[Seasonal Event] Nog om allt som har dött

That Rory trusted him enough to sleep beside him was a gift Jigano didn't know how he could repay, but it slid through him with gentle fingers that stroked the tension from him and filled him with a golden light that sang through his soul with pure, chiming tones. He tried, in his imperfect, human way, to share an echo of that feeling in the songs he hummed and sang while the hunter dozed. It was tempting to let Rory sleep, but the fox had heard his friend's rumbling stomach, and if they stayed sitting on the hard floor for too long they'd both have aches the next day.

Reluctantly but gently he coaxed the blond towards wakefulness, feeling the slight tightening of muscles as consciousness returned...

More or less.

He hid a silent laugh at the eloquent comment, but his humor was cut short at the touch to his leg, so simple and companionable and close that he couldn't draw a breath for a several seconds, heart thumping with surprising force against his ribs. He stayed frozen a few moments longer, while Rory stood and stretched and went about the homey tasks of gathering dishes and spoons and filling their bowls. By the time he was sitting down at the table, Isuma clinging to his shoulder and peeping quiet commentary at how the soup smelled, Jigano had finally begun to move. He took his time rising, rolling his neck and shoulders and rising fluidly because of how slow he moved, making sure nothing had fallen asleep or stiffened up too much. He found his own chair and spoon and, though he did obediently blow on his soup and take small bites of it, he spent much more time stealing glances at Rory and Isuma, relieved to see his friend eating and - hopefully - healing a little more with each bite. The light from outside seemed to catch in his hair, yellow and gold, and limned the bones of his face, more hollow than they had been before Long Night. He was beautiful and strong, stubborn and fighting through the shadows that lingered in his eloquent blue eyes, and Jigano occasionally found himself forgetting to breathe until Isuma chortled or peeped and brought him back to himself.

Eventually the soup reminded him that he was also hungry, and he put a little more effort into cleaning his bowl, but he made no effort to break the comfortable silence of good food and companionship. When Rory was awake and fed and ready to talk again... he would. Until then, Jigano could wait and let his friend take things at his own pace.

Normally, Rory was the kind of guy who went from being asleep to being awake in an instant, regardless of the hour and the amount of sleep he'd gotten. This was more .. hunger, a single-minded focus, and a genuine uncertainty about what to say. It still rendered him pretty inarticulate though.

So he opted to say nothing, instead leaving Jigano on the floor and putting himself by the table. He perched his elbow on it to minimize the hungry tremble in his hand. The warm stew in his mouth was heavenly. It was difficult to pace himself when it was finally in front of him, but the confused kick of his gut helped.

And Jigano uncurling from the floor. Graceful, lithe, seemingly unaware of Rory watching him with feral eyes (though through lowered lashes, pretending he wasn't staring watching). It was such a fluid motion, as if his body somehow defied the conventional methods of moving...

But as his attention turned to the table Rory dropped his gaze, focusing again on his food and the unpleasant sensation of waking up his stomach from a too-long fast. From time to time he sneaked glances at the other, struck again by how bizarre it was that he sat at Rory's table, eating the food they had cooked, as if.. well, silence aside, as if it was nothing strange or unusual at all.

But it was, in a way Rory was unwilling to pin down with words.

"I know better than to let myself get like this," he said after a while. He wasn't quite done with his stew yet, but awake enough to feel properly embarrassed about the whole day so far (well, except maybe for the napping part). His mouth worked over words he didn't find, and he ended up shrugging one shoulder slightly, scraping out another spoonful of the stew. It wasn't quite as hot anymore. "Or, well, evidently not." He pulled a self-conscious grimace, pleased that he was beginning to feel steadier, and reached up with one hand to stroke Isuma's cheek.

He thought he caught Rory’s eyes on him more than once as they sat across from each other at the table in an oddly normal tableaux. A flicker of blue from beneath blond lashes, a stolen glance as he spooned up more stew… But every time their eyes might have met from behind their fragile defenses it was Jigano who looked away before the connection could quite complete. He didn’t know what to say, or how to reassure his friend, or how to ask if Rory minded that the lorekeeper couldn’t keep his eyes off the hunter.

He was supposed to be a master of words, a crafter of poetry, glib and entertaining even under pressure or dangerous situations and yet, when he was alone with Rory, he struggled to find even the simplest of sentences. Maybe it was because they hadn’t used – or needed – much in the way of words for so long, or maybe it was because with Rory his heart was so much more open, and so much more vulnerable, than it had ever been before, and it got in the way of what he wanted to say, trying to distract him with things he didn't know how to say, not yet. Whatever the reason, silence seemed strangely comforting between them at times, and he was in no hurry to rush this one to its end.

Color was coming back to his friend’s pale cheeks, and the trembling had finally faded from his fingers by the time the hunter spoke, and Jigano didn’t need to answer immediately as he tilted his head, one brow arching as eloquently as a fox’s cocked ear at the statement. Rory caught himself before the bard had to, and Isuma purred and nibbled at the finger that stroked her, long tail curled around Rory’s neck like a fluffy white scarf. ”Do you ever get lonely out here, with only the animals for company?” Jigano asked quietly, toying with the last few spoonfuls of stew in his own bowl. ”It can’t be easy, taking care of them all, all by yourself. Sometimes you just… need a rest.” Someday, he promised himself, he would have time and chance to rest… someday, when things were quiet, and he had found someplace safe to lay his head for more than a night or two… someplace that wasn’t a hole in the ground, or an office where his guildmates could find him with their own problems and questions. Someday… maybe not so far away… a thought he was almost afraid to complete, while he carefully studied the chunks of vegetables in his stew and didn’t quite dare to look up to meet Rory’s gaze.

Isuma was a warm and comforting weight across his shoulders. He was cold in a way that wasn't going to pass anytime soon, an ache wrapped around his bones, defying the warmth of both food and fire. His stomach, unused to food, felt tight and uncertain, and he rolled the last of the vegetables around with his spoon. A couple of hours was what he needed to work the heat back up again, and shake the deadness from his wrists.

He reclaimed his fingers from Isuma and cupped the cooling bowl in his hands, rolling Jigano's question over in his mind for a moment before answering. "No," he said, his voice drifting as his thumb stroked the bowl. "I don't, really, I.. still meet a fair few people, for various reasons, but human company isn't exactly something that I need." He swirled the soup with his spoon. "That's not to say I don't appreciate it, or sometimes want it-" And his gaze flicked up from the soup, a flighty thing searching Jigano's face, "-but I don't need it."

Masking a small sigh Rory scooped up the last of the soup in his bowl, finishing it with thoughts left unsaid—about how it had been easier to take care of the farm when Karlia had been staying there too, or at least coming by to help out with odd jobs or cooking, how it was quieter now, and, perhaps, a tiny bit lonely only because he wasn't used to it.

But he wasn't ready to talk about Karlia, so he nudged his bowl to the side and ran his pale, cold hands around each other, absently rubbing the skin to generate warmth.

The soup was cooling in his bowl, though there wasn’t much left. Still Jigano waited to finish it, finding perhaps a little comfort in the distraction to keep him from gazing too openly at his companion. His question had been almost wistful and a little worried, and while he hadn’t known exactly what to expect, Rory’s answer sent a chill through him. Not lonely at all? Not needing human company? Human as he had become, certain as he was that Rory wanted him near, the fox still found himself tensing, his expression momentarily vulnerable and aching. For a moment, when he heard that the hunter still wanted company, he relaxed a little, wondering if he had, perhaps, misunderstood-

But that hope was quickly dashed as the blond repeated his assertion with a strength the bard didn’t know how to doubt. Someday, he had been thinking to himself… As if the weight he had chosen to carry could be put down any easier than it had been taken up. As if atonement were that easy to find, for the ghosts he had bound to his own soul. Isuma watched him with worried golden eyes, a quiet Reep? of concern in her throat as some of Rory’s chill finally seeped past the lorekeeper’s determined warmth. Jigano gave her a half-hearted smile, finishing his soup without tasting it when he realized that Rory had already emptied his bowl, and stood.

”Are you still cold?” he asked gently. He wanted to reach out and capture Rory’s hands again, share his warmth with his friend, as he had when they had sat in front of the fire and words hadn’t gotten in the way. What he reached for instead was the empty bowl, so that he could take the dirty dishes to the sink for rinsing, leaving Isuma crouched, tense and unhappy, on Rory’s shoulder as she felt the shadows slide back into her companion’s heart, creeping through the cracks the hunter had so innocently opened in its defenses. ”Would you rather sit outside in the sunlight? Or here by the fire?”

Something changed.

Like clouds passing over the sun—Jigano's face, going from open and (hurt?) to something else. It fit snugly, seamlessly, such a perfect, perfect thing. A closed door, a distance. Rory's face stilled similarly, once again a wary animal, closed-off as he watched; patient and aloof, frantic inside. His heart thrashed violently in his chest, frightened by the mask, and knowing it as such for two reasons alone.

The first was that until then, he had never seen Jigano wear it.

The second was Isuma, tense and unhappy upon his shoulder. Even if he hadn't felt the atmosphere change, a kick in the guts and a cold, cold dread, he would've picked it up from her. For something to hold on to he raised his hand, as if to soothe her, to bury his fingers among her feathers and fur. His eyes watched Jigano, dark and feral, the hand still upon the table twitching in some oddly acquired response to the honeyed one coming near—

But it passed over his, took his empty bowl, and the feeble reaction was barely more than his hand spasming across the wood anyway. Swallowing, his wild gaze skipped aside, then back to the man moving away from him.

He was colder now, fighting through a black current, replaying the past minutes in his mind and looking for the tipping point; he wanted to say that the location didn't matter, as long as Jigano was by him—

His hands twisted around themselves again, until he forced them to still, palms down on the table. His gaze pinning Jigano by the sink, heart fast and scared, but his voice as it almost always was: quiet, gentle. "What is wrong?" he asked softly.

He was not needed here. The thought rang hollowly in his heart as he put on the smile he had worn for three years so no one would see the ravaged, empty space beneath. No, he had worn it longer, hadn't he? When the friends who had needed him but not wanted him had begun to make their choices... and he had begun making his.

Isuma shivered, pressing close to Rory and nuzzling fiercely into his touch as she watched her companion and tried to share some of the hunter's comfort from her to him, with the ice pale hair and ice blue eyes and ice cold heart that the blond had begun to melt even before a baby gryphon had arrived to continue the healing a kind man's gentle hands had begun, innocently unknowing in those days.

His fingers wanted to reach for Rory's almost of their own accord, and it took more effort than he dared to admit to take the bowl instead, voice gentle because the hunter was hurt, wounded, fighting shadows the loreseeker couldn't see. He splashed water in the bowls, rinsing and scrubbing them clean so he wouldn't have to think about how his hands trembled. The question came almost too quietly to hear, and it would have been so, so easy to smile and lie and show the world a face like a summer sky so no one would wonder at the wintry chill that lay beneath--

"Would it have... been easier for you," he said instead of answering directly, "if I had stayed a fox? Would I..." he drew in a sharp breath, closing his eyes as he exhaled sharply and shook his head. Gods least fortunate, he was a mess, wasn't he? And making a mess of everything else, too. How his tongue could be so clumsy now, when he needed his eloquence the most was a matter he didn't want to look at too deeply, because he knew the answer.

It was like fighting a wicker woman's embrace to turn and face his friend, to cross the short distance between them, to kneel beside Rory's chair so the hunter would not have to look up at him as he spoke. "I will believe you," he said quietly, wondering if the blond knew what power he had over the bard, for the paranoid man to make such an oath. "What you tell me, I will believe. If you say that you aren't lonely... that you don't need any human company... I will take you at your word. But I..." He hesitated and bowed his head, unable to meet too-blue eyes in that moment of painful vulnerability. "I told myself that, once, too. And... now, here... I am learning just how wrong I was."

He wanted to rattle his fingers against the tabletop, to tap the pads to the hard wood, run them in little circles that never led to anywhere. He wanted to escape, tangle his fingers in a pony's mane and let them work off his excess, nervous energy.

The wait was always the worst. Getting the words off his tongue wasn't the hardest part, it was what came after: the silence, as they sank into the conscious. Were processed. Evaluated. He watched, eyes burning with dry, dark fire, a pit of vipers in his gut. Watched, but not as he had previously. Instead of a curious, elated sweeping, it was a hard, desperate stare, moving from his shoulders to his neck to the back of his head, and back, too restless to hold still.

Then Jigano began to speak, and genuine confusion began to seep into Rory's bones. Easier if he had stayed a fox? What was he talking about? And what had he missed, or implied, if that was suddenly were they were at?

But he said nothing, sensing that it wasn't his time yet, that.. there was more, something deeper, so he waited, still watching. When Jigano turned, he watched his face, but his gaze lacked wonder and hunger—it was dark, because only the shadows could drown out his fear.

And he was full of that.

And as Jigano crouched by his chair, he was immensely relieved. Not by the words, per se, but for the honesty. That he didn't try to explain it away, or hold on to that mask, that faked, fragile half-smile, the subject change as if it was nothing...

Rory turned slowly upon his chair, so that he faced Jigano again; one of his hands reached for the bard's, a light and gentle touch, meant to anchor, to soothe, not capture.

"To me, need..." he began slowly, trying to choose his words with more care this time, "I can go weeks without human interaction, and it doesn't bother me. I just.." He shrugged weakly, unsure of how to phrase it. He just didn't need company, as he needed food and air and sleep. "I still appreciate company, and can want it, and .. miss individuals, I will admit that." That he did not need company did not mean that he chose, or somehow strove for, isolation. His free hand went hesitantly towards Jigano's face, to follow the line of his jaw to his chin and tilt it up. "Isn't it better to be chosen anyway?" he asked softly. "To know that I want-" (carefully weighted words and yet it slipped onto his tongue, and with his heart beating wildly among his ribs he chose to let it slip) "-you?"

Rory’s eyes were dark, forbidding, their clear blue sweetness hidden behind an almost feral intensity that Jigano didn’t know how to interpret. His voice had been so gentle, though, as his hands always were, and the fox felt Isuma’s silent reassurance through their bond. In spite of the pain that the hunter’s earlier words had sparked the white-haired man drew closer, as tense and ready to flee as any wild thing, and it was almost like their first meeting all over again, after the gourds had been laid to waste around them. He had crept close to the blond man then, too, on tentative feet. Had settled close enough to touch… to be touched.

Had trusted, on an impulse he couldn’t name and hadn’t regretted since.

A hand found his, chill against his warmth, and he turned his fingers to curl around the offered support on instinct. He shouldn’t, his mind warned him, and the fresh ache of his heart was a reminder of how much he had, somehow, somewhere between arriving in this new world and coming to visit a friend, gained to lose. But if he was to be sent away, he would go only when the words fell from Rory’s lips. Until then he belonged at the hunter’s side, as Rory had come to belong at his.

It wasn’t fair, what he asked of the man. That much he knew, as his friend began to speak as slowly as the bard, searching for the right words. Rory was in no shape to cope with the emotional weight that the loreseeker had let slip, baring it embarrassingly for his friend to see. Still the blond tried, and the effort touched Jigano even as he was afraid to hope again so soon. If his company was not needed, then what good was he to the hunter? If he could be done without so easily… His fingers tightened around Rory’s hand, seeking a lifeline even more than an anchor as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to tell himself to hold steady, hold strong, and be grateful for what he had been given. He was greedy to think there could be any more…

And then there was a touch on his face, fingers sliding along his jaw, and he wasn’t strong enough to resist as his head was coaxed up to meet eyes like sunrise, blue and gentle and holding a brightness behind the shadows that had called to the fox from the first day they had met.

”I… don’t know…” I don’t know what it is to be wanted, he almost said, but that wasn’t true, was it? Isuma – the original Isuma – and Hiraku had both needed and wanted him. They had been loyal and brave, but Isuma had needed him for her revenge and Hiraku had been sent to guard him by his religious order. That friendship had sprung up, that want had grown from need, had been a happy twist of fate on a journey where such twists were too often bitter.

But to be wanted without being needed? How easy would it be for someone to walk away from him, if he was not needed? How much would he have to trust Rory, if they were bound by so little?

But the very pain he had felt – was still feeling – at the hunter’s words was eloquent testament to the power he had already freely given the other man over him. He was in too deep, now. He couldn’t even remember how long it had been since he had been able to touch the bottom.

He reached up with his other hand, capturing the fingers that lingered on his chin and bringing them to his lips, breathing warmth over their pads. ”Will you show me?” he asked softly, not looking away and hardly daring to breathe as his pulse sang like thunder in his ears. There was hope in his own eyes, and fear, and a shy anxiety he had thought lost a decade ago. ”Will you teach me? … What it is to be wanted?”

The pain he had seen in Jigano's eyes—different shades of it, like the stages of a bruise—was one of the reasons for the laws Rory had made for himself. To know that he had, no matter how inadvertently, caused it... A careless, musing, whimsical comment on the strange and solitary inner workings of his feral soul.

And where did you draw the line between need and want, anyway? Could he need even if he did not suffer when that need was unmet? Wasn't loneliness just that: a symptom of a need unmet, like starvation, but of the soul?

So what did that make him, if his soul did not starve, even when not fed?

(A monster?)

The packless wolf, ever cautious, ever wary, roaming his empty wilds at night. He, who would never sing mournfully of regret, would never ask of the waning moon to deliver him to his kin when lost and alone.

He couldn't help but feel as if it was some error of translation, a misunderstanding based on their own perceptions and interpretations of the word, but.. this was not the time. Whatever blow he had unwittingly dealt felt too fresh, and digging about the wound wouldn't make it bleed less. And as their hands twined together again he thought that yes, some things would've been easier if Jigano had stayed a fox—words wouldn't have meant quite as much—but they wouldn't have had this. He wouldn't have had this, Jigano's hand in his hand, his fingers curling around the sharp chin and the blue eyes looking at him with hope and hurt.

His fingers over Jigano's mouth, warmed by his silent exhalation. His own eyes, less wild, less dark, meeting his.

But his heart still thundered on.

(How do you not know? he wanted to ask; have you never been wanted, and desired?)

Another part of him wanted to forsake words entirely, to fall onto Jigano and pin him to the floor with the kiss he had wanted to give him since first seeing his soul in a human body.

But that, too, could wait.

Instead he let the sensitive pads on his fingers rest against Jigano's lips, gently tracing the outline of his mouth as his other hand squeezed Jigano's. "If you will let me," he promised quietly, gently, wanting to soothe as much as his spirit wanted to run away from the vulnerable, trusting depths of the topic. What power he tried to give to Rory, who was inherently afraid of such a thing.

So he fled to safer pastures, his voice slowly going wry. "And the first lesson is that where I sit to get warmer doesn't matter much.. what matters is that you're with me."

Rory’s fingers were on his lips, preventing him from answering with words. Fey impulse took him then, driven by the wild beat of his pulse and the tentative but powerful hope that blossomed from the banked coals of his earlier dashed optimism, growing stronger for the emotional squall it had just weathered. He wasn’t brave enough to watch his friend’s reaction, though, and so he closed his eyes as he brushed a gentle kiss to callused skin for his answer – his acceptance.

Gentle words and wry humor were a balm to the fox’s soul, and Isuma purred with relief as she felt the tension – well, some of it, the darker, sharper edges of it – ease from her companion’s heart. He had so much to learn, and the little gryphlet was glad she was not his only teacher! She butted her head against Rory’s cheek happily as she rumbled, and the smile returned to Jigano’s lips as he watched her easy affection with his so much more than a friend.

”I am with you,” he assured softly, and then rose to his feet with liquid grace fueled by relief that, though they were different and might misunderstand each other at times, they had come too far since Leafchange to lose each other so easily. It was an important lesson he vowed to remember, that neither would willingly, knowingly hurt the other. If only they could let each other explain…

He tugged coaxingly on Rory’s captured hands to pull the hunter up with him, the warmth returning to his eyes as he smiled at his friend once more. ”Let’s sit outside,” he suggested. ”We were too long in the dark, during Long Night. And… there is inspiration, for a bard, in the way your hair captures the sunlight,” he added shyly, with none of his usual confident, platonic playfulness that might have driven the words if he had been speaking to Rexanna or Caiside.

The kiss—for there was no mistaking it—took him by surprise. He had not thought.. had not expected.. had known, for they both seemed to do that, but hadn't.. just plain hadn't, an unfinished thought as a small shiver went through suddenly tense muscles. Briefly he reevaluated his decision to not floor Jigano, but despite the way his gut coiled with a sudden warm excitement he came to the same conclusion: it could wait.

But it chased the last of the darkness from his eyes, leaving them once more gentle and inquiring, open and soft. He was not fool enough to think that everything was as it had been five minutes ago, because in some subtle ways they were both changed—that was just the nature of things.

But Jigano was no longer cowering from a blow Rory had not understood he had given.

He still wasn't sure exactly what about the whole thing that had affected the other so, but Jigano's lips against his fingers were a silent promise among many other silent promises, saying that there would be time to know that. And Rory did not want to ask for more, was not one to press in such a situation.

Instead, he reached up to stroke the happier Isuma, trading the warmth of Jigano's lips for the warmth of her small, vibrating body. If her mood was anything to go by—which it had mere minutes ago—they had made it past the rocky shoals, and Rory was more than willing to relax again. A smile, almost lazy in nature despite how genuine it was, curved his mouth at Jigano's reassurance, and then he laughed as he was tugged up and onto his feet.

Outside was a good choice, but he stilled briefly as he caught the change in Jigano's voice. There was a shyness in it, one he knew very well, one he felt too, in the way his gaze once more began to linger yet always fluttered away when he was found out. A slow, hesitant search, to see where they would meet, fumbling in the dark—soothed by the assurance that they were both fumbling around.

It was a throwback to his youth, to being a teenage boy who believed in something, who wanted something more than just a night's giving and taking. It coiled in his belly, an unfamiliar flutter, one he had not indulged in for so long.

He didn't know where it would go, but it was too late to turn back now.

He just knew that the words had him feeling warm.

The smile on his face grew into a lopsided grin, and tugging Jigano with him he began to stride out the door, while grandly declaring "Oh Fiat Lux sun! Let thy bright rays fall upon this yellow straw, and turn it golden!" and throwing out his free hand in an equally grand gesture.

Then he blinked in the sunlight. They should probably get something to sit on.. while the sun warmed the ground it was still a little moist from the most recent shower, and he might as well fetch something to work on. "Let me just go get some things from the workshop," he said, giving Jigano's hand a squeeze before extracting his fingers and striding into the relative gloom of it.

From the shadowed, forgotten corner shared by his greatcoat he pulled out two subpar goat hides. He had made some mistakes when skinning them, leaving them useless for quality goods, so he'd just scraped them clean and salted them and waxed them, leaving the fur attached on the other side. He draped them over one arm before stopping by his workbench; several projects laid scattered on it. Fine, thin rawhide, some woodwork that was the basis of his lanterns, a boot in need of a new sole, a broad armband (more like half a bracer, really) with the beginnings of a flame engraving, a couple of half-finished pouches, and some folded up leather sheets that were supposed to become a butcher's apron.

He grabbed the rawhide and the lantern frames, along with some tools and a small bucket filled with water, and stepped back into the light outside. Silently he offered Jigano the arm with the goat hides.

There was a softness in Rory’s eyes that made even the recent pain a distant thing. He had been so, so afraid… And in some ways he still was. Emotions that strong couldn’t be brushed aside or ignored so easily, but there was relief in knowing it was just a misunderstanding. Or at least, that even if they approached this… this friendship, this more than friendship, from different places, that still their hearts were in tune when and how it mattered most. They both wanted to be together, and for now… for now, it was enough.

He released chill fingers, but only so that he could raise Rory up and there was terrifying, dangerous moment when the hunter was so close and he was laughing and if Jigano head leaned forward just a little his lips would meet more than just fingertips—

Isuma chose that moment to switch shoulders, bouncing happily from Rory to the fox with something suspiciously like a self-satisfied chortle. The brief moment passed, but it left his heart racing with an odd mixture of regret and desire and the need to do something, say something, to let the other man know the effect he had on the once-glib bard. Flirting with friends was easy, a game he played to spice up his compliments, but ultimately without risk since he and they both knew nothing would come of it.

Flirting with Rory was an entirely different sensation, one that sent butterflies winging desperately around his stomach and filled him with warmth and a sparkling fizz of joy in his blood when the hunter pulled him outside with a playful, exuberant cry. Jigano let himself be led, laughing, out into the light where he could properly admire the way the sun caught and glowed golden in hair that, admittedly, needed a wash and a brush but was beautiful nonetheless. ”You’ve a poet’s soul behind those summer-sky eyes, sun-blessed shepherd,” he teased, giddy and heedless of the dignity he’d abandoned by the fireplace as clumsy words filled with admiration and unabashed fondness tripped off his tongue.

”I’ll get my harp,” he called back as Rory headed for the workshop, and the bard ducked back into the house for his bag and instruments. He returned to the yard first, but the hunter swiftly joined him with an armload of supplies… and of goatskins? Jigano grinned and bowed low – much to Isuma’s resigned balancing – before reaching out to rescue what he assumed were mats for them to sit on, so Rory could more easily juggle his other supplies. ”Near the pasture, so we can watch the ponies while we work?” he suggested lightly.

"I probably stole it from someone," he responded wryly, his lips twisting again into a slight grin; he sounded calmer than he felt, his heart flipping in his chest at the sound of Jigano's voice and the rather unbridled outpouring of words. It wasn't controlled, it wasn't carefully crafted, and the intention—the attention—had the faintest of flushes creeping over Rory's cheeks. Oh, to be young and foolish again, but better than that: to not be sick with guesswork and worry.

To just .. be.

When he re-emerged into the sunlight he found Jigano with his gear (a harp, he had said, and something in Rory's soul did complicated things, completely amazed by the cultured and refined and talented man who stood in his yard, willingly—) and, of course, Queen Owlkitten on his shoulder.

At the playful bow Rory laughed again, sunlight and fresh wind. It felt good to laugh again, and to do it easily, carefree; he had been too long in the dark, for he had taken it with him even as the sun rose again, a sliver of night living in his heart. Oh, he knew it lingered there and that it would wrap itself around him again when Jigano left, but perhaps the fox would have left enough stars for him to get him by.

Gratefully he shifted his burden in his arms, and nodded. "Lead the way, my gallant friend," warm, so warm, and as he followed Jigano towards the pasture full of goats and ponies he found that it was difficult to take his eyes off of him. It warmed him in a way not even the sun could to watch his easy grace, and the fact that it felt a little forbidden just made it harder to look aside.