As Verin doffs his armor, Essek prepares the bath. Knowing how humid this room is about to become, he's removed his gloves and mantle, at least. Sitting on the tub's edge, he holds his long sleeve back and swirls his fingers through the water filling the tub. The enchantment for heating is working as it should, and he has added a generous amount of fragrant dried lavender, the soothing scent beginning to rise from the water already.
This is not enough to divert his attention from Verin entirely, especially as he gets down to bare skin, displaying both injuries incurred today and a few scars Essek has never seen before. It is one thing to know that the constant incursions at Bazzoxan put his brother on the front lines of an unwinnable battle day in and day out, and it is another to see the evidence writ permanently into his skin, more each time they meet.
Essek flicks water from his fingers and rises back into his float. Brow gently furrowed, his fingertips trace lightly along a healed-over gouge carved between arm and shoulder, just where Verin's armor would have been weakest. Whatever struck him must have pierced muscle as well as flesh, but he moves as if he was healed quickly enough to prevent permanent damage to the structure of his body. In comparison, cosmetic imperfections are a trifle. Still, it marks how close his brother had come to perhaps mortal injury, and it discomforts Essek deeply.
They had fought, decades ago now, about Verin accepting the post at Bazzoxan. Essek knows better than to dredge up that old argument, one of the only lingering undercurrents of bitterness between them. They had never settled it. But Essek respects that Verin has chosen his path, and accomplished much in doing so, displaying his competence and skill as a commander and an echo knight. It simply...unsettles him. He can never quite excise from his mind the image of their father, blind with rage at his heretic son's rejection of consecution, marching past the Umbra Gates never to emerge.
Hovering nearer to Verin's height, Essek must lean down to kiss the mark with his painted lips. Verin has heard all his fears and worries expressed before. Why should he reiterate when it only hurts them both? Without you, who would I love? The question has long gone without answer, because it doesn't need one. He could only become the heartless creature so many assume him to be in truth. Anything else is too terrifying to consider.
"Allow me to undo your braids," he murmurs, and reaches for one of them draped over Verin's shoulder. He recognizes a few of the beads woven into it as his own from more than half a century ago, and his thin smile reaches his eyes. Graceful arcanist's fingers separate the braid's weave and graviturgy catches the beads, suspending them together in midair as he works. It has been many decades since Essek cut his own hair, and still the motions are remembered by his hands, which slow to comb long manicured nails carefully through the sections caked with mud or drying blood.
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This is not enough to divert his attention from Verin entirely, especially as he gets down to bare skin, displaying both injuries incurred today and a few scars Essek has never seen before. It is one thing to know that the constant incursions at Bazzoxan put his brother on the front lines of an unwinnable battle day in and day out, and it is another to see the evidence writ permanently into his skin, more each time they meet.
Essek flicks water from his fingers and rises back into his float. Brow gently furrowed, his fingertips trace lightly along a healed-over gouge carved between arm and shoulder, just where Verin's armor would have been weakest. Whatever struck him must have pierced muscle as well as flesh, but he moves as if he was healed quickly enough to prevent permanent damage to the structure of his body. In comparison, cosmetic imperfections are a trifle. Still, it marks how close his brother had come to perhaps mortal injury, and it discomforts Essek deeply.
They had fought, decades ago now, about Verin accepting the post at Bazzoxan. Essek knows better than to dredge up that old argument, one of the only lingering undercurrents of bitterness between them. They had never settled it. But Essek respects that Verin has chosen his path, and accomplished much in doing so, displaying his competence and skill as a commander and an echo knight. It simply...unsettles him. He can never quite excise from his mind the image of their father, blind with rage at his heretic son's rejection of consecution, marching past the Umbra Gates never to emerge.
Hovering nearer to Verin's height, Essek must lean down to kiss the mark with his painted lips. Verin has heard all his fears and worries expressed before. Why should he reiterate when it only hurts them both? Without you, who would I love? The question has long gone without answer, because it doesn't need one. He could only become the heartless creature so many assume him to be in truth. Anything else is too terrifying to consider.
"Allow me to undo your braids," he murmurs, and reaches for one of them draped over Verin's shoulder. He recognizes a few of the beads woven into it as his own from more than half a century ago, and his thin smile reaches his eyes. Graceful arcanist's fingers separate the braid's weave and graviturgy catches the beads, suspending them together in midair as he works. It has been many decades since Essek cut his own hair, and still the motions are remembered by his hands, which slow to comb long manicured nails carefully through the sections caked with mud or drying blood.