They've left him alone in his cell.
He can't really be said to be lucid but he has very acute instincts for when there's someone and when he's alone - it's the last of his senses to depart him - and he's alone.
And then suddenly he isn't.
They've left him alone in his cell.
He can't really be said to be lucid but he has very acute instincts for when there's someone and when he's alone - it's the last of his senses to depart him - and he's alone.
And then suddenly he isn't.
Mmhmm.
She settles back into her habits - mornings with the Fëanoreans, afternoons with the Ñolofinwëans, busy all day with both. She teaches Tyelkormo the magic; she takes a day to experiment with tunneling, and they determine that it'd take a few years of dedicated effort for her to clear enough space for a city. She eventually decides that the most likely reason for Maitimo's concern for where she's sleeping is that he wants her closer to his host; she doesn't mind, but she does put in a portal to the Ñolofinwëans, carefully so it'll close if anyone else comes in, so that she doesn't feel so alone.
He pretends. He pretends with vicious concentration, can't ever ever slip up again, he pretends with every gesture and breath and word and thought. He relearns everyone's names. He is not concerned with where she's sleeping, and his attention is spread too thin to notice she thinks he is. He is pulling together all of the pieces of the lie he will need to live forever. It hurts, but it's a background buzz compared to the hurt that is continuing to exist at all. His brothers are relieved. They eat better. They sleep better. They train a few dozen people as mages and they practice together.
Time passes; it gets colder. The experimental greenhouses work perfectly and are reproduced in both camps; food still isn't abundant, but nobody has to go hungry. The kobold keeps making friends among the Ñolofinwëans and suggests some of them to be mages. She finishes the magic-vision spell; she works out a spell to teleport people home when they're injured; she distributes those and the arrowproofing spell. And after a couple months, during one of her regular check-ins with Maitimo:
Y'know, I think I'm pretty much okay, now.
Not especially? The mages seem to be coming along just fine, but it's still going to be a while until I'm not needed for spellcasting, I haven't really started thinking about what comes after that.
Mmhmm.
Winter deepens, and the Ñolofinwëan city continues to grow. And then one day, she comes back early from digging out stone for it.
Findekáno? I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with something. Flu, probably.
And she goes over the basics of taking care of someone with the flu. I'll be kind of okay for another day or two, it's not super urgent.
Mmhmm.
She hasn't claimed a place of her own, but she knows where everything is. She gets herself a mug of broth and picks a nice warm fire to curl up by.