Campus Proper
Midday on the 65th of Roalis, 2719
"My observations have nothing to do with your current apparent age." Ezre was not entirely capable of realizing his own isolated, Kzecka-born ignorance was just as boldly on display in this moment as the dark new lines inked fresh into his skin barely a week ago, shining in the sun under a layer of sweat, naive in his sheltered childhood, raised among the dead and the living without the boundaries and the definitions of what any normal Anaxi would probably ever consider comfortable.
While the last name Vauquelin could have—should have—been familiar in the sense that the once-Incumbent had a child of Brunnhold age, the Hoxian knew so very few students outside of his very small, very specific social circle here on campus that he had never made the connection. Besides, if nearly all of Anaxas' galdori attended their Kingdom's school—how many shared a last name without even sharing lineage?
Ezre had, innocuously—immaturely—allowed himself the illusion of the familiar, trusting with what could only be described as the most genuinely well-intentioned of innocence that someone like Tom Cooke somehow felt and thought and understood in the same ways that the Hexxos Guide did simply by the nature of his similar but not-at-all-the-same existence to more personal connections he had so recently been in contact with, given that he was almost literally right out of the airship from Hox. He had not once—not really, not deeply—considered the vast gulf of differences that separated himself and the raen he'd projected this illusion onto, not once wanted to lift the veil and stare too long at a face neither of them really knew in life. He had allowed himself the comforting lie that the two of them were somehow sharing saatri, sharing culture, purely on the basis of each other existing, purely on the basis of the other man being raen as if he was at all like any other raen he knew, as if he wasn't still so freshly human, when, in fact they shared very little in common at all—other than an inescapable awareness of the supernatural.
Ezre balked somewhere between the words life and worth and monster, eyes growing wide at the emotions that did not want to be, could not possibly be hidden in the other galdor's—in the human's—in the raen's—in Tom's voice. Ezre could not understand the use of the last word, could not reconcile whether the raen was speaking in that moment of what he had been—a human and a criminal at that, as far as the Hoxian had interpreted, albeit with a niave lightness, albeit with some idolizing innocence no other sane galdor would have passed over so easily—or of what he had become—a body-snatching, soul-devouring nightmare poured into someone else's skin with no direction, no answers, and no reason to exist other than the stubborn persistence of memory and the lingering will to live all souls seemed to possess.
He blinked, slowly, something too hot, too humid to be his own breath hitched in his tattooed chest, "Dru—that is not—it was not—"
Wasn't it, though? Wasn't it all his his intention? Wasn't it his point?
Ezre did not know how to make a village.
He had already admitted his inked hands felt too small.
He did not yet understand how to bring two things together, not in the right ways: Clairvoyant conversation had taught him how to span great distances between things that were separated and the mortuary sciences had taught him how to help others separate themselves, one last time, from those who were no longer present. Hoxian society had taught him what that some things were supposed to remain separate: his public self from his private emotions, galdorkind and humanity, the living and the dead—whether these things were right or wrong, true or false, he had still been born into a way of seeing. He had been shown, however, that this perspective was mutable, as the world was mutable through Monite, that separation was mutable through relationships (regardless of race) but he had yet to master his own magic, let alone his own metaphorical vision, let alone his heart or his handling of the hearts of others.
Lilanee was angry. He had hurt her.
He could see in Tom's body language and hear in the crack of his voice that he had hurt the other man, too.
His so-called religious upbringing had given him a unique opportunity to see what was otherwise believed to be unseeable, unknowable, and non-existent but it had not, could not, teach him how to reconcile what the rest of the world saw, each as an individual, from their own point of view. Not that anyone could, ultimately, teach him the one use for all of what he did know, not that anyone could, ultimately, put his somewhat esoteric, somewhat disconnected wisdom onto a better path. Not alone, and not without Ezre's willingness to bend to the journey.
The young galdor had, at least, left home, but he had not, not quite yet, left himself—most especially, though not specifically, not like Tom had.
What terrified, what disgusted, what horrified the man who had once been human and who now was something else, something entirely unwanted and unasked for was nearly everything that Ezre had been raised to accept as not merely normal but also relatable, lovable, and acceptable. What Tom could not accept about himself, Ezre did not know how to even question—not because he shouldn't have questioned; not because the other shouldn't have attempted to accept; not because Tom was not deserving of receiving or capable of giving love.
Perhaps, in different ways, they both needed to step elsewhere in order to see more clearly.
No one was ready to budge.
Ezre stopped when Tom stopped, though it was awkward and abrupt, though he was slow to turn to face the pained expression waiting for him, the taboo and blatant display of hurt creased into the features of a man the young galdor didn't really know, not in the way he thought he did. The honest answer stung more than the young Guide thought it would, though it shouldn't have been unexpected. It shouldn't have been a surprise, but for some reason it was. Was it yes, he liked his old life? Was it yes, he hated the new one he'd been forced to take on? Was it yes, he wished he was neither, back in the Cycle as it should be?
Of course it was yes.
All of it, yes.
His jaw clenched, field dampening like a shadow formed when a cloud passed over the sun.
"I have misspoken. I am sorry—" The Hoxian did not find the Estuan words sufficient and it showed on his face as pure disappointment. Apologies sounded so simple, so shallow, so flippant, "—I have been unthinking."
Narrow shoulders draped in bright linen sagged and dark eyes shifted from Tom's face, from his pale gaze, to the library for a moment. The building hewn from red stone and filled with opulent architecture, stuffed with self-important literature was supposedly the pinnacle of magical education, the richest resource of sorcery and academia in all the Six Kingdoms. Ezre had grown up among tomes older than Brunnhold, and so, in some ways, he was wary of the haughty Anaxi claim to fame (the claim had, in fact, been one of the reasons for his transfer, unable to contain his curiosity for the truth). Had he learned new things? Did he think he'd discovered all the secrets hidden here? Yes. And no.
The outside was still so jarring, but in the handful of years he'd been here, he still hadn't reached far enough beneath the surface of the library to touch the truth he sought.
The Hexxos Guide let his repentant attention drift back to the not-Incumbent, to the red-haired galdori exterior behind which a human who'd once been comfortable with death wrestled with everything but his own. Ezre frowned, suddenly so very self-aware.
"I have upset the balance here," Inked fingers tentatively traced the space between his tattooed chest and Tom's, not quite touching the other man, delicate brows drawn together and voice quiet, "by speaking from my excitement instead of weighing my words properly. This is not appropriate conversation for such a public moment, and I—I am wrong. I understand if—I can find an explanation for—"
Ezre nodded, looking down one of the manicured paths away from where they had come and not leading toward the library, other hand moving to rub at his wrist where a restless spirit had snatched him in a most unorthodox manner before he brought both hands up toward his face, palms pressed together, fingers brushing over his lip and under his nose. He could not find his focus,
"—you are a busy politician and we are children chasing ghost stories, after all."