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It's always strange when a single event causes a thousand questions, worries, fears, and ideas to run through one's head. It's stranger still to know that a single event should have done so but the mind remains completely blank. As K'yon rifled through his spare clothing, not even his paws were shaking. Even the sparks of hot pain from his burned fingers didn't seem to register. It felt something akin to looking at an impending flood being held off by a glass window; he felt like he was a stray breath away from being overwhelmed.

He hadn't even seen what happened, actually. He'd been so shocked to see that ominous Dusktext that he hadn't even paid any attention to what Geita had done with it. There was a flash bright enough to make him wince and then his gaze followed the husky's in time to see the pair of smoldering bodies fall lifelessly to the ground.

Another time, he'd have to curse the stray wind for blowing that awful stench into the hut.

But Geita's expression never changed. Even as he dismissed his grimoire with the same ease that he'd used to summon it, he held that nonchalant look in his dark eyes. There was no flicker of regret or narrowing to brace himself for it... he'd merely snuffed out two lives with little more than a whim.

He didn't even say another word as he stepped over the fox and headed outside, which is when K'yon managed to gather himself to his footpaws and retreat to his room; he could handle seeing neither the corpses just outside nor the charred earth around them.

He searched through the garments on auto-pilot, sifting through cloth he hadn't worn since before he became the village healer. They contrasted to the arrays of whites and silvers that made up a healer's typical ensemble in the forms of earth and nature tones. It wasn't until his paws fell upon a pair of grass colored shorts that his thoughts began filter into the void of his mind and he was relieved that there was some order to them.

Obviously, Geita was another Arcane Qrafter. Another Tomeqrafter at that. And one of the Duskclan, to boot. K'yon had smelled no arcana about him or magic from him, though he hadn't looked, and the ability to summon and dismiss a grimoire was an adept technique in both schools. It was a mellow yet sobering realization that slowed K'yon's paws amidst the clothing: here he was trying to pretend to the world that he wasn't some kind of failure, only to find himself in the presence of an experienced Tomeqrafter. He let out a sigh as embarrassment began to tug at him.

Staring down at the frayed earth tones from a lifetime ago, he couldn't help but feel offset. Again, his thoughts turned to how those secretive eyes seemed three shades colder, and that voice that sent a tingle down his spine had chilled him to the bone. As warm and familiar as the husky had felt just the evening before, he suddenly seemed a total stranger. He felt let down from an apprehension he hadn't realized. All the things Geita had told him didn't seem so easy to believe anymore.

Though, to be perfectly honest, this wasn't the first time he'd tended a traveler which entailed it wasn't the first time he'd been lied to. He could lie to himself all day and say the sting was just because he appreciated the husky's company, but there really was something about Geita that just made it too easy to be comfortable around him. Maybe his scent. Maybe his aura. Maybe just the way he carried himself.

Intimacy wasn't something the fox usually gave away; he'd be sad to see it go.

The thought brushed his mind with a forlorn glance at the doorframe that separated his room from where his patients slept and brought with it the inevitable question of what to do next. Despite how easily the husky had shed the warmth that K'yon had trouble believing to be a lie, the fox had no reason to believe Geita to be a threat to his own safety. There would be nothing to gain from doing him harm aside from a couple trinkets worth more emotionally than monetarily. If Geita had indeed wished K'yon any harm, it would have come days sooner when the husky's strength had returned. The worst feasible case he could imagine would be Geita making a note to come back for easy victories during the Moh'ra Tai... but even that was some time away.

Even the fact that he'd kept his identity as a Duskclan member a secret made perfect sense; his kind were in exile so it was understandable to stay beneath the radar.

As K'yon tugged the shorts out, he wondered what action he should take next. No Tomeqrafter would be able to make such quick work of those two bandits without being able to mend bone (even crudely). Geita could very well take care of himself and be on his way and out of the fox's life. But then again, he presented no danger to the fox as it was and if he was really just traveling for the sake of traveling, he had no reason to be in a hurry to leave. The problem at this point, was wondering whether K'yon should urge him to leave or not; ultimately, he couldn't decide which. It was almost as though he could still feel Geita's warmth against his chest from falling asleep while balancing the shiver down his spine whenever he remembered those uncaring eyes.

It was by the exaggerated shuffling of footpaws that K'yon knew that Geita was returning, and his eyes fell back to the shorts he had just pulled out. Out of his peripheral, he saw the grey and white mass of fur standing in the doorway.

It was accompanied by the scent he had come to be familiar with; it was that unreachable spice that he knew just to be on the tip of his tongue but forever nameless, but just beyond that was the faint tingle that forced the image of shimmering light to his mind. Just beyond the canine's still comforting scent was the scent of magic, and K'yon looked up slowly to find Geita looking back down on him with an expression unfamiliar yet far more comforting than the stoic counterpart he had seen not an hour ago.

He leaned in the doorframe against his good shoulder with his tail down and motionless as stable stone. His ears only half raised and his eyes half opened and clouded with something between guilt and conviction... perhaps. From his good paw, dangled the bobcat's bandana with the blood ruby still attached and the hyena's sapphire pendant. K'yon was sure that if he cast his senses, he'd be able to smell arcana from them too... but at this point, it seemed unimportant.

"You lied to me."

It was a statement of fact, and it came out a breath sooner than K'yon had expected as an impulse reacted upon before he could decide to or not to say it. Yet once said, it could not be unsaid, even though it needed to be said in the first place.

"Yeah... my mother never lived near the border to the Plains. Though I did help a girl get back home when I passed into Kingdom initially."

The humor was horrendously out of place, and even Geita seemed to know it as soon as he spoke the words. K'yon didn't say anything as he watched the husky's expression, he merely felt the edges of his eyes and muzzle form the beginnings of a scowl.

Geita's response was a sigh and he looked away as if he found himself suddenly uncomfortable under the fox's scruntiny. In the following silence, he shifted his weight from one footpaw to another before finally speaking.

"Yeah, I did. But only about what I had to."

K'yon, in turn, let out an audible sigh and absently ran his fingers through the cloth in his paws. The rough fabric agitated his still singed fingers and he winced before he could stop himself. Geita's ears perked to the hissing sound of K'yon drawing a breath between his teeth and his eyes fell on the fox just in time to catch him draw his sensitive fingers into fists.

"You haven't healed your fingers yet."

"You haven't healed your arm yet, either." K'yon almost spat with venom even he hadn't expected.

There was another pause and Geita drew a pair of breaths, shoulders rising just slightly with a nearly invisible shrug. Yet his facial expression had ironed back out to the eerie lack of defined emotion and the same could be said about his tone.

"Why should I? I haven't needed to yet. My arm will heal in time and I'll be patient for it."

K'yon let his gaze fall away. While the words weren't the same, the air about which they were spoken was terribly reminiscent. As he felt himself being tugged by a fog of nostalgia, he virtually muttered his next words with a tinge of understandable jealousy.

"You sound like an ascetic."

And he did. Something of the passive tone and the relaxed yet truthful statement suggested that the husky could outwait the stone for his arm to heal because it wasn't a pressing matter to fix it himself. Almost as if there was some great mystery of the heavens to be found in waiting for the body to correct itself. If there was such a mystery to be found, an ascetic would certainly be the one to find it, and it was also very possible that the husky could count himself one.

He was unaware of Geita moving once again until the husky settled down beside him with one knee on the floor and his good arm's elbow resting on the other.

"And you qraft like a novice."

The words stung but the tone did not. For just as suddenly as one feels a ghostly touch of the breeze on the back of the neck, K'yon's ears were tickled by the neutral yet encouraging tone of a mentor. The words themselves would have struck to the bone if not uttered with so much dispassionate observation augmented by how intently the husky seemed to be studying the back parts of K'yon's paws.

K'yon was in no state to take any real surprise from the husky, so as Geita plopped down next to him (dropping the gems in the process), he didn't even lose his breathing rhythm. Likewise, when he felt the husky grab his wrist and lift it out of it's seat on his lap, he let the fingers uncurl before Geita's eyes. They weren't burned badly, but the fur had been singed to the root and the ends of his fingers would look strikingly black if not for the fact that his paw was already black.

"What I don't get, though, is how someone who obviously qrafts with that level of efficiency, has knowledge of some of the more advanced technique."

It had been a while since K'yon had thought of healing burns and regenerating fur as particularly noteworthy skills, but it did make sense. Geita's observations struck true; the spells he'd used were far more draining than they should have been and there were even spells less advanced that he couldn't even use at all.

"What I understand even less, is how someone who can qraft the spells you can was in danger from those two who couldn't even use their own magic."

The tone lightened mid-sentence and took on something a little warmer that seemed awfully like concern. Hearing it caught him off guard enough to make his ear twitch and drew his gaze up to Geita's eyes which were still looking intently at those fingers. But they held the same thing in them: concern for what K'yon could only assume was his own well being. Yet, he chose to avoid answering the unasked question.

"They can't?"

"Ah, no. They didn't have any training in qrafting magic, but the gems themselves..."

Geita let the sentence die off as he grabbed the bobcat's blood ruby and the bandana it was attached to. K'yon had to keep himself from thinking about how easily the husky referred to the two bandits in the past tense as if they hadn't been alive hours ago. The husky dropped it into his paw and from the mild tingle it brought, K'yon began to understand.

"...Magic?"

"Yeah."

"But, how?"

"Gemqraft. It's a relatively new discipline with a lot of roots in the spoken Spellqraft school. The stones are infused with a Qrafter's own magic by the use of incantation, but the working of any further magic is done by the use of the pre-made stones. Most of them are self-replenishing and they lean towards an element. All of them are aligned to a specific spell, and that spell can be invoked by anyone with the stone."

Even as Geita explained, K'yon could feel the warm pulse of magic within. Similar to the magic he felt within himself whenever he sought it, but dissimilar as an object just out of reach. He could feel the magic within the ruby, but he could not touch it.

"True Gemqrafters themselves will carry stones like these around and combine them in order to form more powerful spells or merely draw from the stored power in one to strengthen another. Since they are elementally bound, they augment or diminish the power of other stones used simultaneously in some cases, and in others merely have an effect on the magic itself."

"It seems more like arcana than magic. I can feel it, but it doesn't seem like something I can draw from."

"Only Gemqrafters can use the stones to the full power and draw the magic from them. But it is indeed magic, not arcana. The bandits were dangerous, but not so much as they would have been had they had some real training."

K'yon didn't really feel like there was anything to be said after that. Geita's words had a sort of defining finish that made it seem as though there was nothing left unanswered, which suited K'yon just fine since he didn't really feel like talking.

He drew himself into his mind just deep enough to be submerged into his thoughts but not so deep that he would miss Geita speaking. He dwelled on the mad tone the bobcat had used when he so jovially spoke about hurting or even killing the fox. He knew that there existed those that took pleasure in killing, but it irked him to no end to actually have met one. It was just so much more real.

And then they were gone. Just like that. Taken out in a flash of light and reduced to two piles of charred, smoking flesh. Probably before they could even realize that there was a reasonable threat. Geita had given no warning. He had given no mercy. No chance to apologize and repent for their misdeeds and reform their lives... they were just gone.

And Geita didn't even seem to mind.

Bandits though they had been and willing to do unnecessary harm to the fox... it was still impossible for him to accept that killing them was the solution. It weighed so heavily on his mind that he stopped paying attention to the husky altogether, until his fingertips began to tingle.

Geita's Dusktext lay open on the floor. Open, it looked strangely like a Risetext since the pages were the same dusty color and the penning scrawled in black, though a few of the lines were shining in the same, dark light that came with the grimoire's summoning. It was written in a code that he couldn't understand--which made sense since only Riseclan Tomeqrafters learned the language their texts were written in--but as the tingling continued over his fingertips, he had a pretty good idea of what was being done.

"You're healing me."

"Yeah."

There was a short pause since K'yon didn't know what he had intended when he spoke in the first place.

"Why?"

The sound of breathing followed before the sound of pages turning joined. They flipped as if by their own accord without the husky so much as even looking at them before settling on another page where a couple more lines of text began to grow.

"You're a healer, you're going to need your fingers. Especially if you really plan to keep looking after me without using your Risetext."

He found himself looking into Geita's eyes as the husky rose his gaze from the regenerating fur on K'yon's fingertips.

"Right..."

Within moments, the tingling died down and Geita dismissed the text again with a small instance of dark light. As K'yon watched it disappear, it really struck home that Geita was indeed a Duskclan Tomeqrafter and that the whole episode wasn't just something he'd imagined. He'd already said that he'd still look after the husky--even if the question had been posed hypothetically, and Geita's favor just now only further proved what K'yon had said on the first day they had really met: there wasn't much animosity between the clans. There was no reason not to do it, except that he still couldn't get the sight of the dead bandits out of his head, or the uncaring eyes that Geita wore when he did it.

He looked down in time to see Geita reach out with his good paw to grab K'yon's loosely.

"I'm sorry, K'yon. But it was either them or you, and I chose you."

His response was an expression of surprise, mellowed by how heavily the deaths weighed on his mind. He'd seen far more die than he'd have liked... but never murdered. And never so coldly.

"You're a kind person, K'yon. It's always hard for kind people to deal with murder. Even when it's justified."

He felt Geita squeeze his fingers just a little as the husky tried to give a light smile. It was hard to imagine how one could smile after snuffing out two lives so recently; it made him uncomfortable.

"Here. Put these on."

He grabbed the shorts with his other paw and pressed them into Geita's as he tugged his paw free. The husky's smile flattened a little as he let out a sigh and took the fabric offered to him.

"Fine... but it's been a couple days since I've had a bath. Is there somewhere I can take one before I put these on?"

"Yeah, I can show you where it is. I've been meaning to take you out there for one for a while now."

K'yon watched as Geita rose to stand, looking up at the husky looking down at him and obviously trying so very hard to lighten the mood without apologizing for what he wasn't sorry for.

"You should probably grab a spare pair as well."

Geita nodded to K'yon's lap and the fox looked down to notice the urine stains against his hakama for the first time. He grimaced and voiced his disdain quietly as he saw the yellow stain already dried and hanging passed his knees on each side. Mentally, he could imagine it caking his fur beneath the hakama which only further agitated him. Instantly, he flushed as he realized that Geita had indeed seen him wet his pants like a pup.

He snatched a pair of trousers that had been loose two years prior and pulled them into his lap as if to cover the bright stain with the clay-red colored material. Red fur concealed red cheeks to a moderate extent, but his ears still fell back as he rose to stand with haste and headed out the door muttering a "this way" almost under his breath as he hurried to get his back--and the cleaner parts of his hakama--to the husky. He scooped up a small bucket carrying a glass bottle of shampoo on the way out and dropped the trousers in along with his Risetext.

As he stepped outside with Geita falling in stride not two and a half paces behind him, his eyes fell to the spot where he had last seen the sizzling corpses of the bandits before his mind could tell him not to. While he was expecting to see black scorched dust and perhaps a crater, the path seemed completely untouched. On top of that, the smell of burned flesh didn't even linger on the air and for a moment, K'yon wondered again if it had all been some strange dream.

He broke stride mid-step long enough for Geita to come up on his side as he slowly looked away from where he expected to see a mess. Brows screwed in confusion and muzzle slightly agape, he almost missed it when Geita nudged him on the shoulder.

"That bath, K'yon?"

"Oh, right. This way."

He took off again at a slightly less brisk pace and Geita fell in step just next to him with the shorts draped over his splinted arm. He knew they had a good fifteen or twenty minutes of walking ahead of them but intended to make the walk in relative silence. They hadn't been three minutes walking when Geita took the time away from looking about the surroundings--healthy trees not quite thick as a forest, but plentiful enough to be pleasing to the eyes and the growing rocks as they approached the base of a mountain.

"Why did you leave the silver tower?"

Had he not paused mid-breath and darted his eyes to the husky for a fraction of a second, he could have played it off as if he hadn't heard the question. But Geita caught his gaze in that instant and he knew that he had no choice but to flat ignore it, despite how discourteous it was. His eyes narrowed a little as he focused his eyes forward, unwilling to share that much of himself with the stranger turned friend turned stranger once again as the breeze through the trees and the drum of their steps made up the only sounds in the late morning air.

Three steps. Four. Five. Geita sighed but remained silent. Eight. Ten. Twelve. He felt the husky's gaze on him. Fifteen. Twenty.

"The Plains are pretty harsh, you know. Flatlands, just like the name suggests. There isn't too much for natural foliage or feral life to prey on. The lack of hills and such makes it hard to grow food too because of the winds. In the 223 years, we've adapted to it, though. Y'know, built enough greenhouses and the like and made the best of what few natural vegetables can grow outside. We even have a section devoted to raising ferals to feed on, though it's done far less often for space concerns."

It took a moment for K'yon to register what Geita was talking about, but his step nor his focus remained unchanged as the husky paused, presumably to gather his thoughts.

"They erected the Suna Lune just after the third Moh'ra Tai because they knew that there was no way to compete with the Riseclan if there wasn't a central place they could study. Before that, they had lived in and out of caves or whatever places they could inhabit. It was called that because they built the walls out of clay, but they didn't build a ceiling so the sun was their warmth in the day and the moon was what coaxed them to sleep in the night. The view late at night is unfathomable..."

He caught a glimpse of the husky looking off listlessly and stepping on auto-pilot with the faintest glimmer of a smile.

"Anyway, unlike the tower, it's one story but it's long and wide. Since the walls are made of clay easily accessible out there, new rooms are added as necessary and since the Plains are so flat, we have all the horizontal room we need. The rise of Republica allowed us to start trading for the glass to use for ceilings in the last 100 years.

"Since we don't have an extensive library like the one the Riseclan has in the Silver Tower, we have to supplement our studies by traveling and learning from those we come across. Since we have good relations with Republica, it's common for a student to take up a year or two of traveling through there and around the Plains in search of the ancient knowledge the nomad clans have preserved.

"It's become... routine. We're no longer surviving out there but flourishing and learning. The Silver Tower holds thousands of books and songs and poems from the greatest minds from the last half millennium, but in the Suna Lune, Tomeqrafters are taught to look beyond what everyone else has thought beforehand and learn the knowledge of the present. I can't say for sure which is more effective, but it's likely a combination of the two...

"But we've grown beyond complacent; we've come to love it. The Plains were our prison, which became our home. The Moh'ra Tai comes along and we follow more out of tradition and the chance to learn from the battles, but there are few who actually wish to live in Kingdom again."

K'yon stopped and Geita stopped a step after, turning to look the fox in the eyes.

"So why are you here, then?"

Geita grinned.

"Because I wanted to see what I could learn here in Kingdom. I traveled through Republica and through the Plains and picked things up quickly... but the tales I heard there and the philosophy of their scholars didn't seem to be as grounded as what I knew I'd find here. So rather than returning to the Suna Lune after I'd done my normal traveling... I simply crossed the Plains right into Kingdom--stopping to help a little girl, of course."

They fell in step again as K'yon digested what he'd heard.

"Since I haven't checked in, they'll assume I'm dead. It's... unfortunately a common, necessary evil. But it awards me the freedom to travel as I choose and do what I want to do, and that's learn everything I can. Not just for the sake of improving my skill, but for settling my curiosity as well. I'll just have to make sure to be a little more careful from now on."

There was a moment of silence and K'yon stopped. Geita took a few more steps before stopping as well and K'yon quickly deduced that he would have to ask if he wanted to know the rest, yet he was having a hard time bringing himself to do it. While he was still thinking, Geita heaved a sigh.

"I was traveling along a main road a few days ago when some bandits surrounded me. It wasn't the first time so I was used to just flashing my Dusktext or qrafting a little magic to scare them away. These particular bandits either felt really lucky or just didn't know any better so I had to rough them up a little to chase them away before moving on."

K'yon could see the faintest of scowls curl on Geita's lip as he waited patiently to hear just how the husky had ended up in such bad shape.

"They came back a couple days later with a couple of Gemqrafters that I assume they hired. Not like the ones you saw before. They were real, trained Qrafters. And they were quite nasty. As you mentioned before, they're all dead now, but I walked away with more scars than I should have..."

As he watched Geita turn and start walking again, K'yon could hear the 'if I had just killed them to start with' going unsaid. Turning the last bit of Geita's story over in his mind a couple times, he cautiously wondered if the same could have happened had the bandits from earlier been spared. A small knot formed in the pit of his stomach as he saw the reason why Geita had been so swift with making sure the two from earlier were no longer a threat. Though, even remembering how badly Geita had been wounded because of that very mistake, K'yon still couldn't bring himself to condone having wiped the two bandits out.

Coming upon the destination freed K'yon of the responsibility of responding at the moment, but it did little to free him of the thoughts running through his head. The revelation of Geita's injuries made it easier not to hold the murders against him. Also, the fact that Geita had admitted to being a deserter of sorts himself meant one more thing the two had in common. K'yon knew that the camaraderie to be found there would possibly make keeping some distance from the husky difficult. He just wasn't sure if he wanted to or not.

"Oh... my."

Geita's awed reply struck K'yon as amusing as the husky looked over the natural hot spring a few meters away. There was a light mist of warm water settled above the spring and the scent of clean, pure water hung in the air in the same way. The ground had given way to solid rock as they made the last few paces and there were a couple of rounded boulders arranged in a semi-circle around the spring a half meter from the edge. The spring itself wasn't too large, spanning three meters in diameter at the widest and not perfectly circular. If it were not for the ripples of the water, one could look straight down to the stone floor of the spring; the water was that clear.

"This is where you bathe?"

K'yon set the bucket down next to one of the boulders and dumped everything out on the ground. He set his grimoire and trousers on one of the stones to keep them dry before going to the spring to fill the bucket.

"Yeah, but since it's so far, I don't always have the time to come out here. Especially if I'm tending someone at the time. Sit."

Geita did as he was told, sitting on a free boulder and setting the shorts down next to K'yon's things. He reached up behind his neck to untie the sling which hoisted his splinted arm before idly scratching his sheath as K'yon returned with the bucket of spring water.

"I don't know if you've ever bathed at a hot spring or not, but you wash up outside, rinse off, then relax in the hot water afterwards."

K'yon saw Geita merely nod before he dumped the naturally heated water over the husky, who almost suppressed the urge to shake as soon as he was done. Most of the fur got soaked, but it was enough, so K'yon didn't bother going back for a second bucket. Kneeling down, he popped the cork on the shampoo and poured liquid--only a little thicker than water--into his cupped palm before applying it to Geita's good arm. With the fur soaked thoroughly, the husky's lean, strong frame could be seen much clearer and K'yon had to mentally make himself keep his eyes off the toned and quite attractive body before him.

He didn't say a word when he started to smell his own arousal, and Geita didn't do anything other than smirk a little as he outstretched his leg so that K'yon could wash that too.

The shampoo only made thin suds and it was mostly odorless, but K'yon knew well that it was quality shampoo and Geita didn't seem to question as the fox polished off his last, good limb. Before going over the broken one, K'yon stood and went around to Geita's back.

The whole thing had been done in relative silence up until that point which only weighed on K'yon as he felt the pressure to do what he knew needed to be done. There wasn't even any distraction to be had in the washing itself because Geita's fur was already relatively clean. There was a good chance the husky had bathed just the day before he was brought in. Pressing his palms against Geita's shoulder blades, he gathered his words with an audible breath.

"My parents are both ascetics and have been since before I was born. They're not extraordinary, but they're both pretty powerful Qrafters and respected sages. I was born in the silver tower and received my Risetext on my 6th birthday even though I wasn't old enough to start the lessons until my 13th. I just knew I wanted to learn even before I was old enough, so no one saw any problem with getting me a grimoire a little early."

Geita moved only to accommodate K'yon's paws so the fox could effectively clean his fur.

"When I started my lessons, I was doing well... really well. A lot of the basics I had understood in theory from when I was younger because I asked my parents about so much that little things here and there would slip out. By the time my 13th birthday came around, I had already become fluent in the writing used in my Risetext. I picked up Basic Manipulation pretty easily in practice a couple years later when actual qrafting became part of the lessons and, up to that point, I was pretty much ahead of everyone else my age in both theory and practice.

"But that didn't last. I had read through nearly a quarter of the Risetext just for the sake of it by the time we started qrafting magic and it made sense on a philosophical level, but--of course--I didn't know how to draw spells from the lessons. In the years that followed, none of that changed. I handled Basic Manipulation decently enough, but that's because the first couple lessons in the text actually explain how to draw out the spell. Very quickly on, it begins to read a lot more like an encyclopedia than a spell book so I was very, very slow at being able to draw out other spells.

"I watched others who came to me for help with understanding theories for years steadily pass me by in practical application as I steadily fell further and further behind. I was hopeless for application even though the theory still more-or-less made sense. Anytime I asked my parents about it, they just told me to study more. And I did... I studied a lot but I still couldn't draw the spells out."

He sighed as old frustrations, buried deeply, came back to the surface and poured out more shampoo.

"When I was 17, I caught a sickness that wasn't life threatening, but it was miserable. Even though it could have been qrafted away by any of the sages--or any of the novices--no one did anything. At my father's suggestion, I poured over the lesson on dealing with sickness for days and days until I finally managed to cleanse it myself. I remember the look in his eyes when he saw me succeed... he was so proud and I felt like such a failure that I was still such a poor Qrafter.

"It wasn't until I was around 19 or so that I realized what was keeping me back... I was venting to a friend of mine and he gave me the most puzzled look ever when I told him that all I did was study yet got no results..."

K'yon felt a familiar nerve of anger struck just at the memory of that conversation and subconsciously bared his fangs.

"The common practice for learning Tomeqrafters is to spend time in one on one lessons with an ascetic on top of general lessons. In those private sessions, the ascetic helps to explain how to draw the spells out spell by spell until the novice learns it himself... until that point, studying alone is pretty much useless. Because my parents were both ascetics, it was assumed that they would conduct my sessions and no one seemed to ask any questions.

"When I asked my mom about it, she just told me 'Understanding is the key to power.' They shafted me from private sessions without telling me because they wanted me to learn everything on my own since they thought it would be better for me.

"I left the tower two days later with that conversation being the last I had with either of my parents."

He had finished Geita's back sometime while he was speaking and was starting on the dog's chest without actually going around. It left him nearly embracing the husky as he worked the shampoo into Geita's pectorals.

"I wandered around a bit before eventually I came to Telgarin which had just been struck with an awful plague... It got their previous healer--an Herbqrafter--before he could do anything about it and then started laying the town to waste. Of course, since cleansing disease was the only spell I could qraft, I just started cleansing people. What was one, became two. Two became three. So on and so on until eventually everyone who had a loved one struck with the plague was begging me to come to their home and heal them.

"That... was the hardest two weeks of my entire life. I did what I could, but it was impossible for me to save everyone. I qrafted until I was so weary I couldn't see straight and then I qrafted some more. A lot of times I had to choose between parents and their own children knowing I wouldn't be able to do both before they passed. I didn't sleep at all that whole time... just fell unconscious then qrafted myself right back to that point as soon as I woke up.

"It was... horrifying."

His paws stopped by their own accord, kneading shampoo into Geita's stomach as he started seeing faces again. He could remember closing countless pairs of eyes once the life had left the body and he could remember the sounds of the crying from every loved one he had failed. He still remembered the smell of death that hung over the village when they ceremonially burned the corpses and every "Why?" that he couldn't answer for every child stuck with him like a brand over his heart.

He could feel the acid in his eyes that warned him of approaching tears, but he could do nothing to stop them. When Geita dropped his paw on top of the fox's and leaned back against K'yon's chest, the first silvery tear got caught in the fur under his eyes, effectively halting its progress a pair of centimeters in.

Despite the cooling water soaking the gray fur on Geita's back, his body still felt warm against K'yon's chest. And the pressure he felt as the husky squeezed his paw in silence was more comforting than he could have ever predicted. It took him a moment to gather his breath under control, but he made no motion to continue cleaning Geita's fur.

"I've been here ever since and that was just about 2 years ago. I've picked up the few spells I know out of necessity, but it's all I can do. They don't pay me, but they take care of anything I need. Food. Water. Clothes. Bandages. Everything. All of the healer's attire they've made for me as gifts--some made freshly, and some tailored down from the previous healer. Some of his enhanced herbs still grow near the base of the mountain, but most of them are already picked or dead."

The two sat in silence for another few moments as K'yon gathered his composure and resumed scrubbing the shampoo into the too-white colored stomach fur the husky sported. He even cleaned the male's sheath and nuts with the air of a physician without paying much attention to the quiet murr it drew from Geita.

Finishing up, he took a step back and looked over the sud covered husky whose bi-colored fur pattern was overlaid with a uniform white-ish. It was cute.

Rinsing the suds off was a simple matter of refilling the bucket and pouring it over the husky with care not to pour too hard over the broken arm. It took two buckets to get the last of the suds out, but judging by the quiet murr Geita let out with the naturally warmed water rinsing him clean, K'yon was lead to believe that the husky enjoyed the rinsing about as much as himself. The fact that Geita's tail--soaked to the pelt--was swinging slowly and comfortably behind him was only further proof.

It seemed as though the spell of emotion drained out of him with the spring water from the second bucket. The troubling memories of his past had been buried rather deeply before, and despite them surfacing rather vividly, putting them back away wasn't too difficult. He even managed an honest smile as he stepped back to admire the drenched (and clean) husky before him who--with his still wagging tail--seemed completely content and comfortable aside from the splints aligning the broken bones in his arm.

"Feel better?"

"Much. You?"

He wondered, for a moment, what Geita was referring to. A lot had happened in the last half-day to wear on the fox and it was quiet possible that Geita meant the question in regards to any one of the troubling events--if not all of them.

"I will once I get a bath."

K'yon said it even as he refilled the bucket with water from the spring. As his fingertips dipped into the warm water, he felt a breath's anticipation while his mind failed to count back the days since his last bath. Geita rose from the stone as K'yon set the bucket down next to it before standing off to the side and looking almost expectantly.

"You're supposed to go relax in the spring now."

"I know."

K'yon kept his questions to himself when Geita didn't move, opting instead to get along with his own bath. With a couple of tugs, the belt of his hakama fell loose and he pulled the fabric down his legs audibly sighing at the obnoxious yellow stain and checking his thighs for a matching one in his normally red fur. Even though he expected it, he was further agitated to actually see the matted fur that he'd been able to feel the entire time. Embarassed and annoyed, he merely stepped out of the soiled garments unwilling to fold them now lest the stain spread (even though it was long passed dry).

Feeling eyes, he glanced at Geita from his peripheal. Surely enough, the soaked dog was watching him with a grin and a dim light in those dark eyes. He only rolled his eyes and pretended not to notice as he sat down on the wet stone made warm by water and Geita's rump. Naked to the world, he turned the bucket over him at once and let the warm water soak him pretty effectively.

Fur matted with the spring water--a little hotter than it seemed before--he paused with his arms holding the bucket overhead. The sensation of the warmth stuck with him even as a mild breeze brushed over his shoulders and he held onto it in his mind as he slowly set the bucket back down. He dropped it from a couple centimeters from the ground in favor of the bottle of shampoo, which a couple of torso twists and a good look around the ground showed to be in absence.

"Let me."

Hearing the voice brought his attention back to Geita, who had managed to grab the bottle sometime before.

"I've got it, go ahead and get in the hot spring."

Still, Geita approached until he stood with his with his sheath at eye level.

"I insist."

K'yon had no trouble snatching the bottle from the husky's paw, but he smiled as he did so.

"It'll be faster if I do it since I don't have a broken arm. And I really just want to get clean and relax in the spring for a while."

In silence, he regarded the husky regarding him for a stretched second before Geita heaved a sigh and moved around to sit behind K'yon as the fox had just done for him.

"I'm washing your back, though."

An honest grin graced K'yon's muzzle. He had shifted his tail to make room for the husky before Geita had even begun sitting down.

The process was both amusing and complicated. His own fur was much more difficult to clean than Geita's was and it showed in each clump of fur held together by dirt, dried sweat, or spilled something-or-other. It required more forceful scrubbing and even the use of his claws for some points and far, far more shampoo to get the desired effect. It gave him a much desired menial task to keep his mind from dwelling on everything that had happened in the past half day or thinking too hard about how to feel about Geita.

Geita didn't seem to mind the extra work though. Whenever he needed shampoo, he'd just reach his arm around and K'yon would pour it into his open palm. Then he'd scrub it in with the good paw he had, using claws or his fingers depending on what was necessary.

Just like he had predicted, K'yon went much faster. He was finished with both arms and a leg by the time he felt Geita's paw reach the small of his back. But the husky was every bit as thorough as needed and very soon, K'yon felt pleasantly clean.

As he sat up from finishing his other leg, Geita's arm reached around again, and assuming that there was something the husky missed, he poured out some shampoo to the open palm. He was about to pour some and start working on his chest and stomach when he felt Geita's clawed fingers start to scrub the thin shampoo into his stomach fur.

The pleasant scratch of those claws made his growing comfort even more relaxing. He leaned back against the husky's chest and murred quietly as he felt Geita's claws lightly working at the pelt while cleaning his stomach fur.

When he felt Geita's paw drop to his slightly swollen sheath, his heart skipped a beat and he drew a sharp, quick breath. His body locked up in the surprise and his reward was Geita's muzzle nuzzling his neck as he started to fondle the fox's nuts with his sud-covered paw.

It was the familiarity of the situation that helped calm the fox's nerves as Geita's paw left his testicles in exchange for running the flat palm up his chest through the wet fur. Once again, he found himself in the grip of that warm arm with Geita's even breath and beating heart to his back. Like last time, the nuzzling was bewitchingly calming. By the time Geita tilted his head back and snaked the tip of his tongue into K'yon's ear, enough of the anxiety had drained from the fox that he quietly murred and went slack against the husky's chest.

He felt Geita's paws drop to his lap and brush against his emerging head and immediately felt warmth in his thighs. When he felt the husky's fingers enclose around his nuts with the palm and wrist rubbing against his growing member, he let the air out of his lungs a little louder than he had meant. With the husky's tongue swirling slowly in the base of his ear and his own writhing causing his cock to grind against Geita's paw, it wasn't long before a quiet moan escaped his muzzle unchecked.

When Geita chuckled at the reaction, it couldn't have been any more audible than a curse muttered under one's breath, but the proximity alone made it clear. It was with that quiet sound that the husky's tongue left his ear, masking its retreat with a lone canine grazing across the base. A well timed squeeze to his sheath coupled with the fang caused K'yon to shudder hard against Geita's chest.

He had been staring off into blank infinity until that point, and his eyelids finally fluttered closed as Geita's one good paw coaxed his member from his sheath with a dexterity that almost made K'yon wonder how often the husky sated his own needs on the road. Those still damp digits of Geita's fleshy palm moved across his growing firespike slowly enough to coax but not so slowly as to tease. With his eyes shut, he tuned out everything except warmth at his back and pleasant friction of another's fingers against his member.

He wasn't fully aware that Geita was leading him to lean to the side until he felt the husky's head slip under his arm. He didn't pay the shift any mind as he felt a pleasant squeeze at the base of his member. It was so distracting that he didn't fully understand what was happening until he felt both warmth and moisture enclose around the head of his member at once.

While it was a welcome surprise, the feel itself wasn't quite a shocking one. He identified that warm, fluid feel of Geita's tongue before he even opened his eyes to look down and see gray lips enclosed around his red head. His experiences with receiving oral sex in the past hadn't been worth boasting over and he was about to discourage the husky from trying until a particularly physical brush of that tongue stole the words from his muzzle.

He sucked the air into his muzzle through his teeth and decided to rest his paw on Geita's head instead. The husky's ears twitched a little in appreciation as an idle claw found it's mark behind one.

He marked Geita swallowing by the way his tongue shifted before resuming perfect suction. It was enough of a matter just to breathe evenly as he felt more of his member getting drawn into that warm muzzle. Their position put Geita's tongue on the top side of his dick, but the husky made up for the awkward positioning by using that tongue to press the sensitive underside against the roof of his muzzle. It treated K'yon to the rougher (yet still warm) surface that his dick rubbed against as Geita started to bob up and down half the fox's member.

K'yon's grip on Geita's head tightened just a little and he caught himself almost grabbing a pawful of the fur there. He fell into a rhythm of shifting his hips just slightly in time with Geita's slow bobbing, drawn by a distant urge to press the husky's face down to his nuts and muzzle fuck him until he was spent. Almost by its own will, his paw fell heavier on Geita's head and the husky obliged by taking longer, deeper bobs. His tongue treated the topside of K'yon's member well as it faithfully kept the fox pressed against the roof of his slightly ridged muzzle.

The paw at the base of his member awarded his growing knot with a light squeeze before abandoning it to fondle his balls. The sensation was quickly followed by a cold nose against the growing bulge and the sudden increase of pressure around the head of his member as it slipped effortlessly into Geita's throat. He felt Geita's whole body shift as the husky made a quick corkscrew with his head around the swallowed cock and began to pull back. K'yon suppressed a whimper of frustration knowing that Geita had hit throat before pressing his nose to the fox's nuts since it guaranteed that the husky couldn't safely put the whole knot in his muzzle.

The thought flew from his mind as he felt Geita's muzzle lift off his cock almost entirely and left only his head in between those gums. It seemed almost like the dog's tongue absolutely spazzed out over the most sensitive part of the member and the sudden change of technique had one of K'yon's legs suddenly tense enough to force a footpaw off the ground. He let his head fall back and sucked in a long, quick breath as Geita's tongue kept that merciless assault on for what seemed like fifteen or twenty seconds longer than expected.

With a squeeze of the knot, he felt the dog's muzzle descend again with much more haste than before and he was able to start breathing again. This time, he didn't even bother trying not to hump up into Geita's willing muzzle. His knot was already too swollen to slip past those jaws by accident and the husky's ministrations were beginning to take their toll on his endurance.

Between the constant sloshing sound of saliva against his dick pleasantly warm, wet friction in that enclosed muzzle, K'yon felt dull heat stirring in his loins quickly and building momentum. His body got caught up in the rhythm of the quasi-thrusts as his whole mind focused on tiny ridges in the roof of that muzzle and that soft tongue sandwiching him firmly in the warmth. His breaths were replaced by quiet moans which picked up pace as the heat grew as he fell deeper and deeper into the trance.

It seemed like just another sensation amidst the nearly overwhelming flood of them when Geita's palm pressed firmly against his nuts. He didn't even realize it when those fingers snaked under his taint. But when a single digit poked almost too hastily at his puckered entrance, he knew it immediately because it pushed him--soaring--over the edge.

The finger couldn't have gone more than a centimeter inside, but he viced it as if it were some seven in and nestled happily against his prostate when his climax hit him. The cry he let out was muffled as the second slightly unexpected orgasm the husky gave him ran through his thighs like a marathon champion. His entire body tensed as he emptied what seemed like a pretty hefty load into Geita's muzzle, but through a cracked eye-lid, he saw that not a single drop was spilled.

The peak faded as all orgasms do and left the fox feeling drained and a little light headed. He opened his eyes in time to watch Geita flick a tongue over his still twitching head as he pulled off just as he felt the husky's finger tug against his dry entrance for a second before popping out. He realized, as he came back to reality, that somewhere in the midst of all his thrusting, he'd turned his hips out just enough to make his entrance available without grinding any adventurous fingers into the stone.

Cock hanging out and locked out of his sheath by his own knot, he sighed and melted against Geita again as soon as he felt the male's chest to his back again. Once again, the dog chuckled directly in his ear and he felt the curious urge to bite him.

"Is there anything you can't do?"

Another chuckle.

"There are a few things."

"I don't believe it..."

He was grinning even as he reached back and tried to snake his paw into Geita's lap to tend to the erection that pressed so rudely into the small of his back. He was genuinely surprised when Geita pulled away from his paw.

"Mm-mm. Don't bother."

Had he not been just after an orgasm, he would have come close to panicking at what seemed obvious rejection. As it was, his reactions were reasonably slowed on top of the general confusion for which he merely voiced a--

"What?"

"You don't need to return the favor... well, at least not that way."

Any possible fears that had been gathering were effectively stomped to death by his rising curiosity. He twisted in the husky's arm just enough to look him in eyes and voice his question with his facial expression rather than words.

The answer he got was merely a nod in a direction--which after following, pointed him towards the soiled hakama that lay on the ground.

"Eh?"

"Clean it."

K'yon paused in the confusion that seemed to show no signs of being settled.

"With your magic. Clean it."

"I ca-"

"Yes, you can."

He felt the husky nudge him out of his seat with a nod towards his Risetext, which he retrieved (if for no other reason than to humor the guy who'd just sucked him off) and sat back down.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. Think about it."

"Think about what?"

"How would you clean it?"

The question was painfully simple. The fact that he wasn't sure what to do was even more painfully annoying.

"I... don't know."

"Well, think about it: what happens when you clean something?"

Again, an obnoxiously simple question yet thinking about it made the fox wonder. He started speaking before he had really thought it out, slightly uncomfortable by the silence of his unexpected lesson.

"Well... you just wash it out."

"Mhmm..."

He heard Geita drag out the response as if urging him to continue along that train of thought. He could feel the husky's body behind him but it was relatively motionless to keep from distracting him.

"You... use the water to loosen whatever is in it. Then, it just rinses out with the water."

"Exactly. You said you understood Basic Manipulation which is...?"

'Exactly' had been accompanied with a nuzzle to the neck which almost made K'yon blush. However, he was far too excited by the mini epiphany he felt himself on the verge of.

"...the manipulation and movement of solid objects."

He could almost feel Geita smile.

"So the simplest way to clean this with magic would be?"

And all of a sudden, it made so much sense that K'yon felt like smacking himself.

"To lift the stain out manually."

"Exactly."

He looked down to the sound of tapping where he saw Geita tapping an index finger against the hard cover of his Risetext. The sound was deep and muffled from far too many pages, but K'yon didn't pay much attention to it as he sunk into his thoughts.

In concept, it was both simple and difficult.

Basic Manipulation is at the very foundation of Tomeqraft itself. It is the first application of the first theory that is the core of the qraft. Yet in order to manipulate something, one must understand it, and the measure of understanding dictates the measure of control.

Removing the stain required finding where the cloth ended and the stain began. It required approaching his magic with a more in depth and manual care than he applied to the healing spells that had become so mundane they were performed almost automatically. Even thinking about doing it filled him with a little excitement, though he knew it to be much more taxing on his magic reserves. It was a task that he wasn't at all positive he could complete.

But Geita was sure he could do it... so perhaps, he thought, he should be sure he could as well.

Releasing a quiet sigh, he let his grimoire fall open. The sudden contact with his own magic had the familiar sensation similar to taking a long needed breath of fresh air. It flowed through and out of him just as easily as air itself, being as foundational to his person as the very blood in his veins. It circulated through his arms and flowed out his fingers. It churned in his chest and sunk to his stomach. It pulsed through his legs to pool in his heels before leaving in an arcane footprint for a moment after each step. His entire bode eminated it from each pore with the subtlety of a morning breeze, and with a focused thought, he could move it.

He took a moment to relish in the extra sense of his extended magic. Constant need to preserve his energy in case he needed to perform any number of healing spells kept him from indulging in it when he connected to it. Feeling it extend around him reminded him almost bitterly of how badly he had wanted to be an accomplished Tomeqrafter because even at the moment, he loved nothing more than the feel of it reaching about him.

It is touch beyond touch and smell beyond smell. It is seeing without seeing and hearing without hearing. It is to sense that which the other senses can't quite describe. Our magic tells us that which we shouldn't know and when we release it, it carries its wisdom with it. The very core of our beings and the very tips of our perceptions. It is will and thought itself molded by focus.

Letting his eyes fall shut, he began to bask in it. He forgot all about the cloth and the stain for the moment in exchange for sending his thoughts around him. They ran over the ground, marking every stone and dip before sinking into the spring. His thoughts brushed over the bubbles as they rose to the surface and then jumped into the air to sift through the mist.

With a whim, he left the spring in exchange for the consciousness of a small, feral creature burrowed beneath the ground not far away. It's presence was small with the barest amount of magic running through its body and an utter lack of anything other than cold instinct.

Caught up in the moment, he grew bold and reached back into memory for what little he had understood about arcana--the natural magic of the world. He wanted to reach out and feel it with his own magic, but he didn't know where it was to be found exactly. The Risetext had grown beyond his understanding by that point so he had picked up only bits and pieces, and yet, drunk in the moment, he wanted nothing other than to touch raw magic itself.

He was pulled out of his trance by the voice in his ear, spoken just above a whisper but nearly deafening in his over-heightened state.

"K'yon..."

"Right... sorry... I just got..."

"I know. You've got to focus though."

"Yeah. Ok."

It took a bit of will power to refocus his thought and keep it under control, but once he did, he shifted it over to the soiled hakama. He could sense its folds and creases as ripples in the breeze of his thought.

The stain stood out in his perception more dynamically than it did visibly, seeming as acrid copper in his nose pressed onto the clean fabric. It was whole yet made up of infinite drops which slipped through his thoughts as he sent them along the stained fabric. He learned very quickly that it wasn't a single object to be moved at once and wrapping a thought around the countless drops was proving difficult early on. In trying, his thoughts brushed along the threads of the fabric itself, long and woven and far easier to follow. And while they still seemed countless in number, thinking of each drop relative to the thread itself was strangely easier.

One strand to another, he traced the entirety of the soiled cloth, and once he grasped it, flipped the page of his Risetext without looking down. Focusing on what was not the fabric instead of what was the stain, he willed it up, dragging it out with his magic and taking some flecks of dust up along with it. The hakama domed a little as the urine rose, dry, like a cloud of golden dust, rising centimeter by centimeter until it left a clean, white garment on the ground behind.

Subconsciously, he had turned a palm face-up during his second trance and he noticed it first when he opened his eyes. Twin sensations of shock and pride shot through him as he looked up to see the hovering cloud suspended in the air by the invisible force that was his own magic. He could both see it with his eyes and feel it with his magic, and he stared in disbelief with both senses for a moment until he felt an all-too familiar sense of fatigue wash over him.

With another whim, he set the cloud to the side and let it settle on the ground as he released his hold on his own magic. Simultaneously, he heaved out a long breath and his breathing picked up spontaneously as the fatigue he hadn't noticed began to really take its toll.

"See? I knew you could do it."

Simple in theory as the spell was, K'yon couldn't help but feel a deep sense of pride well up in him along with the sting of a tear in his eyes. Geita had been right even when he had doubted himself. Sure, it hadn't required a difficult spell, but working it that way was a fresh challenge to the fox's unpracticed skill. Even heavy of breath and possibly sweating under the soaked fur, he felt more refreshed than he had in a while.

When Geita's arm tightened around his stomach and the husky nuzzled against the base of his neck, K'yon knew exactly why he was able to succeed.

"I think your parents had the right idea to an extent... but they overlooked a major detail."

"Hm?"

Even the mention of the fox's parents could do little to dampen his mood.

"The better you understand something, the better you can mold it... but you can't do it alone. Maybe you don't need someone to tell you exactly how cast each spell, but I think you'll do just fine with someone to help guide your thought process. At the very least, someone to talk to that will help you better understand what you already know."

"...Maybe."

There was a short pause and K'yon used it to look back over his handiwork. The unfolded garment lay strewn almost rudely on the ground but the spot he had soiled was as white as he had ever seen it.

"Let me help you learn, K'yon."

"Eh?"

The fact that such a random suggestion was made so suddenly only helped to leave the fox off-guard as it interrupted him.

"Let me stay here with you and help you learn."

He spoke the first thing that came to mind before he could stop himself.

"Why would you want to do that?"

He felt the arm tighten around his stomach again and Geita let out a quiet chuckle.

"Probably for the same reason that you want me to stay."

Something about the way it was said lead K'yon to think that Geita didn't want the matter pressed to much further. It suited him just well. 'The same reason you want me to stay' could have been any number of things but K'yon was pretty sure that it had largely to do with the freakishly odd warmth he got being where he was at the moment. But it was too early to try and put a name to that feeling, far too early so the two of them just sank into the comfort of unsaying.

"You're welcome to stay as long as you'd like. I'd appreciate the company and the help."

He smiled. He was sure Geita did too. They sat in the following silence for only a few moments before they migrated to the warmth of the hot spring, both with high hopes for what was to come.

Sorry that it took so long, guys. I had a moment of inspiration reading something of Onyxtao's which caused me to rethink the foundation of Tomeqraft itself. Luckily, it was early enough that there shouldn't be any real inconsistencies with the first chapter and hopefully it won't happen too many more times in the future.

Looking at this, I'm really starting to doubt how well my particular writing style produces fantasy work. It feels a little forced when I read it... but my opinion isn't really impartial. The next chapter is setting up to have a lot less background summarizing though, so the long stories should be pretty much over. Should be.