[ATM] Sanity Drabbles; Xolotl/Ciorrnaich Xolotl doesn't think much of centaur dances as a rule. He doesn't think much of Ciorrnaich, either, but the first time he watches the colt dancing, there is a distinct sense of rightness in his movements which at first robs Xolotl of speech. He isn't especially graceful, and it's not like Xolotl is some kind of connoisseur, but Ciorrnaich's boundless enthusiasm seems oddly appropriate, channelled into the quick-stepping stamps and skips and turns of the dance.
So he jeers. Ciorrnaich's dancing alone; there's no crowd to hide behind, so surely a little ribbing, good-natured or otherwise, will be enough to stop him, and stop the odd hitch in Xolotl's breath. And he's half-right - Ciorrnaich does stop dancing eventually, but when he does, he's flushed and glistening with the exertion, and he waves to Xolotl like he'd never even noticed the insults, never even noticed Xolotl was there.
It takes a few days for Xolotl to realise why it annoyed him so much, and when he does, he hates it even more.
"I'm not hiding you from anything," Hiru said, and did not smirk. "You brought it on yourself."
"You didn't warn me he was crazy," Xolotl hissed, panicked, and made a good attempt at fusing himself with the wall behind the door. "It's your fault!"
Hiru shrugged. "You wanted to come." He turned back to his scrolls. "This is your big chance to prove you can handle yourself, no matter the situation. So if you're quite finished oozing on my wall, you should probably run along."
The sharp sound of hooves outside made Xolotl cringe, and Hiru smile brightly.
"Have fun practicing your diplomacy," he said, and Xolotl called him something he would never have dared to say had Sanga been in the room, and ran for it.
"Well," said Loganaich, and Eodranaich stifled a laugh. Xolotl tried for defiance and decided about three seconds into Loganaich's slow smirk that it was a lost cause.
"It's not my fault he can't keep his mouth to himself," he said, sullen, and Eodranaich lost the battle. Loganaich patted his brother's shoulder, and struggled valiantly with his own amusement at the distant, dreamy expression on his younger herdmate's face.
"Let it never be said you didn't show him a good time," he said, and Eodranaich howled.
"Mmmmmmmnh," said Ciorrnaich, stretching. And then, "Oh... that's... mmm."
"Hell," said Xolotl, miserably, and Ciorrnaich twitched toward him, still half-doped, and smiled widely.
"Oh," he said. "Hello. I'm lying down. Why am I lying down? Oh well." Big hands on Xolotl's calf and ankle, and Xolotl scrabbled backward.
"Don't touch me," he said. "And whatever you do, don't put your hands in your mouth."
Ciorrnaich inspected his hands with some interest, rubbing his fingers together thoughtfully. Xolotl could almost see his brain working. "You know," Ciorrnaich said slowly, and Xolotl stood up and called for Hiru before he could get any further along that train of thought; after everything he'd heard from his cousin, he was no longer prepared to give any centaur the benefit of the doubt.
Hiru was seriously considering investing in wax stoppers. No antidote should take this long to work, not even on a creature as large as a centaur, especially not when said centaur was intent on singing.
More precisely, on crooning dementedly whenever a certain water fae was in the room.
Then again, he thought, watching Xolotl squirm, if this were not an object lesson in the importance of accounting for more... inconvenient personal attributes at all times, he did not know what was.
There was a crash from the workroom behind him and a wave of smoke and heat washed over his shoulders, rolled down his chest. Since all that resulted was an awed silence rather than agonised screaming, Tol took the time to stow his picks and hammers before he went to speak sternly and with grave disappointment to the adepts involved. It wouldn’t do to lose half his own work because some of the younger boys couldn’t keep a proper eye on their projects.
Leysa’s house was always dim and stuffy. When he was younger, he had thought it might be his fault that she kept the house so tightly shuttered, but that notion was abandoned as soon as his breathing straightened out. It seemed strange for a woman who rigorously advocated and partook of the wilderness to keep her doors and windows barred so tightly against it.
When asked, of course, Leysa just laughed. “Think about it,” she said, tawny and fey, but no matter how he thought, he couldn’t get it – not for a long time.
As with most things the witch taught, it took Skeff doing it badly to make Tol see why and how Leysa did it right. In this case, it was circles – magic ones – drawn in the dust with a gnawed fingertip, and Tol only understood when Skeff had singed his fingers and darkened an intruding root to charcoal.
“It’s open at the bottom,” he said, and Skeff looked from him to the dust, where the deep groove of his circle was crossed by roots and rocks that had been invisible in the topsoil.
“Oh,” said Skeff, and drew a new circle lightly in the dirt beside it, in which a fire flared and flickered lazy acquiescence.
Leysa hadn’t been pleased that he’d spoiled the learning for Skeff, but it was common enough by now that he knew how to appease her. “What’s the spell that’s on the house, that you have to keep the circle closed for?” Tol asked, and Leysa ruffled his hair and touched his cheek gently with her warm, worn fingers.
“Think about it,” she said, and Tol still does.
Tol is often forced to consider his life as an exercise in futility. There is no other reason for him to exist solely to be ignored by his adepts, his fellow Technics, or his best friend. If he cursed or swore by gods, he’d curse at the gods that he followed, because surely they could not have given him a shorter stick had they tried, and then cut that one in half.
Meeting Ban only cements this belief, but at least by that point he’s had a lot of practice.