Roots | ONC 2024

XV : Give

Shanirin says nothing. He just averts his gaze.

Umirin can hardly comprehend what he's looking at. Heart, is Shani injured? The right side of his face looks the same as it always has, his beautiful beloved.

But the left...the left looks inhuman.

His skin is akin to burnt umber, rough like tree bark, and his left eye is completely black, no sparkle in it. Half of his nose is flattened away to his face, merely a slit of his nostril left. A lot of his hair from the left half of his scalp is gone. He no longer has lips, just half a maw filled with gleaming jagged teeth.

The textured skin flows down his chin and throat, disappearing under his tunic, seemingly the whole left of him taken over. His hand is entirely curled over and clawed

Umirin just stares for a good few heartbeats, his body numb with shock.

What even...? How...?

"Shani, you..." he tries to speak again, to get answers, but his husband still stays quiet, still stares at the stone floor, sitting surrounded by Elders.

Umirin walks closer, his limbs trembling with the awful dichotomy tearing his soul in two directions, overwhelming joy that his beloved is here and cold horror of witnessing whatever has happened to him.

He sits on his knees in front of Shani, and ducks his head to catch his gaze, unsure whether to look at the normal eye or the...new, one. He struggles to maintain contact with both. His left eye has completely changed shape, not just color.

"I had to do it," Shani finally mumbles, his gaze shifting so Umirin cannot meet it.

"Beloved," Umirin shakes his head, his voice gentle but shaking with stress, "do what?" he pleads.

"If I said no, they would have made you do it instead," Shani says again, speaking so meekly, his voice so high-strung in his rush to justify himself.

Umirin feels his chest ache, he cannot withstand watching this, despite all his fear and reservations reaching forward and drawing Shani into a hug, winding his arms around his waist tightly as he embraces him, "Shani, love," he mumbles to him.

Shani takes in a hitched breath, Umirin feels him desperately grab onto him in turn, the talons of his left hand tearing through his tunic and leaving stinging scratches on his skin beneath it, but Umirin doesn't care. He just tightens his hold on his husband. Shani shudders in his arms, gripping him in return just as tightly, his face pressing into Umirin's neck.

Umirin bites his lip at the mild shiver that comes down his spine when he feels the rough surface of Shani's new visage press and scratch against the soft flesh of his neck when he pushes his face against it. Umirin does not react though, he holds his husband, lets him do whatever he needs.

No matter what Shani looks like, he is still Umirin's one true love. He just wishes to know how this became of his love. Did the Elders do something to him? They must have.

Umirin grits his teeth, a flare of fury spinning alight within him. How dare they? The bargain he'd struck with them was made only in the name of them leaving Shani alone.

He takes a deep breath, snapped from his tumultous thoughts by a soft whimper against the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Oh, his poor love. He embraces Shani tighter, enveloping him as close as he can when his husband starts to cry against him.

"Shani, it's okay, it's all okay, my love," Umirin mutters to him, rubbing his back with one hand while cradling him, his poor darling shaking with his cries, little hiccups breaking through between his sobs.