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Zekiel rose before dawn, washed, and dressed in the private of his single room. His, now, after having advanced to the rank of acolyte, earning him the duties, responsibilities, and privileges that came with age and station. He ran his washing cloth and drying cloth gingerly over the tender portions of his skin before pulling into dry, clean clothes and pulling the sleeves down to their full length, fastening the buttons with care. He brushed his hair and braided it, the form loose but neater now with a single blue ribbon woven between the waves of lavender.

A rap sounded at his door.

His fingers paused in the fastening of the last knot at the base of the braid. “Yes?”

Voices came from outside the door, but muffled and distracted as though speaking to one other as opposed to him, and Zekiel stood, finishing the knot before striding to the door and opening it. A priest and a sister he did not recognize stood there.

“Zekiel,” the sister said, pausing there as those unfamiliar with him often did in the space where there might have been a surname, but wasn’t.

“Yes, Zekiel,” he agreed. “Good morning and blessings be upon you…may I help—?”

“Are you dressed for the day?” the priest asked. When Ze nodded, and without asking anything else, the man continued. “Come with us.”

There was a hubbub in the long halls. A stirring of voices more excited and whispered than usual in the traditionally calm house of worship, and as Zekiel followed in the wake of the priest and sister, he felt a prickling in his skin. A curious energy that seemed to ripple just beneath the surface, like a tickling breeze over the ocean of his body’s blood, or something he was breathing into his lungs, now latent in the air. The hubbub grew louder the further they progressed, and he saw crowd before they got there. Not a massive one, but far too many to be called anything but.

He recognized Sister Mortrem before anyone else, and his first thought was to wonder if someone had died. That was what Sister Mortrem often dealt in, after all — death and those on their way to it — and death did often cause a stir, particularly if there was anyone of special importance in the eyes of the living involved. And there seemed to be a body.

Zekiel had settled into that mindset by the time he arrived and Sister Mortrem’s eyes landed on him.

“Zekiel.”

Finally close enough to see, he spied the body around which the gathering of onlookers had circled—but all at a careful, nervous distance, except for Sister Mortrem herself—and Zekiel blinked, stepping into the ring as though crossing some unspoken boundary. Though purpled and blackened by bruises and dried blood, battered and clearly twisted by broken bone, with some sign of attempts to right certain wrongs with varying degrees of success, there was no mistaking what lay stretched on a rolling cot-table used for such things. Pale skin of a different shade in its natural hues even than Zekiel’s own. Strange, hay-yellow hair like sunstreaks sprung into tight curls. And crystals pink as a sunrise.

This was a foreigner.

And as Zekiel watched, stepping closer with the dazed transfixion of a doe drawn to strange light, the foreigner’s chest rose and fell. Rose and fell.

“He’s alive…?”

“Not long, if not tended to,” Sister Mortrem quipped with all the quick, down-to-business efficiency Zekiel had come to know her for. “Come. You are following me with him to the south quarter. A room is being prepared. The gods brought him to our doorstep and the physicians have spooked themselves out of tending to him in their halls for fear he’ll curse the other patients. He’ll be staying with us for some time if we do not find ourselves burying him first. And you’ll be tending to him.”

For the first time since laying eyes on the boy—and all the strange, fascinating, morbid and beautiful details that entailed—Zekiel’s eyes flicked up. “I…?” But there was no argument in Sister Mortrem’s expression, and already the rolling table was being moved. So, without further comment, Zekiel did as bid, one hand moving as if bid by other forces to slip and rest on the rolling cot inches from the foreigner’s own.

He wouldn’t dare touch. Not here, or yet, for the boy had to be cleansed and blessed and checked for curses. But still, Zekiel felt his pulse flutter with a new, excited energy.

His first task had been set before him.

And it was a strange one indeed.

Privately, in the silence of his own mind he said a prayer to himself and for the bleeding boy, for it would be a terrible shame and loss, he thought, if the other never woke to give him his name.

Zekiel accompanied the foreign alien into the room he was to be set in. He aided with movement where necessary, but for the most part, his task was yet to come. Sister Mortrem told him in brief of the boy’s state—how he had been found, his condition, and his place in the gods’ hands, now—if he lived, she had told him, then he would Zekiel’s charge to tend to in regards of daily upkeep. Of course you will have other tasks… but this boy would need frequent attention and monitoring. When the healers arrived, a pair that they had managed to recruit to the task despite the acute wariness of the local healing facilities, Sister Motrem had shook her head.

“You do not need to watch.”

But Zekiel had stayed.

His body did not cringe like many did at the sight of blood, pain, or even bone and skin twisted out of place and shape. His eyes didn’t flinch, and for once, his mind did not wander. Something riveting about the scene—perhaps the very fact that it was walking the fine boundary between life or death, or perhaps because his own energy felt wrapped up in it and tethered in to the experience—held his attention in place like nothing else. As though, if he let his thoughts wander for even a moment, that would break his presence there and leave the alien adrift without a rock to cling to.

If it was to be his task to tend to the boy, then experience this he ought.

Besides, it provided him recurring opportunities to observe what the healers did, and where appropriate, ask. What was the purpose of this? And that? And afterward, what would need to be done to maintain this portion and that? He was not a healer himself, of course, and he did work to make as little a burden of himself as possible, but the healers did not seem to mind the presence of a familiar priest in their midst regardless—if anything, they seemed more relaxed with his presence by the end and, as they came to the finishing touches of their work, were content to tell him certain things he could do for upkeep.

After they finished, Zekiel studied the boy. His hair, his skin, his bruises, his wounds. His mind cataloged where all the earth and stone had punished the foreigner’s body. After reassuring himself that his charge—despite all his ongoing suffering—was as well off as he could be for the given moment, Ze eventually slipped out to eat, and back to check, and out to tend to various other tasks before him, before moving back in again. His re-entry into the room for the fourth time was greeted with a cough, and in a moment, Zekiel was at the cot side, fingers darting within an inch of the bunching fists on the sheets—and then touching, as lightly as his fingers knew how.

“Wake slowly,” he suggested, words soft as though even volume could make more bruises on the foreigner’s already too-abused skin if he were not careful with his tone. “You are safe here and do not need to hurry yourself.”

Zekiel paused, his fingers stilling in place and then withdrawing when the other hand flinched away as though burned. He watched, taking special note when dampness began to gather, pooling under blue, swollen eyes. When the other spoke, he let a breath out, smiling softly, though not without regard to the words themselves.

“You were brought here,” he answered, tackling the first and easiest question first. “You might not have lived if not…the sea brought you to the shore, and from there, you were delivered to the Sanctum. This…” It occurred to Ze, as he spoke, that as a foreigner, everything about his situation might be unknown. So, he began to speak. “This is the island of Yael. Your body was found upon the beaches on the north shore and you were brought to us by one of the local villagers. The Sanctum is our church, whereupon the god and goddess, Dafiel and Lurin look over us and work their will…you were brought here to be mended. Your life was spared by the gods, and we found healers to tend to your broken parts. You are still weakened by your suffering…but your body is well enough to persist. Our gods have spared you, and here…”

Zekiel hesitated. It was such a strange thing to say, despite apparently being the truth—that he could be entrusted with anything so vitally important as a life, even while serving only as the in-between for the gods. Still. He made himself say it.

“Here, you are under my care. If you should need anything to ease your hurt, or anything that would please you, speak it to me.” Then, almost as an afterthought: “I am Zekiel. Do you…have a name?”

Though Zekiel was not completely unfamiliar with the sentiment — both from church goers and those trapped in pain in the cots of medical facilities, wishing and praying that it was their time to die and join the gods — never before had he specifically been faced with the request, and though he’d avoided it once, it was clear this man did not intend to let him set the plea aside. He dipped his lashes, abashed and uncertain for it was his every instinct to give what was requested if it were in his power.

But this was not, he consoled himself.

So, he gave a small shake of the head, his smile understated and guilty—apologetic, even. “It is not my place to determine the will of the gods,” he said, brightening ever so slightly after saying it, as though voicing it alone gave him comfort, and he leaned forward instead, adjusting the foreigner’s sheets very slightly before moving to the side and pouring cool water from a waiting tipper into a glass. “I am only an acolyte and if they see fit to take you to them in the night, then that is their bidding and I pray safe and comfortable passage for you into the realms beyond. But in this moment I can only make you comfortable as I may in the world I share. Will you drink? Your lips look wanting of it.”

Please, let me be…

Upon consideration of the latter words, Zekiel hesitated, fitting a hand beneath the glass. “And if it would please you to be left in peace after, I will leave you to rest. Though I’ll be returning, you know. And once you have the strength, you should eat—do you like sugar? Or milk? We have biscuits and soft cakes…they may all be strange to you.”

Zekiel’s gaze flicked to the blood where it dropped upon the foreigner’s lips, and he set the glass he held aside for the moment, reaching instead for the available washing cloth and dipping it into the small basin of water provided for that purpose. He wrung it, listening and watching with quiet intent as the other spoke—cried, raged on breathless and battered lungs.

You oughtn’t move—

The words stayed at the back of his tongue, however, unspoken. There because he’d been told them by the healers, by Sister Mortrem: Do not let him thrash about, his body will not take it well. Not that he is likely to. And yet, in the moment, Zekiel felt it was not his place to contain that, either. Evidently, this man had experienced things beyond him, worlds beyond him, pain beyond any he could think to imagine, and any small sufferings the gods had ever dealt him felt like comparing too-warm kisses from the sun to a blistering inferno of the sort that swallowed villages whole in the dry season.

Thus, instead of objecting outright, Zekiel listened with all his attention, and only when the foreigner’s words weakened did he rise from his chair at the boy’s side, slipping his hand carefully as he could to the boy’s back and easing his fall to the cot below. His smile was soft, pinched with apology as he leaned forward, lifting the damp rag to dot away the red stains at the other’s lip.

“Then perhaps you shall,” he murmured gently. “Perhaps you will pass soon and in peace, but there is no one to fetch. Sister Mortrem above me has passed the task of looking after you to me, and if that displeases you, I apologize sincerely for my lack of adequacy, but I cannot take you to the gods myself and no one here will. If it is their will, they will do so in their own time. Until that time, if there is anything you wish to make you more comfortable…”

Zekiel lingered, waiting through the tears and hesitating at first before letting his fingers reach and touch to tuck curls out of the way of the other’s face so that they did not stick to bandages and adjusting the pillow just enough to ease the way the foreigner’s head rested. When he looked his way, Zekiel met his fading stare, offering his smile to blue eyes — brighter than the great dark sea, clearer than the clouded skies — until blonde lashes fell shut and the boy’s breathing eased again.

Zekiel waited longer still, assuring himself of the other’s peaceful — or peaceful as it could be — sleep before rising again and moving out of the room. At his request for food easy on the stomach for their guest patient, the kitchen staff provided him a platter with several biscuits, milk, and two bowls of thick, cheese and vegetable broth. He returned with that, setting it out on the small waiting table beside the cot where the water pitcher already waited.

He took down the time, jotting in the small journal Sister Mortrem had left him with after instructing that he keep record of the foreigner’s interactions in some form. After making note, however, his pen wandered, curling as his mind did and straying to the sides of the paper to begin making small, initially listless coils. Small curves and circlets. A feathery crescent lower down that might have been an eyelash, and then another, larger curve that finished quickly, obscurely rounded. An ear that did not dip or point, but ended all but before hair began, nested in a bed of curls like excited gold grass sprigs.

Zekiel lost track of how long he spent settled there, pen scritching and curving along the parchment. He did have places to be, in time, but for the moment, time was lost to him, and this was his charge.

When the cot creaked, sheets rustling with movement, Zekiel’s fingers stilled for the first time, and he blinked upward. Immediately, his expression warmed, bright as though greeting a friend he had not seen in a decade and tempered only by the voices of past criticisms—do not always smile so brightly, Zekiel, it can make persons uncomfortable if they misinterpret it. Particularly if the situation is sour. Take note of the mood in a room. He dipped his lashes briefly, taking mental heed again of the warnings and softening his own expression that he not give the foreigner a start, and then looking again, though the warmth remained.

“You wake,” he said. “I feared—” I want to die… He flushed, diverting his gaze very briefly before redirecting it and smiling again, amending his words. “I thought that the gods may have chosen to grant your wishes in your sleep, though you slept peacefully. Though they have not, it is wondrous to see you waking again. I am here because I needed to see you through to rising if you were going to do so again, and you have—I have brought food! If you are hungry…”

He shifted, folding his journal closed and setting it aside before rising and moving to the cotside table.

“I spoke with the kitchen staff though I do not know what your tongue prefers or what your stomach may handle…if nothing, then there is still water and you should drink, your mouth needs it. But there is also broth, made with cheese and earth-grown vegetables—it is very smooth and I find it quite wondrous to taste myself, and milk, and soft biscuits though you said you did not want them. You have nothing to apologize for…but…” He turned, studying the foreigner with curious eyes. “If it would please you to say…I do wonder what upsets you so, and you might tell me…if you saw fit. Or is it how much you hurt?”