Yasha blinked awake, her eyes heavy and muscles stiff from the cold, the aching enunciated by the sitting position she'd fallen asleep in against the door. The air in the room was stiff, she realized, as she sensed her friends rousing, murmuring, stretching. Fjord was sitting a few feet from her, leaning against the doorframe to the bathroom, half in half out, staring daggers at the center of the room.
While everyone was stirring, two of her friends were sitting up straight—one on the floor, the other on top of her bed. There was a faint scribbling, scratching sound coming from the latter, and she made out the frame of Beauregard leaning over her journal. Jester was slowly sitting up next to her, Sprinkle slinking down from her neck and cuddling back into the sheets.
"Beau," Jester whispered. "What are you doing?"
Caleb, who had been sitting up in the center of the room, pushed himself to his knees and crawled forward, leaning against the end of the bed. His hand inched toward Beau's, visibly shaking, and covered the one that wasn't writing with his. The scribbling stopped, her head bouncing from her book to his gaze as he held the back of her hand up to her face. The muscles around her lips, her cheeks, were pursed in a tight, thin line. Jester rubbed her eyes, then followed theirs. Her mouth dropped.
There was a moment before Beauregard was twisting around, her waist wrapped in Yasha's sheets as Caleb pulled her soft robes down from the base of her neck. His fingers brushed the designs of her gleaming jade tattoo as if he was feeling for brail. Jester grabbed Beau's hand, staring at it, as Fjord cleared his throat and pushed off the floor.
Beau faced Caleb again, then pulled his collar down as he examined his own hands. His fingers started fumbling for the hem of his shirt and he yanked it off. It landed on Veth, who let out a groaning growl. At the top of his shoulder, Yasha could just barely make out the shape and color of a red eye, staring straight out at her. A knot formed in her throat.
"That's not good," Beau blanched, looking down at her hand in Jester's. The realization washed over Yasha in a hot pulse of blood rushing from her forehead past her chest and into the soles of her feet.
"Wha—?" A groggy Caduceus mumbled from the chair near the hearth. His lanky neck bobbed up for a brief moment then fell again, backlit by the idea of a window. Yasha tucked her feet underneath herself and stood with Fjord, moving toward the bed. She sank into the mattress for one of the first times, brushing up against Jester and reaching for Beau's wrist.
Sure enough, the scars webbing across the monk's knuckles traced down the back of her hand and pointed at a gleaming red eye that suctioned its focus toward Yasha as she took Beau's hand in hers. Her mouth trembled and she almost tore away, but Beau's grip wrapped around her last three fingers. She looked up, meeting wide blue eyes that kept blinking, hard.
"Caleb, why are you naked?" Veth's voice carried from the floorboards. His shirt flew up from over the edge of the bed, hitting his back, then falling to the floor again with a thwump. Veth yelped as the eye shifted its gaze to the floor. Caduceus's head bobbed up again, his thick lashes fluttering as he focused on the scene in front of him.
"Oh, dear," he murmured and started scooting out of the chair.
"You both shot up at the same time," Fjord's cool voice came from behind Yasha and Jester. His eyes were darting between the ones now embedded into the skin of his friends, a hand resting on Jester's shoulder. "What did you see?"
Yasha's thumb traced the edges of the eye on Beau's hand.
"Does it hurt?" she asked, reaching toward Beau's neck to check for more herself, fingers trembling. She brushed the frazzled strands of hair away as Beau shook her head.
"No," she whispered. The hardness of her tone had melted and Yasha's eyes flashed back to hers. Beau tilted her head up to Caleb, who stood stock-still, shirtless at the end of the bed. Caduceus now loomed behind him, a furrowed brow inspecting the new mark. Veth had stood up as well, Caleb's t-shirt back in her hands. She was wringing it.
"Euhm…" Caleb started, rubbing his chin. "Well, I just saw an eye. A red eye, this eye," he craned his neck to find it on his shoulder. It was now staring back at Caduceus.
"It was the book, you looked at the book," Jester said, her voice small. "Lucien—the somnovum got to Lucien when he looking in the book." Yasha's hand tightened around Beau's, covering the new red mark.
"They said 'Welcome'" Beau spoke, staring at her. Caleb nodded.
"Voices, lots of them. There were screams and cries, but the eye seemed to have its own voices, and..." he took a breath, letting it out with a sigh. "They said the same to me."
"Do we know if Cree has an eye? Or eyes? I can't remember…" Fjord asked. Jester looked up at him.
"I don't think so," Caduceus mused, crossing his arms.
"We have to burn that book," Beau murmured, staring down at her notes. Her journal was lying open on the bed, the black scribbles were absolute chaos. Aggressive shapes and crossed out patterns were bleeding on the paper, side-by-side with the still messy but organized log from the day before.
"I agree," Jester added. Beau looked up at her.
"I mean it's gotta be the way. The only way they can get back is by connecting to people in the material world through that—" the eye on the back of Beau's hand shifted, the iris sliding underneath but between Yasha's fingers to be seen. Beau stopped as if she could feel it.
Yasha suddenly became conscious of her hand still holding the crook of Beau's neck and she pulled it away, sandwiching Beau's hand between hers.
"Do you think," Jester started. "That all Lucien has to do to bring them back is like, read from that book or something? Like Obann with the Laughing Hand?" The freckled blue cheeks turned to Yasha as they spoke.
Veth, still twisting Caleb's shirt, climbed onto the bed with the girls.
"Didn't Lucien say he's...preparing to be their host? Maybe..." she trailed off. "Maybe there needs to be nine hosts? And that's why Lady Vess was trying to be a nonagon."
"Maybe," Caduceus said.
Beau cut in. "But Lucien seems to think he's the nonagon, like it's his title or some shit."
"I wonder if he knew," Caleb murmured, shoulders sagging. "When he let us read the book, if he knew. Or if this was a test for him, too. An experiment."
Fjord sniffed, lifting his hand away from Jester to tuck an elbow toward his chest and stretch. Everyone was moving slowly, stiff and disjointed. Even Beau, Yasha noticed, as she shifted in the bed. Her strict posture from jolting awake was beginning to slump.
"Should I Greater Restoration you?" Jester asked Caleb. Caduceus hummed from behind Caleb. "Maybe we can test stuff out to see how we can beat Lucien."
"That could be dangerous," Yasha's voice hummed, her focus still on Beau.
"I say we test Beau first, then Caleb." Veth chirped, handing Caleb his shirt.
"I'd be down for a Greater Restoration," Beau offered.
"Not yet," Caleb said, pulling his shirt over his head. "It might be useful, you know, to...see how Lucien reacts to us having them. Or at least Beau's. It's more, ehm...visible."
Yasha shifted her hands apart to display the eye on the back of Beau's hand.
"One night can't hurt...right?" Beau shrugged. Yasha's lips pursed. Jester put a hand on the monk's shoulder.
"Just one. If we wake up and you're like, super obsessed with becoming a nonagon, I'll do it first thing! Just a—boop!" she smiled, bouncing her finger off of Beau's nose. Beau nodded.
"Let's get some rest," Fjord suggested. "We're gonna be exhausted tomorrow."
"I feel great, don't you, Caleb?" Veth asked, smug, nustling back beneath her blanket.
"Ja," is all he said, his hand finding Beau's shoulder and giving it a brief squeeze before following his halfling friend to the floor.
From behind, Yasha felt Jester lift off the mattress and follow Fjord, who was starting to lay out a pair of bedrolls near where he had been keeping watch. Caduceus lowered himself gingerly back into Yasha's chair, and the party seemed to release a breath they hadn't realized they had been holding.
Yasha started letting go of Beau's hand, but she felt a faint pulse catch her. Beau was still sitting up, still staring at her, still holding her hand. Yasha knew she would never ask, but Beau's brow and blue eyes begged the question.
"Can I stay?" Yasha mouthed. Beau's shoulders melted, and she bobbed her head in a nod, untangling herself from the sheets, straightening them. Yasha stood, unclipping a few pouches from her side and sliding off her boots. She unhitched the shawl she'd been wearing as a blanket while she slept by the door and found herself in her plain, light tunic. She felt naked, and the very feeling sent blood running to her cheeks to knock on her temples.
She sat on the side of the bed, her back still turned to Beau. She watched as Jester and Fjord curled into the floor and their bodies went still, just inches apart, facing each other. Yasha felt Beau tucking herself into the bed behind her, took a measured, deep breath. She closed her eyes if only for a moment to put herself in the field of wildflowers Jester had painted her in their Xorhouse. It was too dark in this room to make out the colorful, flowery landscapes that were a part of the wall, so her memory would have to do.
Yasha felt a soft breeze, felt color and light and calm. Then a whisper. Not menacing, or sorrowful, with no hesitation and yet no speed: Breathe, she said. Be.
Yasha felt her lips tug into a smile, and she took another breath, opening her eyes as she let it go. She was in her room, in Caleb's tower, surrounded by the hushed snores of her friends and on a marshmallow of a mattress. She reached behind herself and pulled the blankets up enough for her to scoot underneath, then rolled onto her shoulder to face the small frame that held up the blankets beside her.
Beau's eyes were already closed, her knuckles tucked up beneath her chin. Her forehead was momentarily uncreased, and her lips settled into a small smile. Her chest tightened as Yasha watched her, well aware that she was still awake, and brushed Beau's cheek with her thumb anyway.
