"Where have you been?"

Cale hadn't even made it all the way up the stairs before Grischa spoke up. He almost forgot what he had done two hours ago, before talking to Aletta and then going to see the Eldest. Reluctantly, he walked across his room toward his bed, unbuttoning his shirt a bit as he did so, and dropped into the cloud field, exhausted.

"I talked to Aaron and the Eldest about your little friend", Cale replied sarcastically, rubbing his face before grabbing a pillow and turning onto his side. He deliberately hid the argument he'd had with Aaron about a completely different topic in the process,

"The Kormandent?", Grischa inquired. He squatted next to Cale and lifted Cale's notes in the air, causing the latter to exhale loudly and bury his face in the pillow.

"Did you read it?", he asked him vaguely, opening the window a crack with his mage.

"Yes."

"Does anything of this sound familiar to you?", Cale mumbled as he reached for his blanket and curled up with it.

"Not even a little bit, no. This is the first time I've seen the creature."

Closing his eyes, he turned away from Grischa, enjoying the cold air which fell brittle on his face. He didn't know why, but the whole conversation had really drained him completely. And what was significantly worse was the fact that Cale didn't know how to feel about Aaron. He knew Aaron, but equally he didn't know him at all. So why was it so important to him that Cale check with him and the council? Just because of the Igrikum? Had he finally understood how useful his barriers were?

"How are you and your body doing?", Cale quietly chimed in to take his mind off things.

"Noticeably better than it was at noon today. Aletta said that my mana balance has recovered amazingly well, and the mana poisoning is gone as well. If I didn't knew better, I would say that I merely ate something bad."

"You don't get mana problems from bad food", Cale muttered softly as he could hear the rustling of his documents. Grischa seemed to put them aside before sliding to the top of the bed and leaning his back against the window.

"Caleb... about Groka...", Grischa raised hesitantly, thinking how to formulate a proper sentence.

"Grischa", Cale interrupted him, turning and looking up at the depressed-looking man. "You can't imagine how little I care about Groka. You really don't have to justify yourself to me."

"How can you take it like that? Your family died that day."

"You are my family, Grischa. You, the Magistrat, and the four people who have taken up residence in the room next door. Everything else is really irrelevant."

Stunned, Grischa looked down at Cale before blushing slightly, falling silent and trying to hide his expression with his hand. He turned his face to the side and remained silent, causing Cale to close his eyes again.

"I'm sorry for what I said today", he finally spoke up after a few minutes. " I got in over my head with the whole situation."

"It's okay, I know it was a lot to take in."

"Still. I was... rather rude. By having no memory of what happened, it all seems so strange and wrong. I can't really comprehend what you all did for me and how you felt", Grischa tried to explain himself and paused for a moment. "Aletta told me that you were always by my side all these weeks. She told me how you stayed up all night and took care of me every day, besides all the work. She... told me about last night... what exactly happened and how you reacted after her mana didn't help and I lost consciousness. She... Aletta told me how much mana you gave me just so I wouldn't lose my humanity... my life. All the words and actions, she described everything to me. I... I didn't realize how close I was to the abyss until then. I still can't really comprehend it, but I..."

"Give me your hand."

The whole conversation made the mood between them unspeakably sad. Cale had opened his eyes again, as it otherwise brought to mind the images of last night. He had stretched his arm forward a little, and without any refutation Grischa put his hand to it.

Cale smiled and pulled his hand toward him.

"Do you know how warm your hand is? When your mana was permanently so low, the Igrikum had real difficulty finding a balance. After the first month, your body was so cold that ice formed on it every day. All the thick clothes, blankets, hot baths, the room that was constantly at a higher temperature than the desert in summer - nothing helped. You were a walking block of ice that couldn't thaw. That was worse than your initial complaints of headaches, dizziness and nausea", Cale explained. For a moment, he wanted to go into more detail about what happened, but he paused. The first day Grischa was unresponsive or how he almost stopped eating, there were several more points. He found it hard to talk about it and he noticed that his eyes were getting watery.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Caleb", Grischa softly gave voice, but Cale shook his head and then buried himself under the covers.

"I'm so tired", he finally confessed. "Staying awake for two months straight sounds easier than it is. You have way too much time to think. But when I woke up this morning, after my measly hours of sleep, and saw you - I haven't felt relief like that in a long time. The mark was gone, your mana was regenerating, and your body.... your damn body was warm."

Cale exhaled softly as he tried to calm his heartbeat.

"I'm not mad at you. Not then and not now. I don't even know if I could ever be mad at you. You've become a priceless friend to me and I don't want to lose you."

"Not even if I annoy you with my research?", Grischa admitted softly.

"You're not annoying."

"Not even when I scold you for rash or stupid action?"

"Not even then."

"Or when I reproach you for keeping secrets from me?"

"Not even then, Grin", Cale explained with a forced smile on his face. "Don't they say that people learn to love others precisely because of their quirks?"

"I don't want to hurt you."

"And I don't want to hurt you", Cale replied, clearly emphasizing the 'you'. Grischa was silent in response, as if he didn't know what to say to that. Cale, on the other hand, stretched once for a moment and then dug deeper into the bed. "When I used my Igrikum on you, I was really afraid. Scared for you, scared that I might hurt you, but most of all I was scared that I might never speak to you again."

"I really wish I could remember. Why did I...", Grischa muttered finally and Cale could feel him applying light pressure on his hand.

"It's a protective reaction of your body. When I handed over so much mana to you, you had to endure enormous pain, even my body was burning at that moment. Human bodies are simply not made for those masses of mana", Cale explained calmly. "I'm sure your memories will come back on their own with time, don't force it."

"And what if they don't come back at all?"

"Then that's just the way it is. It's not a bad thing, Grin."

"I can't take it like that", Grischa replied calmly. How could he? He could feel that something important had escaped him, and he felt uncomfortable. Grischa couldn't remember everything he had said or done in the last few weeks.

"I figured you would say something like that. That's why I asked Aletta for advice. She'll see if she can help you. Just don't push your luck and give your body a little break", Cale announced, letting go of his hand. "I already have a distraction for you, too, if you're interested. Sylve and Altona are working on a way to keep their collaboration going right now. You remember that, I hope."

Nodding his head in agreement, the long-haired High-Magician continued.

"The idea with your flying crystal. Give it a reality."

At the same moment, a gust made Grisha's hair blow in front of his face, so he brushed his strands aside and returned Cale's gaze.

"I can't promise it'll be anything. I've had the idea since I was little, but it's nothing solid. I can't believe you told the Eldest about it."

Grischa was implying that Cale had made rash statements. Why else had the Eldest approached Cale on the subject if he had not informed him of their theory.

"We just came up with the topic casually. The Eldest is sticking to the original plan. You don't have to feel stressed about it."

Grischa sighed.

"You're sick for weeks and you're supposed to start working again right away."

"If you don't want to, don't. No one would blame you if..."

"It's okay, I was just kidding. I feel fine and I don't want to stay locked up forever", Grischa admitted with amusement. "I'm just not particularly confident. I mean, flying like this is no problem for us. We generate enough lift to rise into the air, and with the help of our mages, we can control how high and where we fly. But the crystal has to be able to do all that, too. It wasn't enough just to provide lift, you have to be able to steer it, and that's my main problem: how do I do that? In addition, you also have to determine what will be affected by the magic of the crystal, otherwise you will not only take yourself with you, but also your whole environment. That's a lot to do at once, not as simple as with communication crystals. There it's just a blunt sending of signals from one target to another, which has been set beforehand."

Momentarily Grischa was sunk back into his theories, the last few minutes no longer existing for him, it felt. He often did when it came to his work. Sometimes he spent days on his experiments, forgetting to eat and drink something in between. Regularly enough, Cale had come to Grisha's apartment and had to literally drag the man out of his lab to get him to think about his body for a change.

"So you're claiming that the communication crystal was easy to develop?", Cale challenged, causing Grischa to grumble reluctantly. It had not been easy. On the contrary, it had taken months to even get a foothold, but once they had a basic idea, it suddenly came pretty easily.

"I didn't say that. I just mean that flying will be much harder, like this communication crystal. I just doubt I can really make something like that a reality."

"Since when do you give up without even really trying?"

"Are you just trying to... cheer me up?" retorted Grischa, completely off-topic.

"Not necessarily cheering you up. Rather, I'm trying to give you back some confidence. In my opinion, it's significantly easier to develop a flight crystal than it was with the communication crystal back in the days."

"Do you have some ideas?"

"Of course I have ideas, so do you."

"I guess that's true", Grischa muttered. "You know what I'd be interested in, too? How do the Kormandents teleport. If the creature can do it, shouldn't we be able to do it as well?"

Surprised, Cale looked to his friend. He was right. Just because Cale hadn't witnessed it didn't mean it was impossible. He had realized that much himself in the last few months.