Growing Pains: Chapter 6

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His exhaustion felt like something palpable. Never in his life had Icarus felt this poorly, even after childbirth he hadn’t been this exhausted. It felt like every fiber of his being had the energy sapped from it. He’d felt the bone-weariness of a long day of travel, the emotional drain that affected the body in grief, but this…this was from magic. He did not use magic, no matter how intriguing it was. He had never been gifted in it, no matter how much he tried, so he was unaware of the effects it could have. 

Icarus wanted to lay down. He wanted to see his children. He wanted to tell Milarose that he hadn’t ignored him out of malicious intent. He wanted so many things, instead he was given an escort from the warehouse floor down the winding, twisting hallways of the building. He followed behind the drakiri, seeing nothing more than dark limbs and a tail, his head hung so low. 

 They stopped walking eventually, it could have taken them five minutes or five hours to arrive, he couldn’t be sure. But Icarus heard a door open, saw the harsh, unnatural electric light filter into the dimly lit hallway. It was yellow light, different from the harsh white of the—what had they called them? Fluorescent? Icarus preferred the yellow bulbs, they reminded him of the sun—something he had not seen for what seemed like a very long time. 

 He lifted his head as far as he could, looking up at the drakiri that stood in the doorway. He was large, with a pale mane and many rows of bone-white teeth that lined either side of his throat, relaxed now and showing glimpses of the startlingly red maw beneath. Mijhael looked down at him with surprise in his expression, and then aside to the drakiri escorting him. 

 “What has been done to him?” the risker demanded. That was what they called him, the others on the warehouse floor. Icarus had heard the word before, whispered among the humans. They must not have had a word for it that translated into their language. 

 “Something Esperanza did,” the drakiri leading him said. “I don’t know anything about it, don’t bite my fuckin head off. I’m just the delivery drak.” 

 A rattling hiss came from that impressive maw, and Icarus watched in silent amazement as the teeth opened, slow, deliberate breaths flowing in and out in a way that the kainu simply could not comprehend. Perhaps that was the thing he disliked about magic the most—it was something he could not understand. Try as he might, there would always be something that escaped his notice or that he simply didn’t have the background to understand. People, places, things, he could understand those. Magic seemed so nebulous. Perhaps that was what drew him to Mijhael in the first place, why he felt so comforted by the drakiri’s presence. He always felt the need to understand what was going on around him, to learn everything about anything. He didn’t feel that with Mijhael, and it comforted rather than irked him because he knew it wasn’t something he was ever *going* to understand. And that was okay. 

“Just fuckin’ take him,” the third drakiri said, sounding disgusted as he stepped back. “I’ll be back in half an hour. He’s scheduled for harvesting in forty-five minutes.” 

Only once the sound of the other drakiri’s hooves had faded away did Mijhael surge forward out of the doorway, reaching out to put a hand on either side of Icarus’s face. He turned the kainu’s face side to side, looking for damage to his head or dysfunction in his pupils. 

“Icarus, can you hear me?” he asked, his voice neutral in tone, but the concern was there—one simply had to look for it in his expression. 

“I can,” Icarus mumbled. His eyelids felt heavy as Mijhael held him, and he wanted nothing more than to lay down in Mijhael’s nest—for it looked much more like a nest than a bed—and sleep beside the drakiri who had shown him such great kindness. 

“Do you remember what they did? Did they give you something to eat or drink?” Mijhael asked as he led Icarus inside. He backed up and his brow furrowed when Icarus tripped over his own hooves, but the kainu remained standing. 

“The healer, she touched me,” Icarus said, shaking his head slightly as he recalled. “Violet light. Regrew my scales. I’m nearly whole again…isn’t that nice?” 

He turned to look up at Mijhael, and he felt the drakiri’s sorrow, knew that Mijhael hated him being here as much as he did, but they were both currently powerless to change anything about it. 

“You asked for this meeting didn’t you,” Mijhael asked. “Icarus, you must be careful. They know nothing of us, I would prefer to keep it that way, for your safety more than mine. If they decide to come for me, I can handle myself. But you have so much to lose.” 

 “As I am reminded constantly,” Icarus said. He made the mistake of closing his eyes and swayed on his hooves. Mijhael scooped him up and brought him to the nest where he made his bed. It was built of many blankets and pillows, soft to the touch and comfortable, yet firm enough to support. Icarus liked this nest… 

 “I asked because I fear for my Alina, my Mila,” he murmured as he was laid in the nest, a pillow tucked under his head. “They told me twice, twice and then I would only have to twice a year. I want to see my children, Mijhael. I have not seen their faces in months. I have not heard their voices in longer. Please, I know how dangerous it is, but if I cannot see them, I fear I will lose my mind in this place.” 

 Mijhael listened to him, and as he listened his hand moved slowly over Icarus’s cheek, brushing the backs of his fingers over the fur there, watching the kainu’s whisker coil loosely around his wrist in a gesture of comfort. “I want to,” Mijhael said quietly. He opened his mouth as if to speak again, but his words stilled in his throat. He clenched his jaw and looked across the room to his desk, where the human technology—a laptop—sat open, screen black. 

 “Wait here,” he said, as if the kainu would be able to move away. He moved from the nest across the room, stopping to throw the deadbolt on his door. He tapped a button on the keyboard—something he still struggled to use, if only because the size of it was not adapted for the hands of a drakiri—and used the touchpad to navigate on the screen. It took a long moment, and when he turned back around, he saw that Icarus had fallen asleep. He knew that he should let the poor kainu rest, but he also knew that they would have a moment such as this for a long time. He needed to make this happen for his friend…

 “Icarus,” he said, gently touching the other’s side. Icarus roused, his eyelids opening before his eyes had rolled back down. He blinked slowly and squinted as Mijhael moved the laptop in front of his face, close enough to see the figures in the room. It was in black and white, but the young drakiri in the video were unmistakable. 

 “The feed is live, but I do not have access to it,” Mijhael said solemnly. “This is footage from last week. Alina is studying the biology of mammals, Mila has taken to writing. I’m not sure what he writes about, we try to give them as much privacy as we can and I take no pleasure in reading the private thoughts of a child.” 

 He watched Icarus’s expression soften, his golden eyes full of all the love of a father and more. This drakiri loved his children fiercely, it was impossible not to tell. 

 “Mila is getting so big,” he breathed, his voice choked with emotion. “I’m missing so much of their lives…six months is so long for youths, they are only children once.” 

 “But you are their father forever,” Mijhael reminded him. “Hold on just a little while longer. Everything will be alright.” 

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