Daniel shivered and curled up into a tighter ball, pulling the covers up to his chin. How he hated the night! With no window in his barren room there should have been no way for him to mark the absence of the sun, yet he easily could. Though there was no discernible light source in his room, in the daylight hours-what Daniel assumed to be the daylight hours- his room was brightly lit. As the day waned, so to his invisible lamps until he could barely see his hand before his face. Maybe it was this place's way of telling its guest that it was time for bed. What a chilling thought, that this keep were somehow…sentient.
These dim hours were unbearable. It made him grind his teeth and try not to remember his previous days, chased and hunted; his only companion a dying lantern.
Maybe he could ask his host for another light source, this world's equivalent of a gas lamp, to keep the night at bay. Or ask him to keep the bloody lamps lit.
He rolled over, trying to will sleep. What he would not give for some- He squelched that thought before it could fully form, though his hands began shaking in remembrance and want.
He tried to remember what he had done in his past when sleep was being a fickle mistress. His past was such a murky mire though, he could not easily pluck things from it. Certain memories stood out in stark relief: the sting of his father's belt against his back, the joy he felt in the ruins of Algeria, Herbert's booming and avuncular voice… Everything else was shapeless, oft times taking on tantalizing half-forms that seemed almost obtainable, tempting him to reach out and take them. But when he tried, they always burst like the most fragile of soap bubbles, slipping through his fingers and back into the shadows of his mind. He was beginning to suspect that his past, the Old Daniel's past, might be lost to him forever. Maybe that was no bad thing.
He twisted around yet again. Damnation! These melancholy musings were not aiding him to relax at all!
Sitting up he peered into the gloom. He could make out the posts of the bed, but little beyond. Hysteria threatened, as it always did, and he took deep breaths to will his heartbeat back to normal.
He was thirsty. He would have to wait until his host poked back in, he supposed. Daniel seemed to be checked on almost hourly during the day, but when he would most welcome the company, the man was never around.
"Well, he has to sleep too." He muttered. "I can't expect the lord of this keep to act as my own personal servant." Though that was what the man seemed to be doing. Bringing him his meals, fetching water, even clearing away his chamber pot.
There had to be servants in a place this big! He had a dim recollection of hearing them change his bedclothes when he was dozing in the armchair. But why had they not made themselves known to him? Were they being kept from him? Or mayhaps it was the other way 'round: his host did not want them exposed too much to his otherworldly visitor.
Daniel groaned. The dark was driving him mad. Again. Drastic action was called for. He slipped from the bed, bracing for the chill of the floor against his bare feet. It didn't come. The floor was warm, pleasantly so, as if it were heated somehow. He tried to stand, but his knees buckled immediately, spilling him to the floor. He muttered an oath and curled up until the pain of his bruised legs and ego faded.
There were two doors in his room: the main one the man used to visit him and another, smaller one. The smaller one was not often entered. It was where the man took his chamber pot to be emptied and where he went when Daniel claimed to be thirsty, returning with a filled jug of water. Since Daniel did not relish the thought of exploring another castle alone in the dark, this second door seemed the better diversion. But how to get there when he had just proven he could not stand?
At any rate, he couldn't even rise to get back into bed, so there really was no helping but to press on. "Luckily there is no one to witness this," He said through gritted teeth. He began to crawl and even that was almost too much for his trembling limbs.
The darkness pressed upon him even more as he slowly made his way to the small door. He felt the smooth, warmed floor underneath him shudder and begin to tilt. The edges of his vision started to waver and almost glitter. "No." He paused, closing his eyes tightly. "You will not give in. Think of how humiliating if our host were to visit us and find us having fainted." Imagine how humiliating it was going to be when his host came to bring him his breakfast and found Daniel smiling sheepishly beside the bed, waiting to be lifted back into it. He laughed and the grey mist began to recede and the floor steadied. Good.
He reached the door with no more incident. His hands shook as they reached up for the doorknob. Was there one? His fingers encountered only smooth, cool material that felt like stone but was grained as if wooden. "Damn it. Do not tell me I have hurt myself and crawled all this way for naught." He gave the door a rap of frustration…and it sprang open. Daniel scrambled back, but when nothing stumbled out from the room beyond hungering for his blood, he cautiously entered.
Light flooded the room immediately. Daniel cried out in surprise and pain, his hands coming up to shield his eyes. Apologies were tumbling from his lips, but when he lowered his hands the room proved to be empty. Were the lamps then… somehow automatic?
"I feel more and more like the Belle in the castle of the Beast. Invisible servants, self-lighting lamps, an aloof host…" Daniel trailed off, shaking his head. He hadn't thought about fairytales in…since… His mind fumbled for the name. Hazel. Since his sister Hazel. He could not even conjure up the image of her face.
He sighed and looked around at this new area he had discovered. It was around half the size of his bedchamber, the walls and ceiling still that forsaken, unrelenting black, but were not as unrelentingly smooth. The floor appeared to be tiled and the walls weren't entirely without decoration here either. They were carved with whorls and curls lending the place a soothing, almost organic air. There was even a pool of water in the middle and some sort of sculpture that rose from it. The structure was long and snake-like, jagged bits of metal and glass sticking out from it every which way. It curved gracefully over the water, the bend of it reminding Daniel of a spine …and that conjured up the memory of that strange creation he had stumbled across in the back hall of Brennenberg. Horrid thing. How had his past self not guessed that the baron was not all together in the right?
He reached out and dipped his fingers in the still water. The statue made a gurgling sound and he jerked them back. Water began to gush from it, pouring down into the waiting pool in a small waterfall. "This is a bathing area, is it not?" Daniel looked around him again with wonder. There were other basins set into the walls, almost hidden by the decorations. Daniel wondered what they could possibly be for. Were they attached to some sort of well for drinking water?
He dipped his hand into the pool again. The water was warm and inviting. There was not a doubt in his mind to its purpose. He didn't hesitate before putting his bare legs into the waters. It would feel so good to have a proper bath or at least a proper soak. Horse baths didn't really leave one feeling as clean as one should be. He had a long night ahead of him and no audience. Surely he would dry before his host found him in the morning.
Sliding his nightshirt over his head, he threw it into a heap behind him. The water was heaven itself as he entered it. There was a small step that felt like stone and if he sat on it the water came up to his chest. If he sat on the very floor he judged that the level would rise to his chin. He ducked his head under the surface and leaned back against the edge when he emerged. He laughed as he combed his wet hair back from his face, an illicit thrill shivering through him; this was the most alive he had felt since he had been "born".
He closed his eyes and sunk deeper into the water, letting his head rest on the lip of the pool. His last few days had been dedicated to trying to survive and now that he was out of the woods, so to speak, and there were no longer any eldritch creatures hunting him or an addiction ravaging his body he was quite at a loss as to what to do with himself. Regain his strength, of course, and then… And then what?
Try to find a way back home? A home he could barely remember and what little he could was filled with horror. So could he really name it a 'home'? But surely he had family who were missing him. His sister, his…his…Hazel. That was it. And a father. His back ached at the thought of his father. He remembered raised hands and heated words, being thrown into a closet with no light and no food… Apparently his world had had more monsters than Alexander.
Return might not even be possible. So what then? He could not live off his host's charity for much longer. The poor man had put up with more than enough from him. Could he make it in this strange, new world? Find some sort of profession he could scrape together a living from? Besides languages and archeology he did not think that his former self had acquired any other skills that would lend him to any kind of livelihood. There was also the unsettling thought that out there in this unknown world lurked Alexander. If Daniel had made it through the portal in one piece, why not that mad man?
A throat cleared behind him. Daniel flinched, curling in on himself. His hand covered his head and he tried to make himself as small as possible.
His heart beat three times, hard and painful against his ribs, and then the sound was repeated followed by a small rapping against what must have been the door.
Slowly, Daniel unwound from his near fetal position. He leaned his head back and looked behind him. There was his host, upside down and looking torn between exasperation and fury. Daniel hurriedly turned around. When he started to apologize the man held up a hand and snarled something.
"I don't understand." He hadn't thought he had done anything that wrong…
The man stepped further into the room, hands clenched at his sides. He repeated his previous uttering, slow enough that the sarcasm of his words bled through. It ended in an upward lilt.
"Am I enjoying myself?" Daniel mused. "That probably is it. Yes, I am! Very much so!" He matched his pace of speaking with the man's, lacing it with annoyance. He had done nothing to earn such chastisement! Left to his own devices for hours on end, there were surely worse things than finding the bathing chamber and succumbing to its charms.
The man stormed over to a ledge in the wall that Daniel had not noticed before. He plucked two bottles of viscous liquid and threw them into the pool. Daniel sputtered as the water splashed his face. "Would you stop acting like a child?" He fished the bottles out, glad to see that they hadn't broken and set them on the side of the bath. "Why are you so upset anyway?"
A long, angry stream of words. Daniel shook his head and shrugged. He turned his head away, yelped as the man grabbed him by his hair and pulled him back around. The pain made tears spring up in his eyes. His host immediately let him go, his expression shuttering. The fire was dying in his eyes though. Maybe his rage was spending itself.
"So why are you so worked up?" Daniel rubbed at his scalp, wincing.
The man cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowing as he studied Daniel. He stood up, walked a few steps then mimed, slipping. He finished by hitting himself in the temple with the heel of his hand. When he was finished, he raised an eyebrow, hands on his hips.
"I could have hurt myself." Daniel closed his eyes. "Yes, I suppose I could have. And you were in such a tizzy it made you angry?"
A memory hit him then. An outing in summer to the lake. The sickening feeling when he realized that Hazel was no longer by his side. He had run through the crowd of children yelling her name, his stomach a spikey ball of ice despite the warm sun. He had found her minutes later, having felt a bit poorly and taken shelter in the shade of some nearby trees. He had yelled at her until she had cried, his fear of thinking she had drowned, his relief at her alive, mixing together inside into something akin to rage.
"I guess it was not so unreasonable a reaction. I am sorry to have worried you. Forgiven?" He held out his hand. The man took it, his eyes never leaving Daniel's face.
He muttered something under his breath. Don't ever do it again? Just be careful?
Daniel laughed and shook his head. "You are so taciturn my friend. Maybe you really do live alone here."
His host did not even bother to try to decipher his statement, instead seating himself on the floor as close as he could get to Daniel without entering the water. He selected one of the bottles and mimed shaking it out into his hand and washing it through his hair.
"Ah, soap!" Daniel pointed at the other one. "Then this one is…?"
The man made gestures of washing his body.
"I see. Um…Do you mind turning around while I…?" He thought he gestured his wish rather well, but the man only pulled his discarded night shift into his lap, long fingers worrying the golden fabric. "I see." Really, if he made it this far on his own, he could take a bloody bath unsupervised!
He sighed. "I can hardly fault you for being protective of me. That really would be uncharitable." He ducked under the water once then reached for the bottle the man had 'said' was for his hair.
The bath could have lasted a bit longer. Daniel was rather enjoying soaking in the warmth, the splashing of the falling water making little waves that lapped at him in a soothing manner. His host was growing impatient though and when Daniel nodded off for the second time, he began to pull on Daniel's arm. He tried to make Daniel stand, but Daniel quickly shook his head.
That seemed to take the man aback. He pointed to the bedroom, then the bath, making his fingers move in manner that resembled walking.
"No, I crawled." Daniel tried his best to mime it in the water, finally raising his knee up to show the bruises. The man's brows drew down, the fire returning to his eyes. "Please don't yell at me again!" Daniel held up his hands, placating.
His host shut his eyes for a moment. He seemed to have reached some sort of plan of action, for when he opened them he immediately swooped in on Daniel. Daniel cried out, startled, as the man plunged his arms into the water and lifted him out. "I could have crawled out on my own!" He gasped as he was swung up into his host's arms and carried into the bedchamber.
Daniel was thrown unceremoniously onto his bed. "I'm soaking wet! At least find something to-" His nightshift hit him in the face. "Be nice!"
Visibly trying not to laugh, the man sat on the edge of Daniel's bed, back to him. Grumbling, Daniel toweled himself off to the best of his ability with his nightshirt. He threw it at the man, hitting the back of his head. The laughter finally won its way free. He doubled over, shoulders twitching.
Daniel couldn't help but to smile as well. "I am fairly ridiculous, aren't I?" He moved around until he worked the covers over himself. "The lights are brighter. How do you make them-"
The man shushed him, pulling the blankets better around him. He made to leave, but Daniel grabbed his arm, staying him. Once stopped though, he realized he didn't know what to do to make him stay. "Your shirt is soaked through." He tugged on the sleeve of the wet shirt. The man glanced down at it. Daniel gave it another tweak. He pulled it over his head in a graceful motion, tossing it on the floor besides Daniel's own.
The look he gave Daniel was almost challenging. Daniel returned it with a smile. "Would you…would you stay a while?" He took the man's hand and tried to pull him back onto the bed. "At least until I fall asleep?"
His host didn't need much coaxing to resume his seat beside him. Daniel was exhausted, his small adventure having taken more out of him than he had thought. "Leave the lamps lit, please."
His host hummed something, a small little trill that soothed. Daniel turned over on his stomach, a strong hand soon petting up and down his spine. He would have to break the man of that habit. He was not a pet after all.
X
Meh to this chapter. I re-wrote it so many times and it still doesn't feel quite right, but I need to just put it out there so I can move on to the more interesting bits of the story. I promise things will happen soon! As always, critiques and comments always welcomed!
