Don't Fall Behind [Emil/Lalli]
Dec. 25th, 2015 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roesslyngTitle: Don't Fall Behind
Characters/Pairing: Emil/Lalli
Rating: 13+ for canon-typical violence
Length: 4.6k
Summary: While on a book-hunting mission in an old library, Emil loses track of Lalli. Again. Finding him again isn't as easy a task as he would like it to be.
Other: Written for Silverweed/aanserina for Yuletide 2015. :) (Original post)
Many thanks to Solovei, the most best beta, for proofing and suggestions. You were so much help. <3
Don't Fall Behind
"Lalli?"
No answer.
Emil listened in the dark - for a call, or for the sound of movement. Neither response was all that likely; Lalli rarely said anything even when he should, and his footsteps were silent even when they didn't have to be.
No footsteps. No movement. Nothing.
Not that he expected anything else.
He tried again, lifting his voice a fraction louder, trying to keep it steadier than he felt.
"Lalli?" No answer. "Sigrun?" Nothing.
Emil cursed in the darkness and slowly turned to retrace his steps.
All around him was the scent of decaying paper. The shelves sagged, rusted and weathered from the damp and the air where the windows had broken. Deeper inside, that was where he needed to be. At least there, he had a better chance of finding something that would hold up to handling.
"Right," Sigrun had said before they entered. "What we want will be closer to the interior. Anything you see on the outside edges will be falling apart because of those windows you see over there." She gestured. Broken glass. So many floors. How could the people of the old world afford such a huge place like that, with windows that spanned from floor to ceiling? "The place should be holding together good enough, structure-wise. You won't fall through the floors. But be careful." Then she turned to him, smiling, all teeth. "Try not to blow anything up this time if you can, okay? We might want to come back here."
He could understand why they'd want to keep this place in good shape. It was an absolute treasure trove of books. Rows, rows, and more rows tucked into that concrete shell, more than they could ever hope to carry. It was dizzying.
Mikkel gave them a list.
As usual, it had been hard to make out what he was saying with all that mumbling, but the list made the intent clear enough.
Be more selective about what you take back. That was what it meant. The last few stashes had been disappointing. Tuuri didn't complain, but Mikkel's dissatisfaction was obvious by the way his brows knit together as he slid his fingers along the spines of the books they had selected. "An odd choice," he had said. "Was this all you could find?"
Well. At least Sigrun was happy with it.
Emil stopped. Slipped the list out of his coat pocket. Squinted at it for a moment by the lantern's light, then replaced it. Gingerly slipped a book from the shelf and paged to the title.
"'Literary Criticism'?" he muttered to himself. The thing was written in pure gibberish. Whatever it was, it wasn't on the list. He replaced it, and continued on his way.
The lantern's glow cast in front of him, sending a long, lonely line of light between the dark stacks. His footprints stood out stark and visible in the layers of dust and grime. No one had come this way for a very long time. Not anything human, at least.
So he was alone, then. Emil fought the worry that threatened to rise up. There was one set of footprints, and nothing else. Nobody else had been in that area, and aside from that, no things had been there, either. You have nothing to worry about, he told himself.
That didn't mean he wasn't relieved when another set of footprints finally appeared: smaller than his own, narrower, and taking an abrupt turn to wander in another random direction.
He let out a sigh, and decided to try again. "Lalli?"
If he had gone that way, maybe he was still nearby. Emil listened, hoping to hear a voice, or the sound of light footsteps on the dust-strewn floor.
Nothing. Again.
At least he knew which way to go. That, at least, was something. He turned, slipping into the narrow path Lalli had taken through the stacks, following the footprints in the dust.
Every so often he stopped, lifting his lantern to check the books, scanning the titles for subjects he recognized. Occasionally, he would take one off the shelf, flipping through it, not certain that he would even know what he was looking at if he did manage to find what he was searching for.
Books on magic. It was on the list. Ancient Icelandic magic. Along with a lot of other things - but that was the first. Absolutely ridiculous, as far as Emil was concerned - what use could there be in that? But he had seen a look pass between Mikkel and Reynir while Mikkel had been composing that list. Maybe Icelanders would pay highly for that kind of thing, even if it was written in Danish. Maybe that was what would make it worthwhile. It couldn't possibly be on account of the contents themselves.
As he followed Lalli, the path took him deeper into the building, where it was cleaner, dryer, the scent of damp less present, giving way to must and dust and simple age. That was good.
Lalli had the right idea. At least that makes one of us, Emil thought, letting out a heavy sigh. Then he called out to him once more.
No answer. Again.
As he came to a split in the rows of stacks, he swept his lantern's light along the intersection.
Four directions, and Lalli's footprints were going in all of them. Emil swore under his breath and peered down at them, trying to make sense of them in the lantern's warm glow.
The tracks crossed over themselves once, twice, changed direction, heading right, and left, then right again, without any order to their scattered rushing. "This is your area of expertise," Emil muttered to himself. "Not mine." True enough, it wasn't as if Lalli had been trying to make his life difficult, but - the result was the same either way.
It was only as he was about to choose a path at random that he saw another trail, random enough that it had previously escaped his notice. The tracks led off ahead, steady, until they disappeared down the dark and empty mouth of a stairwell.
Got you, Emil thought, a smile spreading over his lips. It wouldn't be long. He'd find him - and not lose him, even if he had to hold on to him. They weren't meant to split up, even if Lalli didn't quite get the idea yet.
... Nor Sigrun either, for that matter. Where had she disappeared to?
It didn't matter.
Emil drew in a deep breath, steeled himself, and headed down the stairs into the dark.
Down below, it was pitch black, windowless. Unlike above, no slivers of sunlight slipped in, and Emil's lantern did little to cut through the darkness. It only made the darkness seem deeper, murkier. Emil sucked in a breath and cast his lamplight where he could. Finally, he spotted what he was looking for.
There was the path of Lalli's footprints in the dust.
There was something else there, too.
He crouched down, trying to get a better look at the tracks in the grime.
Whatever it was, it was not human. The trail it left suggested something thick, formless, dragging itself along. Something that looked as if it had been scrabbling as it moved. At times Lalli's footprints padded along beside the track; at others they were engulfed by the something.
Emil felt his guts flip. Troll. It had to be. But what was going on - had Lalli been following it, or had it been following Lalli? He sank down to one knee and squinted at the tracks for a few seconds, then gave up in exasperation. He couldn't tell which set of prints had come first.
Bracing himself against the nervousness that threatened to overwhelm him, he rose, cast his light forward, and followed the trail.
The darkness somehow grew even deeper as he went. He could feel the weight of the building above him, the rows of shelves seeming to press in on all sides. More than once, he encountered bookcases that had fallen into one another. They did not look as if they had collapsed due to age; it was more as if they had been pushed by a strong force. He could guess at what that was, and the thought made him feel ill. But still, he could see the path, and he followed it. Lalli's trail in the dust, and the thing following him.
I'll save you, Emil thought, squeezing his way past two bookcases that had fallen together, leaning against one another like drunkards. I'll find you, and I'll get you out of here. But even as he told himself those things, building himself up, strong and confident, he desperately hoped that Lalli was tracking that thing, rather than the other way around.
The musty scent of books and dust pressed in, thick enough to irritate his eyes. And underneath that, he could smell something else, metallic and organic and wet.
Emil gagged, covered his mouth, tried to brace himself. Oh, no. He knew that smell. He had become accustomed to it. Not used to it - but accustomed to it. It was impossible to become used to that, not when he knew what it signalled.
He listened.
There was a sound. Scratching. Scrabbling. It could be Lalli. Maybe. Emil sucked in a breath. It might be Lalli. Should he risk calling to him?
No, he thought. You've been in a position like this before. Noise would just draw attention. And even if he hoped against all hopes that it was Lalli, it probably wasn't.
He raised the lantern again.
The warm light slid over empty shelves, books scattered over the floor, and overturned bookcases, until its weak beam cast, shaking, over something white. Something that moved.
Something that was not Lalli.
Emil froze. The thing in front of him turned. He stared at it, rooted to the spot. His feet didn't work. Finally, just as the head came into view, he forgot everything.
He ran.
There was a gap between the stacks. He slipped in, changed direction, darted down that row. It was narrow, too narrow for the troll to manage it with any ease, but that didn't matter, did it? The sight of the overturned stacks popped into his mind. It could plough through that. And not to mention - Lalli. It had been trailing Lalli.
Behind him, he could hear it moving. He could hear it screeching, the sounds it made almost words, almost voices, things that he might be able to understand if he stopped to listen. He could hear shelves and books falling.
Already his lungs were burning, but he wheezed and darted down another narrow sharp turn. Get it away from Lalli, he thought, then take care of it. Take care of it. How?
Sigrun had said to avoid explosives. Sigrun. Where the hell was Sigrun?!
It was close. He hadn't got a good look at it. It was big, round, lumbering, slow. But it was catching up. He held up his lantern, strained to see in front of him. Rows, shelves. Desks. Bookcases, collapsed and in his way -
He could hear it behind him.
He could smell it.
The sound of it crashing as it approached. The thick, dank, rotting scent that he'd come to know, slipping up his nostrils, practically making him gag. Where was it? It wasn't behind him, it was -
The bookcase beside him exploded, toppling over. It sent another bookcase falling, and he couldn't get out of the way. It hit him and he fell, crying out as part of it landed on top of him.
Pain in his shoulder. The lantern dropped. It fell and cast its light upward.
There it was.
He didn't think. No time to think. He only acted.
Knife. The blade was in his hand before he even thought of it. Stabbing upward, going for the face, the head, ignoring the voices he could hear shrieking at him, barely forming words.
The blade found its mark, and then he stabbed it again and again, never minding the blood that poured down onto him.
It stopped moving, eventually.
Emil waited in the dark, breathing heavily, staring out, feeling dizzy. His chest felt tight and as if it were burning. His left arm ached. His ankle felt like it had twisted in his fall. There was something pressing on him, not pinning him, but keeping him down just enough that getting out was not going to be easy.
Slowly, he reached for the lantern. As he swung the light over the troll, he tried to resist the sudden impulse to vomit. At least it wasn't moving.
He'd stabbed it enough times to guarantee that.
Emil took in a deep breath, and instantly regretted it. Then he tried again, through his mouth. More deep breaths as he set down the lantern. Then he stabbed it again, and again, and again, just to be sure.
Then he waited.
Nothing.
Emil closed his eyes. Breathed. Tried not to be sick. Listened. Strained to hear the sound of - something. Tense, gritting his teeth, he listened for the scrabbling and chattering of monsters. When he didn't hear that, he listened again for the more welcome patting of footsteps. Nothing.
"Lalli?" he whispered, barely daring to make that much noise.
Nothing.
Okay, Emil thought. He's not here. On the one hand: maybe it meant Lalli had escaped. Maybe. Hopefully.
On the other, it meant that as far as he could tell, he was alone.
Emil groaned. Hopefully he really was alone. Hopefully there wouldn't be another one.
After a moment, he tried to wiggle his way out from under the bookcase. The floor was slick with blood, and the stench was enough to turn his stomach. He took care as he moved backwards, painfully, centimetre by centimetre until -
He frowned. Pressed. Twisted. Swore.
Tried to move again. Couldn't get through.
Okay, Emil thought. Don't panic. But it was hard not to panic, trapped as he was. He breathed deeply, trying to calm himself. The stack of shelves had come crashing down, catching against the wall just enough not to crush him. It should have left two ways out: one, toward the empty rows; the other, toward the corpse of the troll. He should have been able to wiggle out. Probably. If he held his breath. And yet... After exploring with a hand pressed upward, he could feel it - one of the metal shelves had become partially dislodged and had fallen across the back, blocking his exit.
There was only one way out.
Rotten luck, Emil thought as he shone his lantern toward the dead troll again. Really? he thought, sighing heavily. He'd have to climb over it to get out. Really? Gross.
And that's if you can get the bookcase up enough to get out from under it, he told himself. Frowning, he lifted a hand. Gave an experimental press. Flinched as his shoulder throbbed from the movement; it hurt already, and it would hurt even worse later.
The stack didn't move.
Great.
Suddenly, he heard a noise.
Emil's heart leapt into his throat. He shut his eyes and tried not to breathe, not to make a single sound.
... And then he remembered to turn off the lantern. He scrambled to switch it off, flinched at the audible click, and then stayed there, silent, pressed against the floor in the sudden dark.
The seconds passed. He waited, biting his lips. Dust and blood in his nostrils. Waited, his heart pounding in his ears, thudding so heavily that he was sure that whatever was out there in the dark could hear it.
But there was nothing. Not a sound. Still, Emil held his breath and listened and wondered if it had been his imagination.
Suddenly, it was there again: not a noise as such, but an absence of noise; the sound of air moving to accommodate a shape as something, or someone, insinuated itself into the surroundings.
And then: footsteps. Two of them, deliberate, and nothing else. As if the person taking those steps was doing it on purpose, walking just loudly enough to be heard, and then stopping to listen.
"Lalli?" Emil hissed, hoping above hopes that this time, he would get an answer. But if it was Lalli, maybe waiting wouldn't give any response. Emil bit his lip, debated feverishly with himself for a split second. Then he came to a decision, and turned on the lantern, spreading its warm light into the darkness again.
There was no reply. No verbal reply, at least. But he heard more carefully-audible footsteps. One, two, coming close. Then they stopped. After a second, a pale face appeared in the space between the collapsed shelves and the floor, cat-like eyes squinting at him over the gory remains of the troll.
Emil let out a sigh of relief. "Lalli," he said, somehow managing to smile in spite of everything. "I'm glad to see you."
Lalli blinked, tilted his head, looked at him. Said nothing.
... Well.
"I need your help," Emil said, speaking as clearly as he could, even if he was sure it wouldn't do him any good. "Can you help me lift this up?" He moved his hands upward, groping for purchase on the shelves. Pushed. "I'm stuck, I think. I can't lift it; it's too heavy. Please?"
Blink, blink.
"Lalli?"
The face ducked out of his line of vision. He heard shuffling, then movement. A huff of breath, and he couldn't be certain whether it was from frustration, or from annoyance at him for getting stuck. Then the pressure came off - at least by a fraction.
Emil pushed. Felt dizzy. Pushed again. Then the shelf was lifted from him, and he scrambled out before it came crashing down again.
He stayed there on the floor beside the troll's corpse, wincing in pain. His shoulder hurt. Worse than that, his ankle hurt. Something was wrong.
A hand reached out to him. Emil hesitated, then took it. "Lalli, I-" He let out a gasp of pain as Lalli pulled him up, the weight falling on the wrong foot as he stood. Emil swore and leaned against him, gritting his teeth as Lalli tensed under him. It seemed his friend didn't quite know what to make of that. But at least, Emil thought, he didn't move out from under you.
"I'm sorry," Emil muttered, pinching his eyes tight, speaking even if he knew Lalli wouldn't understand. "I just... Give me a minute." This is a disaster, he thought.
For a moment or two, Lalli stayed frozen to the spot. Then, wordlessly, he patted Emil's uninjured shoulder, and shifted to brace him more steadily. He was surprisingly sturdy, and Emil took all the support Lalli gave him, grateful for it.
"We have to get out of here," Emil said, lifting his lantern up to look at Lalli's face, hoping to see some comprehension.
Lalli only blinked, squinting at him. Another pat, this time on the head, then he nodded in the direction of the stairwell.
Good enough. "Okay," Emil said, shifting so that he could lean more effectively on his friend. He tried not to wince. "Let's go."
They said nothing as they left the room together. Lalli was quiet as ever, and the only sound he made was a thickening of breath as Emil used him as a crutch. As for Emil, he kept his jaw clamped tight, tried not to cry out every time he put the wrong foot down by accident. It wasn't broken. He was sure. It just hurt like hell.
For a moment, they stopped. Breathed. Lalli held him, stayed close, letting Emil lean against him until he could move again. His sharp face was alert. Emil watched him, taking care to see if there was anything he should know about, but there was no worry on Lalli's face. All was clear.
"I just need a minute," Emil whispered, keeping his voice easy and quiet, knowing Lalli couldn't understand a single word, but that the tone would be enough for him to judge by. Maybe. "Then we can go again."
A glance his way; their eyes met. Well, maybe Lalli understood well enough. Emil offered him a strained smile. Lalli nodded to him in return, then went back to listening, watching, sweeping his gaze over their surroundings.
Good enough.
Emil cast the lamp around, letting the glow fall on the shelves. Maybe if they had to take a breather, there was something of use.
The books were dry, at least. Dusty, but dry. No windows nearby to let damp in. He reached out and brushed some of the grime away from the spines, blinking at the titles.
"Traditional symbolism in medieval Icelandic magic," he read. "New perspectives on rune magic. Magic in ritual and saga. ... Wait a minute." Carefully, he reached out and drew one from the shelf. Rather than falling apart in his hands, it held together. Good. "Lalli, here - hold this, please?"
His friend took the lantern from him, holding it to shine on the pages. Emil braced himself against the bookcase and flipped through it, scanning the pages carefully.
Diagrams. Symbols. Explanations. A whole load of ancient magic nonsense. But it was on the list. All of it was gibberish, but it was gibberish that they had been instructed to look for.
"Maybe we didn't get stuck here for nothing," Emil muttered. He looked toward Lalli and grinned. "We found what we were looking for, at least."
Lalli lifted his head, looked from Emil to the book, then sniffed and turned up his nose.
"So even you think it's ridiculous? Well, I agree with you, but it's on the list." Emil shoved off his pack and slipped the book in, following with others, as many as he could fit. He shouldered it, flinched, then reached for Lalli again. "Let's get going."
It was harder with the full haversack. More than once, Emil stumbled; and more than once, Lalli steeled himself to keep Emil from falling, now and then muttering something under his breath that might have been a curse.
Eventually, they made it out. Out through the large doors, out into bright sunlight that left them squinting after being in the dark for so long.
Sigrun was waiting for them. She looked them up and down. "Oookay," she said. "What happened?"
"Troll," Emil replied, shrugging off his haversack, letting it fall, then leaning against Lalli again.
"Well, yeah, I can see that! You're covered in - you know what, never mind. Was it just the one?"
"Yeah. I mean, I didn't see any others. Or any signs of any others."
Sigrun tilted her head, taking this in, considering it. Emil looked back at her, trying to look confident, wondering if he succeeded. Finally, she nodded. "Fine. I didn't see any signs either. We might be able to return here again." She stopped, looked him over again, then seemed to come to a decision. "Go see Mikkel. He'll get you taken care of. We're done for the day. Need to get out of here."
Well. Emil wasn't about to argue with that. He gave her a nod, and managed an attempt at a smile. "Right," he said, then tilted his head, glancing to Lalli. "Let's go."
A badly-twisted ankle. A heavily-bruised shoulder. Assorted cuts and scrapes and bumps. Not much, in the grand scheme of things, but did it ever hurt. Mikkel had been thorough in looking him over, poking and prodding and carefully checking before he set to tending the scrapes. "Just be careful," he muttered, ignoring the way Emil hissed from the sting of the antiseptic. "Try not to run around too much."
Fat chance of that, Emil thought. But at least they had been lucky.
Getting away alive wasn't the only stroke of luck. The look on Mikkel's face when he sorted through the books they had brought was one of approval, for once. He flipped through the books of magic that Emil had found, bushy brows raising in surprise, then nodded and set them aside to be disinfected.
"Why did you want us to get those, anyway?"" Emil asked, nodding toward the pile. "I know it's rubbish. You know it's rubbish. So why -"
"For Reynir," Mikkel mumbled. "Sigrun's idea."
Their gazes met. Even if it had been the Captain's idea, Emil could tell that he was just barely refraining from rolling his eyes. Nothing more needed to be said about it.
Decontamination. Debriefing. Discussion. Sigrun prodded him for information, asked what he had found. What he had seen. Asked about the troll.
Asked what went wrong.
She listened, expression flickering slightly as he explained what had happened. When he said that he had lost track of his partner, her brows arched upward, her expression shifting in a way Emil couldn’t quite interpret.
"Again?"
"Again."
"Hmm." She pressed her lips together. Not quite pursed. "Sounds like I might have to tie you two together." Her tone was light, but he didn't doubt that there would be words about it later.
Not long after that, Emil made his way to the back. Lalli had gone there immediately after decontamination and, finding the rear room unoccupied, had flopped onto one of the bottom bunks rather than rolling underneath as usual, and took advantage of the space by sprawling out over the entire thing. At the sound of Emil's entrance, he lifted his head, blinking dozily at him. Then he rolled over, edging over close to the wall, giving him room.
It wasn't the first time he had done that. Still, there was something unexpected about it. Maybe it was never not going to be unexpected. Don't overthink this, Emil thought to himself as he slipped onto the bunk beside him. Nothing he does will make sense if you overthink it. Lalli barely ever made sense to begin with.
Emil brushed his hair out of his face. An absolute mess, but at the moment, he couldn’t even bring himself to tidy it. Somehow that, more than anything else, made it clear that the day had taken its toll. "At least we got out okay," he said quietly, feeling the exhaustion in his own voice. As if in response, Lalli shifted next to him, long limbs moving to coil around him, slim fingers moving - first trailing along his arm, then grazing his injured shoulder, light over the bruises, until Emil felt Lalli's cool hand on his cheek, gently brushing over a bandage covering a scratch there.
"It's fine," Emil murmured, closing his eyes. "That won't scar. And the rest will be fine - it's nothing."
Fingertips pressed to his lips, as if bidding him not to talk. That was familiar, and he knew to follow through. Fine, he thought. No words. He pressed a kiss instead - fingers, palm, wrist. And as Lalli moved to stroke at his hair, Emil sighed, and decided to let it go.
Tomorrow, Emil thought as he eased up under Lalli’s gentle touch, ignoring the aches and pains and the weight of how tired he was in favour of taking in the sensation of his hands, the sound of his breathing. Tomorrow, he'd bring it up. Talk to Tuuri. Get her to relay it to Lalli, to really try to make him understand that he shouldn't leave him in the dark. Get her to make sure it would get through to him.
But that would be tomorrow. That could wait.
For the moment, Emil knew that all he needed - all he wanted - was the warmth of the narrow body next to him, the press of a pointed nose against his neck, and the sensation of long fingers in his hair.
End
Characters/Pairing: Emil/Lalli
Rating: 13+ for canon-typical violence
Length: 4.6k
Summary: While on a book-hunting mission in an old library, Emil loses track of Lalli. Again. Finding him again isn't as easy a task as he would like it to be.
Other: Written for Silverweed/
aanserina for Yuletide 2015. :) (Original post)Many thanks to Solovei, the most best beta, for proofing and suggestions. You were so much help. <3
Don't Fall Behind
"Lalli?"
No answer.
Emil listened in the dark - for a call, or for the sound of movement. Neither response was all that likely; Lalli rarely said anything even when he should, and his footsteps were silent even when they didn't have to be.
No footsteps. No movement. Nothing.
Not that he expected anything else.
He tried again, lifting his voice a fraction louder, trying to keep it steadier than he felt.
"Lalli?" No answer. "Sigrun?" Nothing.
Emil cursed in the darkness and slowly turned to retrace his steps.
All around him was the scent of decaying paper. The shelves sagged, rusted and weathered from the damp and the air where the windows had broken. Deeper inside, that was where he needed to be. At least there, he had a better chance of finding something that would hold up to handling.
"Right," Sigrun had said before they entered. "What we want will be closer to the interior. Anything you see on the outside edges will be falling apart because of those windows you see over there." She gestured. Broken glass. So many floors. How could the people of the old world afford such a huge place like that, with windows that spanned from floor to ceiling? "The place should be holding together good enough, structure-wise. You won't fall through the floors. But be careful." Then she turned to him, smiling, all teeth. "Try not to blow anything up this time if you can, okay? We might want to come back here."
He could understand why they'd want to keep this place in good shape. It was an absolute treasure trove of books. Rows, rows, and more rows tucked into that concrete shell, more than they could ever hope to carry. It was dizzying.
Mikkel gave them a list.
As usual, it had been hard to make out what he was saying with all that mumbling, but the list made the intent clear enough.
Be more selective about what you take back. That was what it meant. The last few stashes had been disappointing. Tuuri didn't complain, but Mikkel's dissatisfaction was obvious by the way his brows knit together as he slid his fingers along the spines of the books they had selected. "An odd choice," he had said. "Was this all you could find?"
Well. At least Sigrun was happy with it.
Emil stopped. Slipped the list out of his coat pocket. Squinted at it for a moment by the lantern's light, then replaced it. Gingerly slipped a book from the shelf and paged to the title.
"'Literary Criticism'?" he muttered to himself. The thing was written in pure gibberish. Whatever it was, it wasn't on the list. He replaced it, and continued on his way.
The lantern's glow cast in front of him, sending a long, lonely line of light between the dark stacks. His footprints stood out stark and visible in the layers of dust and grime. No one had come this way for a very long time. Not anything human, at least.
So he was alone, then. Emil fought the worry that threatened to rise up. There was one set of footprints, and nothing else. Nobody else had been in that area, and aside from that, no things had been there, either. You have nothing to worry about, he told himself.
That didn't mean he wasn't relieved when another set of footprints finally appeared: smaller than his own, narrower, and taking an abrupt turn to wander in another random direction.
He let out a sigh, and decided to try again. "Lalli?"
If he had gone that way, maybe he was still nearby. Emil listened, hoping to hear a voice, or the sound of light footsteps on the dust-strewn floor.
Nothing. Again.
At least he knew which way to go. That, at least, was something. He turned, slipping into the narrow path Lalli had taken through the stacks, following the footprints in the dust.
Every so often he stopped, lifting his lantern to check the books, scanning the titles for subjects he recognized. Occasionally, he would take one off the shelf, flipping through it, not certain that he would even know what he was looking at if he did manage to find what he was searching for.
Books on magic. It was on the list. Ancient Icelandic magic. Along with a lot of other things - but that was the first. Absolutely ridiculous, as far as Emil was concerned - what use could there be in that? But he had seen a look pass between Mikkel and Reynir while Mikkel had been composing that list. Maybe Icelanders would pay highly for that kind of thing, even if it was written in Danish. Maybe that was what would make it worthwhile. It couldn't possibly be on account of the contents themselves.
As he followed Lalli, the path took him deeper into the building, where it was cleaner, dryer, the scent of damp less present, giving way to must and dust and simple age. That was good.
Lalli had the right idea. At least that makes one of us, Emil thought, letting out a heavy sigh. Then he called out to him once more.
No answer. Again.
As he came to a split in the rows of stacks, he swept his lantern's light along the intersection.
Four directions, and Lalli's footprints were going in all of them. Emil swore under his breath and peered down at them, trying to make sense of them in the lantern's warm glow.
The tracks crossed over themselves once, twice, changed direction, heading right, and left, then right again, without any order to their scattered rushing. "This is your area of expertise," Emil muttered to himself. "Not mine." True enough, it wasn't as if Lalli had been trying to make his life difficult, but - the result was the same either way.
It was only as he was about to choose a path at random that he saw another trail, random enough that it had previously escaped his notice. The tracks led off ahead, steady, until they disappeared down the dark and empty mouth of a stairwell.
Got you, Emil thought, a smile spreading over his lips. It wouldn't be long. He'd find him - and not lose him, even if he had to hold on to him. They weren't meant to split up, even if Lalli didn't quite get the idea yet.
... Nor Sigrun either, for that matter. Where had she disappeared to?
It didn't matter.
Emil drew in a deep breath, steeled himself, and headed down the stairs into the dark.
Down below, it was pitch black, windowless. Unlike above, no slivers of sunlight slipped in, and Emil's lantern did little to cut through the darkness. It only made the darkness seem deeper, murkier. Emil sucked in a breath and cast his lamplight where he could. Finally, he spotted what he was looking for.
There was the path of Lalli's footprints in the dust.
There was something else there, too.
He crouched down, trying to get a better look at the tracks in the grime.
Whatever it was, it was not human. The trail it left suggested something thick, formless, dragging itself along. Something that looked as if it had been scrabbling as it moved. At times Lalli's footprints padded along beside the track; at others they were engulfed by the something.
Emil felt his guts flip. Troll. It had to be. But what was going on - had Lalli been following it, or had it been following Lalli? He sank down to one knee and squinted at the tracks for a few seconds, then gave up in exasperation. He couldn't tell which set of prints had come first.
Bracing himself against the nervousness that threatened to overwhelm him, he rose, cast his light forward, and followed the trail.
The darkness somehow grew even deeper as he went. He could feel the weight of the building above him, the rows of shelves seeming to press in on all sides. More than once, he encountered bookcases that had fallen into one another. They did not look as if they had collapsed due to age; it was more as if they had been pushed by a strong force. He could guess at what that was, and the thought made him feel ill. But still, he could see the path, and he followed it. Lalli's trail in the dust, and the thing following him.
I'll save you, Emil thought, squeezing his way past two bookcases that had fallen together, leaning against one another like drunkards. I'll find you, and I'll get you out of here. But even as he told himself those things, building himself up, strong and confident, he desperately hoped that Lalli was tracking that thing, rather than the other way around.
The musty scent of books and dust pressed in, thick enough to irritate his eyes. And underneath that, he could smell something else, metallic and organic and wet.
Emil gagged, covered his mouth, tried to brace himself. Oh, no. He knew that smell. He had become accustomed to it. Not used to it - but accustomed to it. It was impossible to become used to that, not when he knew what it signalled.
He listened.
There was a sound. Scratching. Scrabbling. It could be Lalli. Maybe. Emil sucked in a breath. It might be Lalli. Should he risk calling to him?
No, he thought. You've been in a position like this before. Noise would just draw attention. And even if he hoped against all hopes that it was Lalli, it probably wasn't.
He raised the lantern again.
The warm light slid over empty shelves, books scattered over the floor, and overturned bookcases, until its weak beam cast, shaking, over something white. Something that moved.
Something that was not Lalli.
Emil froze. The thing in front of him turned. He stared at it, rooted to the spot. His feet didn't work. Finally, just as the head came into view, he forgot everything.
He ran.
There was a gap between the stacks. He slipped in, changed direction, darted down that row. It was narrow, too narrow for the troll to manage it with any ease, but that didn't matter, did it? The sight of the overturned stacks popped into his mind. It could plough through that. And not to mention - Lalli. It had been trailing Lalli.
Behind him, he could hear it moving. He could hear it screeching, the sounds it made almost words, almost voices, things that he might be able to understand if he stopped to listen. He could hear shelves and books falling.
Already his lungs were burning, but he wheezed and darted down another narrow sharp turn. Get it away from Lalli, he thought, then take care of it. Take care of it. How?
Sigrun had said to avoid explosives. Sigrun. Where the hell was Sigrun?!
It was close. He hadn't got a good look at it. It was big, round, lumbering, slow. But it was catching up. He held up his lantern, strained to see in front of him. Rows, shelves. Desks. Bookcases, collapsed and in his way -
He could hear it behind him.
He could smell it.
The sound of it crashing as it approached. The thick, dank, rotting scent that he'd come to know, slipping up his nostrils, practically making him gag. Where was it? It wasn't behind him, it was -
The bookcase beside him exploded, toppling over. It sent another bookcase falling, and he couldn't get out of the way. It hit him and he fell, crying out as part of it landed on top of him.
Pain in his shoulder. The lantern dropped. It fell and cast its light upward.
There it was.
He didn't think. No time to think. He only acted.
Knife. The blade was in his hand before he even thought of it. Stabbing upward, going for the face, the head, ignoring the voices he could hear shrieking at him, barely forming words.
The blade found its mark, and then he stabbed it again and again, never minding the blood that poured down onto him.
It stopped moving, eventually.
Emil waited in the dark, breathing heavily, staring out, feeling dizzy. His chest felt tight and as if it were burning. His left arm ached. His ankle felt like it had twisted in his fall. There was something pressing on him, not pinning him, but keeping him down just enough that getting out was not going to be easy.
Slowly, he reached for the lantern. As he swung the light over the troll, he tried to resist the sudden impulse to vomit. At least it wasn't moving.
He'd stabbed it enough times to guarantee that.
Emil took in a deep breath, and instantly regretted it. Then he tried again, through his mouth. More deep breaths as he set down the lantern. Then he stabbed it again, and again, and again, just to be sure.
Then he waited.
Nothing.
Emil closed his eyes. Breathed. Tried not to be sick. Listened. Strained to hear the sound of - something. Tense, gritting his teeth, he listened for the scrabbling and chattering of monsters. When he didn't hear that, he listened again for the more welcome patting of footsteps. Nothing.
"Lalli?" he whispered, barely daring to make that much noise.
Nothing.
Okay, Emil thought. He's not here. On the one hand: maybe it meant Lalli had escaped. Maybe. Hopefully.
On the other, it meant that as far as he could tell, he was alone.
Emil groaned. Hopefully he really was alone. Hopefully there wouldn't be another one.
After a moment, he tried to wiggle his way out from under the bookcase. The floor was slick with blood, and the stench was enough to turn his stomach. He took care as he moved backwards, painfully, centimetre by centimetre until -
He frowned. Pressed. Twisted. Swore.
Tried to move again. Couldn't get through.
Okay, Emil thought. Don't panic. But it was hard not to panic, trapped as he was. He breathed deeply, trying to calm himself. The stack of shelves had come crashing down, catching against the wall just enough not to crush him. It should have left two ways out: one, toward the empty rows; the other, toward the corpse of the troll. He should have been able to wiggle out. Probably. If he held his breath. And yet... After exploring with a hand pressed upward, he could feel it - one of the metal shelves had become partially dislodged and had fallen across the back, blocking his exit.
There was only one way out.
Rotten luck, Emil thought as he shone his lantern toward the dead troll again. Really? he thought, sighing heavily. He'd have to climb over it to get out. Really? Gross.
And that's if you can get the bookcase up enough to get out from under it, he told himself. Frowning, he lifted a hand. Gave an experimental press. Flinched as his shoulder throbbed from the movement; it hurt already, and it would hurt even worse later.
The stack didn't move.
Great.
Suddenly, he heard a noise.
Emil's heart leapt into his throat. He shut his eyes and tried not to breathe, not to make a single sound.
... And then he remembered to turn off the lantern. He scrambled to switch it off, flinched at the audible click, and then stayed there, silent, pressed against the floor in the sudden dark.
The seconds passed. He waited, biting his lips. Dust and blood in his nostrils. Waited, his heart pounding in his ears, thudding so heavily that he was sure that whatever was out there in the dark could hear it.
But there was nothing. Not a sound. Still, Emil held his breath and listened and wondered if it had been his imagination.
Suddenly, it was there again: not a noise as such, but an absence of noise; the sound of air moving to accommodate a shape as something, or someone, insinuated itself into the surroundings.
And then: footsteps. Two of them, deliberate, and nothing else. As if the person taking those steps was doing it on purpose, walking just loudly enough to be heard, and then stopping to listen.
"Lalli?" Emil hissed, hoping above hopes that this time, he would get an answer. But if it was Lalli, maybe waiting wouldn't give any response. Emil bit his lip, debated feverishly with himself for a split second. Then he came to a decision, and turned on the lantern, spreading its warm light into the darkness again.
There was no reply. No verbal reply, at least. But he heard more carefully-audible footsteps. One, two, coming close. Then they stopped. After a second, a pale face appeared in the space between the collapsed shelves and the floor, cat-like eyes squinting at him over the gory remains of the troll.
Emil let out a sigh of relief. "Lalli," he said, somehow managing to smile in spite of everything. "I'm glad to see you."
Lalli blinked, tilted his head, looked at him. Said nothing.
... Well.
"I need your help," Emil said, speaking as clearly as he could, even if he was sure it wouldn't do him any good. "Can you help me lift this up?" He moved his hands upward, groping for purchase on the shelves. Pushed. "I'm stuck, I think. I can't lift it; it's too heavy. Please?"
Blink, blink.
"Lalli?"
The face ducked out of his line of vision. He heard shuffling, then movement. A huff of breath, and he couldn't be certain whether it was from frustration, or from annoyance at him for getting stuck. Then the pressure came off - at least by a fraction.
Emil pushed. Felt dizzy. Pushed again. Then the shelf was lifted from him, and he scrambled out before it came crashing down again.
He stayed there on the floor beside the troll's corpse, wincing in pain. His shoulder hurt. Worse than that, his ankle hurt. Something was wrong.
A hand reached out to him. Emil hesitated, then took it. "Lalli, I-" He let out a gasp of pain as Lalli pulled him up, the weight falling on the wrong foot as he stood. Emil swore and leaned against him, gritting his teeth as Lalli tensed under him. It seemed his friend didn't quite know what to make of that. But at least, Emil thought, he didn't move out from under you.
"I'm sorry," Emil muttered, pinching his eyes tight, speaking even if he knew Lalli wouldn't understand. "I just... Give me a minute." This is a disaster, he thought.
For a moment or two, Lalli stayed frozen to the spot. Then, wordlessly, he patted Emil's uninjured shoulder, and shifted to brace him more steadily. He was surprisingly sturdy, and Emil took all the support Lalli gave him, grateful for it.
"We have to get out of here," Emil said, lifting his lantern up to look at Lalli's face, hoping to see some comprehension.
Lalli only blinked, squinting at him. Another pat, this time on the head, then he nodded in the direction of the stairwell.
Good enough. "Okay," Emil said, shifting so that he could lean more effectively on his friend. He tried not to wince. "Let's go."
They said nothing as they left the room together. Lalli was quiet as ever, and the only sound he made was a thickening of breath as Emil used him as a crutch. As for Emil, he kept his jaw clamped tight, tried not to cry out every time he put the wrong foot down by accident. It wasn't broken. He was sure. It just hurt like hell.
For a moment, they stopped. Breathed. Lalli held him, stayed close, letting Emil lean against him until he could move again. His sharp face was alert. Emil watched him, taking care to see if there was anything he should know about, but there was no worry on Lalli's face. All was clear.
"I just need a minute," Emil whispered, keeping his voice easy and quiet, knowing Lalli couldn't understand a single word, but that the tone would be enough for him to judge by. Maybe. "Then we can go again."
A glance his way; their eyes met. Well, maybe Lalli understood well enough. Emil offered him a strained smile. Lalli nodded to him in return, then went back to listening, watching, sweeping his gaze over their surroundings.
Good enough.
Emil cast the lamp around, letting the glow fall on the shelves. Maybe if they had to take a breather, there was something of use.
The books were dry, at least. Dusty, but dry. No windows nearby to let damp in. He reached out and brushed some of the grime away from the spines, blinking at the titles.
"Traditional symbolism in medieval Icelandic magic," he read. "New perspectives on rune magic. Magic in ritual and saga. ... Wait a minute." Carefully, he reached out and drew one from the shelf. Rather than falling apart in his hands, it held together. Good. "Lalli, here - hold this, please?"
His friend took the lantern from him, holding it to shine on the pages. Emil braced himself against the bookcase and flipped through it, scanning the pages carefully.
Diagrams. Symbols. Explanations. A whole load of ancient magic nonsense. But it was on the list. All of it was gibberish, but it was gibberish that they had been instructed to look for.
"Maybe we didn't get stuck here for nothing," Emil muttered. He looked toward Lalli and grinned. "We found what we were looking for, at least."
Lalli lifted his head, looked from Emil to the book, then sniffed and turned up his nose.
"So even you think it's ridiculous? Well, I agree with you, but it's on the list." Emil shoved off his pack and slipped the book in, following with others, as many as he could fit. He shouldered it, flinched, then reached for Lalli again. "Let's get going."
It was harder with the full haversack. More than once, Emil stumbled; and more than once, Lalli steeled himself to keep Emil from falling, now and then muttering something under his breath that might have been a curse.
Eventually, they made it out. Out through the large doors, out into bright sunlight that left them squinting after being in the dark for so long.
Sigrun was waiting for them. She looked them up and down. "Oookay," she said. "What happened?"
"Troll," Emil replied, shrugging off his haversack, letting it fall, then leaning against Lalli again.
"Well, yeah, I can see that! You're covered in - you know what, never mind. Was it just the one?"
"Yeah. I mean, I didn't see any others. Or any signs of any others."
Sigrun tilted her head, taking this in, considering it. Emil looked back at her, trying to look confident, wondering if he succeeded. Finally, she nodded. "Fine. I didn't see any signs either. We might be able to return here again." She stopped, looked him over again, then seemed to come to a decision. "Go see Mikkel. He'll get you taken care of. We're done for the day. Need to get out of here."
Well. Emil wasn't about to argue with that. He gave her a nod, and managed an attempt at a smile. "Right," he said, then tilted his head, glancing to Lalli. "Let's go."
A badly-twisted ankle. A heavily-bruised shoulder. Assorted cuts and scrapes and bumps. Not much, in the grand scheme of things, but did it ever hurt. Mikkel had been thorough in looking him over, poking and prodding and carefully checking before he set to tending the scrapes. "Just be careful," he muttered, ignoring the way Emil hissed from the sting of the antiseptic. "Try not to run around too much."
Fat chance of that, Emil thought. But at least they had been lucky.
Getting away alive wasn't the only stroke of luck. The look on Mikkel's face when he sorted through the books they had brought was one of approval, for once. He flipped through the books of magic that Emil had found, bushy brows raising in surprise, then nodded and set them aside to be disinfected.
"Why did you want us to get those, anyway?"" Emil asked, nodding toward the pile. "I know it's rubbish. You know it's rubbish. So why -"
"For Reynir," Mikkel mumbled. "Sigrun's idea."
Their gazes met. Even if it had been the Captain's idea, Emil could tell that he was just barely refraining from rolling his eyes. Nothing more needed to be said about it.
Decontamination. Debriefing. Discussion. Sigrun prodded him for information, asked what he had found. What he had seen. Asked about the troll.
Asked what went wrong.
She listened, expression flickering slightly as he explained what had happened. When he said that he had lost track of his partner, her brows arched upward, her expression shifting in a way Emil couldn’t quite interpret.
"Again?"
"Again."
"Hmm." She pressed her lips together. Not quite pursed. "Sounds like I might have to tie you two together." Her tone was light, but he didn't doubt that there would be words about it later.
Not long after that, Emil made his way to the back. Lalli had gone there immediately after decontamination and, finding the rear room unoccupied, had flopped onto one of the bottom bunks rather than rolling underneath as usual, and took advantage of the space by sprawling out over the entire thing. At the sound of Emil's entrance, he lifted his head, blinking dozily at him. Then he rolled over, edging over close to the wall, giving him room.
It wasn't the first time he had done that. Still, there was something unexpected about it. Maybe it was never not going to be unexpected. Don't overthink this, Emil thought to himself as he slipped onto the bunk beside him. Nothing he does will make sense if you overthink it. Lalli barely ever made sense to begin with.
Emil brushed his hair out of his face. An absolute mess, but at the moment, he couldn’t even bring himself to tidy it. Somehow that, more than anything else, made it clear that the day had taken its toll. "At least we got out okay," he said quietly, feeling the exhaustion in his own voice. As if in response, Lalli shifted next to him, long limbs moving to coil around him, slim fingers moving - first trailing along his arm, then grazing his injured shoulder, light over the bruises, until Emil felt Lalli's cool hand on his cheek, gently brushing over a bandage covering a scratch there.
"It's fine," Emil murmured, closing his eyes. "That won't scar. And the rest will be fine - it's nothing."
Fingertips pressed to his lips, as if bidding him not to talk. That was familiar, and he knew to follow through. Fine, he thought. No words. He pressed a kiss instead - fingers, palm, wrist. And as Lalli moved to stroke at his hair, Emil sighed, and decided to let it go.
Tomorrow, Emil thought as he eased up under Lalli’s gentle touch, ignoring the aches and pains and the weight of how tired he was in favour of taking in the sensation of his hands, the sound of his breathing. Tomorrow, he'd bring it up. Talk to Tuuri. Get her to relay it to Lalli, to really try to make him understand that he shouldn't leave him in the dark. Get her to make sure it would get through to him.
But that would be tomorrow. That could wait.
For the moment, Emil knew that all he needed - all he wanted - was the warmth of the narrow body next to him, the press of a pointed nose against his neck, and the sensation of long fingers in his hair.
End
