[ So she isn't going to tell him. Not how he is to begin to repay her (something which the fae in him cannot stand—a debt is a debt, whether it is owed to a perfect stranger, ally, lover, or friend), and not how much of a crapshoot the past while has been. No, she'll just casually angle her shoulder into the doorframe instead, leaning there with her coffee in hand like Asura can't see the fatigue weighing upon her brow; like he is blind to the cast of purple-blue shadows beneath her eyes, the gauntness to her face.

Courting death has not benumbed his senses: clear to Asura long before he'd glimpsed her, that Sokie had spent too much of herself on him, leaving the barest of fumes for her own body to run on. And still, she calls him dunce, thoroughly lacking in any and all mirth as she levels him with a gaze usually reserved for objects of study.

Asura, he knows this side of Sokie, is aware that her detachment and reserve are for the express purpose of tempering her own emotions; of quelling the wrath which had announced her presence while the Changeling had been preoccupied with staring down the abject reflection which had greeted him in the mirror. But Asura (damnable, dunce Asura), is hopelessly attuned to the spheres of Sokie's sentiment, right down to the way the anger which limns from her person, suffusing through the whole of the room with its weight, stems from a place so gentle that it could make anyone's heart break. ]

No. [ His eyes flash, and there's a grimace upon his lips, and perhaps his mood is influenced by her wrath when he declares— ] First, I want you.

[ —and moves to let go of the sink which has borne too much of his weight already. It is sheer, bull-headed obstinance which drives him forward, toward Sokie, until he leans upon the opposite end of the door, breathing hard from the simple exertion. Yes, he looks a fright, and yes, he's pretty sure he smells ten times worse, but this is important. The way he reaches out to her, the flat of his taloned hand pressing to her breast and over the beat of her heart, is a connection he has been starved for. ]

I want to touch you and let you know that... [ —voice breathy and head spinning, he slumps a little bit more into the doorframe, the wood creaking with the shift of his weight. Though his chest is hollow and his figure is lean from hunger gone unaddressed, he is still a dragon-ish big boy who only comes in size large. ] ...I'm as alive as I have ever been, and that I am the one who's decreed that this debt between us must be repaid.

And I will begin to do so by saying... [ "I'm used to people dying on me, or trying to use me. If not that first party, then a second, trying to kidnap them, killing them, or worse to spite me." Sokie's voice echoes in his head, and he remembers what it is she'd confessed to next: ] ...I'm sorry, Sokie, for hurting you.

[ Her and others; the people he'd sworn to protect above all else. When he'd fallen, he'd taken others, too. ]

...figures that I'd be bad it, huh? [ —he huffs and tries to laugh, only to realize he hasn't the capacity to. And what a loss that is, because the vibrant sound of Asura's guffaw is often indicative of his moods. He crows in victory, chuckles bitterly in defeat, bellows when under strain, and in the here and now, he would have rasped a wry sound that only Sokie could pull from him with her admonishment. She is right: now is hardly the time, but a few days prior had seen Asura in dire straights, and he wants to leave nothing unsaid. If not now, then when?]

Being vulnerable, being weak. [ Weak—he intones the word with low, sibilant rancor, its sound amplified by ceramic washroom tiles and pretty porcelain fixtures. Always, he has been strong; always, he has been the one to look to in the bleakest of hours and moments of need. To lack the physical capacity to move mountains is something foreign to him, the dragon who had been crowned by Summer for his tenacity and grit. ] I don't have a damn clue how to do it.

Just like you don't know where to funnel your wrath, because... [ From its place over her heart, his hand rises, lifts to tuck an errant strand of cinnamon hair back, behind the shell of her ear, in a tender gesture which tests the limits of his tremulous-at-best dexterity, before— ] ...you've been cooped up in this house because of me.

[ —he devours it, her wrath. Siphons for himself an impossible portion while knowing full well that this meal of his will only relieve her for the time being. After all, the circumstances which had inspired her high-minded ire have not changed; the sentiment will only blossom anew within her chest. And for as long as she bore anger in excess, Asura would be there to pacify it. Ease it down, as its taste (pungent as blood and acrid as alchemical reagents) lingers upon his tongue. This is what he owes to Sokie; this is how he pays his debt.

And by the time he is finished with Sokie's offering of a feast, Asura is no longer standing. Somewhere in the midst of pulling the wrath from her person, he'd started a slow descent down, to the tiled washroom floor below. He sits there now, still leaning heavy against the doorframe, murmuring: ]

For... how many days have you lingered in this state? How much time has passed us by?

It is... not for lack of gratitude that I asked. [ Of this, she must be aware. Asura, he owes her his life. As surely as his body has become a reliquary for her magic and her wrath, he so too holds within him a well of thanks for which he has no outfall; no way to express.

None, save for this: ] I am glad you stayed.

[ Her hand is a warm weight atop his head, and beneath it, his eyes fall shut, lashes fanning darkly over the ashen cast which yet remains as a shroud over his skin. ]

Glad that you're here now. Emotional constipation or otherwise.

When I was in that pit, I thought of you. Imagined how this conversation would go when the tide finally changed, and we wrested ourselves free of our oppressors. [ Difficult for him, to speak of it. Of the time he'd spent in chains when he'd sworn to himself never again. But the more he speaks, the stronger he feels. His voice thin and it is tenuous, but it still belongs to him. ] It went a little differently than this. Less talking and more smacking. [ And here, the corner of his mouth hitches up, into a grin which is perfectly roguish and somehow heart-achingly poignant in turns. ] Me, being able to support my own weight for more than a laughable second.

[ For the briefest of moments, he lifts his chin, canting his head up, into Sokie's touch. He'd missed her. Missed this. Their back-and-forth repartees and returns. ]

You, being able to accept my apology.

[ When he knows that she'd been hurt. ]

But... broth is good. [ Opening his eyes, he offers her a wink and a bad joke in kind: ] And maybe some sugar, we're going down with it.

[ W h a t, she'd done herself in with that fall out boy thing, all right?

(And when Sokie returns from her broth-warming adventures, she will find Asura in the midst of drawing forth a chair from an adjacent room via a bout of universal magic. But while consuming wrath had replenished a good deal of his magic reserves, focus and clarity of mind are still requisite to spellcraft, and that's why—

—when he gestures with his taloned hand, like he's wrangled the chair with an invisible rope, it moves, but not in the way he would like. It fucking flies, sailing through the air, whizzing right past Sokie on a crash-course trajectory with the doorframe of the washroom. And with a mighty crash! it collides, rather than breezing on right through, splintering to pieces before Asura who still sits upon the floor, wide-eyed and bemused and with slivers of wood showered atop the bloodied mess of his hair like confetti sprinkles.

But also, he's laughing. Laughing soundlessly, with hard exhales of breath, but the expression's there, and the telltale crinkle at the corners of his green eyes is mirthful.

What the fuck, Sokie wasn't supposed to walk in on this.) ]

Where was that threat when I broke the bed after you got me all wound up?

[ He remembers that night fondly and well (along with so many others), and no, the promise of retribution (for the messes, the ones which Sokie seems to always clean up) doesn't at all scare him.

What does is this: the thought of being allowed (being alone) to sit and stew in his own head, because in the moments after Sokie had left him, memories of Arcadia had been upon him again. He'd heard it for the second time, the voice of his once-Keeper, and it had rooted deep at the back of his mind no different from the way the Cwyld seized upon its hosts and left them shaded and shadowed, full of the infection and nothing else.

And so, to set himself to purpose (and to remain in the present, straying far from the possibility of falling into a waking dream), he'd cast a spell. Enacted the magic which had Sokie sweeping up chair-bits into a tin basin.

She isn't wrong. When he isn't focused, his spellcraft lacks in finesse. And yet, it'd felt so damn exhilarating to smash something to pieces after being laid up and useless in bed. ]

Or is it the fact that we wrecked it together, and this... [ He breathes in, the warmth of the cup of broth pressed to the center of his bare chest. By way of the porcelain, the heat of the liquid suffuses through to his skin in a way that's enlivening, helping to affix him to his surroundings. The washroom. Their shared home. To Sokie, who's going to strong-arm him into studying while his body remains in recovery. ] ...is the piss poor result of my own heedlessness?

[ Taloned hands curling all the more tightly around the cup of broth, Asura does not partake (he does not drink), though he holds fast to it. Clutches it, like its heat were a lifeline that had been offered to him. That, upon waking, his pride had been glad for the lack of an audience to his miserable state remains true. However... the longer that he remains awake (and the longer that his dream does not fade from his mind), the more he finds that he has no wish to be left alone to his own devices.

(Hilarious. Real fuckin' funny, that Asura Adevah, who wears Summer's diadem, is warfaring and commanding, draconic and bestial, cannot stomach the thought of being on his own. How he is vulnerable, just as Sokie had proclaimed him to be, and he doesn't know how to reconcile the fact with what he is. What he projects himself to be.)

And suddenly, a startling !! acquiescence: ]

But I'll learn to mend. [ If she's the one who's showing him. ] Can't promise I'll be any good at it, but I'll learn.

It's... how you put me back together again, isn't it? [ Because it couldn't be healed, only mended, the stone which housed his crystalline innards. And before what had been harvested from him could be reformed again, its shell of protective framework had to be repaired, fissure by fissure. ] Think I should at least be familiar with how it's done, if only for that reason.

[ Drink your broth, Sokie instructs, and Asura's left to wonder how the hell he's supposed to do just that when the mage has gone and confessed that their most vigorous night together had left her staggered— perplexed, that their bodies could keep up (keep the pace) where their bed hadn't. Break his dick (hah!), the King of Summer is far more likely to put a hip out first. Or so, he happens to be of the mind. And woe be to them, neither he or Sokie have the energy (or the strength) to put that theory to the test when the mage is drained (of magic, blood, and wrath), and the whole of Asura's body feels like dead weight and jelly. ]

Yeah, I'll drink. But for each sip, I'm asking a question. [ —he declares no sooner than he deems it safe to nurse at the mug of broth without fear that a silent laugh might seize upon him again. ]

Starting with... what's this about multiple phases? [ The first draw of the steaming liquid, long and deep, is both torture and relief in turns. Asura grimaces through it, pleased with the heat of the drink, though his stomach seems not to know how to react to the intake of anything like food after so very long of going without it. ]

Next, you're saying that you found my fire crystal? [ Where? In the charred remains of the Rathmore's torture room? Or had his insides made it to market in the time he'd been held captive in that stone pit? Did the Witches of this realm (once, once, he'd told Sokie what mages did to his kind; how they dismantled Changelings no differently from the way Witches took apart Monsters, and all for the sake of casting spells) finally get their piece of him? Bitterly, Asura drinks again, swearing he can feel the broth sitting heavy in his gut. ]

And... [ Leaning back, against the doorframe, he takes a third sip from the mug, and thinks... that maybe, there's something to this. The more he drinks, the warmer he feels, almost like his body temperature hasn't ticked down a degree or two because of the lack of fire crystal inside of it. ] ...you know that I can wait, right? I'm awake now, and I'm not going anywhere.

[ When Sokie's task of collecting chair-pieces brings her within the reach of his arm, his taloned fingers make a grasp for the leg of her pant, curling into the fabric as he holds her still, saying: ]

You can take it easy for a little while, Sokie.

[ And to be honest, that whole 'eating until he bursts' thing doesn't sound at all pleasant. That can definitely be postponed, can't it? ]

...know that feeling, too. [ Releasing the leg of her pant, Asura takes to assisting Sokie instead, no longer a hindrance when he picks the splintered-chair bits from his hair before flicking each and every sliver of wood into the now-full bin. And what a bundle of mixed messages Sokie is (I don't have the energy to spare, I am extremely relived, I'm way too high energy to stay still), leaving Asura to worry after her (like she worries after him). A shaky sigh of his own slopes his shoulders, after his task has been finished and there are no longer any confetti-sprinkles of chair decorating his head like some novelty crown of thorns. What he should do is relent, allow himself to be taken care of. But what he wants to do is help, and so he does: ] Know it so damn well that I can say it won't ever feel like enough.

[ No matter what she does or doesn't do. ]

And that's... what keeps us moving forward, doesn't it? Despite tired bodies and worn hearts. [ In this facet, they are the same. They are fueled by what still needs doing, as opposed to what has been returned and already hard-won. Asura and Sokie, they're never satisfied. Enough is never enough. ] If you're really after something to wear you out, think you helping to wash my hair will do the trick. The only other time it's been this gnarled and caked with dirt was after I wrestled those reediles on the riverbanks.

[ The remnants of his cup of broth? Yeah, he's gonna chug it down like a shot in three, two, one...! There he goes. It's forced, but he soldiers right on through it, slamming his emptied mug down, upon the washroom tile to signify his victory before— he pushes himself up. Standing again. Fighting again. ]

That mud, it stuck with me for days. [ Smiling, he flashes a mouthful of dragon fang. ] Let's hope the stink of that stone pit doesn't do the same, or else we're really never going to cuddle again.

[ W h a t, she'd said 'cuddle first', okay? Not linger in possessive embrace, but cuddle. ] And maybe, while we're at it, you can even tell me what it was like. After the fires, when Paloma and I were gone. I'm not going to have any way of knowing otherwise, and you...

Need to wash yourself clean of it, too.

[ As much as he does. As all of them do. ]

If. [ For a moment, the sheer amount of indignation laden in that word—if—makes Asura sound like more of himself. Like the man who always found novelty in the gall of others (regardless of whether or not they were the person who'd saved him, because Asura? he's an indiscriminate son of a gun), especially those who foolishly sought to challenge him in feats of strength and will. Even now, when he's little better than an invalid, he still doesn't know how to lose. How to be vulnerable. How to do any of this, much less how to contain his frustration when every step he takes forward, toward the chair which Sokie's set in the basin of the tub, sees him weebling, wobbling, but not falling down. ]

Is that a challenge I hear, Sokie Undertown? You know I can't resist a contest, much less one where the prize benefits the both of us. Though...

[ Stopping just sort of the tub, Asura inhales (shaky), exhales (steady), and centers himself so that no, he won't lose his balance while shirking off his own pants. He didn't fall on Sokie, so his balls are safe (for now!), and he hasn't got the slightest intention of dealing with the wet fabric when transitioning from hair-washing to the hot soak of a bath, and so: off the pajama bottoms go, divested from his person and left for the wolves. His own weakened constitution is hindrance enough.

Good thing that he can still carry on, chattering away with no impediment but a rattling, chest-borne wheeze; a distinct shortness of breath: ]

After the trial is hard to pin down. Too many variables, too many moving parts. And so long as there's the potential for justice going unmet, then— [ He, as the hammer of Summer's justice, will have to be prepared to mete it out instead. There is no other path which awaits for him. ] —that's something we shouldn't talk about. Not yet.

[ Because that argument can sit and brew upon the horizon. Asura, he doesn't have the energy for it, and Sokie, she doesn't deserve to have it foisted upon her now. Not when they've yet to recover, embrace one another, and acknowledge in full what had happened to them both.

Taking his seat upon the chair (were it anyone else aiding him, it'd be a humiliation, accepting this level of help; this amount of care), he reaches forward to start the water, setting the temperature to scalding (and somehow yet, he still shivers). ]

Right now I just want to feel without falling. [ —he confesses as the water rains down, and blood (his own) colors the runoff, rinsing free of his hair. The water is blistering, and it isn't enough (and it won't ever be, not to replace the heat missing from his chest; the parts of him which had been cut out), but Asura knows what will be, intoning the answer to his salvation with the soft-spoken reverence of a prayer: ] Your hands, your voice, and the water. Need that. Need you.

[ And she is benevolent enough to grace him with close proximity, the water overhead cut off and pulsed on again in the rhythmic lull of repetition as she washes his hair, rinses, and begins the process anew until—

(All he can feel is Sokie, Sokie, Sokie, her hands which told the story of her emotions guiding him through the shower and ensuing bath, but not without a shove (her) and a blind grope (him) or two.)

—he is clean, dressed in fresh sleeping clothes, and settled atop their bed rather than his own. And maybe, he's pathetically close to passing the hell out right there, atop the sheets which are full of Sokie's scent, but he hasn't given in. Sleep hasn't claimed him just yet. He's still going to win...! ]

[ A Sokie Undertown who does not employ the use of magic when it is to her benefit to do so is c e r t a i n l y no Sokie Undertown who Asura knows, and that's why...!

His arms encircle her middle when she leans in close to nudge him down, against the pillows, his hands clasping together at the small of her back to ensure that, when he falls down against the mattress in full, she'll follow suit. And with a creak of bedsprings, they flop! across the bed-linens, and though Asura is left a bit breathless for the move, he is no worse for it. Yes, fatigue weighs heavy on his brow, and his green eyes are set to half-mast with the encroachment of sleep well and truly upon him, but his body (what hadn't been taken from him) remains sturdy, and is anchor enough to see Sokie's restlessness docked in the safe-harbor of Asura's arms for the remainder of the day. Focus on yourself, she'd said before she'd helped him to wash clean of the abasement of being butchered and chained, but... there's just no damn way that he can.

Not when she hadn't answered his question ("tell me what it was like?"), not when she'd spent herself on his well-being for the past three days and nights. Laying side by side, Asura's hands still threaded together where they rest at Sokie's back, the King... smiles, and it's goofy looking. Dumb as hell. The expression made every bit as bleary as Asura's vision by the siren-song of sleep, but it's genuine and it's present, not only because he'd succeeded in dragging Sokie to bed with him, but— ]

It'll help you, too, if you sleep with me. [ —look at them, they both can be adults and mind themselves. As Asura can use the word 'sleep' without any wayward connotations.]

Do you know, Sokie...? [ Know what? Well, there's a brief pause, if only because a yawn interrupts Asura's sleep-muzzled drawl. ] Your hands express what you don't. When you're tense, they find your face, and when you're afraid, they shake. And when... you're patient and you're tender, helping me to be new again, they're like nothing else in the whole damn universe.

[ Lips? Pressed to the temple of Sokie's forehead in a kiss, lingering and sweet, which they'd been denied in the washroom. ]

But they need rest, no different than you. So... [ Asura, he's almost irritated with how thick his voice sounds. How exhausted he'd become after being awake for no longer than a handful of hours (if that at all). ] ...don't you leave me, Sokie Undertown.

[ He needs her, just like he'd said. And he wonders if she might need him, too. ]

[ She's never been this gentle with him, this deliberate in allowing him to seek the creature comforts of resting his heavy head against her chest so that he might be eased back, into the realm of sleep, by her warmth and the slow draws of her breath. No, she is not the Queen of Spring, and it does not occur to Asura to draw comparison between them: Sokie is Sokie, and she is how he knows that he is safe; that when he closes his eyes again he will not return to a lonely mountain or pit of stone. And even if the drone of his once-Keeper's voice should come to him in dreams, he is strong enough to separate himself from it, but...

Maybe Sokie doesn't know it, how resilient he is. And perhaps that's why, for all that she's embraced him (cared for him, given her magic to him), she has put distance (vulnerable, she'd called him, dismissing his words) between them too. Were he not so drained (from a simple shower and bath, from cleaning away grime, blood, and dirt), his temper might have flared at the realization, but as it is, he only seeks out more of her. To be closer still. It is after he threads one of his legs between his own that he finally seems satisfied with the proximity they share, steadied by the intimacy of being so intertwined with another.

("You know I can't leave you.") ]

...wouldn't call it just shaking. [ —he huffs, eyes falling closed despite himself. And yet, he still stubbornly speaks, clinging to consciousness: ] More like the anger turns your hands to weapons. The shaking is your restraint.

[ He'd tasted as much, when he'd devoured her wrath; noticed it, in the moments before she'd asked him to deplete her of the volatile emotion. ]

And you... you're my gravity. [ Hmm? Gravity? Does Asura really know what he's saying? Turns out that he does: ] Felt the pull of your magic, when I was asleep all those days. Helped me to wake up. To know what was real, and what wasn't.