
“You are a little opinionated, sometimes,” Asra teased.
“Am not?”
“You are.”
“I thought you had met my cousins.”
Asra huffed a laugh. Laughing louder than a huff felt like breaking some sort of unspoken convention between them. “Fair.”
“What I mean is, one thing is having an opinion, another is judging. Some things are despicable, they are against people, they’re against Good Deeds, they’re against what we are told to do and how we are told to Love, we can and should condemn them, even if above all we should take action. Words are wonderful, but they shouldn’t be desecrated with emptiness. However,” he continued, “you tell me, beloved. Can you sit in front of every individual person and impartially judge them with everything that entails? Can you bear the heaviness of it?
“So yes, I am no one to judge.”
Asra pursed his lips, holding his breath for a moment. He exhaled at last, sitting a little more upright. They were sitting on Asra’s bed, in the room Paris —Anatole’s aunt— let him use in her shop, Moonstone and Jasmine, regardless of whether Asra had to work there that day or not. Paris herself was out, so the entire building was quiet except for their breaths and their words.
“What about those things you can’t forgive?”
“I never said anything about those, did I? Also, I don’t have answers, beloved, or I do, but I have more questions than answers, and more blessings than explanations. All the time, I’ve told you this.”
“You did it again.”
“Hm?”
“Call me beloved.”
Milenko kissed his cheek, the gesture flowing like water in a fountain, that Asra would’ve been envious of if Milenko’s lack of doubt didn’t directly benefit him.
“I can always call you my liver if that’s too much. It’s not too much, is it?”
“No,” Asra said, moving from his place in the bed, untangling his legs so he could sit closer to Milenko. “No it’s not.”
He ran his fingertips over Milenko’s lower lip, a feather-like soft touch that made him suck in a breath. “I’ve been calling you habibi in my mind, but I’m always afraid to say it. You say these things with such an ease.”
“It isn’t because of something I’ve done, has it?” Milenko said against his fingertips. He pressed soft kisses against each of them, until Asra replaced them with his lips.
“O mother,
O minutehand, teach me
how to hold a man the way thirst
holds water. Let every river envy
our mouths“
— Ocean Vuong, “A Little Closer To The Edge”
In the Julesverse™ before the events of the game, Milenko and Asra were together for a number of years before they broke up. This is Milasra’s pre-game canon timeline, and I am using Asra Week 2021 to explore that relationship and those they have with others, and how they affect theirs.
Here you can find all of the instalments.
Day 1: Celebration | “First Love, Late Spring”
Day 2: Touch | “Habibi”
Day 3: Journey | “Bury Me With The Desert Flowers”
Day 4: Bonds | “Again and Again, Even Though We Know Love’s Landscape“
Day 5: Memories | “In The Quiet, In The Dark”
Day 6: Promise | “This Is How We Say Goodbye (Song To The Open Road)“
2.1k words. Written for Asra Week 2021, Day 7: Free Day. In which Asra asks Aisha to teach him how to hold a man like thirst holds water. This is set after the events of the game. Milenko is not the apprentice.
You can read the entire Asra and Milenko’s pre-game canon, ‘Like Thirst Holds Water’, here.
As a note, ‘Sasi’ is one of Milenko’s nicknames. It comes from his middle name, Sisay. ‘Sisay’ means good omen in Amhraic.
Thank you @lisa-frank-cave my beloved for helping me come up with asratfits. No cws apply. Happy Birthday, Asra 🎂💜
O father, O foreshadow, press
into her — as the field shreds itself
with cricket cries. Show me how ruin makes a home
out of hip bones. O mother,
O minutehand, teach me
how to hold a man the way thirst
holds water. Let every river envy
our mouths. Let every kiss hit the body
like a season.
— Ocean Vuong, “A Little Closer To The Edge”
Asra had to excuse himself from his own birthday party, needing a moment alone after realising everyone who mattered to him was there, laughing and sharing beverages and stories of their own, talking about nothing of importance, but sharing a good time nonetheless.
It was his first birthday after the Devil had been stopped and the end of the world averted, the first birthday he could spend with his parents after a long, long time. There was Selasi and Muriel, free and happy, finding his own footing again; there was Amparo who had kissed his cheek when she wished him a happy birthday, there was Nadia and Portia, old friends recovered and new friends made. There was Anatole, his beloved friend, who had danced with him, spinning him in circles, and now insisted on sharing his chair with Ilya, even though there were chairs to spare.
And there was Milenko. Beautiful, joyful Milenko with his smile and the freckles on his cheeks, like the night-sky itself had blessed him with kisses.
When Aisha found him, he immediately began crying, throwing his arms around his mother in search of comfort. All had passed, all was forgiven, and none of them had to be alone again. More importantly, he didn’t have to be alone again.
He thanked his mama for the hug, as Aisha kissed his head and reminded him of the blessing that he was, and the many blessings he deserved.
“And you will have them, insha’Allah, Habibti,” Aisha said before they joined the dinner party again, asking Asra to lean his head down so she could kiss it again.
It was early dinner, they would later go to the theatre, Amparo had a performance and she was able to snatch good seats for Asra’s birthday, attributing it to her endless charm. When the time approached, some of them left with Amparo who had to be there earlier, while Nana, Ilya and Milenko stayed back to help clean around.
Asra didn’t know what it was, but Milenko looked radiant. His curls bounced when he laughed; a pair of crescent moon pendant earrings, gold pleated with blue topaz tears hanging from the bottom of the moon dangled from his ears. He was wearing black high waisted pants, a textured belt marking his waist. Right now, as he washed dishes with Julian and Salim as they chatted, he had pulled up the sleeves of his white, unbuttoned poet shirt. Milenko mentioned being interfaith, and his father began talking to him about it, Julian happily chiming in.
Asra noticed Milenko still washed the dishes with his hip popped to one side, and his backside sticking out.
When he came in, he had been wearing a navy blue jacket with clean lines and golden buttons that reached the beginning of his hips, too. Being 31 looked good on him, and either Asra had never stopped being in love with Milenko, or he was falling in love all over again.
The poet changed his weight from one hip to another. Asra was going to go insane.
“Oh, I think I know that look,” Aisha said, snapping Asra out of it.
His cheeks went cherry red as he tried to divert the topic. Anatole, leaning against an archway with a mischievous turn in his lips, was about to say something but Asra stopped him before he could. His friend threw his hands up in surrender; Aisha, thankfully, didn’t say anything else but Asra knew his mother would bring it back sooner or later.
Aisha laughed with Asra’s relieved face. Salim turned to her, and with him, Milenko did too, smiling at Asra once his chestnut eyes found his purple ones. Asra was doomed.
He was right about Milenko being brought up later, but it was Salim the one who brought him up first.
“He speaks very highly of you,” he said, as he and Aisha wished Asra a good night.
Asra’s choked up: “He does?!” didn’t go unnoticed. However, he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about Milenko. While Asra had found a new sense of comfort in openly confiding in his parents about most things that went through his mind or his heart, everything was too muddled for him to even know what to say. So he promised he’d tell them more about it when he knew what to tell them, and they let it go for the time being.
To the chagrin of Asra’s sanity, the world wasn’t done throwing Milenko his way.
Running into Milenko once or twice a month wasn’t odd for Asra, but the more time passed, the more it seemed those chances grew. Asra was now running into him even twice per week, sometimes more. It was so much, he had discovered missing him on the weeks they didn’t run into each other, Asra turning at every possibility, perking up whenever he felt like he saw Milenko around.
On top of that, Aisha and Salim had taken kinship to Anatole’s parents —his father in particular. The three of them shared alchemy as a passion and profession. Anatole’s father, Vlad, still refused to become a palace magician, even if he liked Nadia much more than he ever liked Lucio. Still, he was always happy to stop around to see his son and meet up with his new friends, the three of them, along with Anatole’s mother, going out to dinner together rather often.
Asra knew all the Radošević-Cassano, so he needn’t be reminded Vlad was very close to his Radošević cousins: Violeta and Atanasie — Milenko’s mother and uncle. He choked on his drink when his parents told him they were just having dinner at Violeta’s and Aurora’s place.
“Milenko asked if you would join us,” Aisha said, tapping her index on her lips. “He seemed a little crestfallen when we said you wouldn’t. Perhaps you should come with us next time.”
The Milenko conversation, or rather, confession, didn’t come out of Asra until some months later. One warm but breezy evening Asra and his parents were having dinner in The Sphinx Coffee-house. Milenko had come down through the backroom, for once not wearing a shirt that made him flash his tits out to half of Vesuvia. What he was wearing was simple, but he looked handsome and elegant: a black, high neck shirt, black pants, and a shawl with embroidered constellations over his shoulder.
Amador, the Dos Santos sibling who was running the Sphinx that night, greeted him cheerfully, the Alnazars being close enough to hear, but not close enough for Milenko to see them yet.
“Hello, doll-face, how’d your date go?”
Milenko’s underwhelmed reply made Asra feel like he could breathe again. Both of his parents noticed, just like they noticed the way both of them startled when Milenko noticed their presence. He ended up excusing himself, claiming he was being waited on in the Community Theatre.
After that Asra couldn’t hold it in much longer. A day or two afterwards, he was basking in the sun with his mother when he sat up, and without any contextualisation he just said: “How do you do it, mama? How do you keep someone you love close, when you think you have lost them but maybe you haven’t?”
Aisha looked at him, sensing her child was not done talking.
“You’ve been with Dad for so long, how do you do it: how do you make home out of ruins, how do you hold someone like thirst holds water?”
Aisha sat up, taking Asra’s hand in hers. “I didn’t know you were good with poetry, habibti.”
“I’m not,” he sighed.
“But your Milenko is, isn’t he?”
Asra’s smile was sad and lovelorn. “He is, mama, he really is.”
This time, Asra told Aisha everything, and when Salim came back from getting bread at Selasi’s, he patiently listened to Asra too. They both offered the advice that they could, but mostly let Asra say everything he was holding in, reminding him he didn’t have to keep these things to himself anymore, that he could confide in people.
Once Asra was done talking he felt relieved. The best advice his parents could give him was that he tried. If he was honest about his feelings and communicated them like he had just done, he might realise that not everything was quite as it seemed. Perhaps he could start little by little, trying to spend time with him again. He had come so far, and he was such a wonderful person to know, that the worst thing he could do was not give himself the chance.
They both said that it was clear Milenko cared about him too, more than Asra noticed.
“You don’t have to take it from us,” Aisha said, squeezing his hand again. “What would your friends say? What would your Anatole tell you? Or Muriel?”
Asra laughed. “Muriel would either tell me to just do it or roll his eyes at me. Anatole would convince me to be more brave and hopeful than I ever thought it was possible being.”
Salim kissed Asra’s forehead. “Then try, you are very deserving of hope.”
His parents were invited to Aurora’s and Violeta’s in two more days, and they offered Asra to come with them: maybe Milenko would be there, and he would have a chance to at least talk to him, though Asra had insisted he did talk to Milenko, in general at least, so they shouldn’t worry too much.
Salim hummed. “I didn’t know you had talked all that is capable of being talked to him already.”
“Dad.”
When the day came, Asra dressed as nicely as he could think of, without being obvious. He wanted to look and feel pretty, even if he was trying not to get his hopes up. It was hard not to, however. Hope was contagious.
Milenko wasn’t around, even if Aurora and Violeta were thrilled to have Asra around for dinner again. They eagerly shared stories about Asra from the past. He tried not to feel disappointed Milenko wasn’t there, or mortified about the stories. He understood they shared them as mothers, subtly encouraging him to make his parents partake in the memories he had once made in their home.
After dinner, Violeta insisted on showing Asra her garden for old time’s sake, taking his hand as she walked into it, guiding him through the paths of the small space, and the two micro greenhouses she kept there. One housed venomous plants only, her speciality; the other, orchids.
Violeta turned to Asra. “How are your orchids, darling?” Asra had never told her he grew orchids, and while he wanted to suspect his parents might have told her, the way she spoke reminded him of Milenko. No, Violeta didn’t need to be told to know he did — Milenko got his clairvoyance from her after all.
“I’ve never asked,” Salim said, walking a little behind Asra and Violeta. Aisha was talking to Aurora about her latest restoration commission. “Did you teach Asra to grow orchids?”
Violeta blinked at him. “I’m afraid not.”
Asra rubbed the back of his neck, nervous. “If she had, I’m sure they’d grow better. I learnt from books, on my own.”
“I can give you a couple of tips, my son is a patient man.”
Aisha caught up with them, Asra wanted the earth to swallow him and spit him far away from there. “How romantic of you, and here I was thinking you were helpless.”
Aurora snorted. “Don’t worry: he may have a poet’s tongue, but on the inside, Sasi is no better.”
He didn’t see Milenko at all that night, not that Asra considered the evening unfruitful because he didn’t. He had come out of it with Violeta’s instructions for tending to orchids and he planned to apply them to the best of his capacity.
* * * * *
Milenko was writing in the little office he had in the periodical he wrote for, though office might have been an over-glorified word for a table that was in the corner, overflowing with papers, next to a window filtering sunlight in.
He heard his editor tell him he had a visitor, and Milenko, still half entranced by the sound of pouring water from the enchanted vases on his desk, just gave him a half-hearted hum, accompanied by an absent sounding plea to give him just a minute longer.
Asra stood there for more than a minute, but he didn’t care. There was too much adrenaline in his veins for him to care. Nerves piled up on the mouth of his stomach but he stood his ground, watching as Milenkos curls moved softly as he wrote, his ink stained hands carefully avoiding the places the ink had not yet dried. He had seen him do this so many times, acting like an automaton as the water filtered everything that wasn’t the words and the visions outside of his sphere.
Milenko finally looked up, mouth agape as Asra licked his lips and gave him a nervous smile, a blush expanding from his cheeks to his ears.
“Hi,” was Mielnko’s bewildered reply as he looked at Asra, standing in front of his desk, a rainbow shawl with tiny bells on the hem over his shoulders, a raspberry shirt and deep purple palazzo pants, as he held a flower arrangement with no less than seven orchid stems, blooming into multiple flowers each.
“I grew them myself,” Asra explained, not needing to tell Milenko who they were for.
Again and Again, Even Though We Know Love’s Landscape | Asra x Milenko
☽ AGAIN AND AGAIN, EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW LOVE’S LANDSCAPE ☽
2.1k words. Written for Asra Week 2021, Day 4: Bonds. In which the secret of the Scourge is discovered, Anatole and Asra fight, and Milenko has no choice but to be caught in the middle.
Title comes from the poem of the same name, by Rainer Maria Rilke. Dani’s @apprenticealec‘s Baudelaire family has a cameo here.
You can catch up with Milasra’s pre-game canon, ‘Like Thirst Holds Water’, here.
CW: Trauma talk, mentions of captivity, suggested regicide.
Milan had only seen Anatole angry, really angry, a couple of times. While his cousin was easy to rile up, he truly believed in being kind and understanding with people and lived by it, even if sometimes (a lot of times) people exasperated him. Anatole was rather introverted but there was no doubt he was as people-leaning as can be. He believed in the freedom and fulfilment of the people with a candidness that refused naiveness. Anatole, while not immune to his own youth, was no fool.
He had a very determined set of things which did tick him off, that made him forget he was a polite person and unleashed his vindictive wrath upon whomever dared to do any of those things. Neglectful incompetence, abuse of power, people who tried to buy him over, cruel people, or people who spoke over him too many times. Same as people who purposely messed with his schedule, when he had already explained why he had one. Being lied to for no good reason or feeling betrayed by people he loved and actively gave his time to, also angered him.
He supposed Asra’s was a good reason, or at least, he understood the reasons behind it. However, Milenko also wanted to think Asra had a good reason to keep from all of them why Muriel wasn’t around any more.
Milenko had always known there had to be another reason as to why Asra could not stand the Count — besides him trying to ask about his parents and getting nothing, Lucio’s slumming and overall intolerable personality, or the way he ruled. Milenko didn’t know what it was exactly, but he knew it had stirred something up in Asra, something that had been happening for at least a year. He had offered Asra the opportunity to come to him, whenever he was ready. His mothers had done the same, offering their home as a safe place; so had Anatole and Paris albeit in a different way than Milenko had.
Or was it different? He didn’t know. It was love, after all.
Anatole had found out about Muriel because he had been more or less forced to go to the Colosseum. As a general rule, no Cassano, and certainly no Radošević-Cassano, went to the building. Public entertainment was not a problem, even when it was not their brand of public entertainment. Their problem was when aristocrats, or worse, rulers, used it to provide some sort of macabre bread and circus, holding people against their wills and depriving them from their rights, grooming people in a lesser position into fighting, and another set of practices they had tried to mend for years upon years with their hold of the Consulship.
That was, perhaps, why it was even more crucial that the Cassano never went — because all of the social failings of Vesuvia which procured the main source of “gladiators” were things the Consul was usually responsible for, having to find ways to mitigate them. However, there were always people like the Baudelaire family and their circles who did not hesitate to use their own influence to keep their business models. Owning things was not a job, exploiting others was not a job. It had gotten to such a point of tension that when Valerian Cassano was still performing, he refused to do it if a Baudelaire was in the audience, especially if it was their patriarch. His husband, Iovanus, former Consul of Vesuvia, had not been much better when he was still alive: the old Count Spada had to force him to hold meetings with them, otherwise, he plainly refused to, and Iovanus was stubborn as a mule.
The Cassano took their civic duties seriously. Way too seriously to some people. Lucio was one of those people, which made matters worse. Count-Consul cooperation was minimal, despite certain rumours flying around in the City, and with Vlastomil as the Praetor, the criminal justice system in Vesuvia was decidingly falling apart. Lucio could say whatever he wanted, but everyone who had an ounce of critical thinking could tell what the Scourge of the South, or rather, Muriel —Milenko would not use that never, he would never use a name that wasn’t Muriel’s own— actually was to him.
Now they knew Lucio had threatened Muriel with hurting Asra, and lied to Asra about his possibility to free him if he paid his “debt”. Of course, the debt didn’t really exist, it was all a fabrication from Lucio, who did it simply because he could. Anatole was so angry about it Milenko heard him say something which he had only heard him say for the worst kind of people: “In Balkovia, people like this get murdered for less.” He was so angry, Milenko saw his cousin do something he never did — he reminded Asra everything he had offered with his friendship, how his family had opened up for him, a home, a safe place, all of it with nothing attached. For him and for Muriel.
Nothing was attached still, Anatole wasn’t asking for retribution, he was asking for Asra to acknowledge the bond they were supposed to have, when in a time of need he could’ve used the entire weight of the Cassano to get Muriel out of it. Milenko had talked to Anatole first, caught between his friend and partner, and his cousin; Asra had wanted space anyway, so Milenko offered that to him.
One way or another, he knew better than to tell Anatole what to do. He knew his cousin like he knew the water, so all he needed to do was let him talk and nudge him, and he would come around on his own. However, the more he heard him talk, the angrier Anatole got.
“You know Muriel is everything he's got. Muriel didn’t talk about it either.”
“Muriel is the only person more hermetic than Asra, and if he doesn’t tell Asra first, he’s probably not telling anyone. Ever. Not to forget, he thinks we’re loud and weird. I just feel—”
“Stupid and you hate it?”
“So incredibly stupid.”
Milenko tried to tell Anatole it wasn’t his fault, and he meant it. Asra had to learn how to rely on others, instead of just enclosing himself so no harm ever came through his defences, nor to him, nor to his loved ones. Who better than Milenko to know.
Anatole just sounded bitter and dejected when he spoke. “He knows I can tell when he’s lying to my face, Milenko. I’m not asking him to tell me everything. He can tell me he doesn’t want to talk about something and establish a boundary, which he knows he can do. I am asking my friend not to lie to my fucking face when I can literally feel he’s lying to me.”
Milenko hated how bitterness looked on him. It was wrong. Out of place.
“I’m sorry, Nana. Maybe we should’ve all seen this sooner.”
“You saw nothing of this, didn’t you?”
Milenko sighed, being his time to sound defeated. “Yes and no. You know I can’t really control what I see. I wasn’t like it was with— with… you know—”
“Decimo?” Anatole smiled for the first time in their conversation, trying to reassure him. “You can say the name of the rat bastard, even if he doesn’t deserve to step on the same earth we do.”
“No,” Milenko said, surprising himself with how teeth-grinding angry he felt, “no he doesn’t. But what I was saying is that it wasn’t like that, when I just knew you weren’t safe. I think it’s because I’m not as close to Muriel as I am to you.”
Anatole sighed. “I think he uses protective charms. He’s never shown me much, but I’m pretty sure Muriel can do abjuration like,” Anatole clicked his cheeks, a gesture he had unknowingly copied from his friend Leonore, “better than most people we know that can.”
They sat together for a long while until Anatole said he had to go. Milenko asked him what he would do, his cousin answering with a shrug. “At this point? I am willing to do anything in my power so this slimy, little, petty tyrant eats up everything he ever did to Vesuvia, and maybe everything he’s ever done to me in Court while we’re at it. And to Aunt Cassie, and to Iovanus, and to every living person whose life he’s fucked over. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I’ll do it, whatever it takes.”
Milenko didn’t say anything. Anatole looked determined, and once Anatole was determined to see something through, he didn’t waver.
When he went back to find Asra, he was curled over himself, quietly crying. Asra felt the dent on the bed when Milenko sat in it, his cries erupting and resurfacing the moment he felt Milenko rubbing his back. The poet began humming a song for Asra, offering all the comfort he could. He was always so kind to him, he was always so loving to him; Milenko was always so good to him, and Asra was a mess. He knew better than to say anything, because after the three years and counting they’ve been together, Asra knew Milenko had very disarming arguments for that line of thought of his.
When Asra spoke again, was to ask Milenko if Anatole was angry at him.
Milenko sighed. “I think with you is more appropriate. Not for the reasons you think, though.
“What about then?” Asra asked, voice raspy through a sniffle.
“Beloved, he understands you grow at your own rate. No one is judging you or blaming you for not knowing how to deal with things, or not knowing when to reach out. He’s angry you lied to his face. Beloved, you know Anatole senses that. You know he can tell when you do it. He doesn’t care that you don’t tell him things you’re not ready to talk about, just, don’t lie to my cousin to his face.”
Milenko didn’t know what he was expecting, but Asra beginning to cry again was not it. With a lovefull sigh, he pulled his partner closer, letting Asra cling to him like an anchor to something Milenko didn’t quite understand. He knew, however, that Asra’s grief, that which he carried alone and alone only, was deep. A wound so deep it had pierced him to the very centre of his being and changed him forever.
He wanted to tell him he understood. Milenko’s first memory wasn’t a memory; it was a pit of panic ingrained in him out of something he had been told about but couldn’t really remember. He was a toddler, and the war in Balkovia was still raging on, and someone had decided Blasio, Violeta and him weren’t the right sort of people—
Yet as Asra cried himself to sleep, Milenko helping him wash his face and handing him water to drink before he finally passed out, Milenko said nothing. Something told him it was not the right thing to say and that Asra, distressed and afraid, would not appreciate it. It was through no fault of his own, though, and Milenko knew this. Trauma and loneliness were fissures which never sealed right, no matter how well one learnt to handle them. On top of that, Asra was not a great fan of confrontation, and his argument with Anatole had hit not in one but two places because Asra now didn’t just carry the fear of Muriel being hurt (which he had been, several times) or Muriel dying, but also the one of losing Anatole for this, or Anatole doing something that he wouldn’t be able to stop and getting hurt for something Asra would assume was his fault.
There had to be something tragic waiting to happen in a friendship so coloured by Romance.
Milenko couldn’t sleep, so he held Asra instead, drawing idle patterns on the magician's back as he felt his soft, sleep-heavy breath tickling his skin. For the first time in the years they’ve been together, Milenko looked at their relationship and he Saw. Again and again, Asra and him chose to walk together, a love that made Milenko feel like anywhere was a field of flowers, a love that made him feel like he would burst at the seams with it. A love so heavy, no one that young should feel it, but perhaps they felt it because they were young.
This was what the poets meant when they said Beloved, and maybe even then, when it came to him and Asra, love would not be enough.
Morning came, and at least for the morrow, Milenko chose to love Asra again. He’d deal with the rest later.
This Is How We Say Goodbye (Song To The Open Road) | Asra x Milenko
☽ THIS IS HOW WE SAY GOODBYE (SONG TO THE OPEN ROAD) ☽
1.9k words. Written for Asra Week, day 6: Promise. In which the Plague ravages Vesuvia, there’s an argument and Asra and Milenko part ways.
You can catch up with Milasra’s pre-game canon, ‘Like Thirst Holds Water’, here.
When Anatole and Milenko got involved, Asra and Amparo were already fighting.
Their relationship had always been peculiar. More than friends, they were sometimes mirrors, matchstick and friction, cause and reaction. While Milenko was the one Asra had fallen in love with, and Anatole the one who he rode and died for, Amparo tended to spring Asra into motion. Both of them did things in almost identical ways — Asra’s sun sign was Amparo’s moon sign, her rising sign, his moon. As such, they gave the idea of instant compenetration, of unspoken frequencies vibrating in the same way.
Amparo, the animancer, the actress, the dancer, the impersonator imbued in Asra something the others could not quite describe. That was Amparo’s charm, after all, that pizzaz that made her no one other than La Cassano.
In that way, they shouldn’t have been surprised they would butt heads this way. They shouldn’t have been surprised that nothing could deescalate the fight either. Everyone was tired, everyone was grieving. The City was ridden with the Plague, there were no answers and no solutions offered, and for the first time in the almost 20 years Lucio had ruled the inevitable had happened: the Council of Vesuvia wasn’t enough, and now it was too late for them to remove Lucio from power by declaring him unfit to rule. The mechanisms would not work, the tissue of the Court was almost entirely destroyed, and the people were ill and needed food, clean water and doctors.
Their families had decided to all ride this out together in the Palazzo, with the proper health regulations that they could adopt. The building could house them all without problem but more importantly, it would mean they would be together. Many things were said about them, like how nothing mortal could kill them, based on an old, old story of how the Consul’s office had become theirs. It was no less true that the Radošević-Cassano did not survive alone.
So they grouped, they went back home, and with their location inside the walls of the infamous Palazzo Cassano, they took in their closest friends. Their families had begun as friends, marrying between each other was recent, and only a kink of some very specific sets of family members. To them, family wasn’t blood, family was a choice.
They had asked Asra to move in with them, and with that, to relocate Muriel, no one had to know he was in the Palazzo with them, specially not the Count. Asra, however, wanted to leave, and he wanted to convince Amparo, Anatole and Milenko to go with him, so they all would take their stuff and go, and abandon Vesuvia — a City that had never done anything for any of them. There was no point in dying in it, let alone for it.
Naturally, the proposal turned into an argument. Amparo especially would not leave her mother and parent, Amparo would not leave Anzano, their grandparent, as she knew they would not leave Vesuvia. Anzano was old, very old, but still fit for travel; however, they had once been the High Priest of the Sun and had trained the new one, just like their spouse Atilia Cassano, had been the High Priest of the Moon. They wouldn’t leave a City they felt a sense of responsibility towards, and Amparo herself would not desert her family when they needed her.
Milenko had a similar idea. He couldn’t leave. He couldn’t leave when he could help, he couldn’t leave when his mothers would not go, when his grandfather would not go, when his cousins would not go. Unlike Amparo he had no will to argue with Asra, instead, with the help of Anatole they tried to calm it down, so Asra could see where they were coming from, and they could try and answer Asra’s concerns.
It didn’t work. Everyone was strung, stressed and grieving, so it was a matter of time before one of them said the wrong thing, at the wrong time, with whoever the comment had been directed at not wanting to be understanding about it. It was a matter of time before they were all arguing in the ground floor of the Moonstone and Jasmine, all of Asra’s things packed up as he said he was not staying to die in a City like Vesuvia and how anyone with half a mind would do the same.
Milenko saw the point of no return happen in slow motion: Asra’s words collided with nothing other than the behemoth that was the Cassano’s sense of pride. Whatever they had begun, it could not be stopped now.
A lot of accusations flew around. Amparo tried to tell Asra that he couldn’t just expect her to leave the City she had always lived in, the City that she hoped to die in at old age. Asra told her what did she know about losing homes, she who had been born in the Heart District with a silver spoon on her mouth, who had never had to struggle because she always had a roof above her head. Funnily enough, Amparo’s patience ran out when he told her that she couldn’t even cook for herself.
“Do whatever you want. I’m not leaving. If that’s all you think of me, then forget we were ever friends Asra.”
She disappeared into the upstairs of the shop, into its main living quarters.
“Asra, that’s not fair,” Milenko said. His tone was critical, but he still tried to stay as calm as possible. Maybe if Asra could see that he really would be safe—
Then Anatole spoke, his anger raw, yet cold and precise, like a well practiced fencing blow: “What the fuck is wrong with you. If we were a bunch of superior assholes who did everything for our own benefit—”
Asra snapped. “No, but you sure think you’ll save Vesuvia from Lucio just from existing, as if anyone in this city would ever care if you lived or died, Anatole. That’s what you do, don’t you? Pretend like you can fix his mistakes while everyone else suffers from them.”
The silence that fell between the three of them was abrupt, soon ringing in their ears, but when Asra tried to apologise, noticing he had said the wrong thing, it was too late.
Anatole looked like he had been slapped.
“Toly?” Milenko asked, moving closer to his cousin to squeeze his shoulder, wanting to make sure he was okay. Asra’s words had hit one of Anatole’s greatest fears: that no matter how hard he tried, it’d never be enough.
Before he could reach Anatole, his cousin’s face changed. As his features shifted with anger, Anatole spoke again.
Now he was truly and really angry. “You meant that.”
The issue with words was you couldn’t take them back once you said them. All you could do is hope the other person would forgive you and understand if you had misspoken. As Milenko was once again caught between Asra and Anatole arguing, he realised this was one thing Anatole might never forgive. He doubted it was his place to say, yet Milenko didn’t know if he could even advocate for Anatole forgiving Asra’s words, with time.
The issue wasn’t about who was right or wrong. There was no right or wrong, there was no miraculous answer in this unsalvageable situation. It was that Asra had meant it. Part of Anatole’s language magic was this: he was able to read feelings and intentions in spoken words. As a language manipulator, he could tell everything which people (intentionally or otherwise) imbued into words when they spoke, even if he couldn’t tell the why or the how.
Would he be able to carry on if he could feel that after years of showing honesty and vulnerability because you want the other person to know you, this was what they thought at their worst?
The argument didn’t last much longer. Anatole, not wanting to speak, went upstairs to check on Amparo, while Milenko and Asra stood alone on the ground floor of the shop.
The magician began taking his things, preparing himself to leave for real. Milenko followed him, standing outside of the backdoor as he looked at Asra adjusting his travelling coat. Amparo has gotten it for him. It was handmade, Amparo’s gift to Asra two birthdays ago.
“Aren’t you going to say farewell?”
Asra startled, not expecting Milenko standing there. “I thought there was nothing else to say.”
Once again they stood in silence. It felt like forever, even if it was probably just a couple of seconds. They were aware of every moment they lost to silence, looking at each other under the Vesuvian sunset. They felt far away, miles away.
It hurt to realise, more than Milenko was willing to admit, but Anatole had been right: he still remembered when they were arguing about Asra not asking for help about Muriel. They could be as open as they wanted with Asra, but Asra would never step in time with them, even if he wanted to.
Who better than Milenko to know this, and to know that sometimes, it was through no fault of his own.
Asra spoke first. “You think I’m making the wrong choice.”
Milenko pressed his lips together. “I don’t think there’s a right choice. There’s just the best we can do with the options we’re given.”
“You don’t think I could do better with mine?”
“I don’t know, beloved, could you?”
“Don’t— don’t call me that.”
“I’m sorry. Force of habit.”
“I forgive you,” Asra said, shifting his weight between his feet. He wanted to say something else, yet he said nothing.
“Asra. I’m not judging you. I already told you I am no one to judge.”
“How can you say that to me at a time like this?”
“What? It’s the truth. I don’t like that you’re leaving and I would never make the choices you are making, and I could give you a piece of my mind and point fingers at you. I am angry, I’m hurt, but nothing I accuse you of will make me feel better. Judging you will not make me feel better, so I won’t. I’ve never done.”
“Sometimes,” Asra said, dislodging his travel bag from his shoulder, “sometimes I wish you did. It would make leaving easier.”
To Milenko’s surprise, Asra crossed the distance between them. Milenko didn’t stop his hand from cupping Asra’s cheek. Asra leaned against it, even if he wished he hadn’t. Asra closed his eyes, tears coming through his closed eyelids.
“You know I won’t ask you to stay,” Milenko said, getting teary himself.
“Just like I know I won’t get you to leave.”
“Just promise me you’ll think about it, Asra. Promise me that at the very least, you’ll try to take good care of yourself.”
Asra opened his eyes, his vision blurred because of the tears. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, letting Faust slither into his arm to stretch herself all the way to say goodbye to Milenko.
Her tongue flicked against his nose, making Asra smile.
“Promise me you’ll take care of yourself too, please.”
Milenko nodded, Asra saying his farewells before turning around and walking away as fast as he could without breaking into a run. Milenko watched him go, until Ursula, his familiar, nudged him inside.
“May Allah keep you safe, Habibi,” he said to the empty street before closing the door behind him.
1.5k words. Written for Asra Week 2021, day 5: Memories. Set when 4.5 years before the events of the game, Milenko and Asra took the mutual decision to break up, despite the love they have for each other, but the death of someone they both cared for brings them back together, even if the moment isn’t meant to last.
You can catch up with Milasra’s pre-game canon, ‘Like Thirst Holds Water’, here.
CW: Character death, talks about trauma, unhealthy family dynamics and controlling parents.
Though Paris De Silva died amid the first cases of Red Plague, it was coincidental. She had been sick for a couple of years, a blood disease that was incurable and would progressively eat up her defenses until she died. She was Anatole’s maternal aunt, one of Louisa’s younger sisters. She had run away from the De Silva’s native Altazor when she was short of 23, after finding out the real reason why her sister had left the country.
Louisa had been politically exiled for being against the Dictatorship that had once ruled the country, but her parents had lied about the real reason to her sisters. Paris, who had realised their lives where built upon lives and would always be, with her parents shortcomings and their hypocrisy, ran away with the help of their younger sister, Alma.
She had found Louisa in Venterre, where she was living at the time. She had travelled with her to Zadith, where she had learnt magic, settling in Vesuvia at the same time as Louisa fell in love with Anatole’s father, Vlad Radošević-Cassano. Though only related to them by marriage, Paris had become one of them either way. Still, no amount of resources or contacts could save her, something Paris had known right away, after the first time she collapsed.
Milenko hadn’t seen Asra in a while so even if he knew he was bound to be in Paris’ funeral, he couldn’t help the surprise when he saw him in mourning wear, not knowing what to do with himself. Paris had taken him in early on, both of them not too dissimilar with their free spirits and love for magic and dance, she had also taken Muriel in, to a lesser degree, before Muriel was forcibly kept in the Coliseum. Paris had opened her home and her shop, Moonstone and Jasmine, to Asra as if her call in life had been becoming everyone’s aunt. She had always treated him in the same way she treated Anatole, which was also the same way she treated Amparo and Milenko.
“You four will go places,” she always said, “and you better send me postcards.”
Asra and Anatole were on speaking terms again, the friends bouncing back after a couple of weeks. Asra had reached him out first, to Anatole’s amazement, too afraid danger would befall on his Nana. Anatole had, of course, gone too close to danger, but he had been unsuccessful about getting into the Coliseum. Asra didn’t need to know that, nor how if it wasn’t for Valeriy throwing his weight as the Consul around, Anatole would’ve been in serious trouble.
Asra wasn’t with him, nor anywhere near their family. To anyone else it would pass for Asra not wanting to interrupt the De Silva in their grief. Not just out of respect: with Louisa exiled, Paris a runaway and Alma, while staying in Altazor, siding with her sisters and going away from her parent’s home in an act of defiance after they discovered Paris had run away, it was clear that the relationship between them was patched up, rocky and incredibly uncomfortable, even in grief. Louisa looked angrier than Milenko had ever seen her, her proximity to her parents the apparent cause. It made even more sense if one considered Joaquín and Aureliana had tried to make Louisa leave Balkovia, and heavily disapproved of Vlad.
A foreigner communist, they had called him, who would make Louisa waste her life, and make her raise a likely child, with no opportunities in life. Asra was aware of all of that — both Anatole and Paris had confided in him, but Milenko knew that wasn’t the reason why he was lingering at the edge of the funeral.
Even broken up, Milenko would know Asra anywhere, anyhow: he was keeping his distance because no matter what anyone said, Asra felt incredibly out of place among the Radošević-Cassano. It wasn’t the house, the position, or anything material. It was because they were borrowed, and Asra felt like he couldn’t make them his own without leaving other things behind, not realising Milenko’s families would never, ever require Asra to be anyone other than who he was, with everything he was, no matter how messy, or how much hurting he felt.
Asra couldn’t see it, he was in no place to see it, always fairing everything alone. It was one of the reasons they had broken up. A mutual agreement as they could both see all the rifts between them grow. Asra was going through so much, at all times, and the more time that passed and the less he opened up, the less space there was for Milenko, no matter how much he loved him. As for Milenko, well... he would’ve loved to wait a year or two more to marry Asra, but he would stall his growth. Even if Milenko understood that destabilising fear in Asra because he had one of his own, he would never understand Asra’s reaction to it.
The world was wild, and unpredictable, and dangerous, and beautiful and full of love all the same. Protecting yourself against it, even if it was to use your openness as a shield, would never make you safe, it would just make you alone. You looked out for one another, and you planted the palm trees, hand in hand, song in song.
Milenko couldn’t demand that of Asra, so they had parted ways, even if Milenko was very consciously walking towards Asra, acting with his heart rather than his head. He didn’t care, no one should carry their grief alone. He certainly didn’t want to carry his on his own.
As he gently wrapped his hand around Asra’s shoulder Milenko thought maybe it wasn’t a conscious walking. Maybe his heart would find Asra’s in the dark, maybe if Asra called his name and he was dying, he’d bring him back to life. Milenko didn’t know, he didn’t ask, and he certainly didn’t say it. G-d would have to help him through this one.
“I thought you’d be with Nana,” Asra said, trying not to lean into Milenko’s touch.
“I thought you’d be with him.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt… What's your excuse?”
“I don’t want you to be alone.”
Asra protested, grimacing. “Milan—”
“Please, just for now, I know how much she meant to you. I don’t want you to carry this alone.”
The plea in Milenko’s voice was obvious but the poet didn’t care. Asra agreed and that was all that mattered. He slid down the wall he was leaning his back against, plopping himself down on the floor, sitting unceremoniously and patting the space next to him for Milenko to sit. He obliged, the two of them sitting close to each other, almost touching, almost speaking.
Milan ended up asking Asra how he was doing, not very sure where the conversation would go, or if it was a good idea. The magician smiled ruefully at the question, looking at his own hands as he played with his fingers. Instead of anything Milenko would’ve anticipated, he told him he was thinking about cutting his hair short. Milenko raised an eyebrow at him, Asra seemed to sense it, despite not looking at him.
“You know I’ve always been torn between keeping it long so I can braid it and put flowers in it, and cutting it short to feel the breeze on my neck.”
Milenko smiled to himself, a soft laugh falling from his lips, accompanied by an even softer: “Yes, yes I know.”
One way or another, the question seemed to have done the trick, as both of them found themselves conversing easily about whichever topic their minds decided to go to next, talking quietly in their own corner, an attempt to reach for each other’s hands here and there, none of them fruitful.
They ended up talking about themselves, about a trip to Zadith they had taken together one late summer. They talked about the things they did, memories dancing between them, of a time when they thought they would be happy forever. Milenko looked at Asra, trying to memorise his profile, hoping he’d never forget what it feels like to be in love with him, even if life decided to take them in different ways.
They sat together, keeping each other company, until Amparo found them first. She sat next to Milenko, and not long after Anatole found them too. The dark circles under his eyes were deep. He sat down with the other three without saying a word.
Part of Asra wished they hadn’t found him, wanting to keep Milenko to himself for a little longer, just this time. Even then, he had to admit Milenko was right, perhaps it was better to go through this not alone, even if he didn’t quite know how. So he didn’t ask his friends to leave, just like he didn’t get to ask Milenko everything he would’ve liked to ask him: what he was doing with his days, how he was feeling, what he was writing, if he had eaten.
All they could do was stretch out their hands in the dark, and hope life brought them together again. Even if Milenko felt, no, knew, everything would be about to change, whether they wanted to or not. The water had never lied to him, and as the four of them sat in silence, he could see the water creep through the floor, the bright moon shining on it.
