Archive of Our Own ^beta

Osvald stands alone in the clearing for some time after Temenos, the last of his friends, says his mysterious goodbye. The wind blows, and the fading embers of last night’s fire flicker one last time, filling the space with a piney, comforting scent.

The last time Osvald lit out for the territories, he had less than nothing to his name. Now, he has a home. This variable alters the equation: only one, final Answer remains.

Still, he thinks. I can’t go home like this.

Ever since everything (Harvey) happened, he has been scrupulous about never approaching his daughter in such a state – he would die on the spot, he thinks, if he ever hurt or scared her. No. The ragged, broken thing her father has become must transform, if it is ever to return to her.

Think I saw a clothing section at Partitio’s department store. Wellgrove isn’t far.

—

The department store is as bustling as ever; three different people in merchant’s hats bump into Osvald within a few minutes of his arrival. He picks his way through the crowd to the second floor, where the clothing store is.

(It’s been five years since he shopped for anything more mundane than curatives and magic staffs. It takes him a good few minutes to find the section with the largest men’s clothes, and a good few more to realize that nothing on the rack comes close to fitting his massive frame.)

“Do you need help, Sir?” the attendant asks. Osvald turns.

“I, uh.” Osvald is, suddenly, all too aware of how he must look: like a shaggy, mangy bear, looming over Wellgrove’s finery. He bows his head. “Looks like nothing fits. I’ll be going.”

“Wait,” the person says, when he’s a few steps from the entrance. Osvald turns. “We’ve got stock coming in from New Delsta every morning. We can special order whatever you need.”

“Think they’ve got something that’ll fit me?”

“For you?” the attendant asks. They’re looking at Osvald strangely, deeply, as if what they see is… something other than a bear, or a prisoner, or even a scholar.

(Something chosen.)

(Something bright.)

The attendant shakes their head, as if to clear it. “I’ll make it work. Just tell me what you need.”

Osvald pauses to think about it. He hasn’t been able to choose his clothing in a very long time. What does he want to wear?

“Something like this, then,” Osvald says, gesturing at his threadbare prison uniform – at his ragged coat and scuffed, beaten boots. “S’comfy.”

—

He stops by the stable just long enough to bribe an attendant to take the chain off his neck. His hacksaw goes through the bolt with surprising speed. Osvald leaves the collar and chain in the dust by the fence; maybe someone can use it.

—

Osvald retires to the inn, afterward, to await the delivery. He posts up by the fire with his book and a generous bowl of the same rich, fatty stew every inn seems to offer, and shuts out the world for a while.

“Fancy meeting you here,” someone says, some hours later. Osvald looks up. The person who’d called out to him is dressed in unremarkable, workmanlike brown, with a floppy hat jammed down over his hair. It’s all so relentlessly, deliberately plain that it takes Osvald a long moment to place him.

“Alrond!”

“Shh,” Alrond says. He’s smiling as he says it. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”

(Behind him, no fewer than three of the townsfolk look over at Osvald and make a show of rolling their eyes.)

“I see,” Osvald coughs. “Sorry.”

“Anyway. What brings you to Wellgrove? Last I heard, you and your friends were…” He trails off, such that Osvald is unsure whether he means to say something more like traveling, or more like busy kicking evil gods in the teeth.

“We finished,” Osvald says. (It’s just as true either way.) “Just ordered some clothes at your store. Thought I’d wait here and pick them up tomorrow.”

“Splendid. You’ll be my guest for dinner tonight, then, yes?”

Osvald grunts. “Just ate.”

“My friend,” Alrond says. His smile gets wider. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but… you don’t look like the kind of man who can be defeated by just one dinner.”

He’s not wrong.

—

Osvald follows Alrond up the hill to his home. Their shadows stretch out long behind them, wavering in the light of the setting sun.

Alrond’s butler, Misha, is standing in the foyer of Alrond’s manse. He bows as they approach.

“Welcome back, Lord Alrond.” He bows a little deeper. “Welcomed guest.”

“Now, Misha. This guest happens to be a dear friend to the both of us! There’s no need to stand on ceremony.”

“Oh, it’s you,” Misha says. “Thanks again for your help before.”

Osvald shrugs. All he did was stand watch for a few minutes, while Temenos did his work – their dear Hound was always nothing but efficient.

“We’ll be dining together tonight,” Alrond says.

“Excellent. Tonight’s offering is broiled octopus in lemon butter sauce. I’ll set out another plate right away.”

—

It’s strange, Osvald thinks, to be eating his home town’s signature dish the night before he returns, but it’s not unwelcome. The aroma opens a deep pit of nostalgia in his breast, and the octopus itself is delicious, grilled to a turn. (Eating it leaves Osvald mildly impressed with Misha – it’s not an easy dish to master.)

They chat for a while, and Osvald comes to understand two facts that he'd managed to miss before: that Alrond is a clever conversationalist, widely knowledgeable about things Osvald had thought were the province of scholars, and that Alrond and Misha are very much in love.

(It burns in them, he thinks. He likes its light. It seems that the One True Magic has left him susceptible to such things, like a moth to its flame.)

Before he knows it, Osvald finds himself speaking of his journey, of his friends, and of his last, remaining mission.

“So you see,” he says, when he is finished. “I thought I’d lost everything. I thought I’d be nothing but empty inside, for the rest of my days. Now that I’m not, I must go back.”

“I know the feeling, I think. When I was younger, I had resigned myself to a lonely life. Misha was… a complete surprise.” Alrond smiles across the table at his partner. “When I went out that night, I had no idea that I’d come back with the greatest treasure of my life.”

(Misha makes the slightest, softest sound at this: a little grunt of shock.)

“Mmm. Rita was much the same. She pursued me out of the blue. I’d never considered that anyone might… wish for my company.”

Alrond’s smile grows teasing. “Truly? With that physique? I'm surprised to hear it.”

“I’ve never been good with these things,” Osvald mutters, staring down at his plate.

“I understand,” Alrond says. His voice grows gentle. “We all have our strengths.” A beat. “She sounds like a special person.”

“She was. Rita was… most special to me.”

“I’m sure she’s proud of you, then. Just as your daughter will be.”

“Do you think so?” Osvald looks up again. Try as he might, he cannot keep the edge of desperation out of his voice. “I left her. She needed me, and I…”

“Osvald,” Alrond says. He pauses, as if considering his words. “She needs you, certainly. And you’ll be with her soon. But not even a father’s love matters more than the Dawn, yes?”

“I wonder,” Osvald sighs.

—

After dinner, they sit by the fireplace with a bottle of Alrond’s fine brandy, and a mug of coffee for Osvald. Both Misha and Alrond ask surprisingly astute questions about the nature of magic, questions Osvald is only too happy to expound upon. He finds himself in full lecture mode well before his second refill, and before long, the hour has grown late.

“Well, then. Care to join me on a treasure hunt before you go?” Alrond asks.

“I’m afraid that you… may not appreciate my take on that,” Osvald rumbles. “Not in your city, at least.”

Alrond’s answering grin suggests that he knows exactly what Osvald is getting at. “Very well. Suit yourself, my friend. Our guest room is open to you.”

That night, Osvald dreams of searching, though he knows not what he is missing. It’s an anxious, stressful dream, full of half-formed images of his broad hands, empty, groping in the darkness toward something vital.

Only the anxiety, the desperation, follows him to the dawn.

—

Osvald’s new clothes are ready in the morning, as promised. He takes them back to Alrond’s mansion to change, enduring Alrond’s teasing whistle as he emerges wearing them.

“A fine look,” the magnate laughs. “I hadn’t realized how much it suits you.”

Osvald examines himself in the hallway mirror. These clothes are… right, he thinks. They’re much like the ones he was wearing before, but different: a white tunic shirt, a pair of dark, baggy pants, and a long, heavy brown coat. He likes the softness of the shirt beneath his hands, and he likes the way the pants fit loosely, just as the ones from the prison did. He has them adjusted just right, with a belt of brown leather instead of a rope, and the way the cuffs tuck into his boots seems proper, too. The boots fit perfectly, as though he’s already broken them in; no small feat, given the general rarity of shoes that fit Osvald at all.

(His new coat is, truly, a joy. It smells of fresh leather, buttery soft, with wide lapels for Osvald to hide behind. It’s hemmed with good, thick stitching that stands out against the material, creating a pattern that Osvald thinks he likes, and not just for its practicality – either way, it looks like it should never grow ragged, the way his old coat had. The pockets are big and warm, too, just right to shove his hands in deep, and there’s a secret, inner breast pocket with a button closure for his precious notebook and pen.)

Osvald thinks that it fits him better than the silk hat and scarf he’d worn to check on his daughter from afar, once or twice; that had always felt too much like a costume, despite Throné’s insistence that it suited him. This outfit, though, is sturdy and practical, and would be good for both travel and conducting research at home. He can almost see Elena now, snuggled up against the warm leather of his coat, held close and safe.

“I should go,” Osvald says, abruptly. To his credit, Alrond simply smiles.

“You’re welcome here anytime. You and any of your friends. And if you happen to see dearest Partitio, would you please convey my greetings?”

“Of course.”

Alrond surprises him, then, by folding his arm at his waist and making a deep, formal bow. “Then thank you once again, Chosen Scholar. For everything.”

“You’re welcome,” Osvald says.

—

The road back home feels green and good, even after he leaves the Leaflands behind. The sun peeks from behind the clouds, dappling everything in rippling shadow. He meets not a single monster or traveler. It feels as though Osvald is walking on a different plane, two degrees apart from the world. (He has felt that way, on and off, ever since that campfire, that dream – ever since the night before the Night. Everything that has happened since feels strange, as if it lies just beyond reality).

(He wonders, once more, if he will always feel like this. Is this the touch of destiny? Does it feel this way for his friends? Seawater laps at his good, new boots as he picks his way down the coast, choosing the mud of the shallows and the screaming of birdians over the busier path that leads from Canalbrine’s outskirts down to Conning Creek).

(At his left hand lies the path to the cave where Throné and Temenos found the magic mirror. There to his right, the path to Sai, and beyond it, to Ku, where good King Hikari rules over his people. At his back: Oresrush, and off-key fiddle music, and a beloved face grinning beneath any number of increasingly outlandish hats. Osvald feels as if he knows every inch of this land, every blade of grass and tiny speck of sand, in ways he could not have imagined just one year ago.)

(Maybe it will be like this, always. For the rest of his life.)

(Maybe it will.)

—

Entering Vidania never felt as intimidating as Lady Clarissa’s front door. Osvald stands before it for an embarrassing length of time, hand outstretched, with the worn wool of his gloves hovering not an inch from the doorknob.

(New gloves, he thinks, inanely. How absurd. I forgot to get gloves.)

A part of him – the part that keeps him in the farthest corner of every party, nose in a book – dares to suggest that he go back, that he go traveling again, that he go before he inevitably messes this up. Lady Clarissa will explain it, he tells himself. Elena will miss him, but–

–but the part of him that stood before a wicked god and declared itself a warrior of love has already opened the door.

It smells like goulash inside. It smells like goulash, and his Elena is right there at the table, alive, writing in her notebook with the special pen Osvald gave her. And the sense of strangeness, of apartness that Osvald has felt since he was an awkward, too-large boy who could never fit in drops away from him forever, like a shroud.

—

“Papa!”