As Mirk eyed the runes cast along the edges of the room's door frame, he was possessed by a sudden urge to turn around and hurry back the way he'd come. He shook his head hard, blinking his eyes a few times, rapidly. The feeling cleared away soon after. And the runes had vanished, Mirk couldn't help but notice.

The door was now the same as every other one that lined the hallway, visually speaking. The low-born officers dormitory was a bit more spacious than the healers’, but it had the same dark and dismal plainness about it. And it didn't have the benefit of heavy empathic shielding, which meant that the hall was permeated with the emotions of the other tenants — the sense of fatigue that haunted Mirk wherever he went in the City, along with a good deal of anxiety and pain, hung thick down the length of it, invisible but omnipresent to his mind’s eye.

Mirk couldn't sense anything from behind the door he was presently vacillating in front of, however. Mostly because the collection of wards and shields on it, though not designed specifically to contain or repel emotion, were so intricate and chaotic that Mirk doubted even the air from out in the hall could get past them.

Really, he shouldn't have expected anything less from Genesis.

Hesitantly, Mirk raised a hand to knock. Before his knuckles could touch the wood, the door clicked open, swinging inward a few inches on silent hinges.

"You don't have to be so dramatic, messire," Mirk mumbled under his breath. He pushed the door open the rest of the way and went inside.

The room beyond was large. Or perhaps that was only an illusion created by how dim and empty it was. The only illumination came from the sole magelight placed above the door, tinted an odd blue-green color that made the room feel colder than it already was. There was no sofa, no armchairs, no bed. There wasn't even a rug on the floor, aside from a small, coarse one right inside the door.

Instead, there were only bookshelves, all of them full, strictly of books, without a single trinket or memento in sight. They lined every wall of the room, aside from a bit of space grudgingly set aside for a second door in the middle of the right-hand wall, along with an uninviting wooden bench shoved against the wall directly opposite it. It might have doubled as a desk, if one was tall enough and not opposed to sitting on the floor. The second door was covered with so many protective sigils that its surface almost appeared to be crawling in the half-light. Mirk tried to put it out of mind as he fixed a smile on his face and called out.

"Genesis? Are you here? Niv said you went back..."

There was no reply. However, as if in response to a phantom breeze, the door slammed shut behind him. Mirk jumped and gave a pathetic squeak, clutching his bag to his chest.

"I apologize. The door seems to have a certain...unwelcome disposition. I am working on correcting it. Additionally, please leave your shoes on the mat. I have...only just cleaned the floor properly."

One moment Mirk had been alone in the room, the next Genesis was there with him, sliding a book back onto one of the shelves as casually as if he'd been there the whole while. Had he? Mirk thought he would have noticed the commander, even if he'd been lurking in one of the more shadowy corners of the room.

Mirk shuffled out of his clogs, careful not to let them stray off the edges of the mat in front of the door. He still hadn't sorted out why Genesis was so particular about shoes touching certain things — a floor was meant to be walked on, after all, and the streets of the City of Glass were unnaturally clean — but Mirk suspected it had something to do with the commander’s disease motes superstition. "It's all right," Mirk said, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. "Though, I don't understand how you plan on having me practice anything here, messire. The training hall would be much easier, methinks."

The commander was still studying the spines of his grimoire collection. And Mirk was absolutely certain they all had to be books of magic: Genesis had no patience for reading anything but books whose subject matter could be put to productive use. "The...original magic on this building seems much more...amenable to the manipulation it was built to accommodate. I believe creating adequate space will not be an issue."

Mirk snuck a quick glance around the room. Though it was much bigger than his own quarters, he couldn't imagine being able to swing his staff inside without wreaking havoc on all of Genesis's perfectly ordered grimoires. "I...methinks I'm not understanding you, messire," he said. "Is there somewhere you'd like for me to put the rest of my things?"

Genesis made a dismissive gesture in the direction of the bench pushed against the wall, his attention shifting seamlessly from his books to whatever magic he had in mind to make the room better to fight in, skipping over Mirk entirely. Mirk sighed. Being avoided while out in public was one thing, but being treated that way when alone with Genesis stung. Trying to convince himself, once again, that he was only overthinking things, Mirk went to set his bag down and dig his grandfather's staff out of it. As always, it'd somehow managed to sink down to the very bottom of it. He needed to unload and repack almost everything else in the bag to be able to find it.

When Mirk turned to face the commander once more, the room had changed. It startled him, made him jump just like the door slamming behind him had. Rather than standing two or three paces away, Genesis was nearly forty feet away. There was no indication of how Genesis had managed that trick. Nor were there any unexplained gaps in the bookshelves, although there did suddenly seem to be many more of them. Mirk wondered if they'd been there the whole while. "Oh! That's a clever trick."

"As I said. This building is much more...amenable to channeling the Abyss than the rest. Although it would have been easily possible to accomplish this in any of them, at the beginning. The buildings you are…more familiar with included."

Mirk elected not to question the commander further on the issue. Whatever magic had caused the change was obviously beyond his own capabilities. Not to mention that it didn't seem to take any visible amount of effort on Genesis's part to maintain it. Tapping his grandfather's staff a few times against the palm of his hand to coax it out to its full length, Mirk approached Genesis across the sudden gap between them. "I hope I'm not getting in the way of anything important you had to do. It looks like you've been, euh...busy."

The commander had returned to surveying his bookshelves. "It would be...imprudent of me to discourage your interest in putting your time to good use."

Mirk laughed. "Sometimes miracles do happen."

Genesis finally glanced in his direction. The slight, predictable frown that came onto his face at the mention of miracles was reassuring, at least. "I believe you know my position on this manner of superstition."

"Well, yes. But it's not a miracle anyway. I really do need the practice. I don't want to be caught unprepared..."

"Are you...anticipating fighting someone?" Genesis asked, his frown taking on a skeptical slant.

"Oh, no. The other way around."

That was enough to get Genesis's full attention, whatever imperfections that were nestled among his bookshelves forgotten in favor of this new development. "I was not aware of anyone being interested in...challenging you in this fashion."

"It's no one from the K'maneda. Madame Beaumont's ball is in only a few days. I'm going to do my best to keep things civil, but, well. When you make the kind of accusation I'm planning on, tempers do tend to get hot. And dueling is very much in fashion among the people who Serge counts as his friends, his own family aside. I'd rather be ready for it than make a fool of myself."

Mirk was uncertain whether Genesis was concerned by this revelation, or extremely annoyed. "You...plan to fight a duel."

"Not if I can avoid it. If it was only my honor at stake, I'd take the insult. But it's for my family, not me."

"I don’t understand. If they wished to…eliminate you, there are much less inconvenient ways. And, despite your knowledge of certain events, you are no true threat to them. Considering your…pacifist attitude."

Inexorably, Mirk's eyes fell once more on the staff in his hands. He still didn't think of it as his own, not really. In his mind's eye, he could only ever truly picture it in his grandfather's hands. The easy way he carried it, as if it was nothing more than an unfashionable country gentleman's walking stick, something that was carried along more out of habit than for any real purpose. But Mirk knew better. He'd seen the sidelong glances that the other noble mages had cast in its direction, the way that his grandfather deciding to gesture at someone with it in an offhand way could draw winces and make hands creep toward swords, depending on the topic of conversation. There was power there, a power that Mirk still didn't understand how to reach. The wood underneath his fingers felt ordinary, if only a bit warmer than normal. Maybe the power was less in the staff itself and more in the person who carried it.

If that was the case, Mirk was doomed, no matter how often he practiced his fighting. But he had to try. He'd received word that morning that Henri and the children had been freed from the pocket realm and were on their way north, very much the worse for wear, but also very much alive. It was his duty to care for them, as the new head of the family. Considering everything they had lost, fighting a duel against any of Serge Montigny's allies or family members seemed like the least he could do.

Mirk's only hope was that it wouldn't mean dueling Serge himself. The man wasn't a notorious dueler, unlike some of the others close to him, but Mirk knew that if it came down to a battle of wills between the two of them, he didn't stand a chance. "It's hard to explain, messire," Mirk said, after a long pause, looking back up at the commander. "But hopefully it won't come to it."

"As you will," Genesis said, nodding, though he still seemed befuddled by the entire conversation. "It would be...prudent for you to...stretch, first, however. I will wait."

Mirk laughed to himself, nodding in agreement, stepping off to one side to prop the staff against one of the bookcases. "Were you waiting for me long, then? You're already set?"

"One would be well advised to always be prepared to fight."

Genesis always was ready to fight, Mirk supposed. It was one of the reasons it'd surprised Mirk so much that the commander had been willing to train him in the first place. He was all too familiar with the way that the kind of men who fought for a living tended to view him: hopelessly soft, never watchful, always ready to either run or try to talk his way into a compromise rather than draw steel. Most of his tutors, his father included, had viewed it with exasperation.

Genesis had other ideas. Upon witnessing Mirk's weekly struggle with Captain Aei, the member of his father's flight tasked to be his personal guard and tutor in the art of combat, Genesis had informed Aei that Mirk's approach was the only reasonable one, and had offered to take over for the captain. At first, Mirk had been dismayed to find that Genesis's evaluation of his skills had been identical to that of his other tutors. As the commander was always saying, it was impossible to be anything other than what one was, and Mirk was not, and would never be, a fighter. But Genesis had followed it with the caveat that there was utility in being able to defend oneself only long enough to either run or wait for reinforcements, and that such an approach required a different set of techniques than standard fighting. Then Genesis had presented him with a quarterstaff rather than a practice sword and had set him to work.

And he'd been working ever since. Mostly fruitlessly, Mirk thought, but Genesis hadn't given up on him yet. He was uncertain whether it was because the commander saw some sort of hidden potential in him, or if it was simply because Genesis was impossibly stubborn.

As Mirk got down on the cold wooden floor and worked at easing the stiffness out of his limbs, he couldn't help but look up at intervals and study the commander. Genesis didn’t seem preoccupied by his presence. The commander had summoned his sword and had set to ignoring Mirk again. He spun the hilt of it around his thin wrist, again and again, catching it perfectly in his palm each time. It seemed more like an absent-minded sort of fiddling on the commander's part rather than a dedicated exercise. That this could be the case was a true testament to Genesis's skill and inhuman strength.

Of all the items in Genesis's collection of uncanny accessories, the sword was undoubtedly the worst. The thing was the stuff of nightmares. It was only a foot and a few hands shorter than Mirk stood tall, broad and heavy-looking, yet so sharp that its blade seemed to blur to nothing at its edges. And it seemed to be capable of passing in and out of existence at will, slipping as easily into the shadows and vanishing as Genesis himself did. Mirk often wondered whether Genesis wielded the sword or if, much like the shadows themselves, the blade and the commander were two separate entities that just happened to often have the same goal in mind.

Though he knew how much Genesis disliked idle chatter, Mirk found himself talking as he ran through his stretches. "Alors...do you like it here, messire?"

Genesis nodded, once, slightly. And he only glanced Mirk’s way for a fraction of a second, his eyes snapping back fast to the edge of his blade. "It has…several merits."

Mirk considered this, as he stretched his arms out over his legs as far as he could reach. The commander really was acting odd. The longer Mirk watched him, the more he got the impression that Genesis was truly having to work at ignoring him. Usually, the act was as instinctual as breathing for Genesis. Since reading his emotions was impossible, and a direct question was likely to lead nowhere, Mirk tried a different approach. "It's only that I worry about you a little, being all alone. I don't mean to be rude, but methinks you might do better with someone to keep you company from time to time."

Again, a sideways look that only lasted for a second, as Mirk switched to stretching his arms. "I am fine."

"Are you, though? I may just be imagining things, but you've seemed a little out of sorts lately. Did something bad happen with one of the Seventh's contracts? Or with your work?"

"No."

"It isn't the ball, is it? I didn't mean to force you into something awful, messire, it was just the only thing I could think of that you might be able to help me with. If it's too much, you really don't have to come wi—"

"No." As if it was physically painful, Genesis forced himself to truly look down at him, for more than the length of just one flip of his sword. "Regardless. Once one has...offered a debt, withdrawing is considered...dishonorable. Unless the request itself is dishonorable."

"And the ball isn't?"

Genesis shook his head, after the sword's hilt had made a few more circles of his wrist. "It is inconvenient. But not...dishonorable."

Though he knew that Genesis wouldn't be able to feel it, it was impossible for Mirk not to project reassurance along with the smile he flashed him. "As long as you're sure."

The commander gave a dismissive nod, then turned his attention back to his sword. Mirk pushed himself back up onto his feet, giving his knuckles a crack for good measure before retrieving his staff. Maybe the sparring would be enough to knock Genesis out of whatever mood he was in. Of the very limited range of things in life Genesis relished, fighting and making things perfectly to his liking were at the top of the list. And Mirk had no doubt that Genesis would find plenty of errors to correct in his fighting. He always did.

Mirk edged in front of Genesis, the appropriate distance away. "Tiens, allons-y, messire?"

The commander shot him a sour look, catching his sword a final time. "As...you will."

Genesis never attacked first. It was some manner of assertiveness exercise, Mirk supposed. Or perhaps it was meant to give him a leg up, though it never did. No matter how clever Mirk thought he was, his blow was always neatly dodged or countered.

That time was no different. Mirk knew he had to be getting better at feinting, but his quick shift from an obvious sideways swing to an inward jab was knocked away effortlessly. Before Mirk could reorient himself, Genesis had slipped within range, and he felt a tap on his upper shoulder, a move that would have likely severed his arm turned at the last possible moment into nothing but a pat with the flat of the sword.

It would have been terrifying, fighting against an actual blade rather than a wooden practice sword, if Genesis didn't have such immaculate control. Mirk could never tell whether all the pats he gave him with it were meant to be scolding, mocking, or merely instructional. Genesis had to have been annoyed by all his silly mistakes by then. If that was the case, however, there was no indication of it on Genesis's face. Genesis was impassive as ever as he took a few steps back and gestured at Mirk to try again.

So he did. Again. And again.

Mirk was warding away the blows now, at least, though he couldn't get many of his own in. Every time he started to get the hang of things, started to find a workable rhythm, Genesis would increase his speed and manage to catch him off guard, tapping him on the side, chest, arm, "killing" him a dozen times over. Mirk gritted his teeth and forced himself onward, straining to keep up. How was he supposed to defend against someone who was capable of moving from place to place without ever seeming to need to occupy the space between? No one could do that, inhuman or otherwise. At least not physically.

The thought struck Mirk so suddenly that he got pushed off-balance, only saving himself at the very last moment by turning his stumble into a roll, one that thankfully took him out of the sword's range. If Genesis wasn't actually moving, that meant he had to be using some kind of magic.

Sucking in a deep breath, Mirk threw himself back into the fray. This time, instead of watching Genesis's movements with his eyes, trying to judge where he was moving by how he shifted his weight, Mirk looked with his mind. He could never feel Genesis's emotions, but that didn't mean he couldn't use his senses to pick up on the commander’s magic. Instead of straining to pick up on Genesis intentions with his empathy, he searched for nothingness, spots where the barely audible murmuring of the wood of the floor and the stone of the walls was momentarily cut off.

It worked. Somewhat. Mirk was beginning to get a sense of what Genesis was doing with his magic that allowed him to move so quickly, to sense the pattern within the chaos. It was almost the same as making sense of the discordant mess inside Genesis's body, where the static eventually became the song, if only one listened closely. Watching Genesis's movements with his physical eyes was becoming more distracting than helpful, dividing Mirk's attention so that half of him was still straining to read Genesis's stance while the rest of him was trying to watch the advancing and retreating edges of Genesis's magic.

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Mirk didn't know whether what he had in mind would help him, or mean getting another smack in the side. But what was the harm in trying? Focusing entirely on his mental senses, Mirk closed his eyes.

It was disorienting at first. Mirk could still tell where everything was by listening and feeling for his surroundings and the staticky gap caused in them by Genesis's magic. And yet, there was a note of panic welling up inside Mirk’s stomach, some voice of logic clamoring at him to give up and be sensible and open his eyes again.

It reminded him of the few times his sister had tried to share her love of flying with him. She'd grab him under the arms and be up off the ground in an instant with a tremendous flap of her wings and a bolt of her magic, swooping him up over the manor's gables and skimming him over the tops of trees, laughing the whole while, until Mirk's panicked yelping and pleading got her to relent and put him back on the front lawn. It felt he should have been failing to keep Genesis at bay with his eyes squeezed shut, just like it felt like he should have been falling, despite knowing full well that Kae was strong enough even as a girl to fly a full-grown man all the way from Nantes to Tours without even getting winded.

But when Mirk raised the staff to block, he could hear the clack of wood on metal to match what he saw and heard with his magical senses, the reassuring hum and glow of his grandfather's staff banging into a hissing nothingness that had momentarily separated from its main source and lashed out to strike at him. Slowly, after a half dozen more parries and successfully shoved off locks, Mirk began to grow more comfortable with it. Which allowed him to take a harder look at Genesis's magic.

The nothingness didn't move instantly, or, at least, not as suddenly as Genesis seemed to. The chaos would fade right and left, forward and back, spreading out in multiple directions at once before it focused in on one and the bulk of it moved. That explained how Genesis always dodged his blows, no matter how well Mirk feinted — he always had at least two other avenues of retreat open to him, and could slide down any of them more quickly than Mirk could swing at him, since some small part of himself or his magic was already there. The more Mirk watched, the more he began to be able to spot which direction Genesis was planning on dodging in, how one particular fade always seemed a bit thicker than the rest. Mirk made an attempt at a feint again, that time only using it as a way to gain momentum and swing in the direction he thought Genesis was most likely to dodge in.

There was a crack.

A sharp flare of pain broke Mirk's concentration. He yelped, his eyes flying open as he reeled backward, overwhelmed by the dizziness and disorientation that came with shifting his attention back to the physical world alone. Once Mirk was able to focus again, he realized that the room had snapped back to its normal dimensions. And Genesis was stalking off toward the bench, one hand pressed against his side and hissing curses to himself. He released the sword's hilt, surrendering it to the shadows, which dragged it off under the bench as Genesis lowered himself carefully down onto it.

"I'm so sorry, Gen!" Mirk blurted out, scrambling over to him, leaving his staff behind where he'd dropped it on the floor. "I just...I've never...I can't believe..."

"Congratulations," the commander said, flatly, looking up at Mirk fretting and wringing his hands with a blank expression. Though Genesis did wince a little when he experimentally prodded himself in the side, and a bolt of pain escaped through his chaotic aura.

Mirk winced as well. "I didn't mean to—"

Genesis cut him off with a dismissive flick of his hand as he settled back on the bench, leaning against the wall, though he kept his back ramrod straight. "It is of little importance. However, do be...mindful of your force the next time. The staff appears to disagree with me. Somewhat."

Cautiously, Mirk sat down on the bench beside Genesis, pushing aside his bag to make room. Mirk wasn't afraid of the commander lashing out at him. Rather, he was worried that the shadows might not take kindly to someone having hit their master. For the time being, they remained lurking in their usual corners, restless, but no more threatening toward him than usual. "May I help you?"

"It will heal on its own."

Mirk eyed the spot on Genesis's side the commander had been poking at earlier. If the blow had hurt Genesis badly enough for his pain to felt empathically, it had to be severe, more than Genesis's body's ability to fix itself could manage. A broken rib or two, most likely. "I don't mind helping."

"I will...manage."

"I know you'll manage, messire," Mirk said, unable to keep the frustration out of his tone. "But methinks you won't be happy when they have to be re-broken. Don't you remember what happened the last time you did get help with a broken rib?"

The broken rib in question, rather than healing itself cleanly back together, had started to knit itself into strange and contorted shapes, breaking other ribs as it went along, sprouting a dozen sharp edges. Genesis had ignored the pain and had kept working until even he, with all his inhuman talents and tricks for surviving, was too dizzy and weak from want of air to continue any longer. The mass of bone had been so twisted that they'd needed to cut multiple ribs entirely out of Genesis, regrow new ones in a potion solution, and then fuse them back in with the rest.

The procedure had taken nearly four hours of constant attention and magical support, and even then, it'd only been successful because Genesis had passed out on the exam table before they'd even started their work, so his magic wasn't as much of a terror as it usually was. Mirk could distinctly remember waking up on the floor of his room after that operation, having been too tired to make it all the way into bed, instead sleeping for a full ten hours curled up beneath his desk.

"I believe that was a...unique situation," Genesis said.

The commander was digging in for one of his more protracted arguments, obviously. Mirk summoned the best concerned expression he could — not that he wasn't concerned, but most people didn't need to see a grimace fit for a tragic play to understand the sentiment — and took hold of Genesis's elbow to draw his attention. "This might be even worse. That was only one rib. This could be two or three. And I won't know unless you at least let me look."

Genesis didn't reply, looking determinedly away from Mirk, off at his interminable walls of books.

"Please, messire," Mirk said, tugging on his elbow again. "If you're too upset at me to let me look, at least come to the infirmary. Someone there will be able to manage it, if I help them with your magic. I wouldn't insist, but you were hurt so badly last time..."

"I am not...upset."

Though his tone didn't shift, Genesis's expression did. His blank facade cracked with the words, revealing an unfamiliar expression underneath, a tired one, some mixture of resignation and guilt. Which was cause for concern in and of itself. Mirk couldn't recall Genesis ever having been guilty about something, despite all the horrible rumors that were constantly floating about regarding the nature of Genesis's work and magic. Perhaps it was only that a guilty expression didn't mean the same thing coming from Genesis as it did other people. If his smiles were so backward as to be incomprehensible, there was no telling which other expressions he might not be able to get right.

"You look upset," Mirk prompted, when Genesis declined to explain further.

Rather than explaining, Genesis shifted his arm out of the way, deliberately leaving room open for Mirk to put his hands over the injured spot on his side. Mirk did so, biting his lip and closing his eyes as he concentrated.

It was no use. With most other people, Mirk could get a sense of what was wrong through their clothes, even if he couldn't heal through them. But the strange, twisting nature of Genesis's body and magic made the faint sound of his insides too indistinct through the layers of fabric Genesis armored himself in for Mirk to get a lock on anything. Mirk withdrew with a sigh, reaching to untuck the commander's shirt and lift it without thinking.

Instantly, Genesis scooted to the far end of the bench, out of reach.

"What is it?" Mirk asked. "I can't heal through clothes, you know. It's going to have to come unbuttoned, at the very least."

Genesis said nothing, but continued to eye Mirk warily, folding his arms over his chest despite the pain it caused him.

Mirk should have known that the struggle wasn't over. He huffed, mirroring the commander's posture. Two could be stubborn, if it came to that. "Methinks it's a little silly for you to be embarrassed over things, messire. It's only your chest and your arms."

That got Genesis to glare at him. "I am not...embarrassed."

"You shouldn't be. I've already seen all of you dozens of times. Who do you think dresses you whenever you come in? Everyone else is too afraid of being thrown against the ceiling to bother. You'd wake up naked every time you're in if it wasn't for me."

Aghast, Genesis pushed himself further away, to the very edge of the bench.

A laugh escaped him before Mirk could clamp a hand over his mouth to stop it. "You're acting like I'm going to do something awful to you, Genesis. It's really only a little thing. Methinks the rational thing to do would be to get it done and over with. And aren't you always telling me to be more rational?"

Appealing to his rationality finally burst the dam. Grumbling to himself, Genesis set to undoing all the tiny buttons down the front of his shirt. "One...never knows when you healers are going to do something...awful."

"It's always for the greater good," Mirk said. Which was the truth. Most of the time. Even if the greater good entailed drinking a potion that'd make someone see tiny imps scaling up and down the walls for hours, or a poultice that temporarily turned a man's privates blue in an effort to turn the tide in the constant battle against Cupid's various diseases.

Again, Genesis refused to dignify this with a response. But he did peel off all his layers, not drawing close enough for Mirk to touch him again until all his shirts were perfectly folded. Mirk always felt a little bad for the commander whenever he was without him. No matter the season, their lack always left Genesis looking cold and a bit pathetic.

The bruise spreading across Genesis's side only made Mirk feel even worse. It was bigger than both of Mirk's hands put together. He pressed just his fingertips to it as he closed his eyes and called to his healing magic once more. Delicately, Mirk traced the lines of each of Genesis's ribs. Two were broken, the fourth and the fifth, close to their angles. Though that didn't explain how the bruising had spread so rapidly and so far. Though Genesis's heart was beating faster than usual, it wasn't enough to account for so much bleeding beneath the skin.

"Methinks it shouldn't take too long to heal them. Very clean breaks. The bruising will take a little work, though," Mirk said, pausing to glance up at Genesis. He was holding himself eerily still under Mirk's hands and gaze, not even breathing. Mirk wondered if it was because it pained him, or if the commander was so tense he was forgetting to.

"How...fortunate," Genesis finally said.

The sarcasm wasn't lost on Mirk. But he set to work nevertheless — if one was searching after praise and thanks, being a healer wasn't the way to get it, Mirk had found. Especially when wrangling patients cut from the same, standoffish cloth that Genesis was. Though the commander really was being more difficult than usual that night. Mirk didn't know how to account for it.

And that difficulty wasn't going to make healing him any easier. Especially since working at the commander from the side the broken ribs were on was making Mirk’s wrists cramp as he tried to press them flat against Genesis's side. Sighing, Mirk drew his magic back and got to his feet, standing squarely in front of Genesis, meeting the commander's eyes.

"What?" Genesis asked. He hunched in on himself, as if trying to protect himself from the chill in the room. Which only made his broken ribs grind together.

Mirk winced. "You're not going to like this. I'll have to sit on the other side if it's going to get done."

Before Genesis could protest, Mirk thunked down on the bench beside Genesis, opposite his broken ribs, and wrapped his arms loosely around him, to rest his palms flat against his side. Really, Mirk was surprised he was able to do it quickly enough for Genesis not to dodge him. But Mirk had discovered over the course of the year he'd been with Genesis that, while the commander could respond to a kick or a punch in an instant with that uncanny speed of his, when it came to warding off closeness, the gentle gestures made Genesis freeze up instead. Mirk could feel the shadows coiling about his ankles.

But the squeeze or the yank that usually followed never came. Instead, Genesis remained stock still and silent. Not breathing. Mirk sighed, allowing his dismay to escape onto his face only now that he was certain Genesis couldn't see it. "I'm sorry, messire."

Genesis didn't respond.

"Did I do something wrong?" Mirk asked. "Before? It's only...you haven't been yourself. And you know I can't read you. So if something is bothering you, you need to tell me. If it's...I know I've been closer than you like, and I'm sorry I was so..."

It had been bothering Mirk ever since he'd woken up and found that Genesis and all his things had vanished from his room in the middle of the night. Mirk couldn't help but wonder if his clinging the night before the commander had left had pushed Genesis over some unspoken edge, had offended his sensibilities too much for Genesis to continue to bear. Genesis usually didn't spare others' feelings when it came to making his preferences known. Perhaps Mirk was just so pathetic that even a man as blunt and practical as Genesis was reluctant to hurt his feelings, thinking him too fragile to bear up under his coldness instead of taking it in stride like K'aekniv did.

"No," Genesis replied, just as Mirk was about to start apologizing again.

"Then what is it?"

Another agonizing pause. Mirk snuck a glance up at him. Genesis's face wasn't closed off, not exactly. But it did have a different sort of blankness, not one that was forced, but one that meant Genesis was concentrating so hard that he couldn't spare a single bit of effort on something as trivial as smiling or frowning. It was the eyes that gave it away. Though the rest of Genesis was still, his eyes flickered back and forth as he searched for what to say, as if he was reading a grimoire that only he could see.

Rather than subjecting himself to waiting idly, Mirk searched for Genesis's broken ribs again with his hands and magic, drawing up enough to sense the injuries, but not enough to heal them. Mirk forced his racing mind to focus, to slow and attune itself to the staticky touch of Genesis's magic, the peculiar structures and rhythms of his body. It calmed him some. Though Genesis's behavior toward him had taken an inexplicable turn, the commander's shadow and form were exactly the same as they'd always been. Mirk would never be able to tell what Genesis was feeling. But he'd always know how he felt, know where cartilage transitioned to bone, how his blood worked its way slowly from his heart to capillaries spread out in fractal patterns that made no sense until they were brushed against from just the right angle.

Finally, Genesis spoke. "I find new...environs somewhat...unsettling. Regardless of who or what motivated the change. It has a tendency to make one...more erratic. Instinctively. It is not a...conscious decision. It renders one...fatigued. Unable to...discern the...appropriate mechanisms of...acceptable interaction. For which I apologize."

A wave of relief washed over Mirk. He let himself lean against Genesis's side then, just as he'd wanted to from the start. It felt right, somehow. Better. Though the touch of Genesis's unnaturally cool skin made Mirk suddenly aware of how badly he was flushing. "Oh. Well, I'm sorry if I was any trouble, Genesis. I just...well, I worry."

"So you have said." From the tone of his voice, Mirk got the impression that Genesis still didn't understand this, as if the term lost all meaning once it was applied to himself.

"Bien sûr! Like I said, I can't tell what you're thinking."

"I do not understand why this would...be of any interest."

"It means I can't tell if I've hurt your feelings or not. It's not as simple as this," Mirk said, drawing his healing potential out from his core and into his hands. Genesis had finally relaxed enough that Mirk could be certain he wouldn't inadvertently heal his broken ribs at the wrong angle. "You do know that I'd never want to hurt you, non? Though I suppose doing this to you might not make it seem that way..."

Genesis made a low hissing noise, some bad approximation of a laugh, one that thankfully didn't involve much inhaling or exhaling. "You...overestimate yourself. At present, you are still...incapable of causing me much harm."

"Broken bones still aren't very nice, even if you don't think they hurt that much."

"I would be more concerned if you had been able to...accomplish that when I was moving...at full force and speed."

Mirk wilted a bit. He should have known better than to think that he'd been able to actually measure up to a fighter of Genesis's skill. "How far away am I?"

"That was close to half speed."

"Oh."

"...right-handed half speed, to be more precise."

"Right-handed?" Mirk had never thought to take notice of which of Genesis's hands was the dominant one. He broke them both continually, in any case. And was capable of writing with both at once. Watching it always gave Mirk a headache.

"One would be well-advised to...develop some degree of proficiency with both hands. A matter for you to consider once you've...mastered the one."

"Of course," Mirk mumbled, turning his attention back to healing. Even if he was useless for fighting, even though he had finally managed to land one blow, there was always healing. Healing that was instinctual in a way that fighting would never be, though Yule was always commenting on how Mirk’s technique didn't match up with the standard practices. Mirk allowed his magic to pass from his body into Genesis's, working it in slowly through his chaotic magic and down into flesh and bone. With Genesis's body, it always felt less like he was restoring a broken harmony and more like he was convincing quarreling parties to sit down at one table and have a conversation. "I'm glad you're not upset, though, Genesis. But you can tell me if I ever do. It'd upset me more to keep doing it without knowing."

Mirk hadn't been expecting Genesis to respond. After all, the commander was silent the full ten minutes it took to heal his broken ribs, leaving Mirk with only the bruise left to attend to. Just as he'd begun to rub the blood back into its proper places, allowing his magic to search out all the ruptured capillaries and venules by feel without thinking about it hard, he felt Genesis shift in his hold. He'd been expecting another one of Genesis's awkward, exact pats on the back or shoulder.

Instead, he got an awkward, exact attempt at ruffling his hair. The commander couldn't bring himself to brush it out of order, however. He turned it into something like a single pat on the crown of his head, his hand remaining there rather than drawing back, as if Genesis wasn't quite sure what more he was to do with it.

It was strange, admittedly. Genesis must have seen K'aekniv and Danu do it to him before, and had decided it was the called for gesture, despite how Yule was always complaining to them that just because they weren't tall didn't mean that their more outsized comrades had the right to pat them on the head like a child. It had never bothered Mirk. It'd only comforted him to be treated with such warmth and familiarity.

And even though the gesture was different coming from Genesis, just like everything about the commander was different, it made Mirk feel warm in the same way. Something in Genesis's precise, deliberate nature turned the mundane gesture into something heavy with care, with sentiment that Genesis seemed incapable of finding the proper words for. The weight of his hand and the feel of his cool fingertips on Mirk's forehead made him feel special, somehow. Valued. If Genesis ever seized another person like that, doubtlessly he'd be about to do something terrible to their skull. The mere fact that it meant something else in that moment, something careful and gentle instead of vicious, made the touch all the more meaningful.

Genesis treated everything in life outside of his control as if it was ephemeral, as if it was best to grow accustomed to nothing, lest its absence upset all of his meticulous routines. But he was holding onto him, even if he didn't know how to show it best. And he wasn't letting go.

Laughter, as usual, wasn't the best response to one of Genesis's strange attempts at friendliness. Yet it bubbled up past Mirk's lips all the same. "That's not quite how you do that, messire. But methinks I like your version better anyway."

Though Genesis didn't recoil from him, he didn't sound reassured either. "I...see."

Mirk doubted there was anything he could say to Genesis to make him feel more at ease. He let the matter drop instead, hoping that the commander might be able to discern from the way Mirk leaned against his side again as he worked away the bruising that his odd way of doing things didn't bother him. That he found Genesis's efforts at being close all the more genuine in their backwardness.

It must have gotten through to Genesis, at least a little. He didn't hold himself quite so still, didn't make every effort to touch Mirk as little as possible. Yet, something still felt off. Mirk cast out his senses again, taking stock of Genesis's body and magic. Genesis had said the staff disagreed with him, though Mirk hadn't seen any magic pass from it to the commander. Mirk searched for traces of it and came up with nothing.

But he did notice, as he rubbed away the last of the bruise, that Genesis's heart was still beating more quickly than usual. A small thing, not one worth remarking on, especially considering how most people's hearts accelerated when they were healing or had just been hurt. Genesis's body didn't respond to pain that way, however. Pain made all his systems slow, both his heart and his breath, until he was all but dead. Frowning, Mirk counted the beats, comparing them to his own. Usually, there were three for every one of his; their hearts were mismatched at the same rate that their steps were. At present, though, it was more like two and a half.

Mirk thought about commenting on it, but decided against it, straightening up and releasing Genesis instead. Just as Mirk had been expecting, the instant he was freed, Genesis snatched his pile of shirts off the bench beside Mirk and began bundling himself back up again. Perhaps that was it. Genesis did act a little like a turtle that'd been knocked onto its back when he was forced to endure healing, always anxious to pull himself back into his shell and sulk a bit once he'd been righted. Even if Mirk couldn't feel the emotions like he could from any other patient, and even if Genesis didn't express them outwardly, that didn't mean they weren't there.

It would be best to let things be. There was no sense in disturbing what had just been made right again. Even if it left some things a mystery.