Work Text:
The bowl clicked as Calamus set it on the stove. He turned around to face Alula, his sister. "Do you want any?"
"Only if I can eat it outside!" Alula beamed. "I was out there for hours, and I'm not even tired! Do you think I'm maybe photosythe- photo- photosa-" She stumbled over the word.
"Photosynthesising?" He finished for her, once she had finally stopped trying and stared at him questioningly.
"Yeah!" She beamed, going on as if nothing had happened. "I can't believe how bright it is out there, holy moly!"
Calamus blinked, "Yeah, that's…how light works." He smiled. The sun had returned a few hours ago, abruptly and with no warning. He had been inside when it happened, to his slight disappointment, but it was more than balanced out by the fact that it was there at all.
He had been taking their dry clothes back inside when he heard Alula scream. He cried and rushed back, dropping the clothes in the process, only to find her, surrounded by the brightest light he remembered ever seeing in his life, yelling, "Look! LOOK!! They did it!!!"
Now, the shock had died down a little, however everyone they saw was still basking in the sunshine. Some of the older village folk commented on how much they missed this, while the little kids stared in awe at the glowing tower in the sky, including Alula. She was too young to remember much of the previous sun, even though she had been born before it went out. If only Mom and Dad were here to see this, too.
Calamus smiled, shaking off his thoughts. "Yeah, we can eat it outside."
Once they had finished their meal, Alula started chasing the fireflies around. They were much nimbler, perhaps now that they could see more of what their potential captors were doing.
"Maybe try to stay still," Calamus suggested through cupped hands. "They might think you're a wad of moss that they can eat!"
His sister looked at him incredulously. "I don't look like moss! I'm not even the right color!" She waved her bright blue feathered arm at him. Then she stopped. "Do fireflies even eat moss?"
He sighed dramatically. "I was joking." He trailed in a mock annoyed tone. "They might, though. Not much else to eat around here." He continued in his normal voice.
Alula rolled her eyes and kept on tailing the bugs.
They spent a long time out there, until, at last, the light started to dim as the tower turned away from them, like a lighthouse.
Calamus felt almost anxious watching it fade, like he didn't trust if it would come back the next day. Evidently, Alula felt the same way, as she sat down next to him and asked, "When is the sun coming back?"
He thought. He couldn't quite remember. "I think… I think it's half of the day. So…twelve hours?"
Alula shook him vigorously. "That's too long! What if it breaks again while we can't see it?"
Calamus winced nervously. "It's only just been replaced." He reasoned. "Surely Y/N wouldn't send the messiah back with a faulty one?"
She sighed, fluttering her feathers. "I knowwww," She stared wistfully at the darkening sky. "I just wish it could stay forever. It's scarier in the nighttime, now that I can see what daytime is!" She started tracing shapes in the air with her hands. "It's normal! It's not supposed to be scary!"
Calamus sighed as well. He knew what she meant.
As they started walking back to their home, they heard rustling from a little further on, where all of the block debris was.
Calamus' hair pricked. "Who's there?" He stepped instinctively in front of his sister, even though nothing had ever tried to hurt them down here.
She pushed him away. "I wanna see!" They both squinted into the darkness, something he thought was funny, as their eyes had been perfectly well adjusted to the dim for so many years.
Yellow eyes shone from the void, lit by the small firefly lantern they had hanging next their door. Yellow, cat-like eyes…?
"NIKO!!" Alula ran right at their friend and wrapped them in a big hug. Niko hesitated, as if caught off guard, but hugged her back regardless.
"Woah! What are you doing here?" Calamus was shocked by their appearance. Weren't they supposed to go home after putting the sun back?
Niko spoke uncharacteristically quietly. "I…I was wondering if I could stay for a while." They also looked unusually…neutral, or blank faced. Niko had always stuck out to Calamus as someone who made lots of facial expressions, so this made him uneasy.
Alula responded before he could say anything. "Yeah! Of course!" She led them back into the house by their hand, and Calamus followed.
She waved her arms dramatically once they had entered. "Welcome to our astonishing living space!" She spun around, blatently not mentioning the clothes Calamus had forgotten to pick up from when he ran outside a few hours ago. "Just kidding, you've already been here." She giggled.
"It doesn't feel like that long ago," Calamus commented. Nothing had happened between them coming the first time, and this time.
Niko made an effort to respond. "Yeah," they agreed. "It feels like so much has happened since then for me…"
"Congratulations on saving the world!" Alula beamed. "It must have been hard to climb up the tower. How tall even was it?"
They flinched. "Oh, uh…I don't really…remember. Y/N helped me, mostly."
Calamus squinted at them. Something was up, definitely. "Are you…okay?" He felt himself ask before he really processed it, so it came out more direct than he'd been aiming for.
Niko looked up at him, wide eyed but somewhat unfocused, like they were thinking of something else. "I- sure.," they looked at their hands. "There's just…something bothering me.." They got up and moved to the next room with only a word of thanks, covering their face with their sleeve.
Calamus watched them go, feeling guilty, or like he'd said the wrong thing. He didn't know that that would make them upset!
Alula turned to him. "They look…sad. Like they accidentally opened a jar and all of the light bugs escaped." She sat down and rested her head on the table. "Should I catch them some?" She asked eagerly. "I can catch them real well!"
He blinked. "Maybe tomorrow. I think we all need sleep right now." He wasn't going to point out that they wouldn't exactly need them anymore, now that they weren't the main source of illumination. It was something that clearly Alula enjoyed doing.
"Aww!" She slid off of the seat. "I mean, I guess I am kind of tired." She admitted. Calamus guessed she was underplaying her weariness, but even so, he was surprised. She had been running around all day.
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight!"
The next few days, Niko did hardly anything. For the first little bit, Calamus had retreated to give them space, but he felt horrible seeing them like that, especially when it didn't seem to help.
They were sleeping in Alula's bed, while Alula slept on a blanket on the floor, claiming that she could "be one with the worms". Calamus had offered to take her place, but she said, "It's fun! And besides, you need the bed more than I do, you have back problems!"
Niko didn't eat very much, and while they made an effort to talk to the siblings, it didn't have the genuine curiosity or optimism that they remembered. Overall, they just seemed…depressed.
Calamus had refrained from asking what happened, but he just couldn’t watch his friend collapse in on themself and not try to help.
"Hey," he entered the room quietly. "How are you doing?"
"..." They were laying with their back to him, but they turned just enough to see who it was. "...hi." They sounded tired.
Calamus sat down next to Alula's bed. He didn't know how to go about this. "..How are you doing?" He asked again.
Niko looked away. They seemed to be avoiding the question. "...did anything happen today?" They asked, gazing blankly at the pictures on their walls.
"Well, Alula won a competition against the village children, but that's not relevant right now." He looked pointedly at them. "What's wrong?" He was in surprise of his own boldness.
Niko twisted to peer at him again. This time he could see that they had been crying. "I'm scared, okay! I'm- I miss…" They quickly looked away and wiped their face, not wanting anyone else to see. They stared at the pictures again, this time using their sleeve to cover their face. "..."
Calamus flinched. His heart hurt to see this. "Do you want to be alone?"
Niko nodded.
He started walking toward the door, but paused in the doorframe. "Would…would getting pancakes help?" He didn't exactly know what pancakes were, but he remembered them talking about them as if they were the best thing in existence. He could figure it out.
Niko gazed at him, hopefully yet surprisingly emotionally. They looked like they were about to burst into tears again. "....Can you?"
Calamus fidgeted with the feather in his hair. "I can try. Uh, what do they look like?"
Niko wiped their face with their sleeve again, and explained to Calamus what a pancake was and where they'd gotten some in the Refuge.
Calamus sighed wearily. It was such a long walk to get to the Refuge and back! So much so that when he informed the person behind the counter, a kind waiter named Ling, that he planned to take the meal back to the Glen, Ling had insisted that he take the ingredients, and then he gave a huge complicated explanation on how to mix them all together, and how to cook them… he did it so that Calamus could make them fresh at home. Ling had proportioned them already, but Calamus was afraid he wouldn't be able to remember all of the instructions. His brain might fry first!
It was like nothing he'd ever prepared. They didn't have any pans, so he ended up just frying the pancakes on the bottom of a small pot, instead.
Is that what it's supposed to look like? Is it supposed to take this long?? He was kind of just winging it (haha bird pun) at this point.
Alula tried to jump up over the counter to see what he was doing, making him jump. "What are you making? It smells weird!"
"Pancakes," Calamus replied, relaxing. He squinted at the light colored, bubbling sludge at the bottom of the pot. "...I don't think I'm doing this right. If only-" Mom were here to show me how. He winced, a sudden pang of grief striking him. Mom's been dead for years. Why does this keep happening?
Alula tipped her head to the side. "For Niko? That's the food they kept telling me about, right?" She stood on her talons to try and see again. Without waiting for a response to her first question, she asked, "What was the city like? Can I go too, when you go again?"
Calamus looked patiently at her. "Yes, busy, maybe." He gripped the flat flippy tool Ling had recommended he use (he didn't have any he could lend, so Calamus made a crappy replica from memory. He hoped it was enough). Alula tried to watch as he flipped it around.
"Hm…" The cooked part was a nice golden brown, which was what he wanted, right? Right?
"Can I help?" Alula bounced eagerly. "I don't know how, but I can try my darn best!"
Calamus couldn't help but laugh at that. "Yeah! Just be careful, please…I don't want to walk all the way back to the city."
Alula beamed. "Okay!"
Calamus rested his head in his arms. God, his back hurt. He was sitting at the small table that they had, with the hopefully good pancakes right in the middle.
He jumped as he heard loud footsteps. He knew as soon as he heard it that it was Alula coming, Niko with her.
He turned around in his seat to see her pulling them by the arm. Alula was still beaming, clearly hopeful that the pancakes would help their friend feel better.
Niko looked at their feet, though their pupils were round instead of thin like they were usually. Calamus just assumed that it came along with strong emotions, as he'd seen their eyes do that a few times, even when they were talking about radically different things.
Alula threw her arms in the air once they reached the table. "Tada!" She bounced on her feet. "We made that food for you!!"
Calamus smiled weakly. "I hope it's alright. We didn't really know what to do."
Niko seemed to tremble. “It’s great…!” They abruptly broke down sobbing.
His feathers stood on end. “Oh! Niko, what’s wrong??” Alula was shocked into silence for once.
They stammered, wiping their tears, but the tears came as fast as they could wipe them away. “I-it-it’s my mama…the-” They looked at their hands, apparently giving up on trying to stop their tears. “I’ll- I’ll-” Their voice raised involuntarily. “I’ll n-never see her again!” They wailed.
Calamus stood up to rest a hand on their back reassuringly, buried emotions coming up, rendering him mute for the moment.
He remembered the day their own mom had passed. It was a horrible day, especially when he had had to watch Alula finally process the permanence of it all. It had been what threw him over the edge, seeing his normally bubbly little sister wailing for their mom to come back. He had never seen her that broken, and it made his own grief feel all the more raw.
“T-They said t-t-that if I put the sun in the t-tower, I could never go h-home!” Niko continued, shaking. “I c-couldn’t leave e-everyone to die!” They reached down and leaned on the table in front of them, resting their head in their hands. “B-but my mama…oh…”
Alula jumped out of her chair to hug Niko tightly.
Calamus didn’t speak, he didn’t know if he could. They all huddled together for what felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes. The only sounds were Niko or Alula sniffing every so often.
Eventually Calamus spoke, quietly, and his voice shook. “I know it’s not the same, but…we lost our mom a few years a-ago…” He spoke slowly. “W-what you’re feeling is natural.”
Niko looked down at their tearstained sleeves. “T-that doesn’t m-make it any less fe-feely, though..”
Alula spoke up, an uncharacteristically small voice, but obviously still trying to sound optimistic. “I-I used to cry when they talked about mom, and now I only get sad!” She put her hand on top of her friend’s. “Maize told me- Maize told me, crying makes you better! It gets rid of the toxic things in your leaves!”
Niko didn’t respond, so Calamus said, “It’s probably hard. Really, really hard, right now. I-It sure as (bird swear lol) was for me.”
They were silent for a few long moments. “It…it is..” They mumbled hesitantly. “Will it really get better? It doesn’t f-feel that way.”
He ruffled the feathers on his arms. “I-I think it will. I don’t know exactly how you feel, but if it’s anything like what me and Alula went through, it will become… at least, bearable, soon.”
Niko looked up hopefully. “O-okay..” They smiled weakly. “I’ll try to think of that.” They broke out crying again, quieter this time, seemingly more of a vent of emotions than the uncontrollable sobbing that they had been doing earlier.
Alula and Calamus huddled on either side of them, and they stood still together for another few minutes.
Niko suddenly made a laughing-choking type noise. “I forgot about the pancakes..”
“You don’t have to eat them, if they’ll- if they’ll make you too sad.” Calamus offered.
“Yes you do!” Alula squeaked. “Eating food always makes you happy!”
“I don’t know,” He stammered as Niko giggled. “That might just be you, Alula…”
Calamus grabbed some food for him and Alula, while Niko sat down and started eating the pancakes.
Alula bounded over to her brother and whispered something in his ear. He stared at her for a long second, thinking, and then nodded.
“Hey, Niko,” He called. They looked up, pancake bits sticking to their face. “Would you want to stay with us until we can find a way to get you back to your mom?” Calamus wasn’t sure where to even begin with that, but it was what Alula had asked him.
Niko stared at them for a moment, eyes glistening unreadably (to be honest, it was probably the leftover tears, too). They looked down for a moment, and then nodded slightly. “Yeah,” They murmured. “I’d like that.”