Quentin folds him into his arms, cradles him against his chest, hums into his hair and waits with him while he cries. It's been a long and complicated couple of days together, but in the end he feels they got right where they needed to be, that this is what he is here to do for him.
He stays still. He exudes calm. He doesn't judge, he doesn't shush him, he just strokes his hair while he cries his eyes out.
Slowly, slowly, he wears himself out. Part of him wants desperately for someone to hurt him, but even if he imagines Kujen (how easily), the memory of what he did to Dhanneth, all because he was a selfish, indulgent child, poisons it. So he just cries, until it feels like there can't be anything left inside him, until there's nothing Quentin's patient embrace.
"You deserve better, you know," he says finally, hoarsely.
"I don't have anywhere I'd rather be. If all I can be is the difference between you crying in someone's arms and crying on the floor alone, then I've done the most important thing I could do."
Reasons Quentin, a little confused as explanations go, but sincere nonetheless.
"No, I mean, I meant -" he has to get another shuddery breath in himself, and he thinks about letting go enough to look into Quentin's eyes, but just ends up clinging to him tighter, wiping his face roughly on Quentin's damp shirt.
"Better than - that. You deserve a love that doesn't eat you. You can. You can rely on someone without that."
Carding his hair back, then reaching out with a long arm to grab him a couple of tissues, for his poor nose.
"Well, it's going to take me a long time to fall out of love with Jedao, and maybe by then I'll be old enough to be wise and lucky enough not to come into the radius of someone who could do it to me anyways. And if I do, I feel like somehow Jedao'll sense it across space and time and just like, manifest and fucking murder them."
"Yes," he says, with the kind of thoughtless certainty he feels understanding Jedao's elliptical codes. "See? He'd be there for you. Even if he is kind of a slut."
He says it without any awareness of Jedao having said the same thing, but with almost the same inflection, only marred by his rough waterlogged voice and a smidgen of jealousy. But Quentin is so - good, and he was so happy, when Jedao told him about the swooning. Jedao wants it to work, obscurely and fiercely, at least for Quentin's sake. And while Jedao has no call to ever tell anyone not to want something that would hurt them - he wishes he could make the wanting itself hurt a little less.
Love him though he does, he's not going to correct him. Beautiful, seductive, perfect jerk. He shifts, resting his chin on top of Jedao's head, and closes his eyes.
"I think a lot about this kind of thing. About thinking about other people and being able to predict their reactions the way I can play chess- strategy piece games where you think some dozen moves in advance."
"Sometimes I feel like I can almost do it, then other tims it's like when I was first learning to play. It doesn't happen often any more that I get yelled at for being outright insensitive- but it kind of feels like I'm a chicken and he's a hawk, and managing people is flying."
Or, trying to think of better metaphors.
"He's a sleek snake and I'm like- a weird waddly little newt. I do luck into seducing people, but it's all what I am, and not what I do. Like I appeal super hard to a niche market, but totally lack versatility. Is that a weird thing to think?"
"I think you're more like a hummingbird," he says pensively. "Specialized, yes. Not really built for distance. But close up, with your favorites - bright and deft and exquisite."
He means it; Quentin has said more precisely right things with him than Jedao has any idea how to express. Even if they had to trip over each other first for Jedao to admit there was anything to talk about.
"I think it makes me an ugly fledgling all in patchy half-down," he says candidly. "And who knows what I'll be. I'm not any good at it yet, but - I can see sometimes, the shape of the skill. If I pushed, if I practiced. I had Kujen beat for beat after a few weeks and sometimes I can know my students, but I'm not flying with - anyone."
He swallows. He thinks of a wing with three uneven flight feathers; he wonders how he would tell the difference, locked in the citadel, between still growing and clipped. He wonders if knowing would make a difference to him.
"I know it's really complicated, I don't know if I entirely understand, but there's not a lot wrong with learning how to do it alone in case you have to."
"I think....I don't always want to understand people. Not when I'm - I mean, the legacy I have. Most of my keepers make a very professional effort to be opaquely personable and keep any fear or resentment or pity entirely invisible. It feels - both masochistic and ungrateful, to try to pry open those blinds."
Sometimes he thinks about asking for Commander Talaw. She thought of him enough to send the cards - but maybe that was just for saving her life from the Revenant's purge. She wouldn't be able to hide it, if she hates him, and well she might, for Dhanneth and her entire bridge crew. He knows he couldn't take that.
"I mean, you could just decide, fuck these shitty humans, their feelings and souls are transient and puny, let me be the owl, and then go- solve some amazing mystery or master a new magic or topple another empire."
"That's exactly how Kujen felt," he says softly, and doesn't know how he feels about it at all.
About the sheer prescient clarity of the description, point for point, or the fact that it's being offered to him as a suggestion, or that it's being offered by Quentin, of light eyes and long frame and deep mathematics.
"There's a way to think that without thinking it. To be beyond us without scorning us. I think it has to do with compassion."
Reasons Quentin, softening some.
"I've been expansive. I was a god for a little while; I killed one, and absorbed all its' powers, and lived a millenia with all of that at my fingertips. I don't remember it very well, but I remember feeling very gentle. I just mended."
"We don't have moths, we have river dragons. And when humans were having their own big war, the dragons waded in for us. They fought gods for us, powerful beings that could wink them out of existence at will."
Says Quentin, closing his eyes.
"And when it was over their numbers were decimated- but they'd all been alive and immortal so long that they'd opted to stop, then forgotten how to reproduce."
"Oh," he says softly, with a bewildered sort of awe. Dragons. Are real.
It should hardly be shocking, all things considered, and yet - to some corner of his mind, otherwise steeped in exotics and jaded to the strange folds of gatespace, dragons still feels like what real magic does to a child from Earth. "What are they like?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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He stays still. He exudes calm. He doesn't judge, he doesn't shush him, he just strokes his hair while he cries his eyes out.
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"You deserve better, you know," he says finally, hoarsely.
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Reasons Quentin, a little confused as explanations go, but sincere nonetheless.
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"Better than - that. You deserve a love that doesn't eat you. You can. You can rely on someone without that."
He...thinks. Assumes. Hopes.
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Carding his hair back, then reaching out with a long arm to grab him a couple of tissues, for his poor nose.
"Well, it's going to take me a long time to fall out of love with Jedao, and maybe by then I'll be old enough to be wise and lucky enough not to come into the radius of someone who could do it to me anyways. And if I do, I feel like somehow Jedao'll sense it across space and time and just like, manifest and fucking murder them."
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He says it without any awareness of Jedao having said the same thing, but with almost the same inflection, only marred by his rough waterlogged voice and a smidgen of jealousy. But Quentin is so - good, and he was so happy, when Jedao told him about the swooning. Jedao wants it to work, obscurely and fiercely, at least for Quentin's sake. And while Jedao has no call to ever tell anyone not to want something that would hurt them - he wishes he could make the wanting itself hurt a little less.
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Admits Quentin, quickly. He's not anti-slut. Just pro-pairbond.
"Weirdest guardian angel ever, I guess?"
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"Me too," he admits. "Uhg. Asshole."
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Love him though he does, he's not going to correct him. Beautiful, seductive, perfect jerk. He shifts, resting his chin on top of Jedao's head, and closes his eyes.
"I think a lot about this kind of thing. About thinking about other people and being able to predict their reactions the way I can play chess- strategy piece games where you think some dozen moves in advance."
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Or, trying to think of better metaphors.
"He's a sleek snake and I'm like- a weird waddly little newt. I do luck into seducing people, but it's all what I am, and not what I do. Like I appeal super hard to a niche market, but totally lack versatility. Is that a weird thing to think?"
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"Does that make you the owl? Odd, a bit, but wise and fearsome and awe inspiring?"
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"I think it makes me an ugly fledgling all in patchy half-down," he says candidly. "And who knows what I'll be. I'm not any good at it yet, but - I can see sometimes, the shape of the skill. If I pushed, if I practiced. I had Kujen beat for beat after a few weeks and sometimes I can know my students, but I'm not flying with - anyone."
He swallows. He thinks of a wing with three uneven flight feathers; he wonders how he would tell the difference, locked in the citadel, between still growing and clipped. He wonders if knowing would make a difference to him.
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He says, with such faith.
"I know it's really complicated, I don't know if I entirely understand, but there's not a lot wrong with learning how to do it alone in case you have to."
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Sometimes he thinks about asking for Commander Talaw. She thought of him enough to send the cards - but maybe that was just for saving her life from the Revenant's purge. She wouldn't be able to hide it, if she hates him, and well she might, for Dhanneth and her entire bridge crew. He knows he couldn't take that.
"But I think he always wants to know."
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He reasons, thoughtfully.
"I mean, you could just decide, fuck these shitty humans, their feelings and souls are transient and puny, let me be the owl, and then go- solve some amazing mystery or master a new magic or topple another empire."
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About the sheer prescient clarity of the description, point for point, or the fact that it's being offered to him as a suggestion, or that it's being offered by Quentin, of light eyes and long frame and deep mathematics.
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Reasons Quentin, softening some.
"I've been expansive. I was a god for a little while; I killed one, and absorbed all its' powers, and lived a millenia with all of that at my fingertips. I don't remember it very well, but I remember feeling very gentle. I just mended."
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"I don't think moths really get that big. My ship wasn't beyond humans, it just wanted to be away from them."
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Reasons Quentin, quietly.
"Did Jedao tell you about the deal that brought me here? You kind of remind me of it."
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Says Quentin, closing his eyes.
"And when it was over their numbers were decimated- but they'd all been alive and immortal so long that they'd opted to stop, then forgotten how to reproduce."
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It should hardly be shocking, all things considered, and yet - to some corner of his mind, otherwise steeped in exotics and jaded to the strange folds of gatespace, dragons still feels like what real magic does to a child from Earth. "What are they like?"
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He asks, reaching up to draw a thumb across his face, to brush the tears away.
"I can show you."
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