Chapter Text
Taurik knew something was wrong when he woke up sweating. The room was as cold as ever: nineteen degrees. Heat couldn't be the cause. He felt a slight pressure behind his eyes—a common location for his headaches. The joints in his fingers ached.
He sorted through what he now had to consider symptoms: headache, sweating… slight photosensitivity. Maybe the flu? Last night, he'd been irritated despite no reason he could identify. Meditation hadn’t helped, and apparently sleep hadn't either.
He lifted himself up off the bed slightly, pushing the heavy blanket and sheet to one side. The fact that they were tangled up together indicated that he had been restless in his sleep. Unusual. And the way they sat there on the edge of the mattress was absurdly vexing. He pushed them off the side of the bed so he wouldn't have to see them anymore.
Why did he feel so… heavy? It was as if he could neither think nor move. Certainly not easily, anyway…
The door to his quarters suddenly slid open, revealing Sam in his new yellow ops uniform since switching to the ops position full-time. Even though he'd been wearing it for seven months, today it was jarring.
"Huh." Sam frowned in concern. Possibly amusement, though, judging by his tone. "Good morning, I guess. Are you feeling okay? It's almost oh-eight-hundred."
Taurik didn't know what that was supposed to mean. "Explain the significance."
Sam's head inclined in an expression of naked confusion. That was when Taurik realized last night he had somehow shed the robes he'd usually be wearing. Only his underclothes afforded him any decency. He leaned only enough to see if they were wrapped up in the tangled blankets on the floor, knowing he'd usually be embarrassed about the lack of modesty. And yet, he wasn't. At least, he didn't think so. He was too uncomfortable to think about modesty.
"The significance—? You have shift today. In about ten minutes."
"I believe I am ill…" he mumbled, sliding down to the floor to find his robes. After a bit of sorting and listening to Sam back away, he found it. The blue one. Sam had stayed in a multiple-occupancy dormitory during his time at the Academy, which made his sense of modesty somewhat… less modest. That didn't matter…
"Yeah…?"
Taurik contemplated the sash a moment before finishing the knot. His thoughts felt particularly scattered, incoherent to the point of concern. He added that to his running tally of sudden symptoms.
"You should probably go to sickbay," Sam said.
Taurik worked at the sash some more, even though he'd sufficiently cinched it. "Your instinct for the obvious is truly prodigious."
Sam frowned, though he almost laughed at the same time. "Alright, I haven't seen this guy in a while." When Taurik didn't answer, he said, "Well, let me get you some tea—"
"That is extremely inappropriate!"
He hadn't meant to shout. Taurik glanced up, and Sam's wide eyes couldn't have conveyed any more shock and… fear? Well, that made sense. Taurik was multiple times stronger than Sam. And he was acting somewhat irrationally, wasn't he? Another symptom, perhaps?
"Oh, no."
The realization of what was happening pierced like a needle directly into the center of his awareness. An illness he'd been dreading practically his whole life, a situation he'd been willfully ignoring in the hopes he would be left alone until he was much older.
That was incredibly illogical. But he didn't care. He was pulling his robes off and putting on a shirt and trousers now.
Perhaps in a few days he would consider the timing to have been fine. One age seemed as reasonable as any other. Onset of the pon farr could be as early as sixteen, though it was exceptionally rare. After twenty-two, the distribution was relatively flat, with thirty-seven being the most common age by a small margin. Sixty-five was just as common as twenty-two. He had graduated the Academy, and was serving on the Enterprise by twenty-two. He was twenty-six now. Twenty-six, and half himself these past fifteen months.
He couldn't get the randomly scrolling numbers out of his head, as he counted the robes and trousers he placed into his travel case. For no reason at all.
He very nearly felt relief, if only in that Vorik didn't fear this anymore.
"Hello? Lavelle to Taurik."
"I have neither the time nor inclination to answer your questions." He didn't know what the questions were: he hadn't been listening. He only heard the tone. "I will be taking leave."
"Oh, my god." Sam laughed a little. "This is that weird Vulcan sex-thing, isn't it?"
He wanted to scream at Sam that not only was that characterization extremely degrading, but there was nothing humorous about this. He should have thrown him out of the room, or thrown something out of the room, but he restrained himself. Taurik settled for not looking at him.
"The flippancy with which you seem to regard it notwithstanding…" He opened another drawer to look inside and avoid the acknowledgement.
He'd dreaded this moment like an embedded instinct since before he learned to walk. The first conscious thoughts he'd learned to hide revolved around it. Even the harmony of transparency between himself and Vorik had beheld this topic as a plague, untouchable and unthinkable. The figurative niggling sandworm grown to epic proportions and sent to consume and destroy. The one fear lying under all others: that instinct would replace logic and force would replace reason.
And now it was not a fear. He would become that unthinking worm, and he could only let it happen. He could only run home for familiar hands to lead him where he did not want to go.
He managed to put a grip on his fear and continue. "That is a personal question."
"I've never seen you like this."
"And you never will again." That was more a hope than certainty. But he allowed himself the exaggeration for the moment.
"Copy that." Sam seemed to take that as an invitation to continue to spectate. "So going to see your lady, huh? Is this your first time?"
Taurik glared at the second extremely personal and inappropriate question within only so many breaths.
"Sorry." Sam grinned. "Can I give you some advice?"
"No, you may not." Even though he was sweating, he put his gray robe on over his clothes, the cowl and red sash with them. He still felt naked, even with the hood up. He raked the hood back, off his head, since it didn't seem to make a difference.
"You're not going to deny any of the rumors about this whole thing while you're, uh…" Sam hesitated to squint, gesture vaguely in Taurik's direction. "While you're packing. Is that what you're doing?"
"Rumors are of no consequence to me." He was sure there were many rumors, and there would continue to be long after Taurik was a great-grandfather. And Sam, of course, would never have his answers. "Rumors are an inevitable outcome of privacy where Humans are involved."
"That's not particularly fair," Sam said, and he did somehow sound genuinely hurt by that. "I'm sure in this case most of it has to do with a misapprehension of the facts because of that privacy."
Taurik felt his mind stutter. "It appears I've managed to misapprehend the size of your vocabulary over the past four years."
"What the hell's wrong with you? I'm not an idiot." Sam demanded, then seemed to change his mind on whether he wanted the answer. Which was good, because the only thing Taurik could think to say was nothing. "Look, nobody actually cares about mating practices except for sociologists. Not yours personally, anyway. Well, your wife probably does. Or whatever you'd call her." Sam slumped down into a chair at the table.
"The term is acceptable. We are more than betrothed, but less than married." None of it was right, but all of it was close enough. He couldn't have cared less about precision. "And I'll point out you seem inappropriately fascinated with my personal mating practices."
He reached for his PADD to find out when the next ship toward the vicinity of Vulcan would be leaving. Federation ships were probably ever making minor course corrections for Vulcans like him. He'd never considered that before.
"And I'm nobody. It's logical."
"This is wordplay. Not logic."
For the first time in his life, he wished he'd paid some attention to rumors. He only knew he felt like he'd taken leave of his mind completely. He could barely think a coherent sentence, to the point it seemed difficult to remember what he was doing even from second to second. The fact that he knew what was happening didn't seem to alleviate the encroaching panic.
Yes, he was fine now. But who knew what he would be in another few hours. The days it would take to arrive on Vulcan. By the time he met Saalle, he might have been a complete animal.
But maybe not, because he didn't even have rumors. Non-Vulcans were understandably discouraged from talking about it around them, but even Taurik had little more than a brief overview of the facts and dangers. Extremely brief. Understood enough to fear.
It was illogical, but Taurik understood it now. He could already feel himself slipping through his fingers, and the accompanying embarrassment and terror was enough to convince him he never wanted to speak of this to anyone.
"The Halley is diverting course on its way to Earth for me to board in one hour," he said instead, tapping feverishly to monitor the Halley's progress. Vulcans of his persuasion were given special dispensation for emergency medical leave for this reason exactly, and his request was granted almost immediately. Automatically, he assumed.
"That's soon."
Not soon enough. "Yes."
"Wrong place, though."
"There are daily transports between Earth and Vulcan."
"Oh."
Part of Taurik was amazed he didn't know that—but then he realized there was no reason Sam should know. He never needed to go there. "I will see you in approximately two weeks. Presumably."
He brushed past Sam into the main room, and took a deep breath. He'd done all he could. It wasn't enough. He paced.
He wasn't sure he didn't want advice. But he wasn't going to ask for it. Not now.
He was sure he hadn't been this uncomfortable when he woke up. No, he was just… hot. But the room was cold, and the notion of removing any of his layers was uncomfortable. Realizing what was happening seemed to have had the psychological effect of increasing the severity of his symptoms. Which meant he should be meditating.
Taurik went to the low table and knelt, his awareness burning with Sam's gaze. He looked at the lamp, realized he should pack that, and then looked at Vorik's picture. He should probably pack that, too.
"Well… see you in a few weeks, then," Sam said, and rose.
Taurik bristled. "Yes."
"Is a congratulations appropriate?" Sam asked, and Taurik could somehow hear his smile.
"Sam."
He laughed and left the room.
Taurik almost wished he'd stayed even if all he was going to do was tease him. In the quiet, the fear only loomed larger.
#
Sam sank onto the couch, looking at the replicator as if it had offended him. Somehow, Taurik managed to bring him to the mess hall most days, and now he was feeling it. For better or worse, their mutual friends had come to regard them as being connected by a particularly long cord. And now Sam was beginning to realize they were probably right.
The edge of a thought encroached, but he pushed it away before he could see it.
It had been almost eight months since he'd been in Ten Forward. He missed a lot of things about the Enterprise, and it was surprising that he still did after all this time. The Enterprise-E was still under construction, but Sam found himself watching its progress like the Obsidian Order. Gabi told him all the time how pretty the ship was, and he couldn't even argue anymore. The more and more shape and frame was added, the more beautiful it became.
Not that the Ramsar wasn't nice—it was just old. The windows were all reserved for rooms, though he and Taurik had decided not to request one of the windowed rooms even though they certainly qualified. Having a window necessarily required space to be about a meter away from where they'd be sleeping. That didn't matter to him so much anymore… though it certainly had when they were selecting their quarters. Nightmares no longer yanked Sam out of sleep so regularly as to test a chronometer against.
Sam checked the clock again. Taurik wouldn't even have arrived on Earth yet.
The communications panel blinked with an incoming subspace call. At this point, it was either his mother or Gabi. Mom called every few days to a week, and Sam wasn't sure whether it was for her sanity or his.
Well, certainly not his sanity. He loved his mother, but damn.
He rose, tapped the button to accept and saw Gabi in her familiar quarters on the Sadalbari. "Why the hell isn't Taurik answering my calls?" she asked.
Sam sighed. "Yeah, thanks for calling, Gabi."
"It's not like I don't want to talk to you. I usually call Taurik, but talk to both of you. What do you want? A how are you?"
"That might be nice," Sam admitted.
"You'll notice I don't ask Taurik anymore, either. 'My physical and emotional states are both satisfactory.'" Sam held off a smile that Gabi didn't. "It's not like you ever say anything other than fine."
"I know I'm incredibly boring, but do you have to remind me every chance you get?"
"Sorry. How are you?"
With a sigh, Sam decided not to bother answering the question. She was right. And, to be fair, Taurik not answering calls was probably concerning on the level of Romulans developing trilithium weaponry. "Taurik's going to Vulcan for a few weeks. He's, uh… he's sick."
"Sick?"
"Yeah. He's okay, but—"
"Oh, my god. He's got that thing—?"
"I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate us talking about it." Sam smiled anyway at her easy guess. It was, honestly, the first and only guess anyone ever had when a Vulcan crewmate disappeared for more than a couple of days. Then, predictably, he'd reappear a week or two later, pretending he'd never left. It was the always-correct but never-confirmed guess.
The secrecy was almost insulting. It wasn't like nobody knew. Everybody knew. Everything but the specifics, anyway.
"Well, okay, then," Gabi said, and seemed to relax slightly. "So, what, they don't have subspace on Vulcan or something?"
"You don't want to talk to him," Sam said. "He was more rude than usual. Yelled at me for offering to get him tea. I'm not sure he wasn't going to throw me across the room at one point. Besides, he's probably meditating or whatever."
"Yeah, fair. So, really, what are you up to, then? How's the Ramsar?"
"Deciding what to have for dinner," Sam said. "Then later I said I'd go to a poetry reading." At least there wasn't an android involved. Sam didn't know anything about poetry, except he knew bad poetry when he heard it.
"Nice. I took up bonsai." Gabi suddenly lifted a tiny tree into the frame with striped leaves. It wasn't shaped like anything Sam thought of as a bonsai. Just standard-tree shape. "Cute, isn't it?"
Sam had rarely found himself so speechless over something so trivial. "Sure. Cute."
"We'll see if it's still alive after a few months…" She frowned at it, and put it down. "So you aren't reading poetry. What are you up to?"
"Sovereign pilot certifications."
Gabi made a tiny squealing sound, and Sam couldn’t help but smile. "You're gonna try to get the Enterprise again?"
Sam shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe." He wasn't exceptional, but that thought resurfaced. He had to get out of here. He pushed it away, because he was just really motivated to be successful at something. Oddly directionless for all that ambition. "It's just tactical studies for me, right now."
"You're gonna be able to run a whole ship by yourself by the time you're done," Gabi said.
"Hell, no. I'm not touching engineering."
"Right. You need there to be room for Taurik on your ship." Suddenly, she gasped. "I know it'd never happen, but imagine this: Captain Lavelle and First Officer Taurik. Can I be chief engineer?"
Sam laughed. Taurik would make a terrible first officer. "Sure. In this hypothetical scenario, you're chief engineer."
He had to get out of here. More than that, he had to get away from Taurik. Sam loved him more than he thought he could love anybody—much less someone he didn't even like that much—but he really had become something of a crutch, hadn't he?
Though, it had only just now managed to occur to him: he was getting away from Taurik. Taurik was about to get married. If patterns held, he'd talk to Taurik maybe once every few months from here on out. Less if his wife wasn't particularly happy with Sam being so… whatever Sam was. Even though the result was similar, he was pretty sure this felt worse.
Gabi seemed happy with his agreement, but moved on before Sam could share any of his musings. "He's gonna end up at the San Francisco shipyards, anyway. Or Utopia Planetia. Who knows? But you are going to be captain."
"We'll see."
It was what Sam wanted before, so why not? He was back to normal. His leg was his leg. The Ramsar didn't even have a Commander Riker to scare the hell out of him whenever he walked by. Sam had become too comfortable, and he wasn't waiting for the ship to crash to wake him up again.
#
Taurik's heart beat wildly out of control.
The temperature, which he would have found pleasantly cool only a week ago, seemed to be out to kill him now. Even the hot Vulcan suns and almost-zero humidity could not evaporate his sweat fast enough. He had been walking for almost ten kilometers now, though, so that was plausible deniability to anyone who happened to pass by.
Taurik came to the familiar house on the edge of town, away from the bustle of the other houses and a long walk to any public transit. He'd come here often as a child, even though Skal was never in any mood to entertain him and Vorik.
Skal would not be pleased to see him, now. This was not his responsibility.
But Taurik didn't know what to do. He did the only thing he could think to do, and pressed the call button.
The door opened some ten seconds later. Taurik realized he had not seen Skal in quite some time: he was in his sixties now. Unless something had changed, he lived alone. He worked as a teacher and historian, but Skal was mostly a hermit and a poet.
Skal's impassive expression did not break for the mild surprise sparking across their bond. "Taurik."
Taurik could barely nod in greeting, raise his hand even as he realized it was shaking. "Live long and prosper, brother."
Skal searched Taurik's face for far too long. "Live long and prosper."
Taurik wrung his hand on the strap of his bag, felt the sweat dripping between his shoulder blades, and hung his head in shame. "I don't know where to go."
Skal nodded and stepped aside as he gestured invitingly. "Come in."
Taurik found himself standing in the entryway to his brother's unpretentious one-room house. The kitchen was small and well-kept, made of slabs of stone and wood locally cut and shaped. The desk was well-used and without decoration, and the bed was in the back corner beneath the windows looking out at the red mountains. The lavatory was tucked into a tiny room next to a storage closet that was just as small.
"Why are you here instead of our father's house?" Skal asked, and went to the kitchen. His small replicator dispensed tea at the press of a button.
Taurik attempted restraint. It didn't work quite as well as he wished. "Our father despises me," he whispered, and felt tears burn in his eyes. He tried to stand straight, but his bones seemed to chatter and shake.
Skal frowned, put the cup of tea on the counter within Taurik's reach. He made another and did the same with that one. "You are his son. To see you through this trial is his responsibility, regardless of his opinion. This… this, and others."
"I… I could not remember how to get there." Taurik lifted his eyes to meet Skal's for half a second. "Is that normal?"
"Nothing about the pon farr is normal." He placed a third tea beside the other two, and crossed the kitchen to stand before Taurik.
He was slim—somehow even more so than everyone else in his family—and approximately a centimeter shorter than Taurik. With a deliberate intake of breath, Skal pressed his palm to Taurik's neck, his thumb against his jaw.
"Oh, Taurik." Skal sighed, shook his head. "Why did you not come home?"
Taurik felt the quaver in his voice as well as the rest of him. He let it come. "I do not know."
The familiarity and care Skal felt for him in the bond was somehow even older than Taurik was. He felt Skal's concern, and his sorrow, though his more mature expression of emotional control obviously dulled the cutting edge of Vorik's loss.
Taurik put away those thoughts, and tried to focus on something. Anything. He seized on the three cups of tea and glared. Skal hadn't said they were for him, probably because, irrationally, Taurik wanted nothing from anybody except his mate. He wasn't sure where she was. Skal probably knew, and it took every sliver of rational thought remaining to hold off attacking Skal to demand he tell him.
Most of his concentration was involved in holding off the pain.
Also, the tea was just sitting there. With care not to break them, Taurik took one of the cups and immediately swallowed the contents in two gulps.
"What shall I do?" Taurik asked, pressing the teacup away from him, empty. "Saalle's parents live offworld, and I must go to her, but I believe to do so at this point would be a mistake."
"It was sensible to come here. You're still early in your time," Skal said, though Taurik got the impression that was more an idle observation somehow than an answer to his question. "How many days are you?"
"Three," Taurik said, and then realized he wasn't sure that was true. "Or four?"
Skal nodded. "Returning quickly is wise."
Taurik nodded even as he shivered. He tried to be.
"I will make the arrangements. Are you in pain?"
Pain. Yes. If he were to let his concentration lapse, his head would pound with such a ferocity he was sure his eyes might pop out. Every muscle he possessed seemed to ache, and he was both sweltering and freezing at the same time. And yet he knew it would get worse.
Taurik shook his head, wringing his hand again on the strap of his bag. "No. I can endure it."
Skal gave a solemn nod. "You recognize you cannot endure pain if you have none."
"Yes." Of course. He'd only forgotten the question before he could answer it. "I apologize."
"Lie down."
For several seconds, Taurik looked at the bed in the back of the house, made with the thin sheets of summertime. Skal didn't have a pillow, or much of anything of comfort. Somehow, even the standard issue dressings for his room on the Ramsar was more luxurious than this—and these frugal accommodations were comforting. He and Skal had always been somewhat similar.
He looked back to Skal, though he wasn't sure why.
"I will make arrangements for you," Skal said, and held a hand out, again, toward the back of the house. "Go. Lie down. There's nothing you can do now."
Doing as Skal said, Taurik dropped his bag beside the bed and laid down, though he felt none of his tension release the way it should have. He tried to lie on his back as he would usually be able to rest, but even that was uncomfortable. Finally, he managed to lie on his side, arms tucked beneath him, not quite in the fetal position. Even breathing took an unrealistic amount of effort.
He had no sense of time and hardly a sense of place by the time Skal knelt beside him. "Saalle must be prepared. T'Mir will hold the ceremony at her home just after dawn. Then we will leave you."
The information and sentences were simple enough that even Taurik could understand them.
He shivered at the thought of Saalle's preparations, and wondered if she was as scared as he was. He could become thoughtless, perhaps even violent—but perhaps not. Probably not. He had come home quickly.
"And if she rejects me…?"
If she rejected him, he could only crawl back to his parents, begging their help to find him a new mate. Inevitably someone who didn't know him, who didn't know he hadn't always been this way. He wasn't even sure what this way was, except that it was the source of an untenable amount of shame and sorrow.
"Then you will engage in the challenge with whatever representative she chooses," Skal said. "And you may be free for another seven years, should you triumph."
Taurik turned his eyes into the mattress. "I want to die."
"No, you don't. Not like this. Besides, if you wanted to die, Taurik, you would have already."
"Help me?" Taurik lifted his eyes to see Skal sitting next to him, on his feet, but not appearing at all shocked at what Taurik was asking.
"No." After a moment of consideration, Skal added, "Speak to me about this in thirty days."
Taurik thought that seemed fair, though he wasn't sure why. Everything about him was quivering and aching so he couldn't think of much else, except for Saalle. Though, he put her away in the corner of his mind to be attended to later. As Skal said, there was nothing he could do now.
That only left what he thought of all the time. "Where is Vorik? Why is he not here?"
"You are delirious. Be silent."
"I am not delirious," Taurik snapped, and covered his face with both hands. "I know he is dead. But he speaks to me. Why is he not here? Why has he not come home?"
"Taurik…"
"If he would come home…"
Skal laid one hand on the side of Taurik's neck, his fist against his chest, and held him to lie still. Not that Taurik willingly gave much resistance… "You must rest. Meditate. Focus. If Vorik's katra has found you, then let him be. The separation may be as painful for him as it is for you."
That hadn't occurred to him. Tears spilled, and he looked up at Skal. "You believe he is in pain?"
"I believe that, if you do not close your mind to him, Vorik feels what you feel. It will be as it always was," Skal said. The way he said it, so calmly, Taurik knew it had to be so. "Vorik would pinch his finger, and you would cry out. You would achieve something impressive, and Vorik would be proud. Even in death, he must still be with you in some part: you have the same soul."
"I don't believe in souls."
Skal sighed. "Until presented with a third option as viable, you are either delirious, or you believe in souls. Choose."
Of course, he believed in souls. He thought he hadn't before. At least, he thought not. He believed he could have absorbed Vorik's memories had they been in physical proximity, and, in a way, he would not be lost. At least, not until he was obliged to let a priest take them. He would have wanted to die then, too.
But that hadn't happened.
Instead, he'd died alone and suddenly on the other side of the quadrant, and Taurik could still feel him in the silence, despite the dizzying break. He wasn't completely gone. It was the only explanation he'd found so far.
Still, "To die would be easier."
"It would be a waste."
"I would possess first-hand knowledge on the non-corporeal existence of katra, then."
"So you would." Taurik couldn't tell if Skal was just patronizing him, now. Perhaps it was the prerogative of older brothers… "You may haunt me with the knowledge if provided the opportunity in the future. Now be still and focus. Do you see the flame?"
Taurik nodded, envisioning the suns and the stars visible at night from his window in a home he couldn't remember reflected in the small candle of his lamp—himself. His mind. "I see it."
"Meditate. Find what remains of your thoughts and hold them still."
Though it took an incredible effort, Taurik eventually calmed.
He wasn't so far gone that he couldn't see how irrationally he was behaving.
The aimless impatience was the worst of it. He folded it up and put it aside. Anxiety wouldn't bend time to its will: Saalle would be ready when she was ready.
If she rejected him, worrying about it now was hardly constructive.
She would be correct to reject him. He'd not attended to their bond as he should have in the past year. Sometimes, he'd ignored her completely. He'd spoken to her, yes, normally and on schedule, but what did she care for words? He'd made only errors in their relationship, and now he would see the consequences of those decisions.
It was logical that an action or inaction should have a reaction.
Skal sat beside him through the afternoon, and when the suns fell behind the mountains he was still there. Taurik didn't know how he was so silent, except for the shimmering of their weak familial bond. A brief examination, and Taurik realized Skal was, somehow, holding him together mentally, as glue in a shattered vase or bandages on a shredded wound. Skal was so calm and composed, Taurik thought Skal must have known something that Taurik didn't know.
Of course, he did. At this moment, it seemed Taurik knew nothing.
"Skal?"
"Do not speak."
He was probably right about that, too.
Hours passed, and the pounding in his head grew more severe. The ache spread through his bones, settling and filling him up. Two days ago, he had surpassed the worst pain he'd ever endured.
Skal pulled him up from the bed before the suns rose again, dressed him in loose-fitting robes when he couldn't do it himself.
Skal took him from the house. Taurik didn't know where.
The pain landed in his hands to hold, his head to dwell upon, and the length of his spine to replace all other senses he had. His body felt swollen and hot and it would not stop. It might never stop.
As he stood in the garden of rocks and plinths waiting for something to happen, he knew for certain he'd never been more afraid. A darkness impossible to understand had been creeping in on his vision for what felt like his entire life.
He didn't know how he knew Saalle came out, but somehow he knew.
Shapes bent and sound distorted. He had never been so afraid, and of so many things he could hardly catalogue them. This situation would be harrowing enough with Saalle—he knew her, and she him. She knew he wasn't ordinarily the wild animal he would become; he was normally not like this.
He didn't know what he normally was, anymore. Perhaps, he was not what he had been. Not who she remembered.
But he was not this.
He kept his eyes on the ground, listening to whatever words were being said without paying attention. He knew the prescribed words, anyway; they didn't matter. They were old and stale, unlike his boiling blood, vibrant and barbed.
More than anything else, he knew he must not look at her. He didn't know what he would do if he did.
Taurik heard her voice, and felt her in his mind. She said his name.
"Saalle," he returned. There were words he was supposed to say, and he knew them as if they'd been written on his fingers. "Parted from me and never parted, never and always touching and touched. We meet here in this place."
He glanced up only long enough to see Saalle nod softly. "I await you."
T'Mir intoned in words so ancient and a grammar so foreign, he would have taken days to untangle it if he weren't suddenly so… so distracted. Something smelled sweet and dusty.
Something felt hot and coarse.
Something tasted like sweat and like thirst.
Something sounded like a gong, and he nearly fell to the ground in relief. He wasn't sure why.
"She has accepted him," T'Mir said. "This is our way. Go, now."
Saalle walked ahead of him into the familiar house. He could see her, now. Saalle was dressed in a dove gray robes, her obsidian hair untidy as it always was. She was, somehow, all he could see until he found himself shut in a room lit only by lamps and candles, and she knelt on the floor.
"Come," she said, and waved him closer.
He shook his head, even though to get closer was all he wanted. But he wasn't so far gone yet. At least, he hoped not.
Either that, or he was.
He shook his head again. "I am afraid."
"I know." Saalle settled, patted the floor before her. "Come. Complete our Bond."
Taurik dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead to the floor, and accepted the intense regret and dread of the rightful consequences for what they were. "Forgive me, Saalle."
He could only hear her breathing, as if shocked at his behavior or disdainful of his regret.
"I have taken for granted your kindness in accepting me even this way, and I've presumed on your patience in hiding myself from you. It wasn't my right, but…" But, nothing. She wouldn't care for excuses. "Please, do not turn me away."
"Taurik."
"My life is in your hands, Saalle."
He hadn't noticed she crossed the room, her slippered feet on the floor before him. He carefully lifted his fingers in the thought to touch them, but if he took her when she was unwilling, if he hurt her—that would be a shame he couldn't bear.
He would not touch her.
Instead, he pressed his palms to the back of his head and tried, only, to breathe.
With a sigh, she knelt before him. Her hands on his shoulders shook his very bones. "You may be still possessed of your will, but your reasoning has fled you." He shivered when he felt her breath on his ear. "We will talk later."
"You are very wise," he said into the floor.
"I am very… unaffected," she said, as if a correction. "Rise. Complete our Bond."
With a trembling breath, he pressed up from the floor and looked into her eyes. He suddenly remembered.
She'd accepted him.
They'd been left here in this place together.
She pressed her fingertips to his shoulders, and came close enough to touch.
He hadn't been thinking.
He lifted his shaking hands, but pulled back. Averted his eyes for fear she would see how desperate he was. How afraid. How mortified, because soon she would know. She would share his fire and insanity, and she would know everything. Part of him still didn't want to make her feel this frantic and out of control, part of him still didn't want her to see.
The overwhelming emotion and physical perceptions already crawled across his mind like a legion of ants let loose in a maze—scattered and confused and hunting frantically for something he did not want to find.
"I'm afraid," he whispered, again.
She slid closer, resting her palm against his cheek, and his heart flew up into his ribcage only to find there was less escape there. "To delay will only make it worse," she said, and took his hands in hers. Her palms were as lighted coals against the backs of his fingers, but he realized she, also, held back her fear. "You will challenge no one except me today."