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In Ruins

Chapter 22

It took the entire morning for Satoshi to finish heating the kiln. By the time that Shigeru joined him, shoveling black coals into another, further grate in a grave and heavy silence, Satoshi felt himself becoming more or less adjusted to the idea that Tano had left. It was just a fact: Tano was gone because he had somewhere else to be, and Satoshi understood that. He knew what it was like to have to leave. He'd spent five years of his life leaving, and never being the person left behind.

Shigeru, however, did not seem to understand this. He was taking it badly. When he talked, it was just muttered theories that he didn't seem willing to discuss, though Satoshi still tried to turn the conversation. "What's strange?" Satoshi had ventured once. Another time he had tried with, "Did you just say something?". However, Shigeru barely seemed aware he had even spoken most of the time. He responded with grunting and prodding at some coals with his poker, or sneezing in the wake of a flurry of ashes. "No," he would say. Or, "It was nothing." But then a few minutes later, he would pick up his one-sided conversation again, his mind running so fast that it couldn't keep up with his mouth; at least, that's how it seemed. When other sounds of their work didn't overwhelm the quiet utterances, Satoshi picked up bits and pieces, like "he can't leave-" and "- the island is shut off-" and "- there's nowhere warm!" but Satoshi had no idea how to piece those thoughts together.

He tried not to think too hard about it. After all, if Shigeru couldn't figure his problem out, Satoshi figured that he didn't have a chance of understanding anything, so why bother? The morning's work kept him busy, and it took at least half of his concentrated energy to focus on the flames while he alternated rubbing his nose and fingers and ears in order to restore enough circulation in those appendages to keep them from freezing and falling off altogether.

The residual shock of Tano's departure followed into lunch. Shigeru ate quickly, and barely had anything to say. He went to the bathroom as soon as he'd had the last bite, leaving Satoshi with the kiln. It seemed that their work had finally paid off: the brilliant glow of the inner chambers forced Satoshi to look at it from the edge of his eyes, his view absconded by the dull stripes of his eyelashes. It was good news that the flames had risen so high, and he let out a whoop of excitement.

A grin stretched across his face, he bounded around the house and slid to a halt beneath the door frame with the ice-covered toes of his sandals. They just barely brushed over the boundary between the inside and outside flooring. Shigeru wasn't in sight so Satoshi cupped his mouth and shouted to him.

"Hey!" he called out into the room. "I think the kiln's hot enough!"

Shigeru's reply seemed to come from the wall.

"What are you telling me for?" it said. Satoshi turned his head towards the sound that seemed to be coming from directly behind the rug that led to the bathroom. Had Shigeru been in there since lunch? Satoshi wondered.

"I thought you wanted to know that we could get started," he offered.

"Oh. Yeah, I did. Thanks." Shigeru's voice was muffled, and yet the distraction in voice was startlingly distinct. "You could put some pieces in now, if you want."

"Or I could just wait for you. It's not like you won't be out of there in a minute."

"It's also no reason for me to hold you up."

"...Okay," Satoshi said uncertainly. "If you're sure." He had wanted to say that he wouldn't mind being held up - after all, it would be more fun if they could put in the dishes together - but it was kind of a stupid thing to want and he just barely caught the words before they came off of his lips and Shigeru mocked him for it. Satoshi screwed up his face, trying desperately to think of something that he could say which didn't sound really ridiculous, but still said what he wanted.

Eventually, he decided on, "I'll save some for you to put in."

Shigeru didn't reply. Satoshi walked back to the kiln with footsteps that were dragging more heavily than the snow necessitated.

The first batch of pottery that had to be placed into the kiln was arranged in two tight rows on a long, flat plank of balsa wood. There were ten pieces, all from his and Shigeru's first experience of attempting to create pottery from start to finish. He could easily see the differences between his work and Shigeru's. Satoshi knew he was probably too sloppy to be a decent artist, and his patterns - especially the earliest ones - were too big in some places and too little in others. Shigeru's strokes were evenly bold; straight where they were supposed to be, swirling or twisting otherwise on a perfectly flat, smooth-clay surface.

Satoshi carefully placed the oven paddle at the edge of the grate. Once it seemed lodged deeply enough in, he began to make the transfer of the bowls from the balsamic wood block to the paddle. He picked them up one at a time, ignoring his own in favor of Shigeru's. As he picked them up, and felt the smooth grain against the pads of his fingers, he thought of the way Shigeru's hands held the pieces so delicately when he carved his decorations into the sides with rope brushes and little twigs. Shigeru would sometimes place it on the top of his knee as he bent over in the grass, bending over to bring the pottery level with his eye. He would work so intently, watching with the whole of his focus; his hand moving without shaking even at the smallest movement. And he would probably smile, too, just a little as he finished.

With an echoing smile on his own face, Satoshi reached for the last piece on the block, and looked at it in surprise when he realized which one he'd grabbed. It was the plate they had decorated together.

It was covered with writing and doodles, etched into every bit of space that the surface had allowed. Honestly, it wasn't something that Tano could sell, so Satoshi wasn't sure why Tano had kept it and had even prepared it for the kiln. But he was glad that Tano had, because he liked this plate. A lot. He turned it around in his hands, reading over the lines, and letting the words slowly warm him in a way that Shigeru's words hadn't done all morning.

The earthquake started so abruptly that Satoshi had no time to prepare.

He was standing with the plate, and then, the world lurched a meter to the left, taking Satoshi with it; he was thrown against the side of the kiln, the air shot out from his lungs like squeezed balloons before he had the chance to gasp. His hands were at his head on a reflex he wasn't sure why he was making, because everything was black for a moment and then he realized, with a start, I think I just hit my head, and then he opened his eyes, and saw the pale, white earth dancing in front of him. Black dots in the air all around him. The world struck by a trembling fit. And the plate was in the air somewhere; No, it was in front of him. Now, falling - The plate! he thought, desperately, wondering even underneath that thought, why was he so desperate? Because he'd shaped the pottery out of the very ground? or because he made it with Shigeru? - but he reached out too late, and he heard over the sound of the growling ground, which rumbled like an upset stomach, the smashing sound of clay. It was on the ground, it was on pieces on the ground, all around him, in puddles and snow and mud.

No, he thought desperately, and then he heard himself saying it, "No!"

The earthquake stopped immediately, and the world returned to its proper place as if cowed by the lash of a whip. The last of Satoshi's strength left him, and he slid to the ground, not caring that the seat of his tunic was being doused with ice and mud and the seat of his trousers was soaking through. His head was throbbing. He felt one of the pieces of the broken plate at his hand, and he scrabbled to grasp it.

He remembered.

Because last time wasn't that different, really. An earthquake had brought him here. And he'd been in the desert, somewhere around here, but somewhere else, opening an envelope and dumping pieces across the ground, idly watching how they fell in patterns as random as the sand at his feet. He'd been crying, then, too. Hurting. Wondering why he'd even left his room, thinking about how he was lonely, and thinking about Shigeru, who he-

"Satoshi!" yelled a voice nearby.

- who he had wanted to see so badly.

Satoshi turned towards the sound of Shigeru's voice, breaking out of the memory and the haze.

Shigeru was standing a few feet from him. He was blurred for some reason; barely more than a pair of wide eyes and bright auburn hair on a body braced against the door frame. Relief rushed through him, and Satoshi let out a breath he hadn't remembered he'd been holding. And then suddenly the vision was moving, and Shigeru was at Satoshi's side, grabbing him by the hands and now he felt Shigeru was bracing against him, or perhaps it was himself bracing against Shigeru, in the wake of some enemy that could only be faced but not defeated.

"Are you all right?" Shigeru's voice seemed to float on the crest of a wave that crashed against Satoshi like he was a rock jutting out in the middle of the sea. He closed his eyes, and let the wave break against him, scattering water everywhere; and then he was swimming. He was swimming in the comfort of Shigeru's voice.

"I hit my head," he heard himself saying.

"Put your hands down so I can see it. Satoshi-"

Shigeru's voice softened into nothing and the wave swept back to the sea, leaving the world sharp and distinct. Cold, yet warm. All the heat in his body seemed to be concentrated in blazing, fiery trails where Shigeru's fingers ran through his hair, barely brushing against his scalp. He bit the bottom of his lip to keep down the shiver that threatened to rise from each vertebrae of his spine.

"You'll probably get a big knot, but you aren't bleeding, as far as I can see." Shigeru withdrew his hand, and Satoshi forced his eyes to open up again, and he watched Shigeru bring his fingers to his face and absently begin rubbing his chin as he considered Satoshi from very close.

So close, really. Satoshi's heart pounded in his chest.

"Shigeru. The plate, it-"

He gestured to their creation, scattered in pieces all across the ground, broken up in shards as sharp and jagged as a Pikachu's tail.

"-broke," he said.

"That's all? Could've been worse," said Shigeru immediately. He rose from his squat, and then bent to offer Satoshi his hand. "Come on, let's check to make sure nothing else was damaged from the quake. We can then finish our job."

"I'm still kind of dizzy," said Satoshi, but he let himself be pulled up. His eyes immediately sought out the place where he had left the paddle lodged inside the grate. With the singular exception of the bowl that Satoshi had made with Shigeru, all nine of the remaining bowls and plates sat innocently on the paddle, ready for firing in the kiln. Not a single one had been pushed onto its side, or cracked, or made victim of ashy refuse that the oven had exhumed.

"That's strange," Shigeru commented, voice low. "It doesn't seem like anything happened to them, does it?" Satoshi nodded, and leaned his weight forward onto his feet. Shigeru let go of his arm.

His knees buckled and he began to fall.

"Satoshi, what the hell-" Shigeru caught him with effort. "What did you do to yourself?"

Satoshi rubbed his face against Shigeru's arm without meaning to. It smelled good, he thought. It felt good. He looked up at Shigeru, into his eyes. He felt lightheaded, yet he didn't care. But that was hardly normal.

"I think I need to lay down," he said, breathless.

"Yeah." Shigeru replied. He seemed to be suffering from the same tightness of the lungs as Satoshi, because his words came out both husky and slow. "Yeah. That's - probably a good idea."

Shigeru had laid Satoshi down with a cold compress on his head as soon as he could. Satoshi hadn't tried resisting, and his body still seemed to be in shock. That would explain his inability to stand; his racing heartbeat as Shigeru carried him to Tano's living room. Feeling - seeing, even - the hot puffs of Satoshi's breath against his face was putting ideas in his head that Shigeru couldn't let himself think about.

"That earthquake came so suddenly," Satoshi tried to explain as he got comfortable on the floor. "And it was so strong, but nothing in this room seems broken. Isn't that weird?"

"Not really. It wasn't that strong," said Shigeru. He sat down next to Satoshi and the fire pit. "Your perception is all skewed because you hit your head; that's all. There was only a bit of rumbling, really."

"You sounded really worried for just a bit of rumbling."

Shigeru had been worried, but it was an unreasonable worry that had been exacerbated by a morning of fretting about the future. "Was not," he bluffed. "I heard you shout and knew something was wrong, that's all."

"Oh." Satoshi appeared to consider this new information. "Well, you were acting strange earlier," he reasoned.

"Not as strange as you're acting now. Actually…" Shigeru brought himself down to Satoshi's level. "Hold on, I'm going to do a test. Follow the movement of my finger with your eyes, okay?"

Shigeru held his index finger in front of Satoshi's eyes, a few inches away from his nose. Slowly, he began to move his hand, and the finger across Satoshi's range of sight. Satoshi's brown eyes were half-focused as they trailed the movement, like sluggish mud.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Checking you for a concussion," Shigeru answered. "And it seems like you might have a minor one. You should probably rest."

"Yeah. I feel really dizzy," admitted Satoshi. "What are you going to do?"

"I'll finish loading the kiln, probably. Check on the temperature and make sure there's plenty of fuel to last us for a while. And then… I'll probably wake you up, so we can go back to get our things from Haruka's and move them here."

"What?" Satoshi looked confused. "Why would we do that?"

"Because it's… it just seems strange staying at Haruka's house. We haven't seen her, or her brother, for a long time now. There's no reason to be moving back and forth from house to house in this cold weather when we don't have to, especially at this stage in the firing process."

"But why should we stay here and fire the pots at all? I mean, if Tano's not here, I don't see the point…"

Shigeru couldn't ignore the churning feeling in his stomach. He'd been thinking all morning about Tano leaving, but he'd been so busy trying to understand why and how Tano had left that he had completely forgotten to think about where to go from there. And he hadn't been thinking about practical things; like about how they were supposed to live in the moment. No wonder he'd barely been able to keep down his lunch. He was stressing himself out in the most useless way possible.

"We need to see the Chief again," Shigeru decided. "He'll figure out arrangements for us, just like last time."

"Do you know where he lives?" asked Satoshi. "Or how to find him?"

"No," Shigeru replied, and he thought for a moment. "But maybe your friends do."

Satoshi looked confused for a while before finally answering. "You mean Takeshi and Kasumi?"

"Unless there are others that I don't know about, then yes," said Shigeru, in a snider tone than he'd intended. Satoshi ignored it, and said slowly, "I thought you didn't like them."

Shigeru tried to keep his tone more regulated this time; to try and not sound jealous of Satoshi having other people he saw as friends. "Honestly, Satoshi, I don't know Takeshi or Kasumi personally, so I couldn't tell you whether I liked them or not. But it doesn't even matter. They're the only people we know that are left."

The words sent shivers down his spine even as he said them. He stood up and looked down at Satoshi, pale and small on the pallet, and still so attractive. He ignored the tug at his stomach that threatened to pull him to Satoshi's side. There were too many other things to think about. There was Satoshi's head wound, for one thing. And Tano's absence, on top of Haruka's and Masato's. And the legend.

"You should rest," he said, and turned around, nearly missing Satoshi's mumbled assent as he walked away, immersing himself in thought once more.

It wasn't surprising that by the time he came back, the kiln loaded and the fires blazing high, Satoshi was fast asleep.

"How long was I out?" Satoshi asked him as they turned the street, leaving Tano's courtyard and its snow-bent tree behind them.

"A few hours at most," Shigeru answered. He looked up at the sky, searching for the sun, and found it glowing dully in an overcast carpet of high, murky cloud. "Looks like we have a little time left before sunset. Just enough to get our things and bring them back with us to Tano's."

Satoshi rubbed his hands together vigorously. "Okay," he said, distracted.

Shigeru moved his gaze up to Satoshi's face, and he observed it closely. "Are you?"

Satoshi turned away his face, almost as if he were hiding a blush. "Mostly," he said. "My head barely even hurts anymore. I was just thinking."

"I'm sure," said Shigeru, skeptically.

"Seriously," Satoshi insisted, "I was thinking about how we could save time and get back to the kiln faster."

"We're not in a rush," Shigeru pointed out.

"Yeah, but it's cold, this far away from the fire. And we don't have that much stuff at Haruka's, anyway… Just clothes. You could probably carry everything by yourself in a single trip."

Shigeru felt an uncomfortable wave of premonition hearing the words 'by yourself.' "What are you proposing?"

"To go off and visit Kasumi and Takeshi on my own, that's all." Satoshi's tone was light, as if that alone would lend credit to his case. "I can ask them about the Chief and maybe get some dinner, then meet you back at Tano's."

"Oh," said Shigeru. "That makes sense."

And it did, but Shigeru didn't have to like it.

When the road split ahead of them a few minutes later, Satoshi waved a cheerful goodbye and turned in the opposite direction from Haruka's house. Shigeru had never actually seen where Kasumi and Takeshi lived, so for all he knew their house was just around the corner; at the very least, he knew it was located somewhere directly along the Trough and near the edge of the city. Resigned, he watched Satoshi take a few steps in the fresh, untrodden snow. He turned around, still staring at the ground, and followed his and Satoshi's footprints from that morning all the way back to Haruka's.

He didn't lift up his eyes until he reached the front of Haruka's house nearly ten minutes later. Even then, it took him a moment before he could break out of his musings enough to recognize something out of place: the windows weren't darkened like they should've been. Instead, he could see a light glowing from the center of the room. He could hear the crackling of a fire, even, when he listened for it. There was obviously someone inside the room.

Shigeru racked his brain. It couldn't be Satoshi. There was just no way that he could have come back already, especially after going in the opposite direction.

Shigeru fought back his trepidation, systematically unlacing his snowshoes but kicking them off with a bit of abandon, letting them land in the snow. He lifted up the edge of the door hanging, and stepped inside.

Masato sat in front of the fire pit, where a small fire had been stoked up into a blaze. He was wrapped up in so many scarves and layers that the dark green of his hair stood out prominently, looking almost like a deep brown in the red glow of the flames. Shigeru felt the muscles in his leg coil up and tense, like he was getting ready to run, when it was all he could do to stay standing as he was overpowered by questions: What was Masato doing here, after being gone for days with no word, and with no explanation? Why had he left in the first place? Why had he and Satoshi been deprived of food?

And most importantly, what was going on?

"Masato," he said, in wary greeting.

Masato sharply nodded his chin in assent. "Shigeru," he said, in the single word conveying everything that irked Shigeru about the haughty, bratty, thirteen year old boy.

But at least wasn't any more hostile than usual, so Shigeru took the greeting as an invitation to walk inside. He wondered if he'd ever felt less welcome in his entire life than he did now, entering what he'd come to think of as practically his own room, slowly, afraid to startle Masato as if he were a wild Stantler that was poised to leap away at the smallest movement.

He tried to process his shock with as much rationality as he could muster. All things considering, he knew that it shouldn't be a surprise to see the boy here - it was his and Haruka's house, after all. But Shigeru had become fairly resigned to the idea that he wouldn't be seeing Masato anymore, ever. And he certainly hadn't expected that he would have to face Masato alone.

Fighting back his shock, he offered a weak conversational opening. "Haven't seen you around for a while," he managed.

Masato shrugged noncommittally, but that was enough. Shigeru entered the room and sat down across from him, easily two meters away, but still close enough to the fire that he could benefit from its heat. He stuck out his hands, and took great relief from the nearly-painful tingling sensation of warmth being restored to his fingers. Masato put down his poker and folded his arms.

"We need to talk," he said, looking directly into Shigeru's eyes. "It's time."

"Time for what?" Shigeru asked. He withdrew his hands, possibilities rushing through his head as he tried to decipher Masato's cryptic words. Time for what? His mind raced through his theories, scattered memories and thoughts in a flash. There was the cold, the disappearances, there was a memory of him and Satoshi putting pottery into a kiln, the sense of something being 'wrong,' his trip to the Temple -

"Isn't it obvious?" said Masato, exasperated. "It's time for you to explain the way you behaved toward my sister."

Shigeru felt all of the unnamed fears lift at precisely the same time as his stomach dropped down from his throat. The strong sensation of vertigo threatened to make him swoon - and he was sitting.

"You're joking," he said, choked.

"Why would I be joking?" Masato snapped. "You broke my sister's heart."

Shigeru wasn't prepared for this conversation, but he couldn't see any way of avoiding it either.

"I had no choice, Masato," he said honestly. "I didn't - and I don't - love her back. You wouldn't prefer that I lied to her, would you?"

"You did so lie to her; just not directly."

Shigeru huffed. "Even if you were right, which you aren't, how could you even claim to know that?"

"Because I am right, and I was there often enough. Every time you interacted with my sister, I could tell that you were conscious of her feelings, but you weren't even willing to let her down easy. You just acted like everything was normal. You led her on!"

"Are you serious? There's no way you could tell that I knew anything if I was acting normal!"

"I'm a good judge of character," said Masato.

"You're still pre-pubescent! You're hardly old enough to know anything about people's characters, much less how to make good decisions or be responsible and-" Shigeru paused. The gears clicked in his head, and started to turn, and by that same movement of inspiration his forehead wrinkled and his brow dropped down. "Don't tell me," he said, in a voice filled with more threat than speculation, "that this whole time, when you and Haruka had apparently disappeared, that you hadn't gone anywhere. That in fact you were just keeping food away from us out of petty vindictiveness. Weren't you?"

Masato's dropped his chin, and his hair fell across his face, hiding his eyes. "Well," he said.

"Well?"

"Well, Haruka has been preparing your meals as usual. Though for obvious reasons, she's felt uncomfortable with making any deliveries. She asked me to bring the food to you." Masato shrugged, apparently indifferent, as he added, "…Though I might have forgotten once or twice."

"It's been over a week,"Shigeru exclaimed. "You self-centered punk, I should throttle you! We could've starved!"

Masato sniffed. "You deserved not to eat for what you did to Haruka!"

"Satoshi didn't! And besides, that's just sadistic! What's wrong with you?"

"Excuse me if I was more concerned about Haruka and her emotional trauma than with your happiness or whatever minor feelings you may have had-"

Shigeru interjected, "Hunger is not a minor feeling!"

"- But if you had a sister, you'd know that she was a bigger priority!"

"Are you stupid?" Shigeru shouted. "I have an older sister, too!"

"Then you'd want her to be happy more than anything, wouldn't you?" Masato curled his fingers into fists, matching Shigeru. "And I knew you wouldn't make her happy, from the very start. I'm not stupid. I knew that you would never love Haruka, but she wouldn't be persuaded. And then you flirted with her-"

"I don't - I didn't flirt! And besides, how would you have known that I couldn't make her happy? Maybe I could've loved her; what gives you the right to judge?"

"Because," Masato said matter-of-factly, "I saw the way you looked at Satoshi. I knew that he was the only one you cared about."

Shigeru's mouth went dry.

"He's my best friend," Shigeru said in a voice more low than he'd meant to. "That's all."

Masato just rolled his eyes. "Of course he is. And it's normal for people to only be interested in their best friend at the exclusion of everything and everyone else."

"But if you knew I wasn't interested," Shigeru shifted the topic, "Why didn't you say anything to Haruka? If you cared so much as you claim."

"I did say something; nearly every time she brought up your stupid name, I tried to reason with her, but it didn't do any good. She knew that you had to love someone, and kept quoting that stupid legend until she nearly drove me crazy with it -"

"The legend?" Shigeru asked sharply. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Masato cringed, but only for a moment. "Nothing," he covered. "I can't tell you anything about the legend."

"Yes, you can. You just did." Shigeru's heart raced in his chest, and he scrambled to remember exactly what Masato had said. You had to love someone? Was that it?"You already told me, I heard you."

"Then unhear it."

"No," said two voices simultaneously, and only one of them was Shigeru's. The other had come from behind him.

Shigeru turned around, and stared at the door frame where Haruka stood tall. She was stricken by shadows and the top of her shoulders were lightly dusted with snow.

"You know, eavesdropping is not the sign of a good host," Shigeru said, fighting back his shock.

Haruka ignored him, and closed the flap behind her. She addressed Masato, looking past Shigeru with targeted intensity: "Things have changed, Masato. I've just come back from the Temple, and the Protectors have spoken. We're almost out of time."

"There is no way that both of you said you were out of time as a coincidence," Shigeru interjected, but was ignored.

"I'll tell the Chief," Masato said to Haruka. He got up, and apparently weighed down by his scarves, he nearly stumbled over himself, all gangly limbs. Haruka shook her head.

"No, Masato. Wehave to go together."

"I'm telling you, neither of you are going anywhere without telling me what you're talking about first," Shigeru demanded. This time he stood up, forcing the siblings to look at him. "If something's about to happen, and it involves me and Satoshi, I need to know."

"But we have to go now," Masato whined.

"I know," said Haruka, her voice firm but almost chillingly serene.

Haruka took over the spot by the fire where Masato had been sitting, settling herself on the floor cushion with all the elegance her brother had lacked. Shigeru shared a quick look with her, barely catching her eye before being overwhelmed with discomfort, and wondering how she could even stand to look at him; especially if the 'emotional trauma' had been as bad as Masato had said. Then his eyes passed on to Masato.

"Well, get on with it," said Masato, almost sounding bored. "Ask what you want to ask and let us go. We can't be here all day."

"You know what?" Shigeru suggested, "If you're in such a hurry, I don't see why you don't just run ahead of us and let Haruka meet you there."

"I suppose I can agree to that," Haruka put in, obviously changing her stance on the issue. "I'll join you shortly, Masato."

Masato appeared uncertain, but ultimately gave in to his sister's unwavering gaze. "All right," he submitted.

"But first, you'd better apologize," she commanded, "Or else you won't have food for a week, either. And that'll just be the start."

Masato turned to Shigeru, obviously backed into a corner. He swallowed, and then spoke with grudging disgust, as if the words actually caused him pain: "I'm sorry. And good luck."

Shigeru nodded, though he was uncertain of what he needed luck for. Masato returned his gesture the slightest bow of his head. Then, with the exchange completed, Masato spun on his heel and left Shigeru and Haruka to themselves.

The room was silent but for the distant sound of Masato stepping out into the snow, and breaking into a run. Shigeru shifted himself so he faced Haruka front on. She looked tired, but otherwise like herself. Mostly composed, but with a few hairs free from her clasps, making her human somehow beneath the formality. Shigeru could feel his questions storming up his throat, from the end of his tongue to the tip, and let out an uneasy breath, preparing for the long haul and whatever it might bring.

"So," he began slowly. "The legend."