The wind answered before Tamir could bear a word, moving within the grass in long sighs and combing silver pathways through the fields until soft blades whispered against one another. It echoed to him in distant voices, speaking languages he had only once known, and had since forgotten. Forgotten, like everything else.

The man looked to the skies with a reverence that Tamir had only wished he could remember, with the patience and the love that it took. But yet, even as his pale eyes rested on the stranger draped beneath the stars, he stayed within the dark. Almodt as if his taint, his darkness, could cloud the vision—could blur it in a way he could not muster.

The black and silver male looked as though night itself had gathered together and learned how to breathe. Moonlight gathered along pale markings like frost along riverbanks, while shadows still stubbornly clung to the rest of him. There was exhaustion in the way he held himself; not the exhaustion of sleepless nights or weary limbs, but the exhaustion of carrying absences. If nothing else, Tamir knew that weight. He carried his weight in ghosts, in spirits wading the dark pools of his soul.

But it was the langauge with which he spoke that Tamir recognized, the words that he uttered that tightened like a vice around his heart. Perhaps I have been thrust beyond your reach... It struck a cord in him that he thought long forgotten, pinched between doing right and serving his family.  He had spoken such a thing once. In different words, to different skies, but it was the same plea. See me. Recognize me. Help me.

Find me where your shadows are darkest.

Tamir's gaze lifted instinctively toward the heavens, stars glittering indifferently overhead. Beautiful, cruel things. He wondered if they grew tired of being asked questions they never intended to answer.

Kostilus... (Perhapss...) His voice came low when it finally slipped through slightly parted lips, roughened by a disuse he'd grown too accustomed to of late. The breeze around them shifted, cool against his face.

Kostilus ziry speaks isse ways īlon daor longer shifang. (Perhaps she speaks in ways we no longer understand.) Pale eyes settled on the opposite male then, understanding sharpened by experience all that swirled within them.

Nyke spent iā bōsa jēda believing lykemagon meant abandonment. (I've spent a long time believing silence meant abandonment.)

Long enough to resent it. Long enough to fear it. Long enough to wonder whether he had somehow become invisible to this very thing he had devoted himself to.

He still did, from time to time. When nights drew their darkest and the shadows were colder around him.

The corners of his lips quirked, eyes soft and placating as he studied the other. Se qēlossās kostagon sagon lyka. Yn lykemagon se absence issi daor va moriot keskydoso run. (The stars may be silent. But silence and absence are not always the same thing.) Soft, silvered strands brushed against his knees as he waded closer, head lifting to the sky.

Sīr bōsa hae ao continue jurnegēre bē. kostilus konīr iksis mirri part hen ao bona iēdrosa expects iā udligon. (So long as you continue looking up...perhaps there is some part of you that still expects an answer.) His gaze fell.

Nyke pendagon konīr issi qubykta ra naejot sagon than hopeful.
(I think there are worse things to be than hopeful.)