WHO: Essek Thelyss WHAT: He discovers a gift from home, leaving him considering his choices and dual futures. WHEN: Late on September 15 or early on September 16, depending on your perspective WARNINGS: None, really ART CREDIT:Here STATUS: Complete
It was late, far later than Essek would normally allow himself to stay up. As he straightened from where he had been poring over various tomes to aid in a project he was considering undertaking, he rubbed his eyes and glanced at his phone to check the time, immediately wincing. It had been hours since he had promised Caleb he only had a little more research to do and to not wait up for him.
Once upon a time, Essek's rest was dictated by nothing more than necessity. When one only needed four hours of meditation to be fully rested, it was easy to dot trancing into his daily life at odd intervals. That was much easier to do when he was more or less on his own time table in Rosohna, even with his duties at the Lucid Bastion; now, his life looked much different than it had when he was the Shadowhand. Essek held a very different job wherein he needed to be alert at early hours in the morning for the sake of his students and he helped care for a kenku who was better an alarm clock than any spell or phone app could be.
More than either of those things, and decidedly more sentimental, Essek simply didn't trance as much as he used to. It had taken him only one morning of waking up alongside Caleb after allowing himself true sleep to understand the appeal.
Essek rolled his shoulders, ignoring the pops that were in thanks to posture his mother would have scolded him for and got to his feet. His hands traced through the air, a few of the books that he had been using gliding to their regular resting places in the bookshelves that lined the walls of the library, while others stayed out so he could continue his work the following day. That done, his fingers drew different glyphs and he lifted several inches off the ground, now no longer worried about footfalls waking Caleb as he moved to the bedroom they shared. The arcane lights flickered out behind him.
Darkness greeted him in their bedroom, which was no trouble for the drow, his eyes adjusting immediately. Mindful of the sleeping wizard in their bed, Essek moved about the room as quietly as he could, donning his sleeping attire and moving to divest himself of the various bits of jewelry that decorated his fingers and ears. And it was there, as he placed the silver cuff that sat on the point of his left ear that he found it: a necklace with a now familiar amulet strung through the chain.
Essek had plenty of magic items to his name, but an amulet of proof against detection and location had not been included in that stash until Jester had given him one -- this very one, in fact, if he knew Vallo at all. He lifted the amulet, his thumb brushing over the surface that he knew in light would have been amber in color, his vision casting it the greys and blacks he was accustomed to in the dark.
It wasn't too difficult to summon up the exact feelings that Essek had gone through when this necklace had originally been bestowed upon him; somehow, that time at the outpost in Eiselcross felt both a very long and very short stretch of time away. He had aided his friends in saving the world and, with time, had returned to Aeor proper with Caleb to see what else could be discovered, but he had simultaneously settled into a very different looking life in Vallo with a relationship, friendships, and responsibilities unlike anything he might have imagined for himself. He had chosen to walk this path in Vallo, to welcome the future here and to truly live and take advantage of this second chance he had been given. This amulet, though, served as a visceral, physical reminder of the uncertain future that he was leaving behind.
Somewhere in Exandria, there was an Essek Thelyss who was in hiding from one nation that surely would come to seek retribution and from an archmage of the enemy nation of which Essek was the final loose end to tie up. The amulet would have turned from a boon given by friends to a lifeline that he would be fated to wear until his eventual end, should he want to continue to remain hidden. It was hard to imagine just what a life like that might look like, even if Essek had spent the time between the end of the peace talks and his reuniting with the Mighty Nein in Eiselcross thinking of little more than that and guilt.
It was almost a blessing that Essek hadn't known then what he knew now -- that his life could hold so much good in it, if he let it. Though he could hope that the version of himself that was in Exandria would get to hold onto some of that goodness, he was entirely too thankful that he just got to have it in Vallo.
Which, of course, brought a surge of guilt that was a nearly constant companion; the guilt simply fluctuated, sometimes existing in the back of his mind and easily pushed aside, sometimes overwhelming and oppressive. He often wondered if he truly deserved the happiness he had come to enjoy in Vallo. After all of his crimes, was centuries of life in hiding not a fitting start to penance? How could someone like him ever deserve the very good life he carved for himself in this new world?
As if on cue, and keeping the drow from allowing his thoughts to go even further down the fatalistic path that it was threatening to tread, movement caught his attention, one of his ears flicked toward it. He tensed before turning, realizing it was only Caleb shifting in his sleep. Caleb, who had forgiven him and fallen in love with him regardless of all of his baggage and past mistakes. Each of their friends had played a role in the monumental change that Essek had gone through, but it wasn't a stretch to consider Caleb to be an embodiment of it. It had taken Essek wanting to change to actually do so, but it was the Mighty Nein that helped him remember the person he wanted to be.
And, he thought as he looked back to the amulet in his hand, he may not deserve this happiness or any that he was gifted back home, but Essek would continue to do all he could to be worthy of that gift. His life would undoubtedly change in difficult, unknown ways, but change wasn't so bad. Was he not already a prime example of proof of that?
Setting the necklace back down amongst his other jewelry, Essek finished readying himself for his trance as quietly as he could; with as late as it was, a trance seemed most wise for tonight should he want any measure of alertness come morning. Once in bed, he floated a few inches above the mattress, legs crossed as he took up his familiar meditation pose. Before he could fully commit to the trance, though, he looked down at the sleeping Caleb, considering all he had been gifted at Vallo and what he didn't know he'd ever get in Exandria.
A moment later and the mattress gave under Essek's weight, the blankets shifting as he slipped beneath them as he tucked himself in against Caleb's side, head on his pillow. He was going to be overtired if he slept instead of tranced, but that was okay, he thought as he carefully snaked an arm around his partner. It would be worth it.