"Arakei please."

Urokai begs her on his knees. His heart won't stop beating (it's unnatural and he wants to cry but he always wants to cry) and it makes his voice come out shaky. Weak. Still he continues on for hours and hours even as his voice is hoarse and he can barely speak. Even as his control grows weak and Dragus claws at him, stomach rumbling. Even as he can't keep the emotions in his head separate (some strange choking silver tight around his neck comforts him while a cold little cloud whispers threats in his ear). Yet she still stares at him with the look in her eyes that turns the world into a wintery wasteland and makes his fire die down to embers.

"No," she says.

His heart finally stops. The blood in his mortal vessel turns to snow and ice.

"Remember Urokai," she warns him, snarling and ready to laugh.

"Don't think you need love to live. Don't think you need me to live."

Urokai stays kneeling even when Arakei is gone.

Her braids fly in the wind that blows. Her clothes flutter. Yet she doesn't come to pull him up or touch him. She looks just like she did a millennia and a half ago but now she's a head shorter than him and doesn't tease him on his height.

Maybe he shouldn't humour these hallucinations. Shouldn't let himself fall apart and be toyed by with his own head.

Still, he stays.

He spends too much time letting words that mean no harm tear him into pieces, and he never follows the advice that's painstakingly drawn out of him with cupped hands.

Nobles don't come to this part of the Agvain Rose Garden often. Not when the soil here grows rich with teeth and thorns that snap at those they don't like. Grief and resentment live here, belong here. Magic not born of fire lingers here (the story of that Elenor is of a different time, and not one he can tell).

Eyes closed and wetter than they have any right to be, he wants to remain in this spot for so very long. Wants to but can't because he can hear the land shifting as someone who doesn't belong here, as someone who has no right to be here, comes his way. Only because of that does Urokai stand.

When he feels his head ring softly and fingers tremble with a gentle warmth, he realises who it is before he sees them. Yet, only when Frankenstein is brushing the dirt off of his suit (as he called it) do his warning bells ring. They are late, and he wipes his eyes, frantic, but he can't hide what has already been seen.

Maybe if he claws them out he will be in situations less damning since he would at least have an excuse ready.

"You were crying."

Frankenstein says it as if he knew from the start. There's no surprise, and no attempt to ridicule him. He simply stands there, staring; so still that it's obvious he's restraining himself like he would around a terrified mouse.

Urokai understands the light brushing of antennae on his face perfectly. It's the same sensation he would get when his father held him as he cried after being scared by some insignificant thing or another. The same one that he had felt whenever his sisters would comfort him after the jokes and insults he endured in the company of other nobles for his 'inelegant' tendencies. The one from Zarga which makes him smile because it's a reminder that prevents him from wanting eternal sleep in a manner more intimate than that which he has now.

It's what assaults him whenever he accompanies Edian these days. (it makes him want to scream. to tear something, someone, himself, apart because he's unworthy of her worry. how can she look at him, feel for him, be there for him, even as she suffers so deeply? how can she care for someone who turns a blind eye to her pain and lets her drown? why does she still think of him in the way she always has, in the way where she would hug him and comfort him, now that he has abandoned her in such a way? even now when he is unworthy of her? how can she still love him as he does her?)

Concern is normal, but not from someone who so surely hates him (his own blood hums in delight at finally being so close again and his fire is sparking more than Rozaria's spells) so he can't help the confusion he feels at the softness of the antennae that flutter against his lips and cheek and lashes. That only comes from something genuine (from one who truly cares), and it tells him more than he wants to know. Tells him things in the same way the calm of the roses do and the knowledge settles deep in him.

He doesn't know what to make of it. Doesn't know what to say or do to feel like himself again. Another lie he eats out of fear (Dragus sobs when he does this, and it makes his fire fade with how much it wants to comfort the child) and why does he keep fooling himself like this? Why does he take routes that ensure he will never see Frankenstein? Why run whenever he feels his presence? Why deny the contract when it makes him feel whole?

He sighs, and Frankenstein flinches. He can't stop his body from slumping either and it isn't the posture a noble should have but he cant bring himself to care. He's so very tired.

"You," he says, contemplating, "really are a good person aren't you?" and lets go of the hold he has on their contract as his eyes meet Frankenstein's.

Immediately he's struck with screaming agony but it doesn't deafen him like it surely would any other noble. The screaming, the wailing, the pain that trembles through his bones, is just like Dragus. They only phrase their words better.

Urokai doesn't know what it is that brings such suffering, but it only makes the ache deeper, more heartfelt. If Frankenstein can be so, calm, even with the screeching that forever echoes in his ears, than how subpar he must be. If he can do what Urokai cannot so easily, what use is he of to Lukedonia? (to Edian? what is he to her? 'tell me. i beg of you please tell me. i need you, but how can you still want me?')

"You're doing it again."

He jolts at Frankenstein's words, and there's no way he can understand this man because he can feel how good he is. Can feel the soft warmth that cradles him like a parent to a child, but that's not why. It's because his bond wraps around him gently. It won't startle him this way. Won't make him lash out, and they pulsate. With the soft glow of the plants his sister's room is covered in, with the soft glow of the moon on a cloudy night, with the soft glow of his father's eyes as he smiled, the bonds comfort him.

This kindness hurts him.

"And what," he asks, unable to even sound defiant, only as if he's given up, "am I doing?"

"Hurting yourself."

Frankenstein glares at him and he doesn't know how to react. He knows he is, but it's normal isn't it? Everyone is like that. And yet the way the bond flares up at him has his eyes widening because it's obvious that's not what he should have thought.

"Everytime you've slipped up and let your feelings through you were crying. And you just keep on going like that. Just round and round, and it gets worse everytime."

His words get sharper, and Urokai knows that he won't ever be able to use them as weapons as this human can. Not when he can feel the anger in his bond.

"I thought that nobles were supposed to be in control of themselves and everything else but the only thing that's controlling you is grief. It's not even what you feel towards Raizel so what is it? Who is making you break apart like this? Who could you possibly love more than the Noblesse?"

Urokai smiles at that, barely, but it's enough to make Frankenstein stop. Such easy questions to answer. Such a nosy human. Yet, he doesn't mind. It's somewhat nice to be scolded by a concerned person who pretends that they're only annoyed by something inconveniencing them.

He really is fond of this contract that lets him know what at least one person feels among his countless failures to do so with others.

"I love my family, but they are dead, even when they talk to me they are dead," Urokai says, and the way the bond, the way Frankenstein, shivers at his lifeless voice hurts.

"I love my clan, and I love Dragus. Edian–" his smile widens and he can hear the pain in his own voice– "I love as much as I do Ser Raizel."

"What do you mean that they talk to you? How can you talk to the dead?" He doesn't know why Frankenstein asks something he already knows the answer to. Maybe he would if he could think clearly, but now he's just numb. He can't even bring himself to hate him, after all.

"It means that I see and hear things that aren't there."

Finally he moves, turning his back and walking to the Agvain mansion. Frankenstein doesn't follow him and he's too tired to call out. So he lets the bond do it instead.

Shock filters through, but now he comes, and Urokai can't help the small burst of joy that freshens him. He's never enjoyed being treated like a child.

Frankenstein says nothing at the snapping roses, or at the rivers of lava that he sees. That he feels the heat of.

"They like you," he states, and Frankenstein knows what he means.

"How can that possibly be a good thing?"

"Well," he replies, almost amused, "If they didn't they would eat you, or try to. It's horrible how everything of my clan seems to love you."

Including me.

How can he not? If they had never made this contract, never felt his emotions so intimately, would he understand him? No, he wouldn't have and it's scary thinking about it. It's not like he's changed, or revealed anything new, but, he knows Frankenstein now. Knows him and though he's tried to keep away, hasn't been able to prevent the creeping vines of affection for him from settling in. Hasn't been able to stay his distance from the warmth that beckons at him.

He is possessive of his bonded, and though he doesn't show it (don't go. stay with me in the agvain territory you're not ser raizel's. i won't say i know you best because you aren't mine, you aren't anyone's, but i can feel what you want and he doesn't. i can feel you in a way nobody else ever could.), he's aware that it's still felt. That it's reciprocated.

The intimacy of their bond is strange. It isn't normal to be this close after only making it and doing nothing else (staring up at the night sky and opening his bond to feel him doesn't count because he was sleeping. because he didn't know.). It isn't normal for two who hated each other so deeply to feel as such. As, friends? Family? Yet they are. Is it because neither have anything left of them? Or is it the fact that Frankenstein is a good person who enjoys helping, and that he is the largest problem he has ever come upon? He is sure the way that he grasps at him, the way that his thirst is gone in his company, must be part of it.

When Urokai opens the door to the Agvain mansion for him, he still doesn't know anything. Only that he is his bonded. He watches as he enters, and follows after, aware that he doesn't need to explain the significance of this.

Frankenstein already understands; only an Agvain, and those with them, can enter.

Yet it has another meaning. One far more important.

Urokai is asking him for help.