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When Azune woke, it was blisteringly hot. He stumbled out of bed; his tongue felt too big for his mouth and he opened his jaw in a dry pant. Dried sweat itched his lower back.
The apartment building’s heater must be broken badly, he thought muzzily. He should offer to take a look. He wasn’t the best with machines, but Ms. Lance, the orc that owned and managed the building, was even worse. And she was kind. He would like to save her the gold of calling someone else to fix it, if he could.
He washed his face, then tugged on his uniform, then his boots. The same routine as always, but he felt slow. Clumsy. The air was syrupy and hot, like moving through molasses. Azune usually grabbed a piece of flatbread and dried meat before heading out on a morning patrol, but the idea of rough bread scraping along his throat made him feel abruptly nauseous.
The heat. Must be. He would offer to fix it when he came back this evening. No- Hal and the others, he was meant to meet them tonight at the Seven Stars. He would fix it tomorrow morning. Tomorrow was an evening patrol. It could wait until then, surely.
He stood, and stumbled under the weight of his armor. Azune was so used to it, he hardly noticed the weight most days, but today it felt like an extra layer of gravity, pressing him into the ground. He wished briefly he could go back to sleep- his head was pounding– before recoiling hastily from the thought. That was lazy. Wasteful. Unbecoming of a true soldier.
Thjazi would be disappointed in you, he thought.
(Thjazi is dead, something thought back)
A surge of guilt swelled like vomit, and he stumbled to the door.
Time to patrol.
______________________________________
Azune was awfully, terribly, guiltily grateful of the increased wariness and tension towards Arcane Marshalls at the moment.
It’s not as though they had ever been popular, really, but well. Azune helped older folk with bags, and carried candied nuts in his belt for kids, and had cast Mending on more than one cart wheel, or door, or other miscellaneous object, and people tolerated him at least. Approached when they had a minor issue they thought he could solve, and he would be an extra pair of arms to lift, or Mend a torn blouse, or such. It was nice. It healed something torn deep within him, just a little bit, to be helpful like this, instead of just on the battlefield. In life, rather than death.
Today, people shied away. Whispered about crackdowns, new laws against magic. “The execution”, he heard, repeated again and again. The execution.
He wasn’t happy about that. Any of it. Just– bad on top of bad, fear on top of fear. But–
But, well. He felt– wrong. Out of his body, almost, and ten feet away, except not that at all, because he could feel the minute tremble in his limbs, the trudge and scrape of his feet as he forced them along, and the deep heaviness of his body. He wasn’t even– he had had Detect Magic up, but he kept dropping it by accident as his thoughts wandered and faded into static. Muscle memory carried him along the patrol route; if it wasn’t for that, Azune didn’t know if he would’ve been able to focus enough to walk it.
He didn’t think he could really help like this. The idea of lifting something or casting was– inconceivable, almost. Walking was hard.
“I thought you said you’d do whatever it takes,” something (someone?) snide and annoyed whispered.
His back straightened.
This was his job.
Whatever it took.
______________________________________
The day was over and something was– wrong, but he couldn’t think right. Everything was a haze. He wanted to lay down. He squinted at the setting sun.
Burning. Burning sun. He wondered if the sun ever felt all burned up. Ashes, no fire. No rising, setting. It wasn’t hovering. Someone had said it was hovering but it wasn’t. It was setting and dying.
He pressed a hand hard into his eye, vaguely upset.
He was outside the Brethern Hall and the sun was setting. His job was over. He should be able to go lay down. But he couldn’t. Why couldn’t he?
Azune pawed at his belt. His schedule. His list. That would tell him. Then he could do it. Then he could lay down.
He squinted.
The words seemed oddly blurry. Write better. Do better. We can do better tomorrow, and he shakes his head hard.
Shakes it all away.
He… couldn’t remember. He was outside the Brethern Hall and the sun was setting. List. List. He had a meeting. Seven Stars. Who was he meeting?
… he’d figure it out. Acting. Lying. Improv. He was good at improv. At lying to guards. Thjazi said so. Ruffled his hair, said, “You ever try acting, kid? My brother would love you.”
He wouldn’t be good at acting like that. No one to perform for. Acting was just figuring out what someone wanted and being it. Too many people got– complicated.
People were complicated. That’s why people liked his acting. He made it simple. Whatever it takes. Whatever they wanted.
His feet dragged against the ground. He walked to the Seven Stars.
______________________________________
Azune found himself sitting in a room. Wooden table. Cool. He laid his face down on it; it felt nice. He’d get up when his contact got here. Then the meeting.
It’d be easy, he reassured himself. All these meetings were the same. Help someone who was helping Thjazi. Or, sometimes, intimidate someone out of being a problem for Thjazi. He couldn’t remember which one this was, but it was usually obvious when they walked in the door. Azune was good at reading people.
He blinked, and his head was face down on the table. Someone was shaking him. He dragged his eyes open with the inexplicable feeling that time had passed and groaned.
“Azune? Hey, kid? You alright?” A low voice said. The voice’s hand was still on his shoulder, he noticed.
He tried to look up and caught a blur of green and dark hair.
“Tha- Thjazi?” He slurred out.
The grip tightened. Thjazi didn’t answer.
The meeting, Azune suddenly remembered, with a flash of terror.
He jolted upright. “The meeting,” he gasps. “Sorry- I- I can do it. I didn’t mean– sorry.”
Thjazi’s face swims in front of him. He can’t tell if he’s mad. Thjazi’s never really been mad at him before, except for the time he had given away their position screaming. Teor took him aside after the battle and said it was worry. Azune was pretty sure it wasn’t, but he didn’t say so. Teor could think what he wanted.
“Kid, it’s uh,” Thjazi clears his throat strangely. “It’s me.”
Azune nods slowly. Each nod feels like shaking his brain in a container.
He doesn’t–
He doesn’t know what Thjazi is trying to tell him. Are they doing the meeting, or not? He doesn’t–
Azune will do it. Of course he will. But if there isn’t a meeting, he’d– well. He’d like to go home.
(Lazy)
“Right,” he says. “... the meeting?”
“The others will be here soon,” Thjazi says. He sounds weird. Maybe he’s getting sick. Azune never gets sick. Kattigan grumbled that that was his real magic, but it wasn’t. His real magic is magic.
“Azune?”
Azune hums, caught. His hand jerks as he fights the urge to salute.
“Yes, sir.” He says.
“Are you alright? You seem tired.”
He straightens. “I can do it.”
“… alright, kid. Get some rest after this.”
He twitches his face into a smile, and does salute that time. “Yes, sir,” he says. It’s a joke. Except for in the ways it’s not.
______________________________________
Azune surreptitiously pinches himself under the table until the others arrive. Thjazi doesn’t seem to mind. He scribbles on papers in the corner, muttering about edits. Azune… can’t quite understand what he’s saying. The small surge of alarm is pushed under a surge of fuzzy slowness.
It’s fine. He’s fine.
The door swings open.
He sees red hair in a braid, and is standing before he knows what he’s doing. For a second he sees double, feels-hears-sees blood on his hands and the words don’t leave me on his lips and a long red braid and then-
And then there is a wrist in his grasp and he’s squeezing tighter and tighter because if she’s there, if he can feel her, then she can’t—
breaktheglyphleavehimonthecornerDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE
There’s confused sound around him. Pushing and tugging try to separate him from Mayali, but he’s holding, he’s holding. They won’t snatch her away again. There’s tears on his cheeks, and he catches and confused, blurry glimpse of a beard, just barely has the time to half-think, Mayali doesn’t have a beard before a hard force on his chest shoves him off and away. He hits the table.
No, he thinks. His hand flexes, and lightning sparks gather instinctively before—
“HALT”
The word reverberates in his mind. His hand goes slack and he relaxes into the table.
A beat of silence.
“Now,” a drawling voice says. “What exactly is going on here?”
______________________________________
Hal knows, with the ease of someone who’s been watching storms build all his life, that he saw the signs.
He dismissed them, but he saw them.
Azune, snoring stuffily. The sweat left on Hal’s hand after he shook him awake. The way he squinted up at him and called him Thjazi.
But he doesn’t know how Azune snores, and he had come from patrol, and he knows better than most how dreams can disorient you and-
Well.
It all sounds like excuses in his head. Like him turning away, because it was easier. Because he wanted a life without the trouble.
It doesn’t matter either way, he supposes, except for his own self-doubt. He is here, and if Azune’s slowly tightening grip on Murray’s wrist is to be believed, so is the trouble.
He leaps out of his seat. Murray attempts to jerk back and yelps, “Augh! What the fuck, Azune, you scared the beezebus outta me!”
Azune doesn’t respond. His gaze is tunneled in on her back, where, in deference to the warm day, Murray had her hair gathered in a coppery braid. Hal reaches his side and wraps a gentle hand around the wrist of the hand holding onto Murray, trying desperately to remember any battle shock strategies.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he finds himself saying. “None of that. It’s just Murray, Azune. Just Murray, just us, we’re all good.”
“What’s up with him?!” Murray hisses.
“Don’t know,” Hal says, trying to catch Azune’s gaze. Azune’s lips are moving, but whatever he’s saying is too quiet to hear. He gently tugs on his wrist, but Azune refuses to be guided.
“Trying to figure it out.”
“Well, can you try to figure it out faster?” Murray says, grimacing. “This is starting to hurt.”
Hal looks down at her wrist. Azune’s grip is tight enough that the skin is white and bloodless. A bit of blood trickles down from where his fingernails are breaking skin. Hal thinks of a Crowkeeper slumping with their chest caved in and is suddenly absolutely certain that Azune can break Murray’s wrist, if this keeps up.
A thread of panic setting in, he yanks Azune’s wrist, hoping for- movement or awareness. He jerks the two’s arms to the side but they remain locked together. Azune’s hand clenches down.
Murray bites off a curse, plants a fist in Azune’s chest, and shoves. Azune hits the table, empty-eyed and panting, and flexes his fingers. Sparks gather, and Hal has just enough time to think Shit before-
“HALT”
Bolaire stands in the doorway. Thank the Old Path.
“Now. What exactly is going on here?”
Hal darts a glance at Azune, who looks- confused. Just confused, staring at Bolaire’s mask like he can’t quite make it make sense. He’s lost the intensity, the focus. It makes him look quite suddenly grey and exhausted.
Murray brushes herself off, and steps closer to Bolaire, whispering. Hal steps into Azune’s line of sight.
“Azune?” He asks. “Do you think you can sit?”
Azune nods slowly, blankly. Hal guides him, and he drops hard. Hal goes to sit himself but Azune catches his hand. Clutches it, like a child holding a beloved toy.
“Th’azi,” he slurs. “I- I lost her.”
Hal crouches next to the chair. Azune’s face is tucked to his chest; he looks miserable.
“Lost who?”
Azune doesn’t reply. He tugs Hal’s hand closer and says, apropos of nothing, “I can do the meeting.”
“No,” Hal says slowly. “No, I don’t think so tonight, kid.”
Murray taps on his shoulder. Her hair is undone from its braid; she leans down and whispers, “Mayali” in his ear.
Well, fuck. He nods and mouths, “Sick” back at her.
Hal looks back at Azune, who’s pulled out the notebook he keeps in his pocket. “No,” he says, “no, ‘s tonight.”
Hal sighs, and hauls him to his feet. “Not anymore, it’s not.”
Azune’s face tilts downwards as he slumps over Hal’s shoulder. He clutches onto him tightly and says, helplessly, “Please. Please. I can do the meeting.”
Hal usually can look at Azune and see the man that he is. He does, still, right now. He also hears that tone of voice and immediately pictures a 12-year-old he’s never met insisting to Thjazi he was capable enough to join a rebellion.
“It’s fine, Azune. We’ll do the meeting tomorrow.”
He starts out the door.
“I can run it again. Get a better time.”
He’s nowhere near reality, Hal thinks and can’t help passing his hand over Azune’s forehand to check his temperature again.
“The first time was good enough.”
“No it wasn’t,” Azune mutters. His hot breath fans over his neck. “No it wasn’t.”
They stumble into the street, and Azune’s eyes flutter into the back of his head. Hal tucks the relief he feels when Azune passes out somewhere in the place in his mind that carries blades.
You always were one to turn away from trouble, he accuses himself, and tells himself the voice doesn’t sound like Thjazi.