Cesc leaned against the aquarium's enclosure fence, looking down at the puffin on the rocks below. They were cute little birds, if a touch lazy -- one of them stared intently at a rock face in front of it, now and then inclining his head as though puzzled. Since Cesc arrived, the puffin remained doing so. It was strangely interesting to watch.
He waited for Zurine to enter. Was it weird, them hanging out together alone? Or was it just a natural progression of her being ... back?
He sighed. Why did he feel guilty? Because he'd kissed Melisande in the time between? To whom was he supposed to feel guilty-- to the taken woman who'd had to reject him, or to the single woman who'd already left him by the time it happened?
This was not, he told himself, not about romance, anyway. It was just about reconnecting. Making sure Zuri wasn't as miserable as she'd been at Cruz's birthday party. Or how she'd said she'd been that past summer.
The trip had been full of worry and excitement -- it was awkward, but at the same time hopeful, and as she approached the aquarium. She tried not to have expectations about what it was going to be like, but she couldn't help it. The last time they had visited this place it had been together, and even seeing it on the approach made her feel warm with memories. Zurine knew this wasn't like that, though -- there wasn't going to be canoodling in the tunnels, more than likely. And that was going to be enough, she resolved herself. Having her best friend back was hardly a consolation prize.
She could see him as she approached, and she smiled up at him, pulling the soft, floral wrap closer around her shoulders and bolstering herself. "Sorry, I hope you didn't have to wait long for me," Zuri called out softly, tilting her head as she looked up at him.
Cesc smiled and righted himself as he saw Zurine approach. She looked good! Certainly better than the frail-looking creature at Cruz's party.
"Not at all," said the stag. "Just looking at the puffin. Cousins of yours?" He gestured.
She couldn't help managing a little laugh and a shrug. "In a manner of speaking, probably," Zuri admitted, leaning to peer in at the puffin's fat cheeks and enormous beak. "Look at their faces, though..." She puffed out her own cheeks, unable to help finding a giddy sort of amusement in the lightening of the worry that had surrounded the event. In the wake of that heaviness, everything else seemed giddy and effervescent, light as bubbles, and she wrestled not to laugh too much. She'd rarely been as self-conscious as she felt right at this moment.
Cesc laughed, and as he laughed, he could feel some of the tension lifting in his shoulders and back. This was okay! It was fine.
"What are you talking about? They're majestic." He lifted a finger and pressed it into her inflated cheek. Below, the puffin tilted his head again at the rock.
A rather silly pthbbbbbt sound escaped her, and she swatted lightly at him. "Hah, yes, majestic fat birds with rock fixations. Probably they're the black sheep of the bird family," she said, unable to help smiling. It felt good to laugh, to not feel as if she needed to hold back, to restrain her responses.
"I read," said Cesc with a grin, "that they can overeat until they can't fly anymore, and then have to go on little birdie diets until they lose the weight again."
"That's ridiculous," Zuri snorted, shaking her head. "But it doesn't surprise me. Wow, I can't imagine myself getting so chubby I couldn't float...."
Cesc looked back down at the puffin. One waddled cheerily across the embankment, its feet slapping the ground. "Now that I have the ability to eat, I can see the allure..."
She looked at him thoughtfully, for a long moment, as if she hadn't realized -- despite his discussion of it at the party -- that he could eat now. "Really? Is it really that different?" she asked curiously, tilting her head as she looked up at him.
"Well, you know, I don't really know if it would be for you," said Cesc with a shrug. He looked over at her, cracking a gentle smile. "You still kind of eat. I just went out and soaked up the sun, or watched or did nice stuff. It wasn't really an experience for me other than... recharging, I guess. No snacks, no meals. I'd have a touch of strawberry or cream or sugar or salt now and then, but I could never eat too much. Now, though -- it's a whole thing, a whole new thing. I can taste what I make, I can tell without being scientific or asking someone else if I'm doing it right or the flavor's okay. I like it a lot, actually. It's getting another sense."
She thought about that for a moment, licking her lips. "It sounds really interesting, though. I wish I could really taste the things you make, especially. Everything always looks so pretty and delicate, like... like a painting, I suppose, even though that's a silly comparison. I bet you've gotten even better at it now..."
” Thanks, Zuri." Cesc smiled. "I'd like for you to be able to, sometime."
He straightened, pulling away from the fence. Why hadn't she grown yet? That wasn't something you asked -- that didn't seem to be something that people knew, anyhow. But he did wonder. She was older than him. She'd gone through hardship. So why not?
"Do you want to go see some fish? Not that that rock isn't fascinating."
"Fish would probably be more interesting, yes " Zuri admitted, gathering her wrap closer to follow him. The thought of eating cupcakes 'til she was dizzy wasn't an unpleasant thought, for sure. But that wasn't the only reason she felt oddly small next to him.
"Which exhibit was your favorite again? I always look forward to the penguins," she admitted, floating beside him, not sure whether they ought to touch or not.
"Mine? I like the stingray pool. Penguins are a close second, though." Cesc went at a slow pace. He wasn't sure, as they entered the aquarium proper, whether the location had been a good or bad call. It was hard not to remember... things. Holding hands in the darkened enclosures. Watching the blue light reflected on Zurine's face. Kissing her in the darkened theatre, while whale song and soothing narration played. Laughing while stingrays always managed to swim BY her fingers and not UNDER her fingers at the stingray petting pool. Were they supposed to avoid all the locations? Or just go and muse silently over their past relationship?
Maybe she wasn't even thinking it, Cesc told himself. He shouldn't, either.
"I hear they got some new rockhopper penguins, actually," he said.
Of course she was thinking about those things. The memories were piled in this place, drowning-deep, but none of them were bad. If anything, they only left the taste of wistfulness, and Zuri did her best to let them slide by, observed but not dwelt upon. It was one of the harder things she'd had to learn to accomplish. She matched his pace, a tangle of feelings in her chest she couldn't have hoped to unknot now. It was not -mourning-, certainly not. But missing, yes.
"Let's go see them," she enthused after a moment. "Those are the ones with the silly yellow feathers on their heads, right?" She wasn't sure, but choosing seemed to take away some of the pressure. Zuri smiled. "We'll visit the rays again, too. Maybe I'll get luckier this time, if we try to pet them." She left it open for him to veto, though, as they headed toward the penguin exhibit.
“Yeah," laughed Cesc. He turned by the whale exhibit, following the signs that pointed toward the penguins. He put his fingers up to his eyebrows and splayed them, like the rockhopper's feathers. "I always feel like they look like old men, ah? The ones who've let themselves go a little and their eyebrows grow all wild."
"They do," Zurine agreed, laughing. "They have grumpy little faces, too, like they're just not having a good day..." She pinched her lips and furrowed her brows, miming a truly irritated look, though she was fighting a smile. "More than anything, though, I just think it would be nice to swim like they do. It's like flying underwater."
Cesc laughed. It was getting easier, the whole thing, the longer they were together. He was unused to be uncomfortable around her, unwilling to make it a habit. They had been friends for far too long, and they both had affectionate hearts. There was still some dying embers of anger deep in Cesc that asked him to hold onto some coldness, some bitterness, but he was getting better and better at tuning it out.
He didn't want to dislike Zurine. He didn't want to know that she harbored some ill feelings against him, either.
He'd been taught things, distasteful things, about people. About supposed friendships. About keeping things hidden beneath the surface. He would not be one who did not learn.
He'd been looking at her thoughtfully for a little too long. She'd said something, and he'd meant to reply.
"Oh -- ah, I don't actually know any Raevan who really swims, do you? I've never really tried, myself. Just sort of paddled on a surfboard." His smile became a little wry.
As he looked at her, Zuri couldn't help a little spark of insecurity tightening in her chest. What was he thinking, that she couldn't read it on that handsome, so-familiar face, which had curves and edges to it she didn't remember? She was trying not to remind herself that she still didn't know what had made him grow, had given him that new sharpness and strength, and her smile faded a little as she hesitated. Things had gotten strange, hadn't they? But she was determined to just be happy, right now. If her summer had taught her anything, that was it -- to grasp hold of joy where she could find it and not let go. Even if this particular moment had old memories attached, however sweet, this was an opportunity to make new ones, and to move forward.
"I haven't tried," she admitted, laughing a little as she looked up at him. "Although I don't expect I'd get very far... I'm not so sturdy." She looked down at her slim arms ruefully, then shrugged her shoulder. "Maybe I should try, though. Now that you're so much bigger, you make me look even smaller by comparison." There was a sweet, teasing little smile attached to that, sly and impish.
Cesc's smile grew, but there was nothing coy or boyish about it. It was startlingly earnest as he found her eyes, a touch sad in the corners.
"You're not small," he said. "You're perfect."
Her heart gave a soft, traitorous flutter, and a genuine flush crept into her cheeks. She smiled anyway, looking up at him, almost searchingly. "You're biased," Zuri said, trying to swallow the overabundance of too-familiar sentiment. "But... I'm happy you still think so. You're rather wonderful yourself." Her shoulder bumped against him softly. "My favorite, as always."
Cesc cleared his throat and looked away, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. He slowed as they approached the penguin enclosure. His heart was beating a touch more quickly, his ears hot. He shouldn't have spoken the way he did. It wasn't right to assume a familiarity they'd had before...
That road, it was cracked, wasn't it? It wouldn't hold.
"You're biased," he said. "You haven't been out in a while."
She was glad of the cool air emanating from the glass-walled enclosure, and of the distraction of the fat little birds waddling about in the blizzard-white wonderland while she searched for a response for that. "I haven't," Zuri said, a little slowly. Where was the line between too-familiar, too much like what she would have said in the all-important -before-, and letting him have space? "But I don't think that what I like --" it had nearly been the word 'love', and that flush in her cheeks deepened, her eyes sliding back to observe the birds "-- has changed all that much. I'd like to think I'm pretty steady..."
Cesc watched the birds waddling, half-focused on their movement and half in the space between. He wet his lips and nodded, his thumbs smoothing over his own fingers in his jacket pockets, like petting his own nerves.
"You are," he said. "I mean, you're out here with me now. You could've hated me, if you'd chosen to."
The immediate response that sprang to her lips, she held down, and looked over at him in the cool white light, the contrast sharp against the soothing dimness in the hall. She thought about it a moment, and then said, very softly, "I don't think that anything could make me hate you, not ever. And on my life, it... never even occurred to me." The words were slow, measured, thought-out. "No matter what, you're my most precious person. Not seeing you for a summer doesn't change that. Although... I know I did things wrong, so you're probably the one with the most reason to be angry at me." It was easier saying these things now, and she was glad that the aquarium was quiet, no one listening in on their conversation.
The stag kept his eyes on the penguins, but his eyes began to shine, and he blinked a few times, his eyelids heavy. He pulled his lips into his mouth and nodded, once, twice.
"Zurine..." he breathed, quiet, eyebrows knitting. He cleared his throat and pulled one hand out of his pocket and haltingly lifted his hand. It hovered uselessly in between them for a moment, visible hesitation, before it gently came down on the back of her head, fingertips like snow, petting her hair.
"You're too good," he said. "And I'm sorry, I'm really sorry that you suffered. That you ever have, really."
She closed her eyes, enjoying that gentle touch, the familiar kindness soothing and sweet. Zurine couldn't resist leaning into it, swallowing softly. "I'll... be fine," she said softly, smiling a little. "I'm just... hoping that things can be okay now. I don't know what I missed with you, though. I know it must have been a lot..." She felt guilty, and stole a little look up at him, worried.
"They're okay now," assured Cesc quietly, his hand falling away from her. He squeezed her shoulder gently before he put his hand back into his jacket pocket.
He paused, unsure of what to say. He didn't want to diminish what she'd gone through this past summer.
"I didn't..." he said finally, shrugging. "I didn't have a very good summer, myself."
She bit her lip, and let her gaze linger on him again, studying and gentle, a line of worry between her brows, just to one side of the blue jewel there. Zuri missed that touch already. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to help..." Part of her, that small dark voice, was berating her for missing it already. "Is... it something you want to talk about?" She turned, touching his arm softly with one cool hand, wanting to offer comfort.
Rhedefre shrugged. To be honest, he wasn't sure if he was finished parsing everything that had happened to his family over the summer. He wasn't sure if he was going to finish, either, really. He frowned. He didn't like keeping things, not any more. With everything he'd seen, it started to feel like keeping things inside was like nurturing poison, waiting for it to rot you from the inside out.
"It wasn't ... good," he said. "There was a lot of..."
He looked over at Zurine, at her slimmer frame and the dark that was starting to wash out of under her eyes. He frowned, shaking his head.
"... no." Cesc passed his tongue over his teeth. "No -- you don't need it."
She swallowed softly, biting her lip. She could understand not wanting to talk about it, really. It had clearly been... life-altering, to say the least. Zuri hesitated a little, and then said softly, "I understand. B-but... if you need to talk about it, or... or anything, you can talk to me. I'll always listen, okay? It must have been... terrible. I wish I could have been there to help you."
"Hey," said Cesc, looking over at her, his smile gentle. He shrugged. "Don't think like that. It was terrible, but it's over now. I'm not carrying it with me like -- like the jungle. Someone else did terrible things -- wanted to do more terrible things, too. But they didn't get to, and now they're behind bars. It's tough, I wish it hadn't happened, but it's alright now. I'm okay now, and so is my family. And I'm glad to see that you are, too."
After a moment, Zurine nodded, drawing a deep breath. "I'm so glad that you're okay... a-and that your family is, too," she said, visibly relieved. "I guess... that we both came out of the summer okay, then. Despite its best attempts to the contrary..."
"I am, too," said Cesc with a faint laugh, his mouth tipping upward. He had new lines around his eyes, but when he smiled and they deepened, they didn't seem so unwelcome on his face.
"I'm glad you're alright," he said. "Took a weight off my shoulders to know that it wasn't --" He paused, the word half-swallowed: "-- just me--."
She watched him, feeling something in her chest come unwound at that smile, the way that face settled into familiar shapes. "I'm glad you're alright too... and that you don't... hate me. For abandoning you." Her nose scrunched. "I... really did just sort of fall off the face of the world, didn't I? For everyone. But I... know better now, so... be prepared." She couldn't help smiling as well.
Half his smile fell, but the fondness was not gone from his eyes as he looked down at her. He was used to being able to touch her when he wanted, a feeling that had never really gone away in months of not seeing Zurine at all.
There was a passing burst of laughter from what looked to be a school group of children, and Cesc slipped to the side to allow them all to pass. For a moment as they left, the enclosure emptied, just a few stragglers, the penguins, and them.
"You know," he said, quiet, studying her. "... I would have rather it been just ... just me, now that I think about it." He shifted his weight in the air, squinting just slightly as his eyes traced the lines in her face. "That would've been better. It's a better world when you're taking part in it."
She laughed a little as the children passed, crowding to the side with him, but his words caught her off guard. Zurine paused, swallowing softly. She wasn't sure how to respond to that, speechless for a moment.
"I... I hope I can... take part in it now," she said softly. "Both of us." She wanted to reach for his hand, her fingers twitching at her side. Frustration washed briefly across her features, and she quelled it as best she could. She had patience, didn't she? "Together," she found herself saying, blurting out. "Somehow..."
Cesc's smile melted, but the resulting expression was not somber, or distant, or upset. It was gentle and just faintly surprised. Together? He wasn't quite sure what that meant, not really. They were okay, they could be friends -- but that felt about as good, as secure, as he thought it could get.
It was a weird feeling, but he felt newly put back together. Taped on the inside rather than stitched, the cracks just come together enough to hold. To jump into something again -- if that's what she even MEANT -- would be like plunging into the ocean. He couldn't risk coming apart again, being raw again, piecing everything together again. Neither of them could.
He was just being smart.
Right?
"We -- we ARE together now, aren't we?" he ventured, soft. "We're good again. That's what's important, isn't it?"
She bit her lip and nodded. Yes. Zuri herself wasn't sure what she had meant by that. She was a little confused, but his words were strangely comforting. It was enough, she thought. More than enough, to know that she had her best friend back. Zurine felt small and new, unsure, but this she could be sure about: things were okay, mending slowly, like something seared brown by summer heat beginning to grow green again in the cooling rains.
"Of course it is," Zurine said after she had a moment to digest the words, smiling and tilting her head to look up at him. "We're... good. That means it's not weird if I drag you places with me or text you, and I... can stop worrying about it..." Not that it was that easy to turn off worry, but Phiel had told her that saying the words could help.
Cesc's brow crinkled slightly. "You were ever worried about it?"
"Maybe a little... I was afraid that maybe you wouldn't want to, that's all." Zuri shrugged softly, a little insecure and trying to hide it, picking at a thread on her sleeve. "Or that I'd mess up and make things worse. I never used to worry about that sort of thing, though..."
Another group of kids came through the enclosure, and the penguins responded to the noise, padding across the rock formations. A few leapt into the water, tails waggling. Cesc snorted, reaching out and tugging a lock of her hair.
"Well, you can go back to 'never', then."
She flushed softly blue, then couldn't help laughing. "All right," Zuri agreed, looking up at him and letting herself float a little closer, giving herself permission to relax, to just be happy for awhile. "And you, too. You can call or text or visit anytime, you know."
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