Night of 53 Ashan 719
Unfortunate hadn’t been quite the right word for it.
A shame, perhaps?
In his office, seated on the floor, Zarik listened to the gentle night breeze of Tyros Isle drift through the open windows. He could smell lilacs and lavenders, flowers he had arranged along the villa’s rooftops specifically so their scents would combine within the interior. Beneath the floral aroma, he could also smell the sea. The biqaj breathed in deeply of this.
Naked, he hadn’t worn clothing for many breaks now. The last of which had been the coat when he’d helped Fridgar not bleed out after a reckless rupturing portal - performed blindly. Even the thought of it gathered anger in him. It had been mere luck that had landed the Protean next to Zarik, rather than in Asher’s room or Bjorn’s. What trauma would that incur to a young child: seeing a parent-like figure, a powerful mage, torn up with a partial leg missing after the boom of a rupture portal. He’d only just started to get Asher used to the reality-warping magic of Alistair’s portals, and such a possibility could have undone everything in an instant.
But he was not here, seated naked on the floor, to stir the anger of many breaks ago.
Zarik held two totems; In his right hand, he held Kiara’s bone-ring and in his left hand, he held his own self-totem. These were the two he’d focus on. The two he would merge. Beyond blending, he needed them to fully exist with each other into something new. A body and form that could walk, talk, eat, sleep, remain in wait while he was embodied otherwise, and inevitably, nurture their offspring. A smile graced his youthful features.
In under ten trials, he’d gone from initiation to this point. To Borrowing between totems. It was a rush, even more so than it had been with his insatiable Transmutation spark, and he felt the strain of it. For portions of his days, while in study and practice, he worried that he might overstep or simply break apart. But Alistair wanted to reveal now and Alistair wanted to conceive the heirs before his revelation. Zarik couldn’t prolong it. What if the revelation caused his husband to become impotent? Then all their talks, all their whispered admirations of a mutual future, would be for naught.
Thus, it had been unfortunate - no, a shame - that Fridgar had acted so recklessly on this trial. It caused unnecessary concerns that needled into the very thoughts he tried to calm. It felt as if his brain were being stuck with pins.
So Fridgar despised him. A veneer of even polite acceptance had peeled away from the Protean with more ease than Zarik felt comfortable with. The brute viewed him as a trollop, a husband snatcher, someone with nothing to offer but his youth and beauty. Someone who deserved nothing of what he had. It was similar to how his father had put it, when Zalazar had first found out. His father, who remained in Quacia, chained up and awaiting… healing. Healing that Zarik could only hope would come after the revelation was complete.
He believed, in the deepest recesses of his vulnerable heart, that his father might be able to recover from his murderous insanity through the healing power of - if not the Lucis, then - the Paragon. He imagined what that might be like. Zalazar, freed from the madness of Chrien’s hold on his mind, and a proper father once again like he could be in moments of tenderness and love. While his father’s skepticism held true over his marriage with the nobleman, Zarik could see the good of certain things: as in their conversations, as turbulent as they were, he noticed that Zalazar didn’t care that his son was a wago, but it was simply that he hated the idea of that Rynwago, the necromantic magister and northern foreign exile. In a way, Zarik supposed that Fridgar likely hated him as much as his father hated Alistair.
It was a shame, though.
Hatred was always a shame.
