Finding her way to the Forge and the Karamzina was simple enough.  Ragnar was right about the ship, and she made a note to head outside later and fix the image in her mind to paint.  For the moment, however, Ziotea was far more focused on locating Rodion.  She’d not seen him for two weeks, and yet it wasn’t until Ragnar mentioned his name that she realized just how much she’d missed his company.

She followed the sense of his ether through the ark to the door of what was probably his workspace, opening the door without bothering to knock.  The furnishings were nicer than what they had back at the Seminary, the portholes set with Lanostran glass.

The rest of the room was all Rodion: notes, diagrams, papers everywhere.  He seemed absorbed in whatever had caught his attention and so for the moment, Ziotea just watched.  The absent half-smile on his face, the focused manner he had as he flipped through a set of designs -- the last time he’d been this into his work, he’d been finishing Madrys.

It was almost as if she’d never left at all, and yet she knew better.  The kiss they hadn’t discussed...her talk with the bishop.  Suddenly it was all in her way and she couldn’t bring herself to speak, to break the perfect scene before her.

Moments passed. Rodion’s attention was focused on a particular blueprint hanging on the wall above his bed. That’s when he saw her. Out of the corner of his periphery, a splash of orange bright against the half-lit gloom of the hallway. She was standing there, in front of him. Suddenly, he found himself taking a step backward, the back of his legs hitting his mattress. The sight of her knocked him backward.

“You’re here!” he exhaled. The words hung in the air, silence filling the room. He clumsily reached for a pocketwatch on his work desk and fumbled it open. “I was expecting you tomorrow.”

“I’m a day late, Rodion.  When was the last time you ate?”  And just like that she could talk again, though the wild gleam in his eyes concerned her.  “You’re shaking.”

“I…” 

He bit his lip. The taste still lingered. Bread crumbs still lay scattered over his work table. He tried his hardest not to glance at it, for he knew she would notice.

“I’m not hungry. I haven’t been hungry since… Well… I’ll tell you later. Please, sit.” Rodion gestured toward his bed.

Ziotea set her spear, shield, and bag aside, and settled on the bed.  “What new project has you all wound up?” she asked, as she started unbuckling her pauldrons.

His eyes drew away. She wore her inquisitor’s coat beneath her armor, but the casualness in her movements as she removed her equipment still disarmed him. He could feel the air in the room shift. The idea of “heat” was unknown to him, but he had read about the concept in many historical texts. Rodion wondered if this was what it felt like.

The engineer looked at his gloved hands, stretching the fingers on his right hand. He turned to her and sighed.  “Don’t speak of this to anyone else.”

He removed the glove on his right hand and lifted his palm up to the light. The blood shone like rubies. The wounds penetrating his palm were still fresh.

“Do you remember -- before I started wearing gloves? Do you remember what first caused these wounds?”

Ziotea was confused and more than a little concerned.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rodion, but I do know you wear the gloves for a reason -- so you don’t cut up your hands!  Why weren’t you wearing them this time?!”  Armor forgotten, she pulled out a handkerchief and grabbed his wrist.  “You should have gone to Astraea!”  Bitch or not, the healer was...well, a healer.

He slowly pulled his hand from her grip and rose from the bed, droplets of blood splattering on his sheets. He began pacing the room manically, his breath misting in the cold air. There was a sudden change in him. His shoulders began to tremble, his face grew paler than usual. His lightning-blue eyes flitted around the room, focusing on the different diagrams and papers decorating the walls.

“I need to tell you something. But I fear what may come of it if I do. There is something on this ark, Ziotea. Something… extraordinary and terrifying. I gazed into it and--” He lifted his crimson palm once again. He smiled at her. He looked so tired.

“It remembered us,” he whispered, droplets of blood falling to the floor, splashing red constellations on the pristine white papers beneath.

“Rodion, whatever you have to tell me, I’ll listen.  But sit down and let me look at your hand while you do.  Please.”  No, this wasn’t the flurry of energy he’d had for Madrys.  This was something else, something that worried her.  What had happened while she was away, Ziotea wondered.  And why did it feel like it was taking her best friend away?

Rodion saw her eyes. Like lanterns in the dark..

“I… I’m sorry.”

He sat down beside her once more. His breathing began to slow, and the strange glint in his eyes disappeared. Rodion turned to his warsibling, ashamed for having worried her. 

“Can you help me?” he said, offering her his wounded hand.

“Whatever you need,” she answered at once.  That he asked her instead of seeking out Astraea was a small triumph, though she knew her work was far inferior.  She frowned down at the injury, channeling a thin stream of her ether into the cut and sealing it.  Ziotea was not very good at healing, and it was more than a minute before she leaned back with a sigh, the task complete.  “I don’t just mean for you hand, either,” she added, looking up at his face.  “I’ll listen to whatever you have to say about your project, but first I want you to just sit with me for a bit, alright?”

She accepted his silent nod as an agreement and scooted a little closer, leaning her head against his arm.  They’d sat like this many times as children, huddled close to keep away the chill.  Ziotea let her thoughts drift, waiting quietly until Rodion was properly calm.

It was perhaps half an hour later when she finally spoke again.  “We should get you something to eat.  I know there’s the big dinner tonight, but if you haven’t been eating, a bit of something now won’t hurt.”

He grinned at her. “I am pretty hungry, now that I realize it. I’ll have something brought up.”

Ten minutes later a crewman knocked on the door to his cabin, bringing them a small meal of T’saraen figs and bread. Rodion ate quietly, allowing his thoughts, his obsessions, to drift away from him. 

“I didn’t think it would be so different. Your absence. I believed it would be comfortable even, to have some time apart. But, to tell you the truth, it just felt… cold.” He was unable to look at her as he spoke. It was a strange thing to confess, but it was the truth. More than anyone else in the warband, the two of them had endured their years in the Seminary as one. Her being gone for those two weeks had turned the world askew. There were foundations of his reality, and part of it had gone. He felt unmade.

Ziotea watched him, nibbling on a fig she’d swiped from his plate.  “I’m not sorry I went,” she said slowly, thinking the words through even as she said them.  “But it was a long time, by the end.  Especially the day at the Seminary, without you there.  Even in Omestris, I kept wondering what you’d think of things.  All the questions you would have had about what I saw.”  She smiled and looked down.  “I’m glad to be back.”  It was the simple truth, presented despite her niggling misgivings.  She wasn’t strong enough yet, and how long before the strength she needed to defend what she cared about meant she’d risk destroying it herself?  [i]That can wait until we reach El,[/i] she reminded herself, shaking the thought away.  “I’ve missed you.”

Rodion grinned, his cheeks stuffed with food. He tapped the top of her hand twice affectionately. It was a gesture from their youth, to signal that it was safe to continue onward. 

“I don’t want us to be apart again,” he said in a quiet voice. “I should have been there with you.”

For a moment his eyes caught hers and she felt trapped, but not in a bad way.  More like the safety of a bolthole with the exits blocked to keep out the cold.  Ziotea couldn’t think what to say, her memory unhelpfully supplying things like how he’d looked against the dark backdrop of the sky at the Rising ball and the sounds of him working in his ether forge, sweat darkening his shirt.  Instead of saying anything she caught his hand and squeezed it.

[i]I’m here.[/i]

 “Was it everything you thought it’d be? I’m still not sure exactly why you chose to go there,” Rodion said. Outside, a light snow began to fall as a frigid gale blew across the ark’s prow, causing the entire ship to lurch in its moorings. The Karamzina’s hearth systems had been disabled in preparation for tomorrow’s heavy engine burn and the sudden drop in temperature made the engineer shiver lightly. 

“Tell me about the ruins.”

“It was a strange place.  I have more questions than I did when I left, honestly.”  Ziotea laced her fingers through his with a sigh.  “The ground was covered in plants, the buildings too.  There were trees with leaves the color of my hair...there was even a river without any snow or ice in it.  I’ll have to paint it, once we’re underway.  It was beautiful.  ...But not what I was looking for.”  She sighed again, leaning closer.  “I still don’t know what that is.”

Rodion leaned his head against hers, his bare arm brushing against her shoulder. He was freezing, but he found that this didn't bother him as long as Ziotea was near him. He turned his head slightly, so as to lightly rest his chin on the top of her head. Her hair smelled of virrika leaf extracts, a pleasant scent of of smoke and citrus.  

“However dead that land is, those plants, the river, there’s still a heart beating within that place. I wonder why the plantlife was the same color as your hair? Heh. Maybe there’s a part of you within those ruins somewhere... An ember.”

“There were embers there, but not mine.”

Rodion raised an eyebrow. He drew away from her, a puzzled look on his face. “What did you find?”

“I don’t even know where to begin.  A ‘retired’ inquisitor.  Children of the defunct royal families.  A forgotten god.”  Ziotea paused, then slowly, carefully, began recounting her adventure in Omestris from the beginning, answering Rodion’s questions as best she could along the way.  By the time she finished twilight had dimmed the light from the portholes, and she shushed the rest of his questions.

“You need to stop now if you’re going to get any kind of sleep before the dinner tonight,” she said.  “Let’s clear off the rest of your bed so you can lie down, and I’ll wake you up when it’s time.”

Rodion thought he wouldn’t be able to calm down enough to sleep, but by the time they’d put the papers scattered about into some kind of order and he actually lay down with Ziotea perched at the end of the bed, it wasn’t so hard to close his eyes and drift off.

((collab between [@Lovejoy] and myself))