AN: EDIT: Fixed a few errors and typos that'd slipped through.
Recommended listening: "Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean" by Explosions In The Sky
oOoOoOo
Emily cannot sleep.
She lies there under the sheets, limbs drawn in, curled tightly for maximum warmth. Any movement is accompanied by a multi-layered rustling of sheets; a noise that sounds achingly loud in the darkness of the cabin.
She shifts (rustle), lies on one side, flips over (rustlerustle), lies on the other. Lies on her back (rustlerustlerustle). Punches the pillow in an attempt to fluff it up, make it somehow softer with that action alone. It stubbornly remains un-fluffy. She groans, the noise cuts through the quiet air, silence rushing to fill the void left behind.
Flat on her back and staring at the ceiling, Emily finds herself listening carefully - what else can you but listen carefully when there's a lack of sound? In the distance, just on the very edge of her hearing, she makes out the noise of the waves below; a watery, shifting, susurrus of a sound. If she were the sort to pretend (not that she is - pretending doesn't get you anywhere), in the quiet and the dark with the sounds of waves as an accompaniment, it'd be an easy hop from reality to fantasy, to blur the lines and pretend she's somewhere else; somewhere completely new, even. Somewhere back on Earth, near the sea, where the gulls are roosting for the night and there is a wealth of possibilities to wake up to.
Nearby an engine gutters, stabilises; the noise fading into the background, becoming another ignorable part of it, like individual bricks in a wall. Just like that, the muddied sense of illusion is destroyed. Emily has grown so used to the sound of the engines that most of the time she tunes it out, only noticing it again now that it'd rudely startled itself to the forefront of her mind. It's a reminder as well; one that speaks of what's been going on and why they're out here. Dimly, Emily wonders who's steering them at the moment. Enzo? Rico? Or is it Samson? She dismisses the thought. What does it matter right now?
With a huff she sits up, eyes scanning the darkened room. She might as well face it: sleep isn't happening. And now a new thought enters the girl's mind: she can't sleep, but what if subconsciously she doesn't want to sleep? Perhaps part of her is trying to avoid the Spirit, avoid the Void seeping into her dreams, avoid one of their conversations that seems to be solely made up of riddles. She gives herself a shake.
'Don't be silly,' Emily tells herself, yet the words ring hollow and a feeling of unease slithers up her spine.
She tamps the feeling down, but doesn't dismiss it completely. Feelings might not be the most reliable, but sometimes you've just gotta go with your gut. At the same time however, they must be tempered with wisdom - to follow them without thought would be equally stupid. If she'd simply followed her feelings, white-hot in the heat of the moment, she would have probably lost control to the stone a long, long time ago.
Emily's hand drift to where the stone sits, tied around her neck, a constant weight. A constant companion. One that, like the engine noise, gets tuned out and ignored
It's a mess of a situation, one that seems to steadily grow worse all the while, admits Emily as she flops back down. She shifts again and turns over (rustlerustle), scowling to herself in the dark; her bed is now that aggravating combination known to sleepless people everywhere: soft enough for a dim, distant promise of sleep (if you really, really try, it whispers), and yet completely uncomfortable in various tiny nagging ways to make sleep impossible.
'Fine,' thinks Emily, bitterly. 'If that's how it's going to be...'
A multi-layered rustle of sheets and she's up, bare feet cold against the floor. She dresses, a fumble of activity in the darkness, just for the sake of something to do. That, and it's freezing outside. It's not so bad during the day being at this altitude, a definite nip in the air that's bearable, but at night the temperature plummets to one that Emily could swear borders on being arctic. Enzo's gruff advice about the night echos in her mind, mouth champing around his pipe as he spoke it: "Mind yourself. It ain't so bad during the day, but mark my words, dress warmly at night or you'll be leaving with your fingers and toes in their own box."
How long ago it all seemed now, Emily reflects as she quietly exits into the corridor, back when defending something with the Stone's magic was a gargantuan task; the slippery energy writhing this way and that, wanting nothing more than to expend itself as an attacking blast. Automatically she heads to a door leading to the outside, vague ideas of a brisk walk helping her sleep floating in her head. There's a draft, giving the air a slightly frigid quality. Steeling herself for the cold ahead, Emily darts outside, rears back in shock, a gasp torn from her throat. She's hunched in on herself even before realising what she's done, cold biting viciously at her through her clothes, even moreso on her exposed hands and face. Half-frozen hands fumbling for the latch, she makes a scrambled retreat back inside; all thoughts of an invigorating walk now banished to a far corner of her mind.
Well, if she can't sleep and can't go for an invigorating walk, then she may as well be useful.
On silent footfalls Emily makes her way to the Luna Moth's spare cabin - presently their base of operations in the search for Algos Island. Aside from the light being on (a detail she ignores) the room is just as she left it when she went to bed all those hours ago: a map of the area spread out on a table, weighted down with a random assortment of items that'd fit the criteria of 'close to hand' and 'weighty enough to be a paperweight', various stationary and instruments scattered about, course after course plotted out and carefully marked down on both paper and the map itself, Trellis sleeping in one of the chairs... wait, what?
Emily does a double take, jumping slightly at the surprise of not being alone; quickly smoothes it over. A slight annoyed twinge rises up inside her, her mouth pulling into a frown (the annoyance of the sleepless upon being confronted with sleep), but she squashes that down too. It was something she'd somehow neglected to notice - the light being on. Why would the light be on if no one was there?
He's pretty soundly asleep (lucky), head tilted forward onto his chest in a way that Emily knows will be sore when he wakes, arms crossed, somehow even managing to have a slight frown in his sleep. Emily's heart does an odd little twist at that detail, rising from fondness born of familiarity. She quickly shoves it off to one side, debates on waking him.
'Why on Ear- Alliedia is he sleeping here?' she thinks.
Were he and she of the same mind, restless in the night and wanting to work a bit more on finding their quarry? Well, Trellis was the reason that they were all out here, looking for memories the same way a palaeontologist searches for signs of former life. Despite herself, a shiver runs down Emily's spine when she thinks of memories being torn from a mind; the same image springs unbidden: the back of Trellis' head ripped open, trails of blue hanging in the air, drifting away like blood in water, leaving glowing scars behind. Forcefully, she wrenches her attention away from it, focuses on what's in front of her.
Emily seats herself at the table, sitting a bit more heavily than intended, bodily control made clumsy by her lack of sleep. She shoots a cautionary glance at Trellis (still asleep), and relaxes slightly. Her eyes begin to comb the map, tracing over previous routes they've travelled, routes they're going to attempt, as well as dangerous ones which'll require careful and experienced flying. Emily tries to plan out a potential route, but her mind feels like it's been stuffed with cotton wool, her thinking foggy, the routes all blurring together into one tangled mess. Had they gone this way already? Or was this route new? No, she must be confusing it with this route, which they'd definitely travelled... had they? Was... was this a dangerous route? The answers all flee into darkened corners of her mind, flashing away like fish and slipping through her fingers when she tries to grasp them.
With a sigh, Emily leans back, her chair creaking in protest, and her eye catches on Trellis' arm; the sleeve is slightly hiked up, a scar peeking out from benea-
Somehow, the armour made it worse. Strange, considering that it was made to protect a body, had protected this body for a long, long time. But it was a man-made protection, designed to shield against man-made attacks, man-made disputes; not nature at her full, terrible, strength. Something like a triple-amulet blast followed by falling from the sky was beyond it, too much for it to cope with. When that happened, it was like being sealed in an aluminium can sent through a metal crusher
Neither of them had noticed it at first, too busy in the Void, too busy escaping, too busy being swept along in the events that followed, too busy, too busy. The Void had a way of numbing the body, and coming out of it Emily had felt like she'd been sitting still in a cold room for too long, having to work the feeling back into her fingers and toes. Like she was returning to her own house after being out all day. Trellis on the other hand had been in the Void for much longer, had dived much deeper - small wonder he'd had any sensation left in his body when he emerged. In retrospect perhaps that is what enabled him to do what he did and keep going, to shield them all and dive back into the Void, unable to feel the dark bruises covering him in great swathes, the armour digging and slicing into him in multiple places where it'd bent out of shape, the various strips of metal embedded in his arm. The Void may be many things, an eternally beating wave at the back of stonekeeper minds that slowly erodes them, a predator in hidden form, but perhaps on this occasion it was boon, an anaesthetic of sorts.
It was only when they were safely back on the Luna Moth, soaring high through the sky that the Void's effect began to lessen, the pain slowly rising. Only then that Trellis noticed the blood on his arm - mostly staunched by the metal embedded there, but welling up here and there around it, accompanied by a slow hiss of pain escaping through clenched teeth. His face had grown pale, and right there in front of everyone, he had slowly folded up and in on himself, a low and terrible groan rising from him.
Some of the armour he'd been able to remove himself, albeit with slow, stiff, pain-laced movements, but most of it had had to be surgically removed using the Stone's magic. And here, here was a task that had sent a white-hot rod through Emily's brain, searing straight through to memories that she'd tried to bury, tried to numb, forcing time to try and make them sting less. A body being cut out of a yellow car by stone-faced firefighters, a car that'd had to be winched back up a cliff, as ambulance lights cast their harsh, intermittent light on the scene. The saws emit a high-pitched hum that feels like it's cutting into Emily's brain, rising in crescendo to a metallic screech every so often as they bite into metal. Through the din, calm-faced paramedics fuss and dash about, wrapped in their own jargon-filled world. Here and there police officers stalk by, murmuring code-laden updates into their radios. The paramedic tending to Emily and her Mom is trying to divert Emily's attention away from what's happening, talking in a voice that's slightly too high and constantly reassuring her. But Emily isn't stupid, she was there when it happened, and her gaze keeps being drawn back to the car and the sounds of rending metal. When they finally remove the body, she catches a glimpse of a familiar foot, then the nurse is blocking her way, shutting the ambulance doors. The memories clawed, making a panic rise in Emily's gut that shook loose her stomach and made her want to throw up.
"You don't have to do this," Vigo had said, his voice as steady as water.
But the Luna Moth lacked the medical equipment to treat such wounds, they were still a way from a larger ship with proper medical help, and Trellis was biting his own tongue in an attempt to hold back his cries, blood dripping from his mouth where his teeth were beginning to slice flesh.
"It'll take longer with one person," was Emily's reply, and that was that.
Together they had cut Trellis out of his armour, her hands shaking the entire time. At some undefined point during the process his body had finally given out and he passed out, eyes rolling shut as he went limp. A mercy of sorts. Parts of the armour they'd had leave embedded in him in a weird sort of paradox - they were wounding him but at the same time they were preserving him a little. If they removed the metal then there'd be nothing stopping the blood, and death by blood loss could become a possibility. By the time it was over Emily could no longer hold her stomach in check and had rushed off to be sick.
Afterwards she'd sat curled in on herself, leaning against the bathroom wall, and her whole body had shook. Self-hatred bubbled up inside her, angry and venomous. She was supposed to be better! a small, enraged voice had wailed inside her. It was all in the past, on Earth! She was trying to fix it! In that moment old wounds had been ripped open and it was like no time had passed at all, still sitting with her Mom in the fluorescent light of the ambulance. She'd wished her Mom was there, too upset to lash out at the thought for being childish. Eventually (though she was never sure how much time had passed), Emily managed to shove the feeling down, though it'd tried to resist, and had staggered to her feet.
This won't happen again, she told herself, threateningly. Head held high, she'd stalked out of the bathroom.
Trellis snorts, shifts in his sleep, and the memory breaks. The scar continues to peek out from his sleeve.
'How many scars does he have?' Emily wonders. For that matter, how many scars does she have? She's certainly amassed a fine collection since coming to Alledia, the ones she's gained here far outnumbering the paltry ones she got back on Earth.
Ah, but yours aren't all visible, a voice at the back of her mind whispers, and she thinks of their present task and of Trellis' missing memories and realises not all of his scars are visible either.
She drifts in thought to the memory after, more a collective of bits and pieces than a clear-cut event.
He's smaller without his armour - it was almost a shock the first time Emily saw him without it. She'd chided herself for being shocked, after all, there naturally had to be a body underneath and he could have hardly slept in it, could he? It was just that before that moment, she'd never seen Trellis out of it - the armour seemed as much a part of him as his facial scar. Removing it piece by piece, twisting and warping and forcing the metal whilst he'd laid there had almost felt... wrong somehow. Like she and and Vigo were breaking open his chest and removing a part of him.
Ridiculous, Emily had told herself between all the shaking and the querulous feelings and her roiling stomach.
But still, to see him lying there afterwards, all flesh and cloth and injury was... something. Feelings had twisted and twined up inside Emily as she watched him, but she was too drained from the entire ordeal to pay them any mind. It was all too much, so she'd left.
She next saw him later, when they were aboard a larger ship, the Steelheart.
"He'll be okay," the nurse hovering by his bed had assured them. "Elves heal fast," she'd said, and there was a dark weight behind those words, as if that was the explanation for everything in past few years.
Elves did heal fast, as Emily found. But fast wasn't the same as pretty. The nurse had gone on to explain: just like human ancestors had once begun to favour walking upright, elf ancestors had begun to favour rapid healing, developing aggressive scar tissue much like their human neighbours. But while human scar tissue was ridiculously hyper-aggressive, elf scar tissue developed even further to an almost dangerous amount. The result was that elves could get "sliced up six ways from Séin's day" as the nurse had put it, and their bodies would knit back together in a rush job, scarring all too easily, not caring about petty things like ugliness. Look, look, your skin is back in one piece and you can walk away, what does it matter that it's healed in the wrong way, that the skin is now pulling in that area, that there's a great welt of scar tissue. As long as elves could get up and go, they would. When it came to injury, they had to be very, very careful, else their healing process would hinder them, a double-edged sword. The nurse had turned away at that point to get something from a cupboard, and Emily only faintly caught what she'd said next, an acerbic feeling that slipped out: The only way to stop the [-] things was internally, poison, illness, more's the pity.
Emily had glared at the nurse's back, feeling strangely defensive on Trellis' behalf. She felt torn in two ways: part of her was glad he was unconscious and didn't hear that, the other part of her scolded herself for acting as though he couldn't defend himself. (Although, considering that he was unconscious and in no position to be defending himself, it rang a little hollow.)
In her ribcage, the unknown feelings had curled and writhed.
That should have been the end of it; Trellis had gone on to (thankfully) heal correctly, and suddenly they had other things to occupy their time and minds with: Max, Lucien, trying to juggle the responsibilities of being 'THE GUARDIAN COUNCIL' , their forced confrontation with the Spirit and Max's subsequent death.
And yet.
And yet.
Something had changed, metamorphosing into something new, the catalyst seemingly being peeling Trellis out of his armour. Emily found herself glancing at him in odd moments for no good reason other than 'she wanted to'. She found herself noticing little things about him; the sharp way he gestured with his hands when he talked, the way he'd relax his posture out of its ramrod straight position when he thought no one was around, the strangely relaxed way he would sit that seemed almost at odds with his expression. Yet at the same time Emily found that she knew things about him, bits and pieces that were as familiar as her own hands; if he was thinking carefully about something then she could describe the curves and contours of the expression he wore without even having to look (his mouth curving like so, his forehead crinkling in this way, hands positioned here and here...), she knew which side he favoured in battle (his right), she even knew that when he and Luger were together he'd always make sure that Luger had his fill of food before he ate. A thousand and one little facts like these, and yet there was always something new, too.
If that wasn't enough, there was also something else, something much more embarrassing, that'd spent its time slowly growing over the months, until she found it hard to ignore. Now! She was even finding it right now, Emily realised, as she jerked upwards out of the posture she'd slipped into, her chin previously resting on her hand. It was something she'd never tried to dwell on, always finding something else to distract her attention with, but here, in the safety of the night...
She actually found him... attractive?
It was strange, hard to explain and a completely grey zone with no prior experience to guide the way. It wasn't the sort of attractive where you see someone beautiful and go "Yeah, nice", no, it was more like an attraction born of familiarity, with a wealth of knowledge and experiences behind it, like a favourite armchair. It was a familiarity that grew into attractiveness. Part of Emily wanted to slap her brain, another part of her wanted to kiss it, and a third part of her mind was just flinging up its metaphorical hands and wanting to kiss Trellis. Somehow her brain had taken a look at him, with his grey skin, glowing sclera, slitted pupils, and mouth full of fangs and gone "Yes. Hot."
Sometimes, in odd little moments when she looked at him (and dang it all, it was happening right now too), her chest would feel like an oddly hollow object, filled with a mixture of anticipation and excitement, as if it was reacting in advance to all the good possibilities that could happen. A little creeping thought slips into Emily's mind, too fast and too true to be outright banished or smoothed over with lies:
You like him in a romantic way.
Emily stiffens. The maps lie forgotten on the table. Oh no. Oh no. She'd never admitted it to herself before, never allowed herself to admit it. All at once it feels like a dreadful shock and an incredible, exhilarating relief, like being doused in cold water. She, Emily Hayes, a human from Earth, likes an elf from another world. (Elf prince, her mind corrects.) She sits, her mouth suddenly dry, her heart going haywire in her chest, simply staring at him as she tries to take this revelation in. A thought registers in the back of her mind that maybe she shouldn't be doing this, maybe she should have woken him when she first came in, but all of a sudden it's too late; Trellis' eyes open as he makes an odd groaning noise in the back of his throat, and he's woken up.
There's a heart-stopping moment as he properly comprehends where he is and what he's looking at, shifting stiffly into a more upright position.
"Emily?" he says, voice thick with sleep.
She nods at him, defences suddenly wrenched up. "You'll get a stiff neck, sleeping like that."
He stretches, cracking his neck from side to side, wincing. "Too late for that," he mumbles, before settling again. "What are you doing up?"
Emily shrugs, suddenly feeling more tired than ever. "Couldn't sleep. I could ask you the same thing though."
"I couldn't sleep either." He scoots his chair inwards and gestures to the table. "I thought that since I was awake I might as well put this abundance of time to use, but evidently my body had other ideas." There's a pause as he looks like he's internally weighing up some sort of decision. "It's this mission," he finally admits. "Something about it has me on edge. I just want to hurry up and find the island, find what's hiding there before too much time passes."
'Before anything else has the chance to go wrong, sits in the air, the unspoken ending to that sentence.
Emily isn't sure what to say, platitudes like "We'll find it soon," or "Don't worry, it'll be fine," sound hollow and pale, like a false reassurance from someone who doesn't understand. Who knows when they'll find the mysterious Algos Island? Who is she to say that "it'll be fine," whilst the situation slowly crashes down around them, all of them caught in a mad scramble to salvage what remains? Instead, she settles on a truth.
"It can't hide forever. It won't," she adds, her voice hard, and deep inside herself, Emily knows it to be true. She has climbed a mountain, she has found a healing fruit, she has powered a house to fight a giant, she has survived falls, she has weathered betrayal. Finding an island is something she can do.
Anyone else might have baulked at the sudden sharp edge in her voice, but not Trellis; he nods, sharp eyes fixed upon her.
"I'm glad I have such a stalwart ally," he says. He pauses, before adding in a softer tone, "I'm glad you're here."
To her horror, Emily feels warmth creeping up the back of her neck, pooling in the tips of her ears, spreading across her face. Old words rise in her mind, words she had once said to Max, ready to be spewed forth: "Don't flatter me, it makes me feel weird inside", words that surprisingly, she now finds herself holding back. She doesn't actually feel weird or strange in the slightest. There's an almost soft expression on Trellis' face, relaxed from a frown into a more neutral one, and Emily looks away in an attempt to disguise her probably-blushing face.
"I...I can't sleep because of the Void," she finds herself saying.
"The Void?" There's a concerned note in Trellis' voice, and turning back to face him, Emily sees that his face has stretched back into the beginnings of a small frown. "Has the Voice been speaking to you?"
"No! No," Emily runs a hand through her hair. "It's just..." The words die in her throat. It all sounds so stupid out in the open, so weak. She forces the words out regardless. "I've just got a bad feeling about it." The words sound limp and lame, and hang there in the air uncomfortably. She folds her arms, looks away again, an awkward displacement activity.
"I see." Trellis' voice is a low burr, internally Emily winces. This was a mistake, this was-
"Emily." Her eyes flick back to him. "The Spirit is a cunning thing; you've seen the way it manipulates, the damage it causes. It'd be more concerning if you didn't have a bad feeling about it and the Void. Still," he adds, "you can't avoid sleeping forever."
She shoots him a tired, flat look. "I'm not." She gets an equally unimpressed look in return.
She unfolds her arms, and resting them on the table, turns her attention back to map. "The sooner we find Algos Island, the better."
The map continues to be an entirely unhelpful jumble of routes to Emily's tired mind, and she glares at it. There's a sudden sensation of touch on one of her hands, her gaze travels to it, finds Trellis' had resting on top of hers, then continues its journey up his arm to his face.
"You said it yourself: it won't hide forever."
For a moment they simply sit like that, hand on hand, gazes locked. Then, from underneath Trellis' hand, Emily smoothly twists her hand over and grips his. There. A look of surprise crosses his face, the tips of his ears flushing. In her chest, Emily's heart beats a little faster. It's an unusually open gesture for the both of them, but here in the dark of the night, high above the ocean with everyone else around them asleep, it feels okay. Like they're in a safe sort of bubble, a gap in the narrative. For the moment there is nothing else, no sea below, no airship around them, no others onboard, not even any past history, just the pair of them sitting together, hand in hand.
Something inside Emily is prattling on about how this is 'A Moment', wittering away nonsense to itself about how ooh, they're holding hands, they're holding hands, look he's blushing, he's blushing, but she ignores it. Instead she chooses to focus on the sensation of Trellis' hand in hers: warm, dry, the skin somewhat chapped (is that normal for elves?). Joined together by a bridge of flesh and bone. Perhaps they've always been joined together in a way from the very start, enemies-to-reluctant allies-to-allies-to-friends-to-
"What are you two doing up?"
The pair break apart like they've been scalded, heads snapping around to the source of the noise. Vigo has walked in, wrapped in his coat with hands shoved deep in its pockets, his footsteps deceptively light. Well, great. This couldn't look any more suspicious if they tried. Emily regains her composure first.
"Neither of us could sleep, so we were trying to work on the map." 'Yeah, by holding hands over it?' The back of her mind unhelpfully chimes in. In her periphery vision she can see that Trellis has same expression as a cat who's just been caught doing something embarrassing and is trying to pretend that they're unruffled about it. Inside, her stomach squirms.
Vigo makes an odd sound in the back of his throat as he moves to the table, gazing down at the map. "Hn. An admiral work ethic, but I think the map can wait for now. It's going to be a tough few days ahead; we're going to need to be alert to face whatever comes our way. Try going back to bed and getting some shut eye; after all, a little is better than none." He casts a far too knowing glance around the room that sits heavily on Emily and Trellis.
Yep, he definitely saw what they were doing.
With a hurried scraping of chairs and half-mumbled agreement, the pair rise and exit the room. Neither of them can really meet Vigo's eye as they pass him, and they can't get out of there fast enough.
Out in the darkened hallway, Emily and Trellis automatically fall into step; they're going the same way, the cabins for sleeping all clustered in the same area. Trellis' legs are longer, but Emily's stride is faster, so they keep pace well enough. Emily finds that this too is familiar, an aspect of him she automatically knows; the length of his stride, the speed of his gait, the sound of his footsteps. Around them the ship creaks, the engines a solid thrumming in the background, an ignorable rumble beneath their feet. The previous interrupted moment still stings at their backs and leaves them confined to their own awkward thoughts; so silence stretches between them. Inside, words that would continue a conversation spring to mind, ready to be spoken, but remain unsaid.
The corridor is narrow ("Not narrow, compact," Enzo argues from inside a memory), and Emily finds herself and Trellis walking closer together than they normally would. Their hands brush once, twice, a soft shock of skin contact. Despite what just happened (Vigo's gaze still burning a hole in their backs, despite his absence), neither of them jerk away or make any attempt at avoiding it; something about walking in the dark and being alone once more acting as assurance that this is okay. The third time it happens, soft skin against soft skin, Emily grabs Trellis' hand and holds it. He startles slightly at the action, falling out of step for just a fraction of a second before resuming his pace, his fingers curling around hers. A small spark of hope lights itself in Emily's chest; hope about what she's not exactly sure, but hope nonetheless. There's another soft swipe of contact across the back of her hand: Trellis' thumb rubbing a soft curve back and forth for a moment.
They reach the door to Trellis, Cogsley, and Rico's shared cabin all too soon after that, their hands slipping apart, leaving the memory of warmth behind. Now is the time for the silence to be broken, now is the time for words to be spoken. Trellis stands there, face softening back into the expression he had earlier for a moment, before flexing back into a frown; thought crinkling his brow. He opens his mouth to speak, but Emily gets there first.
"I'll sleep. I'm not going avoid the Void. I can handle whatever the Spirit throws at me." The words come out in a rush.
She's evidently guessed right as to what Trellis was thinking about, as he nods in an almost relieved way and says "Goodnight Emily."
"Goondight Trellis."
There's one final surprise for the night: a smile flashes across his face, there for a couple of seconds, then gone as quickly as it arrived. Emily's heart twists again, and it feels like it's breaking into a thousand sharp, clearly-defined pieces.
A click of the latch and Trellis is gone, leaving empty space where he stood. The walk back to Emily's own room is short, but she doesn't notice it, slightly dazed and distracted by what just happened. A silent storm of thoughts whirls in her head: questions over what just happened, questions why her heart is feeling the way it does, brusque dismissals and attempts to get her mind under some sort of control, niggling little worries about what Vigo saw and attempts to calm and reassure about that, all swirling together in one great mix. There's only one clear thing among it all: she suddenly feels exhausted, tiredness draping over her like a mantle. When he reaches her room Emily doesn't even bother to change back into her pyjamas, just flops right back into bed. (It's much better now, but at this point she could honestly lie on the floor and find it as soft as a pillow.)
Emily's last thought before she drifts off, her mind thankfully going silent, is one of glowing eyes and a smile she hadn't seen before this night.
oOo
In his own cabin Trellis sits on his bed. Cogsley is an odd upright shape in the corner, Dagno draped around him; the robot's eyes are dim - a sure sign he's in 'sleep mode'. Rico must be elsewhere, perhaps with Enzo. For once Trellis is glad that he's only got Cogsley for company - in sleep mode he might as well be dead. Trellis shifts, slipping under the covers and tries to calm his racing heart. There's no bones about it: he's in trouble. In the dark he holds up a hand, as if inspecting for some trace of what happened - her hand grasps his, fitting so neatly inside, the surprise of that realisation, the quiet intimacy of the gesture...
All that's left is the memory of Emily's touch, her human hand with it's soft, spongy skin and flesh (so different to his own hands with a harder, tauter texture like seal hide), his thumb tracing a gentle path over her skin. He lets his hand flop onto the bed, tucks it under the sheets, and knows for a certainty that when he dreams he'll dream of red hair and unyielding determination wrapped in that same soft skin.
Despite it all, Emily Hayes has somehow found her way past all his armour, both external and internal, all the way to his heart. He recalls a pain-soaked memory; the sharp edges slightly dulled with time, but pain still running through it and interwoven with it: staring up through a haze of agony as Emily stands above him, her magic flowing around her as she carefully prises and manipulates his armour off him; no longer a protection, but a cage of sharp, metal fangs biting down. The image is hazy, blurred at the edges, little bits and pieces coming through sharply - her expression, carved in stone and worry-touched, metal cutting into his arm, every jostle sending another wave of pain washing through him, melding together with the pain already there. At some point the memory ends; Trellis is unsure if the procedure was complete at that point or if he'd thankfully passed out from the pain, but he finds that he doesn't care which it is. Absentmindedly, his hand drifts to the scars encircling his upper arm. The event certainly left a tangible mark on him.
There are better memories to cling to, he knows, memories from the rest of this journey, but his mind has latched onto this one.
'I've never had the luxury of being able to choose memories before, so why break the habit of a lifetime,' Trellis thinks, with a bitter twist of his mouth.
Ah, but Emily is rising up in his mind once more, Emily who never blanched in the face of adversity, Emily who fought harder and faster than any mortal had a right to when her family was in danger, Emily who tried to support everyone on her own, Emily who with just a look would send his normally calm and steady heart into palpitations.
She had dropped into an entirely new world, and instead of recoiling and cowering away like many other people would, she had seized it by the throat and forced it to compromise. Ah, and there too was a nut of a problem: Emily had come to Alledia, so there was naturally a day on the way when she would leave Alledia, returning to her native Earth. At the start of their then-uneasy partnership, such a fact had been a relief to him, a distant reward, delayed gratification at its finest. But as time wore on the sheen was steadily dulled from it by the bonds of a growing friendship, until it was no longer an appetising thought at all. It was a bitter pill, but one that Trellis had long come to accept; what right did he have to make her stay, to bar her way home just because of feelings that dwelt in his chest? His duty tied him to his land, hers tied her to her family and whatever path she decided to walk.
As he muses in the dark, Trellis is reminded of a sort of Earth plant that Navin had told him about once: a tumbleweed. According to Navin they were a sort of plant that travelled; when times were tough or circumstances unfavourable they'd pull up their roots and let the wind take them to a more favourable area, putting down their roots in the new land. This whole situation is a lot like that, Trellis reckons. He's like the land and Emily is like the tumbleweed, blown in from a different place, putting down her roots in him for the time being. Then, one day for whatever reason, she'll uproot herself and move on, moving on to something more favourable for her.
Trellis frowns, a softer thing, eyes downcast, and lays on his side. The thought is like a dull knife sawing itself around the inside of his heart. He sighs. He's weathered suffering many times before, he'll weather it again. He boxes up the feeling, neatly stores it off to one side. A tiny, bitter part of him complains: He's finally gotten some form of freedom back, free from Sybrian, free from his father, heck, even free from the duties of royalty (albeit a duty he's racing back towards, fighting tooth and nail for a privilege that conceals chains of all shapes and sizes), and yet here he is; bound by more chains that will one day constrict and choke off a future.
"This is the way it is meant to be," Trellis tell himself, voice quiet in the gloom. "This is the way the world turns."
A little hopeful voice in his mind pipes up: Emily might be leaving one day, but for now at least, you've got time together. Maybe she'll even stay, it adds after a moment. As much as the bitter, tired part of him wants to, Trellis doesn't dismiss it, instead carefully shelters it within himself. Maybe even clings to it a little. He soon drops off to sleep.
In sleep he dreams of red hair, and unyielding determination wrapped in soft skin.
oOo
Deep in the Void sits the Spirit, his form quietly curling and writhing, wisps drifting on a non-existent breeze. He's more miasma than body, a shifting, roiling shape of a being. He tilts his head. Ah, there it is. His two young stonekeepers have finally fallen asleep. Carefully the Spirit extends his reach, takes ahold. It's a gentle, sinuous task, and he grasps their bubble of awareness carefully. Too much, and he'll pull them into a Void dream, where there's the possibility of them being alerted to his presence. For now, the Spirit holds them just delicately enough to listen. To read.
Neither has used their amulets recently, so (to use an Earth metaphor) it's like an out-of-tune radio station, dulling his reach, making him have to wade through metaphorical static. He has to concentrate more, be more patient, pay greater attention to muddied waters so the details do not slip past. He cannot view the past properly without pulling them fully into the Void, but he reads the emotions, feels the size and shape of what went on, carefully weighing it up, getting a good feel for it.
Finally the Spirit has learned all he can from this encounter. He carefully retracts his reach, letting the pair go. My, what a storm in a teacup we have here. Their emotions certainly have been interesting today, almost a reflection of one another. He considers the pair for a moment, a distant observer. How incredibly like mortals it is, to awkwardly dance around one another in a drawn-out way, whilst the same feelings echo back and forth in both of their chests. When he whispered words to Trellis recently (and to the Spirit who has lived for millennia, several months is 'recent') - subtle things, a suggestion to join up with the young Hayes girl - he couldn't have possibly predicted this outcome.
Well, maybe he could have. He's seen many stonekeepers come and go, and many romances flare up in that time. Something about the position and burden of being a stonekeeper seems to be a common sort of meeting ground, a subject to bond over.
Hmm.
Hmmm. This could be a problem but - ah, of course! Whilst Emily may like Trellis, there will always be one thing that trumps it, something that overrides it, overrides every relationship she has.
Her family.
And he knows just the thing to show her, to gently push and coax her over the edge into losing control...
The Void springs to life around the Spirit, earth rising into jagged mountain peaks, trees twining upwards, forming a canopy. A forest flows out, the air brisk, the sun warm. A perfect place for a camping trip.
'Oh, this is almost going to be too easy,' thinks the Spirit as his shape ripples, settles into the form of David Hayes.
oOoOoOo
A/N: There, it is done, I have crossed this line I never though I would. Mea culpa, mea culpa, how the heck did this get to 7k words the last I checked it was 4k oh kittens.
I swear an alternate title for this fic might as well be 'Introspection: The Fanfic!'
Anyway, you know how every fandom has That One Scenario that gets written 500 times? Well Tremily seems to have one in the form of 'wandering around the Luna Moth at night and bumping into each other and emotions ensue'. So I decided to take a crack at it. (Interesting note: the majority of them seem to take place between Book 3 and 4.)
Also! I listened to 'Six Days At The Bottom of The Ocean' by Explosions In The Sky, so I guess that functions as sort of recommended listening for this?