Chapter 13

In all his memory, the Hero could not recall such overwhelming exhaustion, like a shadow on every thought and move he made. Once his stomach touched the softness of his rented bed, the noise from the tavern downstairs dwindled to something less than the shuffling of a particularly timid mouse, and he was gone.

When he woke, sunlight spilled into the room and warmed his boneless body like no blanket in the world, and he noticed with some grim humor that he had not moved once in all his long sleep.

He didn't want to get up, and for a long time he didn't. But the past day's tension began to build, to tease his consciousness, and he eventually gave up on fighting it. The Hero wandered the streets until the sky glowed orange, and returned to the tavern for the things he'd left there.

The large upstairs room had sheltered two other customers besides himself the night before: an older man who had assumedly left early in the morning, and a young woman who remained behind. She sat silently on her bed, discretely counting out a weighty bag of coins. Watching her fingers flick the money swiftly and with ease, Doumeki tried to remember if she had been part of the small crowd gathered around the game table before. With a nod in her direction, he retrieved his pack moved for the stairs.

The Hero's hazy thoughts of hot food and the Guild's cafeteria cleared away like so much smoke when, having reached the bottom floor, he laid eyes on the shoulders of a very dear friend bent over a tanker at a corner table, swaying like a ship at sea.

His eyes went round with surprise, and then just as suddenly narrowed as he, scowling, crossing the tavern in long steps to somewhat roughly take Watanuki's shoulder in hand. After a beat the warlock's head lolled on his neck, swinging back with drunken fluidity and fixing him with a blank stare. His tablemate said something scorching and rude, but Doumeki didn't hear it. An angry heat came to his face as the Hero realized the pupils he looked down into were much, much too large—the shiny black up to the edges of the young man's eyes, his usual gold and blue reduced to thin rings.

The warlock blinked several times, and in those few moments managed to cleanly convey different amounts of confusion, suspicion, recognition, and joy before he shot up from his seat with a cry and tightened his arms around the taller man.

"Aiya, tus'gondrey mischa doir oe!" He squalled happily, nuzzling his cheek into The Archer's throat. Doumeki paused at the flood of foreign words, suppressing a shudder at the resonance he felt from them, and leveraged the clinging spellworker away. He bent to peer into Watanuki's eyes and wonder distantly at what could have caused the dilation, but the young man seemed unable, or unwilling, to hold still. Doumeki caught one of his hands on its way to his face and startled when he saw how it shook, badly, in his grip. Watanuki smiled at him, unsteady on his feet, and managed to slur "Sesiya ha, no'mai o'seki misut rangshag, misut omai ranshag," before tumbling forward into the Hero's arms and passing out.

On top of a crummy filler chapter two weeks ago, late chapter is late. Sorry guys, I'm struggling with ideas for the next arc.

...and I hated writing this scene. I don't know why, but I did.

-Oceans