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“You spend so much time with that foreigner.”

Zekiel sat at the edge of Warrek’s bed, pulling the long sleeves of his shirt into place and buttoning them at the wrists. When fingers touched to the side of his neck, he paused, all of his body and breath freezing still as a bird awaiting some undefined predator’s sentence. But then, after ghosting the touch appraisingly over the blue-purple mark there, low on Ze’s throat, the hand dropped away, and Zekiel breathed again, adjusting his shirt collar to cover it and buttoning that, too.

“He needs much time to be cared for properly,” Zekiel said, “as so much of him hurts. His gods put him through many trials before he arrived here.”

“I heard you laid with him.”

Zekiel blinked. And stared, openly surprised. “I—”

“Tch.” A sharp click of Warrek’s tongue quieted whatever Zekiel might have said, and he held himself still and silent, waiting as the other boy’s gloved fingers worked through his hair, re-securing the blue ribbon there into his braid. “I am going to trust even you are not that stupid, and some of the rumors are unfathomably ridiculous, so I won’t waste my time with it. But.” Warrek gave a curt, finishing tug to Zekiel’s braid after fastening it. “Don’t come in here smelling like him, in any case. I do hope you wash after handling anything that’s touched him.”

Zekiel hesitated, uncertain exactly how to respond before giving a small smile. “I do wash. He is not—”

“Good,” Warrek said, and at his dismissive gesture, Zekiel stood. “Go, then. Do whatever you must. And Zekiel…”

Ze paused halfway to the door.

“When you finish, make your way by the library and bring a copy of…” Warrek frowned, making an indistinct waving signal with his hand, “…whatever tome that was that Butternut wanted us to read.”

“Professor Butrnak?”

“I want it this evening.”

Zekiel nodded. “I will find it.” Often when Zekiel left from time spent with Warrek, he felt a shadow in his gut which lingered until he managed to spend enough time on his own or with others doing tasks which swept it away. Today, however, the prickle of unease was gone almost instantly despite the throb at his throat and side. Warrek was pleased and behind him for the moment, and ahead: he was free to introduce Ottolo to the new space prepared for him.

Few things, he thought, could be more wondrous than that in this moment, and not three steps from Warrek’s door, his smile had returned to full glow, and a tuneless hum tripped from his lips as he made his way down the halls of the Sanctum’s private housing rooms and out, towards the outer buildings among which Ottolo was kept.

Because moving Ottolo would involve just that — physically moving him, when he couldn’t himself still, as well as moving his wheelchair, and all the various personal effects which had gathered in his room: his sketchbooks, his charcoal, his coloring tools, the plants brought in, the books and toys, all of which acted together to bring life and personalization to the otherwise dark and dull room — Zekiel came with company.

He’d been told that he would have them at the same time he was informed the room was ready, and thus was flanked when he finally did enter the room. Two someones to carry Ottolo himself on the stretcher brought in for him. Easier, perhaps, when dealing with the stairs, and gentler on his still-healing bones, to be carried smoothly and suspended rather than by a single person. And two others to manage his newest wheeled transport and his belongings.

Though he chattered with them on the way along, however, Zekiel’s words had quieted by the time they reached the hall leading to Ottolo’s room, and upon entering it, his attention focused there, on the brightening smile of the boy on the bed, and any remaining fragments of the morning’s unease were gone as surely as a swift and forgotten breeze. He beamed as he darted in, hopping to throw his arms — gently, but with as much enthusiasm as he dared — about his friend.

“I am well! And sleep came as it tends to come when I bed, but perhaps with greater excitement than usual, as I woke feeling as though I’d dreamt an adventure…” His words trailed, lost for half a moment before his focus returned with force and a smile. “Though I couldn’t say of what, as I don’t recall it, and you—? Oh! And these…” He hastened to turn and gesture as his company followed after him, already moving to get down to business. “These are Petoval, Aether, Milcia, and Iohva. They’re to help move you with me, are you well to be moved?”

“You needn’t be frightened,” Zekiel assured, smiling as he leaned back and stepping out of the way, but keeping near enough to his friend to hopefully assuage his concerns as the others in his company moved in to lift and adjust Ottolo onto the carrying stretcher. “We will be very careful, and the sun gentle. I am sure it is eager to touch your skin after so long not.”

Though it hadn’t been a given, of course — or rather, he couldn’t have specifically told one way or the other himself whether or not a room would successfully be arranged for — Zekiel had never doubted that the situation would resolve itself for the better.

As Ottolo’s things were gathered and lifted, and they moved out as a small, informal procession up the steps and towards his new lodgings, that faith felt rewarded. He knew that Ottolo would not be permitted to remain even on the outer Sanctum grounds indefinitely after he began to heal in full, but that was a concern for another time, and in this moment, as they stepped from the shadows of the lower passages out into the open air bright with morning, he sent his friend an open, beaming look. The crisp air of late autumn brought color to his cheeks.

“It is about so large as my own room,” he said, “but with all of your things to fill it, of course it will not be anything like mine—are the mornings like this in your lands? And this the color of your sky?”

Zekiel had seen persons become emotional.

In the halls of a church, it wasn’t uncommon to come in at trying times, or simply to be overwhelmed by one’s own faith in the divine within their walls. And he had seen that first hand. Citizens knelt prayer. Falling to the floor at the feet of statues to their deities. Or even the feet of the priests and priestesses who tended to them. And crying there, either in joy or anguish. But never, he decided, quite like this.

Ottolo’s happiness and tears were more. Impassioned and raw, but happy, too, but adjusting. As though his face, his body, perhaps his eyes and heart, too, were not accustomed to happiness, even in simple things.

“It is beautiful,” Zekiel said as they moved. “And it is wondrous that the skies here are still familiar to you…do not be sorry to cry. It will be here now, and tomorrow, and for all the days to come.”

The room was simple, but well lit by the morning that poured in gold through its tall windows. Impersonal for now, perhaps, but soon to change as those carrying in Ottolo’s things brought them over the threshold and into the new space. It had no fireplace and long wooden floorboards, varnished smooth, but come the winter’s cold, a portable furnace could be brought in and heated with coals to keep the space comfortable.

For now, Zekiel moved to help with Ottolo’s belongings. His art, his charcoal, his paper, his wax crayons. His flowers, his books, his stuffed animal, his balls. It was one of the attendants carrying him that answered, speaking up for the first time despite the general tendency of outside caretakers to be reserved and uncertain around an outsider from the far shore.

“It is.”

“Sister Mortrem arranged for it,” Zekiel piped in, adjusting the newest arrangement of blooms, compliments of the Sanctum’s greenhouse. “You will be here until you are well enough to find spaces of your own, or…wherever else you wish to be! There is so much to be seen as you heal, the gardens, and the city church halls, the front walls and steps of the Sanctum…and with your chair, I can start to show you some of it—but only once you have the strength to do so and be pleased. Are you hungry?”

If Ottolo’s statements, arguably more dramatic in prospect in the end, earned any stray uncertain, confused, or even concerned looks from the other caretakers in the room, Zekiel did not notice—or, if he did, their meaning or the source of their unease rolled off of him like a dewdrop on a slick leaf, impervious to their effect. His smile was natural and at peace, no more exuberant than his usual—as oblivious to Ottolo’s particular surge of emotion as he was to the reactions of the others in the room.

“I will certainly,” Zekiel said. “As quickly as I may, and you may enjoy your feelings so long as they are enjoyable enough to enjoy. Be well in my absence also, I will return!”

And with that, Zekiel departed as promised. When one of the previously accompanying caretakers followed with him, suggesting — once out of earshot or view of Ottolo’s keeping room and after several abashed apologies — that perhaps he ought to engage only in supervised or accompanied visitation sessions with the foreign boy because he seemed ‘especially attached’ to Zekiel in a way which might later characterize itself in dangerous ways, the words were as lost on Zekiel as the looks had been.

“Oh, he isn’t dangerous at all! You needn’t fret yourself, he’ll be well in time—and he has been a wondrous patient since deciding he wished to live. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Zekiel returned with schoolbooks perched at one hip, bound together by book belts, and a breakfast tray in the other arm. By the time he arrived, at least, there was no one else about but Ottolo and the morning sun. He smiled broadly anew. “Good morning!”

“Not immediately,” Zekiel said, moving in with his tray and setting it atop Ottolo’s bedside table. “I brought my books so that I might work here on what I ought after we eat and enjoy the morning with you as you said would please you. It is a wondrous day. Winter blooms are beginning to open, though the cold season is only just preparing to come upon us and hasn’t arrived yet—but Edeline says there will be more animals coming huddled about the warm spaces and corners to hide from the gods’ weather and we ought best keep a look about when we walk anywhere. I haven’t seen any yet of the sort that aren’t already normally about, but I do love creatures and all the shapes they come in…”

Zekiel trailed off, blinking down at the arrangement of food as he adjusted his books, and then set them out of their way for the moment. Where had he begun with his words? He shook his head, smiling instead of worrying about getting precisely ‘back on track’ and instead looking to his company as he settled himself in a sit at the edge of the bed.

The scene was such an improvement from the basement, it hardly bore mentioning. Light, not of dim candles, but from the great sky itself filled the room, and though the outside air was brisk, the air was comfortable inside, while managing not to be so stagnant as it was below ground. Though he knew, of course, all of it had been as it was because it had to by the gods’ plan, it still felt like a new breath of hope and warmth to have made it beyond those circumstances. He reached to take a spoon and a spiced egg from the tray.

“Do you feel that morning is more pleasant on the skin when it is shared and stood under with others, or that it touches us in the same ways and cares not for our company lacking or present?” Zekiel took the spoon to his mouth, and hummed with interest at the flavor—one of those so distinct that if he focused on the richness, it seemed to distract from other sensations. “Have you thought,” he asked after swallowing, “that it’s sometimes impossible to ever fully perceive two things at once? As we must always change our focus from one to the next and our capacity for perception at any single moment is so small and contained…”

Zekiel watched Ottolo’s train of expressions as he spoke, his attention flicking between his friend and his food. “I do hope the gods continue to replace good moments with more wondrous ones for you,” he said. “You seem much in need of it…and it is good to see you smile.”

After a brief pause, his expression brightened again. “And if you do come upon an animal all your own, I should like to meet it. I have only seen some — in stables, or in the company of their keepers — but they seem to be very great designs of the gods. Like Malta the Raindrop. She has many creatures she keeps, and a bird…oh, it was a beautiful bird! With many colors and feathers, though they fell many ways when she ran into me and all upon the street. I do not…think that I asked the bird’s name,” he said, pausing there on the thought. “Perhaps I will next I see her. Then I can tell you what it was.”

Zekiel reached, plucking up a small tart and then humming aloud, toes curling in his boots and lashes briefly falling shut when he bit into it so that—at least for that initial moment, his vision didn’t distract him from the rich sweet and tart of the fruit, and the mix of textures, crumbled sweet bread and fruit filling.

“Mmm—and when you can move about, you may meet them also! Oh, and the janarim…” Ze reached, thumbing over a loose crumb at his lip and tucking it into his mouth as his lashes flit up and his gaze returned to Otto. “I met a man from the deep jungles, and he had with him all variety of things of so many smells you could almost think of nothing else but how many and how thick they were—but he had a janarim. And it was quite fierce and splendid.”