That is Nighteyes' name for the one whose voice cries out from the darkness, and with it comes an upwell of wolfish adoration, a sense of belonging and togetherness and shared hunts and warmth and safety that can only mean pack in the purest sense of the word. Pack. Family. Love, and loss, and found once more. One soul spread out across three living bodies, but now one third of their whole is--no longer dead, but gone forever anyway. They have, they feel, been abandoned by a piece of their own heart.
But the pain of that hallucination is Fitz's, and Fitz's alone, because Nighteyes had not been there to see his body, when the Fool had found him in the central chamber of that frigid glacial prison. Nighteyes hadn't seen the Fool's cold, brutalized back, the filth that the Pale Woman had abandoned him to languish within, to smell the beginnings of death on him, unambiguous, inevitable. He couldn't have seen any of it, because time, and entropy, had taken Nighteyes away from Fitz before they'd even left the Six Duchies.
There's a simmering mass of pain inside Fitz's heart that has yet to be fully excised, but this much, at least, he thought he'd left behind, because this was a cosmic wrong that he had righted with his own hands, his own power. And when Huaisang grasps his sleeve, it... does something. The cries fade again, and Fitz lets out a held breath that might be relief.
He doesn't realize his eyes are wet until a tear drips onto his hand, and then he seems to come back to himself, lifting his other hand, the one Huaisang isn't gripping tentatively, to rub at his eyes. Voice thick, he says, "sorry," and almost laughs a little afterwards, even though he knows nothing about this situation is funny. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, sets his plate aside, the food's crap anyway. "I'm--not sure what this--" a gesture at his own wet eyes, "--is for, I... did manage to save him. To bring him back." A pause, and he tries to steady himself. "But he left again anyway, I suppose."
Nighteyes leans his weight, solid and familiar, against Fitz's back. You and the hummingbird need sleep, brother. Please.
"Yes," he says, unable to do anything but agree. He looks to Huaisang again and hesitates, jaw working like he wants to ask him something, but now suddenly seems to realize how, uh, forward-sounding his request is going to sound. He clears his throat and chafes a hand against his beard again. "Ah, I'm not--sure how to ask this, but--"
Don't be stupid. Sleep on the bed together.
"--Nighteyes..!" Fitz groans and covers his face with his hand. which makes it pretty clear that yes, the wolf has the right of it.
no subject
That is Nighteyes' name for the one whose voice cries out from the darkness, and with it comes an upwell of wolfish adoration, a sense of belonging and togetherness and shared hunts and warmth and safety that can only mean pack in the purest sense of the word. Pack. Family. Love, and loss, and found once more. One soul spread out across three living bodies, but now one third of their whole is--no longer dead, but gone forever anyway. They have, they feel, been abandoned by a piece of their own heart.
But the pain of that hallucination is Fitz's, and Fitz's alone, because Nighteyes had not been there to see his body, when the Fool had found him in the central chamber of that frigid glacial prison. Nighteyes hadn't seen the Fool's cold, brutalized back, the filth that the Pale Woman had abandoned him to languish within, to smell the beginnings of death on him, unambiguous, inevitable. He couldn't have seen any of it, because time, and entropy, had taken Nighteyes away from Fitz before they'd even left the Six Duchies.
There's a simmering mass of pain inside Fitz's heart that has yet to be fully excised, but this much, at least, he thought he'd left behind, because this was a cosmic wrong that he had righted with his own hands, his own power. And when Huaisang grasps his sleeve, it... does something. The cries fade again, and Fitz lets out a held breath that might be relief.
He doesn't realize his eyes are wet until a tear drips onto his hand, and then he seems to come back to himself, lifting his other hand, the one Huaisang isn't gripping tentatively, to rub at his eyes. Voice thick, he says, "sorry," and almost laughs a little afterwards, even though he knows nothing about this situation is funny. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, sets his plate aside, the food's crap anyway. "I'm--not sure what this--" a gesture at his own wet eyes, "--is for, I... did manage to save him. To bring him back." A pause, and he tries to steady himself. "But he left again anyway, I suppose."
Nighteyes leans his weight, solid and familiar, against Fitz's back. You and the hummingbird need sleep, brother. Please.
"Yes," he says, unable to do anything but agree. He looks to Huaisang again and hesitates, jaw working like he wants to ask him something, but now suddenly seems to realize how, uh, forward-sounding his request is going to sound. He clears his throat and chafes a hand against his beard again. "Ah, I'm not--sure how to ask this, but--"
Don't be stupid. Sleep on the bed together.
"--Nighteyes..!" Fitz groans and covers his face with his hand. which makes it pretty clear that yes, the wolf has the right of it.