Put back together

57. Sweet breeze before the storm

Janus looked up at the sound of something colliding with the window.
The white thing tried again and again.
Slowly Janus got up and opened the window to let it in.

It flew past him, unfolding in the air and landed on his desk.

Janus followed it and picked it up.

It was a weird paper, thicker and darker than the kind he was used to and dark blue ink stared back at him.

He recognised Virgil's handwriting immediately.
There was no other person that wrote this neatly and yet unreadable.

"Did you get mail?" Remus' voice startled him.

"No," he lied. "It's not from Virgil. I can read it."

"Want me to get Perse?"

"No... Or yes! I won't go to her. It's not at all easier," he decided.

Remus followed him out of the room and threw an arm around his shoulder.

Janus had almost forgotten how his touch felt when they had skin contact.

It was a thrill in his stomach, his entire body seeming to shake with a mix of excitement and anticipation.

When they had been children Persephone had always complained that she didn't glow when she touched them.
To this day Janus didn't know what Mama had told her to make her feel better, but it had worked. She had never complained again.

They found her in the garden, carefully removing moss from a tree trunk.

A few guards looked at them weirdly, caught themselves staring and pretended to turn away.

Janus broke the contact and the yellow glowing lines on his skins vanished.

"Do you need something?" Persephone asked, putting the moss in a small jar.

"Virgil didn't write a letter and I don't need your help to translate it," he told her.

Her mouth formed an O as she got up.

"My pendulum is in my room," she said and began to lead the way.

They left the guards behind outside of the room and Janus and Remus watched as she got to work with a sheet of paper, that had all letters in a circle and one of her many pendulums. She always used the same one to translate Virgil's writing. It was made of a similar stone to the one in his jewelry.

After a while she put it down again and looked at the other paper where she had been writing down the translation.

"What does it say?" Remus asked.

"Well," Persephone began and looked up at them seriously, "I think you should ready our troops, Jay."

-~-

Patton woke up again for a little while a few hours later.

They didn't tell him about the revelation that Virgil was one of them, all deciding that it would be better to wait until he had recovered.

Roman also pointedly tried to shield him from seeing the worst of the damages to the wagon.
He didn't need to worry about that at the moment.

They ate together and few minutes later Patton was asleep again.

Emile pulled out a book and began to write something.

Roman watched him for a while.
He couldn't tell what he was writing from the distance but was pretty sure that he wouldn't be able to read it either way.

"Hey, Logan," he said slowly.

"Yes?" the other looked up.

"Could you... Could you teach me how to read Slyn... better?" Roman asked hesitantly.

"I- Sure," Logan shrugged. "I think I have a few simpler texts with me."

He dug through his bag for a moment before pulling out a book thicker than Roman's head and a pen.
He scooted closer to Roman until their knees touched and opened the book between their laps.

"This is an old collection of short stories from Chronal," he continued. "So, it's all in Slyn. Can you read what this says?"

Roman frowned at the curved letters. They were connected. He hated connected Slyn. He remembered Mother telling him that it didn't make a difference how he connected them, as long as he did since it looked nicer.
Next to the useless letters it was probably his biggest problem with the writing system.

"I... I'm not sure," he frowned. "This is 'castle' right?"

It was more a guess than anything else.

"Correct," Logan nodded, silently urging him to continue.

"Is it the chronan castle?" Roman asked. "This looks like it could be 'Chronal'."

"Yes, very good," Logan praised with a smile. "It's written differently because it's an adjective, so good job."

Roman scoffed. "I have no idea what the rest says though."

"That's okay. It's a start. I doubt anyone ever took the time to actually teach you."

He wasn't exactly wrong about that, Roman mused.

Logan moved even closer to Roman, until there was no more room between them, the markings on their skins glowing softly and began to quietly explain.

He didn't just tell Roman the letters, he went into detail.
He explained why the letters were connected the way they were, what the useless ones were for (as it turned out they weren't actually useless) and how letters had changes through history, even going as far as to pull out even older books to show Roman the differences.

If Roman was being honest then he hardly understood most of the changes and anecdotes but he didn't dare to interrupt.

Logan was so obviously excited and enthusiastic about it. There was a spark in his eyes and he was moving his hands more and more as he spoke.
At some point he had begun to lean his head on Roman's shoulder and Roman leaned his own head on his in turn.

Logan jawned in the middle of a story about some monarch who had invented some symbol to write his initials in one letter. Roman wasn't entirely sure which letter it was, but it didn't seem all that important to him.

Roman's eyes own were growing heavy but he forced himself to stay awake.

Elliot had fallen asleep draped over his and Logan's shoulders and they were snoring quietly.

Logan continued on to the next letter but trailed off after a short while.

Roman tried to get a look at his face without waking up Elliot but didn't manage to.

"He's asleep," Emile spoke up from the other side of the wagon. "I guess you'll have to stay there for a while."

He smiled over at Roman and Roman smiled back.

"Not a problem," he whispered back, afraid he might wake Logan up. It was the opposite of a problem actually.

He shifted a little until he sat more comfortably and let his eyes drift shut. He only hoped that he wouldn't dream of dead people again.

I hope I delivered on the Logince, I promised.

As always feel free to comment, ask questions or roast me for spelling errors!

Have a nice (gay) day!