Super Special Ep: South
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
Aiden is very far away from the rest of the world, right now.
He’s up in the mountains, in a very small town. From what he’s heard, this place is bustling during the spring and summer, when visitors from all over use the town as a base to do hikes and climbs among the breathtaking, towering mountains.
Aiden can see what draws them here. The mountaintops rise so high that the snow blowing away from their peaks looks like smoke against the staggeringly blue sky. Turquoise lagunas rest in the valleys between them, pure waters surrounded by rich, wild green life in the warm seasons.
But autumn is falling fast, and the little town has tucked itself away for hibernation.
The streets are very quiet. The breweries, restaurants, and outdoor gear shops are closed. The gorgeous, glittering mountain rapids are freezing into slippery pathways of thick ice. Some nights the wind is strong enough to keep a person upright if they lean back in the opposite direction. The sun is rising sometime around nine in the morning.
The cold is more intense with each passing day, and Aiden has seen distant blizzards storming the faraway mountaintops.
No tourists are still here, and no seasonal workers. Only the locals and the most hardcore of the sportsmen are left.
Aiden has one of those hardcore sportsmen in bed with him right now. A sportswoman, more accurately.
“Think you might be my favorite mountain of them all, Aiden,” she purrs softly, and Aiden breathes out a quiet laugh.
He wraps his arms more closely around her, lets out a little breath. He’s trying to hold tight to this rare moment of peace, this break in his usually dark, lonely headspace.
The hostel is quiet around them. The room is nice and warm, the only thing Aiden was really looking for when he chose this place. He’s good with sleeping outside, but he’s not looking to freeze to death.
Meeting Serena was an unexpected benefit of staying here.
He saw her going in and out with her mountain climbing gear a few times, but that’s not when he noticed her. It was in the mornings, when the people staying at the hostel all move around each other making breakfast, that he started paying attention.
Serena has thick, shiny tresses of black hair that she keeps in a neat bun. Around that bun she always had knotted a sheer, colorful scarf. A different one every day, but always long enough that the extra fabric would fall down her back and kiss her shoulder blades. Aiden liked the way the sunshine would fall through the gauzy scarf, casting colorful light onto the glowing, golden-brown hue of her skin.
She would turn, and the fabric would sweep softly over her neck. Her long, dark eyelashes would kiss her cheekbones when she lowered her beautiful copper gaze to focus on what she was doing.
Aiden decided it wouldn’t hurt to get to know her a little bit, so he did.
He learned that unlike him, Serena isn’t stuck in town for a few days by the snowstorms further down on the mountain that halted all bus service. She’s here with two other serious climbers, and the three of them are hoping to summit one of the massive mountains thrusting out from the range.
There’s a reason most people don’t attempt that during autumn and winter. It’s dangerously cold, slippery and icy. Unexpected weather problems - blizzards, avalanches - can come up at any time. The mountains hide things in the winter mists, and the wind is so powerful that footsteps are erased from the snow as soon as you stop to look back over your shoulder. They have to climb purely on ice for large portions, which can simply crumble out from under your hands, no matter how good of a climber you are.
“People don’t always come back from the mountains,” the hostel owner Eduardo had told Aiden. “Conditions very dangerous.”
Aiden pointed this out to Serena, who grinned and said that made it more of a challenge.
But despite her easy smiles and laughter, Aiden could recognize the other unhappy soul in this place from a mile away.
“It’s just - I don’t really know Josh or Wyatt,” she admitted to Aiden, as they sat beside the hostel fire last night. She nodded across Eduardo’s living room at the two other climbers she came with. “We met through climbing, kinda recently. And I know that I’m just as good of a climber as them, but - I don’t think they take me seriously. They keep acting like I’m gonna slow them down.”
Aiden could tell right away that Serena wasn’t having a good time with them. She was only here for the mountain, now. He saw the way her copper eyes drifted to the distant peak every time Josh or Wyatt ignored her during the planning.
But the little device the group uses to track the weather was showing climate patterns that would make the mountain impassable, even to the best climber. So Aiden figured maybe Serena had time for other things besides climbing.
Nice to be right about something, sometimes.
He pushes his nose into her soft black hair, now free from its bun and spilling over the pillows. He feels cozy, curled up with her. Despite her lithe climber’s body, she has soft, plump thighs, and Aiden’s own thigh is toasty warm between them. Her face is nuzzled into his neck, but he can feel her smiling against his throat.
Aiden tells himself that he doesn’t really give a damn about other people, and yet - he can’t help but feel a tiny glow kindled in the gloominess of his heart. He can’t help it. It’s just nice that Serena is happy, for the first time since he’s met her. Maybe longer than that.
It’s giving Aiden some fractional amount of happiness, too. And he’ll gratefully take whatever scrap of happiness he can find for himself.
Especially lately. Things have been - rough.
It’s starting to be a long time since he left home.
The original bursts of homesickness were sharp and painful, but manageable. They would go away, with the help of a little whiskey. But now they’ve begun to deepen into something else. A constant ache that Aiden is always aware of in some vague way, which then sweeps up into violent hurricanes that ambush him out of nowhere. He’ll get this tight feeling in his chest like he’s going to cry, an agonized feeling like something is ripping in his heart.
It’s like Aiden can feel home out there. Like Ketterbridge is missing him back, somehow. Without bitterness or reproach, only with huge sadness for his being gone - it wants him back, and it keeps calling for him, pleading for him to come home.
Cuts him right down to his heart, every time he has to force himself to ignore it.
Ever since this started happening, Aiden has felt deeply lonely. Much more than usual, which was already a lot. And he’s been drinking more than usual, which… admittedly was also already a lot.
Aiden is feeling increasingly desperate to find what he’s looking for.
Alright, so he went as far north in the Americas as he can, and came up empty-handed. So this is already taking a lot longer than he hoped. So what? He’ll keep going, keep working his way south. He’s not just gonna fucking give up just like that. He’ll find what he’s looking for, he’ll keep going for however long it takes.
That’s the only way back to Jamie.
No, some quiet voice in his heart keeps insisting. Try to find another way. It’s already been so long… you’ve already gone so long without him…
Aiden presses down that stupid, unthinking voice forcefully, but every time, it makes him profoundly confused and anxious. Despite what he repeatedly tells himself - that this is the only real way, that it can’t take that much longer to find what he’s looking for, that he’ll probably be home soon, maybe even by the end of the year, if he’s lucky…
Yeah, he’s anxious. To put it real fuckin’ mildly. And lonelier than he’s felt in a long time.
So to have this moment of warmth and closeness with Serena, the body-assurance of her soft legs wrapped around him, her lips smiling against his neck - it feels good. He’s not sure if she can tell, but he’s beyond grateful for this.
He eases her back and starts spreading kisses on her throat. She smells faintly like the tangerine he watched her slowly and carefully peel this morning. Aiden takes deep breaths of her citrusy sweet, natural perfume. The low, sultry light moves in slow patterns across her golden-brown skin.
Her feet flex in the sheets, her breaths growing heavier as Aiden presses her bare body deep into the bed with his own. She rubs herself against him, her eyelids lowering in pleasure, but Aiden draws back to look down at her.
He looks deeply into her striking eyes, then slowly starts roaming his appreciative gaze all over her. One hand he leaves on her hip, gently stroking and kneading her. Her lips are full and swollen from his kisses, her hair spread out on the pillows, her back slightly arched in response to his touch.
She’s a beautiful sight.
Aiden stops abruptly when his wandering eyes come back to Serena’s face. He’s more than a little startled to find her eyes welling up with tears.
He instantly draws his hand away, and she blinks, swiftly running a hand beneath her nose.
“No, don’t - I’m sorry,” she sniffles, sitting up, clearly catching the alarm in Aiden’s eyes. “It’s just - this is the first time I feel like anyone’s actually really seen me in, like… since I’ve been traveling with those two, it’s like I’m fucking invisible, and I just… maybe I’ve been traveling too long, I don’t know, I…”
She blushes deeply, her flowing black hair spilling around her bare shoulders. She looks mortified to be crying at a moment like this, in front of him.
The sight of her plucks at Aiden’s heartstrings in a way he can’t ignore.
But he’s not good with words - especially kind, reassuring ones - so instead he tips forward, closes his eyes, and puts his forehead to Serena’s. He slips his hand beneath her hair and gently caresses the back of her neck with his fingertips, trying to talk with them.
She lets out a shaky breath, closing her fingers around his wrist.
“I miss my real friends.” Her voice is thin and quiet. “I miss my people. The ones who want me there when I’m - myself. Don’t you miss your people, too?”
Images flash through Aiden’s mind before he can stop them. The rock ledge at the park in Ketterbridge, smoke in the air, green and grey eyes filled with laughter. Jamie sitting beside him at the beach, breathless and smiling, and Aiden feeling so completely himself. The warmth of the fireplace at his Aunt’s house, the food nobody else cooks the way she does, sweetheart in her affectionate voice.
Aiden sits back slowly, struggling against that tight, crying feeling suddenly back in his chest.
He keeps silent, but Serena must see in his face that he understands what she’s feeling.
“You’re so quiet.” She lets out a watery laugh, skating her fingertips over his chest hair. “But I feel like you - understand me…? Maybe that’s stupid. I don’t know. But it’s nice to feel like that. I know you’re leaving tomorrow, but - even just for a little bit, it’s nice.”
Aiden catches her hand, lifts it to his mouth, and presses a kiss onto her knuckles. Looks into her eyes, trying to communicate with his own.
Serena blinks at him. Not crying anymore, although her eyes are still wet. She slowly frees her hand from Aiden’s fingers and curls it around his neck, grasps him tightly. She falls onto her back on the bed, drawing him down with her, so that he falls between her parted thighs.
Aiden grips her by the waist and leans in to kiss her, his blood starting to beat up in big, hot waves - but they both stop as a gust of fierce wind rushes past the windows.
It sounds freezing, it carries a burst of snowflakes, and it makes their warm little hideaway feel even warmer. Aiden takes a deep breath, starting to actually feel sort of relaxed.
“Hope nobody tried to climb today,” Serena murmurs, her copper eyes on the snowflakes blustering by. “Actually - I’m gonna go get my coms gear from my room, real quick. Just in case anybody sends an SOS we need to report.”
Aiden likes that, for some reason. It warms him to Serena even more. He rolls off of her, and she stands up, slips into her sweatpants, pulls on a tank top.
She leans down to give him a slow, deep kiss before she goes.
Aiden cozies up in the bed, hoping to keep it warm for her. Relieved and happy for this brief break in the misery, trying to think of how to make it last as long as possible.
The bus route should be clear in the morning, according to the weather models that Serena’s been regularly checking. Aiden can leave, get back to his search - and he has to. But they have all night. He’s only got two condoms left, but after they go through those, he and Serena could just snuggle, and keep warm together, savor the rare feeling of real connection -
He turns over in the bed and finds Serena standing still in the doorway, holding a piece of paper in one hand, her sat phone in the other.
Her stunned, wide-eyed expression stops Aiden still. He sits up in alarm, finally lets his voice break the silence of the room.
“Serena?”
“Oh, my god.” She lets out a soft, fragile laugh. “Why do you talk so little, when your voice sounds like that?”
Aiden stares at her, confused by the question and concerned by the expression on her face. She blinks, realizing that he’s waiting for an explanation.
“Josh and Wyatt, they - they thought they saw a weather window to try for the summit.” Serena shakes her head in disbelief, holding up the note in her hand. “They went for the climb without me. Said they didn’t want to disturb me.”
Because she was shut up in here with him, Aiden realizes. He sits up, horrified guilt flooding through his chest. He can’t believe he made her miss it, this was the climb she’d been waiting to do all along -
“Those morons,” Serena says suddenly, the note crumpling in her hand. “I told them that window wasn’t long enough, it’s a three day, two night climb - why have I even been trying to impress-? Holy shit. The weather is already turning…”
She sets down the note and pushes out the antenna on her sat phone, stares down at the screen.
As soon as she takes the sat phone off of standby mode, it begins to blink. Serena stands there in silence, reading quickly and urgently.
“They sent a message.” Her copper eyes flit up to Aiden, round with alarm. “They got caught in bad weather. Wyatt fell, he hurt his leg - holy shit. Thank god I didn’t go, they’ve always got me last on the line, he would’ve knocked me right off the mountain…”
She fades off, then spins around and rushes back to her own room.
By the time Aiden has gotten his clothes on and followed after her, she’s already dressed and halfway into her climbing gear.
“We should call someone,” he protests, watching Serena clip an ice-climbing axe to her belt.
“No one is gonna get here in time to beat the weather.”
“Then I should go with you,” he tells her, his heart pounding hard and fast with mounting alarm.
“I’ll be okay. They’re not too high up yet, and they’re trying to make a descent to get Wyatt down faster. I’ve got the GPS marker from their sat phone. I’ve climbed in the dark before. I can get there.”
“No, Serena, please-”
“Aiden, you can’t help. You’re not a climber, and you don’t have any gear. Do you know how or when to switch from one pair of shoes to another while hanging off of a cliff-face?”
Aiden bites his lip anxiously. His every instinct is screaming for him not to let her go alone, but she’s right. He’ll only slow her down, and she’s more than capable.
Still, he watches in silent distress as Serena packs up, shoulders her gear, and strides downstairs.
She gives Aiden a kiss before she goes.
He waits, walking aimless circles around Eduardo’s living room, taking the occasional pull from his flask. Eduardo offers him a steaming bowl of Locro with quiquirimichi. It smells real good, but Aiden can’t stomach the thought of eating anything right now. He’s fighting an all-out war with himself.
His body keeps bringing him back towards the door without him realizing it. A thousand invisible strings are pulling him towards the mountain.
He tries going back up to his room, but his bed smells like tangerines.
He puts on the warmest clothes he has. Eduardo has fallen asleep in his chair with his dogs at his feet when he goes back downstairs.
Aiden slips out through the door unnoticed, and makes for the mountain.
~~~~
Aiden keeps walking until he reaches the place where the flatlands come to a stop and become a steep, slippery incline up rocky slopes. The stars overhead are blazing in a deep, deep blue sky. Moonlight is everywhere, but the peaks of the mountains are lost in the mist.
Aiden stops and stares up at them, his breath freezing on the air. The whiskey is warming him from within, but the temperature out here is staggering. There’s cold, and then there’s cold. Something tells him that bad weather is coming.
He’s not sure where to go from here. He doesn’t even have climbing shoes, and he can see heaps of snow further up, the glimmer of ice coating the slippery rocks.
Aiden tries to do some math to figure out where everyone might be. He tries to think how far up, and then how far back down Wyatt and Josh might have gotten. How long ago Serena left the hostel to find them, and how long it took Aiden to walk here.
None of it is worth anything, because Aiden doesn’t know how long it takes to climb mountains.
He stands there, his heart hammering, trying desperately to think of what to do. Should he just wait here? This is where the path for the ascent begins, presumably this is where they’d come back down, too…
Aiden freezes, seeing a glint of light in the distance.
It’s further up the rising slope. He opens his mouth to shout, then abruptly remembers something about loud sounds triggering avalanches. Is that true, or is it just some shit he heard somewhere?
He always hated this about doing rescues, back in Ketterbridge. All these decisions you have to make in a split second, and always alone.
Aiden hesitates for another few seconds, then lifts his flashlight and begins clicking it on and off, flashing it at the other light he can just make out.
The other light stops its movement for a moment, then flashes back at him.
Aiden lets out a sharp breath. He knows he’ll be useless if he goes much farther beyond this point, so he only stands there, keeping his light constant, flashing it every now and then.
The other light slowly travels towards him, until it comes close enough that he can see it’s Serena and Josh, with Wyatt held up between them.
Aiden gasps, his breath puffing on the air.
He goes out just a little farther to meet them, carefully picking his way closer. Wyatt’s head is hanging, and his feet aren’t touching the ground. Serena and Josh are literally carrying him.
Serena looks ready to cry when she sees Aiden coming, and Josh looks about ready to drop.
“Oh, Aiden, thank god,” Serena gasps, as soon as he reaches them. “We definitely can’t carry him any further, and that snowstorm is right behind us, we need to get back!”
Aiden wordlessly takes Wyatt from Josh and Serena. They both sag with relief as his weight comes off of them, Josh rolling out his shoulders.
“Can’t believe you did a solo climb on that face to get us, and in that visibility,” he tells Serena, his voice raw with exhaustion. “You’re pretty good.”
“Yeah, I know,” Serena says fiercely, narrowing her eyes at him. “I’m actually better than pretty good, but I’m no longer too concerned about what you think, Josh. And I’m going home, by the way. I’ll come back and do this climb with people who’ll actually make it fun.”
Josh blinks at her, taken aback, and Aiden shifts Wyatt in his arms, afraid to ask the question on his mind. But he needs to know.
“Is he-?”
“He’s okay,” Serena answers hastily, glancing over her shoulder at the mountain. “But we need to go fast. The weather isn’t waiting.”
Aiden goes to sling Wyatt over his shoulder, but he’s not sure what kind of injuries he has. That might be a mistake. He bends to hook an arm behind Wyatt’s knees, gathers the guy up into his arms, and holds him in place against his chest. “Then let’s go.”
Josh leads the way, leaving Serena and Aiden in the back with Wyatt.
“Pretty good,” Serena says to Aiden, her voice filled with indignation. “After I saved his dumb ass! You know what? I have half a mind to tell Josh exactly how good I actually am.”
Aiden breaks into a smile, beyond relieved to see her, his heart full of newfound affection.
“Attagirl,” he answers, and Serena blinks up at him, then lets out a little laugh.
She speeds up to walk with Josh, all the clips fastened to her belt clicking.
Aiden keeps behind them with Wyatt. Heavy clouds are gathering overhead, blotting out the moonlight. Darkness sweeps down over their little group, bringing with it a freezing wave of wind.
Wyatt shifts slightly in Aiden’s arms. Through the sudden, complete darkness, Aiden thinks he sees his eyes flutter.
“What - where am I?” Wyatt mumbles. He sounds only half-conscious, but full of blind terror. “What happened?”
“You’re fine,” Aiden tells him, his quiet voice deep enough to cut through the wind. “Everything’s okay.”
“I can’t - I can’t fucking see anything…”
Aiden hasn’t done any intentional magic in as long as he can remember, but unfortunately intentional magic isn’t the only kind. Despite his deep dislike of Wyatt, the terrified panic in his voice stirs something in Aiden, and before he knows it, he’s giving off a very, very faint golden glow. Just enough for Wyatt to see him by.
God fucking damnit. Aiden didn’t mean to do that, but since he did, he may as well use it.
“See?” he murmurs. “You’re fine.”
Wyatt stares up at him, trembling in his arms, then closes his eyes again. Aiden feels him go still, but he can also feel him breathing.
And to Aiden’s immense relief, he goes right on breathing all the way back to the hostel, to the warmth, to his bed.
~~~~
“Thank you, Aiden,” Serena says softly, twining her fingers around Aiden’s as they stand looking down at Wyatt. “I’m not sure we would have beaten the storm if you didn’t come get us.”
Eduardo set Wyatt’s leg as best he could. He did a lot of stressed-out cursing the whole time - Aiden thinks, anyways, none of it was in English - but Wyatt is out of danger. A local doctor is going to come by in the morning to take a closer look, but Wyatt is breathing deeply and regularly. It was the pain and effort that had knocked him out.
Aiden looks down at Serena, thinking about what she just said. A deep uneasiness moves through him.
Did he just… did he just do a rescue?
No, he’s not doing Guardian things anymore. It can’t have been a Guardian thing, can it? That Aiden happened to get trapped here by the snow. That he chose the hostel where he met Serena, who needed him just as badly as he needed her, in that moment. He had picked the hostel at random.
That Wyatt and Josh would choose tonight - the night Aiden had spent in closest proximity to Serena - to get themselves in life-threatening danger. The kind of danger that only the combined forces of Serena and Aiden could get them out of.
It does sound an awful lot like fate.
A deep burst of anxiety and distress surges through Aiden. He swallows hard, turning his face away from the bed where Wyatt is sleeping.
Serena tips her head to the side, looking at Aiden with questioning eyes.
“You think,” Aiden blurts out, before he realizes what he’s doing - “You think people are meant for something, Serena? Meant to be something, or - do something? And they won’t be able to get away from it, no matter what they do, or how hard they try?”
Serena stares up at him, then lowers her gaze as she thinks it over. Her long dark lashes sweep her cheekbones in that way Aiden likes so much.
“I’m not sure,” she says slowly, then looks up at Aiden searchingly. “But I think that if your heart keeps bringing you back to something, no matter how hard you fight it - maybe you shouldn’t try to get away from it.”
Aiden bites his lip, troubled to his core. There’s that anxiety that’s come alive in him lately. The deep, cold fear that maybe he’s doing everything all wrong, making some huge mistake, that this has all been a waste -
He gives himself a shake, forcing the thought down. It’s too horrible for him to bear.
“What are you running from, Aiden?” Serena suddenly asks, very quietly.
Before Aiden can say anything, Wyatt abruptly stirs in the bed. His eyes slowly blink open. He groans, then lifts himself up onto his elbows.
“What happened?” he slurs, his voice rough with sleep and confusion.
Serena quickly strides over to drop down to a crouch by his bed.
“Don’t move, Wyatt. You got hurt, and you’ve been through a lot, but you’re okay. You’re at the hostel.”
“I saw - I saw an angel,” Wyatt stammers. “Glowing - angel.”
Aiden freezes by the door, but Serena only gives Wyatt a gentle, sympathetic smile.
“Oh, yeah? What’d that look like?”
“He looked like - like…” Wyatt’s unfocused eyes land on Aiden, and his eyebrows furrow in confusion. “Like…”
Aiden slips out of the room before Wyatt can finish. He goes back to his own room, where he swiftly and silently packs his things into his backpack.
~~~~
Saying goodbye to Serena was hard. Aiden really, really wanted more time with her. But he can’t be there when Wyatt really wakes up.
The bus won’t be here until morning, which is still a couple of hours away. Aiden sits alone on the uncovered bench that serves as the bus stop. He’s got eight hundred pesos for his ticket down the mountain, set aside from the rest of his money.
But for now, he can only wait.
The snow is falling in waves around him, but it sizzles away before it touches his skin. His magic is keeping him warm enough to sit there, despite his best efforts to stop it.
Aiden stares out at the icy landscape, thinking of his warm, now-empty room at the hostel. Thinking of Serena, who would be snuggled up with him if he was still there.
As usual, being a Guardian has stolen the one little shred of warmth and happiness he’d found for himself. Left him once again out in the cold, all alone.
And that anxiety is scratching at him again. Even another swig from his flask does nothing to stop it.
Aiden is so lost and confused and miserable, right now. Not drunk enough, but more drunk than he should be, and so, so desperate for someone to talk to…
Aiden’s eyes suddenly blur with tears of loneliness. Serena’s words echo in his head.
Don’t you miss your people, too?
Before Aiden knows what he’s doing, he takes out his own sat phone from his bag. He bought it in case there’s an emergency while he’s wandering all these remote mountain towns and villages. He hasn’t used it yet, but now he pushes up the antenna and takes it off standby.
For probably the millionth time, Aiden dials Ralph’s number, then realizes what he’s doing just in time to stop himself before he can hit the call button.
Everything is irreparably fucked between them, but Aiden wants so badly to believe that he could just hit the call button and hear a familiar voice say Hey, A, I’ve missed you...
He wants to believe that he could catch Noah, too. Just to hear his bright, easy laughter would feel so good, right now.
But every time Aiden lets his heart run away hoping like that, it limps back hurting worse than it did before. And he knows damn well that Ralph wants nothing to do with him, which probably means that Noah feels the same way.
Aiden stuffs the phone back into his bag and leans wretchedly against the snowy tree beside the bench. A lenga beech tree, Eduardo had told him.
Jamie probably would’ve known that, Aiden thinks to himself.
As soon as his thoughts touch Jamie, Jamie’s note takes flight, singing sweetly and softly into Aiden’s sore, aching heart.
Aiden didn’t mean to listen to it - he tries not to listen to it - and he wasn’t prepared. It steals the breath from his lungs. He feels his lips turn up and his eyebrows furrow in a breathtaken, agonized smile as the sound breaks over him. So beautiful, Jamie’s note. Just as sweet and bright as it was the day Aiden first laid eyes on Jamie, the moment when Aiden’s heart said that’s him…
Everything might be permanently ruined with the guys, but at least Aiden can take Jamie’s song with him wherever he goes. It’s here with Aiden up on the frozen mountains, and tomorrow, it’ll be with him as he starts making his way through the blonde, windswept plains of the Pampas.
He brings it everywhere, and everywhere he takes it, it sings.
Aiden’s breath comes up short as his heart is overwhelmed with an all-consuming, relentless craving, an ache he feels right down to his soul. All he wants in the world right now is to wrap his arms around that freckled body, to bury his fingers in that red, red hair.
Aiden closes his wet eyes and rests his temple against the tree, listening.
I’m coming back, he promises desperately, directing his message up at the night sky. Wait just a little bit longer, okay? Please, please wait for me. I know it’s been a long time, but I promise, I’m coming back soon.
As soon as I find what I’m looking for, I’m coming back for you.
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