They woke up in a field of wildflowers. The dawning rays of the sun gently roused Jayce into consciousness, and his senses began buzzing to life, hazy but growing clearer with each passing second. Some sort of bird chirped in the distance. The endless sky stretched far above his head. A breeze rustled the meadow, and vivid stalks of green shivered around him, their blooms bobbing like festival lanterns. The dirt cradled his form and cushioned his leg like silk. Lying on his back, Jayce entertained the thought of closing his eyes and letting himself sink into the fertile ground beneath him. The sweet pollen and butterflies scattered around him would settle, and he’d be buried amongst their fleeting memories before long. Maybe they would vaguely recall him as a sturdy perch on which to rest their delicate legs. He liked the thought of being remembered fondly. The dull throb of his leg morphed into a crushing pain, and the phantom pressure had him shooting awake with a gasp. He attempted to sit up, but, despite his struggling, his muscles remained rigid and unmoving like he’d never used them in his life. Panic began to well. Then, for the briefest of seconds, he could’ve sworn he felt every atom in his body thrum all at once. It was as if the very molecules of his being suddenly recalled how they were supposed to fit together, and they were scrambling to reclaim their places in the wake of the realization. Something like static rushed from head to toe, snapping from nerve to nerve and leaving behind a prickling sense of fizziness in his bones. Just like that, the numbing stiffness disappeared, along with the odd, biting sensation that had shot through his body. Amazed, Jayce managed to get up on his forearms, but something in the corner of his eye had him freezing before his mind could begin flooding with theories. Pupils blown wide in fixation, he took in the visage before him: Perpetually furrowed brows. Precious beauty marks. Unrelenting eye bags that persisted beyond sleep and, apparently, beyond cosmic disintegration. Even in such a rarely witnessed state of relaxation, the sight was unmistakable. It was the face he had seen at the end of the world. Now, it was the first he’d seen in rebirth, and wasn’t that a poetic thought? Their lives ended and began face-to-face. Once the other finally awoke, it would be an experience only shared by the two of them. Something secret and entirely theirs. As he ogled, Jayce felt a pinprick of unease jab at him. Something was off, and the horrible, dreadful realization struck him like cold lightning. He’s too still. Peripherally, he wondered if this was what it felt like to take a blow from his hammer. Or to have a heart attack. Jayce ripped his gaze from parted lips to scour the rest of the man. All over the body before him, shimmering patterns were distributed like remnants of popped soap bubbles or maybe oil on water. Iridescence sealed the cracks that traversed a landscape of pale flesh. Alabaster, not amethyst, Jayce noted in the back of his mind. But, in all honesty, he would’ve taken him either way. Breathless, Jayce rushed to stretch out a trembling hand, his palm sliding under the achingly familiar blanket to seek out a slim chest speckled with moles and the glimmering inscriptions of a brace long absorbed. His other hand sought limp fingers to interlock with his own, and the meeting of bronze and quartz caused him to flinch. Cold. Colder than he had ever been and ever should be. Was it just Jayce’s memory, or was he paler, too? No. The pain in Jayce’s leg was long forgotten, eclipsed by a suffocation that sapped at his very will. He didn’t dare breathe. Each second that ticked by was another Councilroom explosion, another endless blizzard, another unwieldy laser fired into an unexpecting chest. Once again, it was him and a body. No, not just a body. His body, rigid and freezing and beautiful regardless. Was this the fate of every Jayce Talis? To be left behind by him? It can’t be, he scrambled to reason, because there’s at least one reality where it’s the other way around. He thought of the cliff, the corroding statue, and the Mage so lonely he set out on a journey across time and space to prevent the creation of more lonely Mages. But that only made Jayce feel worse. And guilty. He almost let that future become theirs. Instead, the roles were reversed; he was alive. But if Jayce was the living one, then… He refused to finish the thought. Instead, he wriggled closer still until they were nose-to-nose, and he did something he hadn’t done since before he was accepted into the Academy and moved to the dorms. Jayce Talis prayed. He doesn’t know to whom or what. Maybe to everything. Maybe to the old gods and goddesses his mother had kept a shrine for before they uprooted and came to a city whose only religion was progress. Maybe even the Mage, still standing on that hill with a sack of runes tied to his robe. Even though he’d been granted so much by him and it’d be greedy to ask for more, Jayce hoped he was listening. He prayed that some of his life, his energy, his matter, his very soul would seep through his pores and into the man before him. Jayce would give everything if he could. Otherwise, he’d lie here and do nothing but stare at his partner’s face until the end. He’d let himself sink into the ground and count his favourite moles as his organs devoured one another and his cells drained his blood of water until nothing remained. Because he was too selfish to do it all alone, and that’s where he and the Mage differed. Pursuit mattered little to him without the one person he would’ve delighted in it