2 Vhalar, 720
Zur lit his pipe and gave it a quick puff. There was a slight nip in the air he couldn’t avoid. It was steadily growing into the colder seasons now. He shivered and dutifully put on a coat.
He was sitting on his front porch gazing at the night sky, at how the stars twinkled like they hadn’t a care in the world.
He had been doing some thinking. He needed to get back into the swing of things in terms of academics. He had spent so much time working as a psychologist at the infirmary that he hadn’t given his studious activities the attention they rightfully deserved. That he deserved.
“Zurry?” Came a trepidatious voice from behind him.
Ash closed the front door swiftly and took a seat next to his partner.
“Hmm?” Zur eyes held a glaze that coated his already muted irises. He was still deep in thought, not bothering to acknowledge his partner with more than a simple grunt.
But when Ash took his hand in his, he snapped to attention. A thick swirl of smoke spewed out from between his lips as he looked at the Lothorro.
“What is it?” He amended, squeezing his partner’s hand.
“I need some advice,” came his reply. He looked small, a trait Ash often never bestowed. It was because of his shy manner that Zur took on a more serious disposition, pulling himself away from his thoughts and centering back into the present reality.
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve been feeling very melancholy lately,” he explained, tightening his hold on the half blood’s hand.
“I don’t know if it’s because the weather has changed or something else, but I’m sad.”
Zur’s glazed look returned, but instead of it being one of disinterest, he was finding the glaze to be one formulated from the onset of tears.
Why was his partner feeling sad? Was he not offering him everything he could to make him happy? What more could he do to please the one he loved? Or perhaps it had nothing to do with Zur, a notion that struck him worse as he believed not having any control over the situation was more troublesome than being able to fix it albeit from his own carelessness of having it emerge in the first place.
Zur approached the issue tactfully, not pushing for answers, but trying to find a solution nonetheless.
“When did you start feeling sad, my love?” He asked, turning to face his partner so he could view him straight on.
Ash’s golden hair was tied back into some sort of makeshift pony tail. His eyes did not hold their usual icy glimmer, but instead were a soft, dull grey. His lips were pulled into a subtle frown and his eyebrows were knit into a look of concern.
“Just a few trials ago,” he elaborated, looking to the sky as Zur had only moments ago.
“Was it something I did?” He needed to know, to stop the selfish thoughts that plundered his mind.
Ash smiled slightly and gave a small chuckle. “No, Zur. You don’t have to worry about that. If you did something I would tell you right away and probably beat your ass in the process.”
Zur grinned, but the upward curve of his lips was short lived.
“You’ve taken the time to think about this,” he stated rather than asked. Ash’s response had told him that much. His actions, too.
“I have,” Ash replied with a soft nod of his head.
Zur watched as Ash’s eyes traced an outline in the sky. They then seemed to chase something… a shooting star perhaps?
“Maybe a change of scenery would help?” Zur offered, appealing to Ash’s sudden interest in the stars.
Ash shrugged and gradually let go of his grasp on Zur’s hand.
“What about a nice bubble bath?”
“Only if you join me,” Ash replied with a smirk. Yet his eyes didn’t reciprocate the enthusiasm his voice held. They were still downcast, filled with a sorrow that Zur couldn’t fathom.
“Come inside.”
The half blood led his partner back into the warmth of the house, closing the door softly behind them. He put out his pipe and set it aside before making his way over to the living room, Ash in tow, where he sat themselves down on the sofa.
“Have I ever told you the tale of my father’s missing monocle?”
Ash furrowed his eyebrows further and titled his head to the side. “I didn’t know your dad wore glasses.”
While Ash hadn’t explicitly answered his question, the very fact that he hadn’t stopped Zur from continuing gave enough reason to continue with the story.
Zur wasn’t much of a storyteller. He liked living the stories rather than recreating them in the form of written words or verbal speech. But presently, weaving a tale from an experience he had as a child seemed like a great distraction for his troubled partner, so he began to tell it.
“I think I was fourteen? Maybe fifteen at the time when my father’s monocle went missing. He blamed me of course, but I, having just snuck into his study to try his pipe for the very first time, was completely out of it due to the contents of what was in that pipe.”
“Your dad experimented with recreational drugs?” Ash inquired, claiming a pillow from his side and squeezing it tightly against his chest.
“He was a researcher. Whether he tested what he researched or not, I never knew, but I had my suspicions.” He knew he was getting off track, his inept ability to create a worthy story showing through the proverbial cracks.
“Anyway, that’s beside the point. The point is, I told him his monocle had been stolen.”
Ash’s eyes grew slightly larger with intrigue. “He didn’t just misplace it?”
Zur shook his head. “The whole reason he blamed me for taking it was because I told him a gremlin stole it.”
Ash burst into laughter upon hearing this. “A gremlin?”
Zur frowned at Ash for having not taken him seriously, but quickly recaptured his lighthearted attitude. His partner was laughing. That was all that mattered. And come to think of it, as he told the story, it did seem rather funny.
“As I said, I was hallucinating from the drug I had just smoked. But I could never tell him that. Of course he most obviously assumed something was up, though. I mean, a gremlin! You laughed yourself after hearing me say that!”
Zur swept a stray lock of inky black hair behind his ear and continued. He had once again begun a tangent, diverting from the story he was trying to tell!
“My face was so red and my eyes were probably searching all over the place, having a mind of their own, not to mention I talked extremely slow, though to me, I spoke at a normal pace. Anyway, I told him a gremlin stole his monocle and even described to him what the creature looked like.”
“What did it look like?” Ash interrupted, becoming increasingly enraptured by the tale.
“I told him it was green with red eyes. It had holes in its body and weird fuzzy spots on its abdomen. And it was fast. It snatched that monocle up in less than a trill and gobbled it down like it was nothing more than a slice of bread.”
“So the gremlin ate your dad’s eye piece?” Ash was laughing again, a stream of joyful tears flowing freely down the side of his face.
“Indeed it did.”
Zur’s novice ability to weave a proper story showed again as he neglected to explain what the gremlin really was. He forgot to offer a reasonable conclusion until Ash inquired as to the true nature of the monocle thief.
“So what really happened?” He asked, mindlessly plucking at a loose thread in the pillow he hugged.
“I was coming down from the high by this point, you see, and my father walked right up to me and took my arm. He brought my hand up to my face and there on my hand was one of my socks. It was bright green, the toe part red as blood. There were a few too many holes to count littering the sole and strands of loose threads covered the top. He asked me, ‘is this the gremlin you’ve been telling me about?’ All I could do was nod I was so embarrassed.”
Zur let out a hearty chuckle as Ash’s buoyant laughter filled the living room once again.
“Your sock was the thief!”
“In my hand was the monocle, which is probably what gave the whole thing away. I realized then that’s why he blamed me. I had it the entire time!”
Ash leaned forward and placed a kiss on his partner’s forehead. “Why did you even take his eye piece in the first place?” He asked softly.
Zur smiled and gazed longingly into his partner’s eyes. “I don’t even remember,” he said before giving Ash a tender kiss on his lips.
The two embraced for what seemed like bells before Zur asked the Lothorro how he was feeling.
“Better,” he replied, though not letting go from their tight hug. “Much better, thank you. But-“
Zur waited anxiously for him to continue his sentence. But what?
“I still want you to join me in that bubble bath.”
