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Amath turned the wizard’s way when he heard his breathing settle not too long after laying down; despite the darkness of the room he had no troubles making out his features, his eyes easily adapting.
How long had he been sealed away? Amath was no idiot, though he had only seen Yuval briefly upon his summoning, he could clearly tell he was not the same, that time had passed – and apparently plenty of it. The wizard had grown; grown in height, grown in muscles, even his blond hair had grown longer, had grown paler. Did time pass differently here? How to measure how long it’d been away? It had felt like an eternity. It still felt just... wrong.
He had not told this young, stupid wizard about it, but his body was still hurting, was still sore, his energy felt drained. He was exhausted. He was exhausted but he couldn’t sleep. He loathed admitting it, but he was a little afraid to close his eyes, to find this all was a dream and he was actually still sealed away. Though it would have been nice to find all of it was a dream, and he was still at the temple...
He let a soft, heavy sigh. But that, he knew, would not happen. This was very real. He had really been taken from all he knew for... nothing? Amath wanted to blame this human, but he really couldn’t, not if the randomness of the summoning was true, and the other hadn’t struck him as a liar. At least, his words hadn’t seemed like a lie. His heart beat had not spiked, his pupils had not dilated, he’d not started to sweat profusely; he’d seemed honest in saying that he’d not purposefully called him forth, and that he could not guarantee a return.
The soreness on his body reminded him once again of that time spent in limbo. His body still thrummed with the ghost pain. Amath closed his eyes briefly and wished it would just stop hurting. He took a deeper breath to try and calm himself, and was rewarded instead with the human’s soft scent, fresh like a summer rain. It wasn’t unpleasant, and that angered him again. Why should this human smell so well? Why should he be reminded of the hunger that still ate away at him? The meat helped restore his body, but what restored his soul was something else... and while he wasn’t inclined to think he’d be denied, certainly not after the look Yuval had given him earlier, he was still upset at the thought of having to do anything such with him, if only because he was the one to blame for this whole mess.
But he would have to do it. And he would have to come to terms with it, likely before another night passed.
Tomorrow, he decided. Tomorrow, he would tell him.
Amath closed his eyes and tried to let the human’s steady breathing lull him into sleep. He opened them again what felt like seconds later, but had clearly been longer: sunlight was now streaming through the cracks on the window blinds, and yet he felt no more rested than when he’d gone to bed... and much hungrier.
