Kuo was restless and couldn’t sleep the night of the full moon. People were loud outside, many preparing for the hunt while he was stuck inside folding fabric and repairing clothes for the Fledglings. Aro had told him to go to bed when he was done with the tunics, but the hours dragged on, leaving him with a sour mood.

He felt the magic within the walls of the monastery. He’d been drawn to it in the first place, and now the walls around him hummed. Soaked for hundreds of years with Spark and Mage power.

He loved Gimma.

He just wished his spark had a Mage to thrive on. The spark grew on its own, but it tasted the magic everywhere and was already growing greedy.

Yet Aro had held him back. So now he was stuck with basic spells and embroidery, his hands already itching to improve what he was given to work with.

Still deep in thought, he didn’t hear the creaking door right away. But the heavy footsteps and the magic sizzling through the air and crawling over his skin snapped him out of his thoughts. Kuo turned around and wasn’t quite sure what to make of the doe a bloodied Mage had just dumped, quite unceremoniously, right at his naked feet.

He was breathing heavily, eyes wide open, pupils clouded, giving his disturbingly light blue eyes the appearance of blindness. A Mage with Sight. Which didn’t explain the dead doe. In the sewing room.

The Mage watched him, sighed and went down on one knee, baring his neck and turning his hands, painted with blood and soil from the woods, upwards.

His voice sounded tired but proud when he proclaimed his offering of a dead animal to the befuddled-looking young man. “Please accept my offering as a sign of devotion.”

Kuo’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “Um…”

He knew the hunters had brought back prizes from their hunt that night, but they were supposed to go to their loved ones and Pages, or the head of the monastery, or whoever caught their eye, but Kuo knew he had never spoken with this Mage. Ever. Aro had made sure to keep them apart. And Kuo still remembered why. His spark had wanted so much. Too much.

The Mage kept his strenuous pose and wheezed, nearly toppling over but trying hard not to give in.

Kuo crouched down in front of him to get a better look at the grey-haired man.

He was young. Younger than Kuo had expected and quite beautiful. His skin was unmarred — by luck or because he hadn’t fought many battles yet. He looked Kuo straight in the eye, and the desperate stare, waiting for approval, was heart-wrenching.

Kuo reached out and patted his cheek awkwardly. “Thank you for your generous offering. I accept it.”

The Mage’s head dropped. He took a deep breath and, with some pain-ridden moans, dragged himself back to his feet and slowly made his way out of the sewing rooms.

Kuo stared after him. “Thanks… good-bye. Um….” The door shut behind the Mage, who wordlessly left.

Kuo was puzzled. He looked down at the doe. Still at his feet. Possibly his own body weight. Dead weight. Too heavy to be dragged out of the building without anybody noticing.

And then he remembered how Berinn had bragged about his Mage.

“Embry here, Embry there, I have the strongest of them all, he’s so good, so good.”

It had been a never-ending tirade of boasting. Kuo’s mood soured immediately just reliving those moments. But right now his spark rolled around contentedly like a cat who got to lick all the cream, bathing in the certainty that the Mage had brought his offering to Kuo — and not his Page.

And although the satisfaction and the possibility of humiliating the braggy bastard in the morning sounded good, he knew that Aro might see him unfit as a Page, and Kuo didn’t want to risk being Mage-less for another year.

“Fuck.”

He dragged the doe behind his table and covered it with clothes before dashing out of the building and making his way to the main square. People were still walking around - half the monastery was awake and bumbling around. He could easily slip from group to group without too much attention.

He just had to get to the Ouga. She would be able to help him. And she would keep her mouth shut. He didn’t want anybody to know.

Yet.

***

“Yo, Em. Are you awake?”

Embry blinked and groaned, every bone in his body tired, hurting and just so heavy. He wanted to turn around but his shoulders hurt too much.

“No. Let me lie a bit longer and die peacefully.”

Aik laughed, leaning against the doorway to his room with folded arms. “Aro said you can stay in bed a bit longer.” He took a closer look. “Is that blood on your face and hands? Didn’t you wash up?”

Embry stared at his bloody hands, dried flakes falling off in patches. He lifted the cover and yes, still fully clothed. He groaned again. “Fuck, the matron will kill me. I have no idea how I got here.”

Aik walked over to his window and peered outside. “Figures. Where’s the beautiful doe you brought back from the hunt?”

The younger Mage dragged his hand over his face and tried to remember what had happened. “I don‘t know… Shit, I have no idea who received it. Oh gods, I dumped an eighty-pound doe at somebody’s feet, and I have no idea who got the offering. What’s wrong with me? Shouldn’t it have been Berinn?”

Aik watched Embry slowly talk himself into the beginnings of a serious panic attack, then dragged him up, ignoring the howling and complaints. “You know… sooner or later it will pop up. Probably. And then we will know who got it. Until then, we‘ll clean you up because, by gods, you smell, and then you get to deal with that angry Page of yours.”

***

“And then I saw the brown wolf, and he growled at me and moved and–” Aik stopped in the middle of his epic, and quite unrealistic, tale of how he killed the wolf when a little clacking sound at the window interrupted him.

Embry was sitting chin deep in hot water and just turned his head to watch the older Mage opening the window swiftly before sticking his head outside, listening to the muffled voice of somebody standing under the window. The bathhouse was mostly empty at this time, so nobody yelled at Aik for letting out the warm, moist air, but Embry wished his friend would hurry up. The chilly air crawling in wasn‘t pleasant.

“Aik… hurry up!”

Aik waved a hand at him, stuck out his head once more before he closed the window and turned around, grinning at him impishly.

“Matron told the kitchen maid, who told Tristan who told… I forget… who told Benji that Eva brought your doe to the kitchens some time ago, without saying where or how she got it. She just told the staff it‘s yours, and the presentee would like to gift the community with the offering.” He plopped down on the stone bench next to the tub. “Still no bells ringing in that pretty head of yours?”

Embry scratched said pretty head. “Fuck. No. If Eva won’t tell, I‘ll never know. It’s concerning enough that the person knows the Ouga.”

Aik leaned back and rubbed his cheek. The scar probably hurt from the cold. “Hm, maybe they’ll come forward when the feast takes place. Wouldn’t be the first time. I haven’t seen someone in such a deep magic trance for a while. Like you were stupefied. Quite a sight to be honest, but I like you better when you know what you’re doing.”

Embry thought about all the times his magic had acted up, and he felt the tug and want in the last couple of weeks. He started to have doubts. He didn’t want to, but the lingering feeling of missing a piece of the puzzle was stuck like a thorn he couldn’t reach.

“We‘ll see.” He didn’t want to share his apprehension yet. “Tell me more about the epic hunt of yours.”

The feast came, and with it, a very angry Page. The slap Embry received was a well-deserved one, and his cheek glowed for quite a while, stinging in the cold air. But no presentee showed up or made themselves known. And Embry had a feeling he‘d never know for sure.

He had a flickering memory of brown eyes watching him and soft fingers tracing his cheek, but it could have been a dream or just his imagination. And it hurt to be left in the dark even when the pull had been so strong, but he tried to distract himself.

“Don’t search for them. They might be married, be spoken for or just not interested.“

And brown eyes watched him from within the shadows.

With great interest.