[ There's a flash of golden light, and then everything goes red and black and white, and then everything goes silent.
Something happened, Caelus figures, when Aventurine and Acheron clashed. He can't figure out what it was. But it sent his mind reeling through the Dreamscape, hurtling through time and space and memoria. There's a lot of hurt. A lot of pain. He sees cracked earth and hot sand and bloodied tents and a necklace won in a dangerous wager; he sees Kakavasha's crying sister and the boy, now a young man, branded and chained and sold for thirty tanbas; he sees the bloodied rock and Kakavasha's master dead on the ground and wishes he could reach out and hold the boy's cracked, dry fingers. He wishes he could do a lot of things.
Caelus can't do a damn thing to save him, because in some ways "Kakavasha" doesn't exist anymore.
When he wakes up, he's curled around a body in his own bed in the express. Caelus's hands curl before he realizes that he's loosely petting stray locks of blond hair and the smell of a woodsy perfume is caught in his lungs. He freezes in place, senses coming fully online as he takes in where he is and who he's with.
Maybe hell has frozen over. Maybe Penacony has fallen. Whatever the case, Aventurine is in his arms, apparently soundly asleep. ]
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Something happened, Caelus figures, when Aventurine and Acheron clashed. He can't figure out what it was. But it sent his mind reeling through the Dreamscape, hurtling through time and space and memoria. There's a lot of hurt. A lot of pain. He sees cracked earth and hot sand and bloodied tents and a necklace won in a dangerous wager; he sees Kakavasha's crying sister and the boy, now a young man, branded and chained and sold for thirty tanbas; he sees the bloodied rock and Kakavasha's master dead on the ground and wishes he could reach out and hold the boy's cracked, dry fingers. He wishes he could do a lot of things.
Caelus can't do a damn thing to save him, because in some ways "Kakavasha" doesn't exist anymore.
When he wakes up, he's curled around a body in his own bed in the express. Caelus's hands curl before he realizes that he's loosely petting stray locks of blond hair and the smell of a woodsy perfume is caught in his lungs. He freezes in place, senses coming fully online as he takes in where he is and who he's with.
Maybe hell has frozen over. Maybe Penacony has fallen. Whatever the case, Aventurine is in his arms, apparently soundly asleep. ]