Gratitude

Mornings at Zeke and Cuemoni's home in the woods are quiet affairs. Once Cuemoni is finished painting the traditional marks on herself and Zeke, they begin their morning routine. Tea is brewed. Incense is lit. Prayers and offerings are made for the Dragonfather and the spirits of their home and hearth, as well as any additional entities that might need offering to.

When the morning ritual finishes, Cuemoni is helping with the clean-up, gently depositing the ashes of the burnt-out incense from the plate they use to burn it into a potted plant they have that seems to thrive on incense ash. "Another good morning," she says happily, her golden eyes bright and merry. "Even if it is turning cold again, this one loves the autumn. It is an excuse to keep the hearth fire going."

Zeke's tail is moving in a slow pleased manner as it does most mornings. He has had good reason to be in a prolonged good mood, and that reason is largely Cuemoni. Their union was a source of great joy for him, and every day he awoke to her face was one he counted himself blessed to rise to. Their home and the peace that they had finally found was something that Zeke was endlessly grateful for. Something that was oft reflected in his prayers.

Zeke quietly rinses the bowl that is used for offerings and sets it aside, but then there's a tingle on either side of his spine. It's been there ever since his morning prayers... A distinct... Itching. "Sssa. Thisss one will not be grateful for the cold of winter, but thisss one will enjoy evenings at the hearth with you Cuemoni."

Idly he reaches back with his flesh-and-blood claw to try and soothe the itch, but he can not reach. "Ssssaaaa. Thisss one isss itchy thisss morning." He can not help the small amused noise that leaves him. "Hasss thisss one a bug on thisss one?"

"This one is not excited for the winter, either," Cuemoni replies, "but it is all the more excuse for making the hot chocolate with the spices to warm us by the hearth." It is Cuemoni's favorite solution for the cold, the aches, and many things that might ail either of them. Yet the mention of an itch makes her golden eyes nictate.

"Ay, a bug? This one will investigate. No insect may be allowed to live on this one's cihuaa and bother his lovely scales." Cuemoni steps forward to investigate. Given that they are in the comfort of their own home and are utterly comfortable with each other, the lack of clothes adorning Zeke makes this an easier process.

It also makes it quite easy to spot the small bumps on Zeke's back. Cuemoni's golden eyes nictate. "Ay! Zeke! You have small bumps on your back." This worries her greatly. The only times she's seen this on other makari, they were indications of tumors that required surgery to cut out. Yet... "They are the same size. And they are... equally spaced from each other." She has never seen two of them so close to each other, as if placed almost intentionally.

Cuemoni's response is not the expected one. A small swell of concern wells up in his stomach at the thought of *growths* on his body. Like Cuemoni the only such things he has heard of required removing lest they grow out of control and damage vital organs.

He turns toward Cuemoni, erasing that concern from his mind and from his thoughts as he takes her claws in hand. "Perhapssss it isss not-harmful. They could be no-thing." He soothes her and himself with these thoughts, but it is a slender veil. "Thisss one feels no pain. Thisss one will be well."

He will pray a little harder tomorrow, and perhaps he will be granted an answer.

Cuemoni makes a noise of concern, but as is to be expected from the druid, she has a solution. "This one has an idea." She departs from the house.

When she appears a short time later, it is with a bundle of herbs from their garden, and she pulps them together into a thin paste with a mortar and pestle, rubbing it (with Zeke's permission) onto Zeke's scales. It helps to relieve the itching, and with that, they go about their day.

+++

Then the next day comes. Once they're up, but before their prayers, Cuemoni offers to apply the paste after she finishes painting both their scales, as she doesn't want him to be itching the entire time during their ceremony. "Cihuaa, do you need? This one will happily make the paste again." Her golden eyes are filled with love and concern for Zeke, a care that not many have offered him in his lifetime.

Concerningly, Zeke nods quietly. This strange growth is something that the Dragonfather has not yet seen fit to answer him about, and he feels intuitively that it is something that he is not meant to know through his occasional communing methods. For others it is easy to call upon the gods, but this... this is a private matter. "Thisss one isss grateful for you and your herbal knowledge Cuemoni. The itching ssseeemsss worssse today than yessster-day."

Indeed, despite his calm demeanor the urge to itch his back is all but a compulsion without Cuemoni's soothing remedy. Worse, he thinks some of his scales in the area are starting to flake off - an indication that the growths are *not*... a part of him. "Thisss one hopess that it isss better by thisss weekssss-end. We have that trip to the village." One he had been looking forward to.

A sound leaves Cuemoni that's not far off from when the nest-minders of her tribe care for the young, something that is warm and soothing as she applies the paste again to Zeke's growths. "This one is glad to have the knowledge," she says. "It is passed down by the Elders to this one, and this one is grateful to be able to help Cihuaa."

She notices the scales beginning to flake, too, and this draws a thinking noise from her. Molting happens sometimes, especially when scales are damaged, but for it to happen to only the scales on the growth is unusual. "This one hopes so, too," she says in response to Zeke's words. "You are not feeling the fever?" A fever would indicate some kind of infection and would see her carting off Zeke immediately to Alexandria in search of a qualified Althean.

"No fever. No tirednessss. No sssickness." Zeke has been monitoring himself for even the faintest signs of a cold-like feeling that might indicate that he is... dying. That an incurable illness has taken root inside his body and that he is not long for the mortal world, but there has been nothing of the sort. Nothing but the growths. Even the growths themselves are strange. Sensitive to the touch but not painful. Like a freshly healed wound. They are firm and almost hard to the touch without lumps or any sign of egregiously growing nodules. They are perfectly uniform.

"Perhapsss thisss one will ssee a healer today." He doesn't like it, but he hates to make Cuemoni worry more.

"This one will go with you," Cuemoni offers, stepping away from his backside and taking his clawed hand in her own. "But first, there are prayers and offerings to do." Which is important. Even if Cuemoni does not draw power from the Dragonfather as Zeke does, she believes it is important to venerate him as he does. They make the prayers together; they make the offerings together, just as he does when she venerates the spirits.

Indeed, on that thought, she eyes the hearth. There is no shame in trying to enlist all corners of spiritual aid... "This one could ask the hearth-spirits for help in soothing and ensuring all goes well?" she asks.

Zeke allows his tail to wrap around Cuemoni's appreciating her offer to beseech the spirits of the hearth to aid him greatly. "Thisss one will join you." He murmurs. He has grown to add the spirits that she venerates to his own practice. Their house is big enough to house a space for the spirits, and the Dragonfather, who does not seem to mind that Zeke has grown to add a space in his heart for the spirits of Cuemoni's practice.

When these spirits have been addressed Zeke and Cuemoni head to the temple to see if there is an Althean cleric who might see to him. Unfortunately, they learn that there is a festival in Mictlan happening and both the clerics who are of the People requested time off for it. The human cleric who Zeke sees instead has no idea what the growths might be and little knowledge of sith-makar physiology in general.

+++

By the weeks end, when they are due to go to Mictlan, Zeke's growths are nearly too large to fit inside his clerical vestments properly. He still doesn't feel sick or tired, but he feels a sense of resignation about the state of his body. Being born without his left arm or leg, he has always felt a certain way about their being missing, and now... it feels rather like his body is betraying him again, but this time in another way.

Zeke awakens to the day, and for the first time in a long time, he doesn't immediately rise to the call of dawn.

Cuemoni stirs, and when she realizes that Zeke has not beaten her to the punch on rising out of their resting nest, a whimper of concern works through her throat. "Ay, notlazohtlé," she says, using a term she uses sometimes in place of Cihuaa for Zeke, "are you okay? Do you need a moment's more rest?" They sleep with their tails tied together, but she leans in to rub her cheek against his, to scent-mark him with her care and love.

Her golden eyes regard Zeke with such love and worry. "This one will make it better," she says, solidly and firmly, even if she cannot carry out that promise at all. "Or will try to." Sometimes the trying is what matters.

Zeke relaxes into her warm embrace and tilts his face into her scent-marking. His arms hold her gently. One that can feel her, and one that can not, but is never anything but gentle. "Thisss one may be at the end of thisss onesss life Cihuaa." He speaks the concern on his mind because he knows she feels it too, because he is always, always honest with her. "If that isss true, thisss one wissshesss you to know that thisss time with you hasss been the greatesst peassce that thisss one hasss ever known."

She has given him so much. Thanks to her, he has found peace, and the ability to shed tears. She has wed him in spirit and in this life. Given him hope and love in a life where he had been sure, and more sure that it was not possible for him. "Thisss one will love you, for all time Cuemoni." His nose bumps up against hers. Resting there for a time.

Cuemoni's eyes water with tears, but she returns his nose-bump in kind, drawing her body even closer in the very little space that had been between them to begin with. "A'mochipa tlāltikpak, san achika ye nikān," she says, in one of the oldest forms of the language of the makari, before providing a more modern translation. "We are not forever on the land; only briefly here. We are together always, Zeke. Always, Cihuaa. Always, notlazohtlé. If you are dying, it is only in this form, only in this coil. Your spirit and this one's spirit are bound forever; there will be no uncombining."

Her eyes nictate, and the tears run down her scales. "If you pass, this one will take comfort in that you will be there in the air around this one. If you pass, this one will look outside every day for the signs that you are here. This one loves you always and forever, Cihuaa."

Ceremony waits today, and eventually Zeke rises, allowing Cuemoni to use her paste to soothe his sensitive skin (the scales are all but gone from the growths), and they thank the spirits and the Dragonfather for that which they have.

They have a lot to be thankful for.

Eventually Zeke opens a gate to Am'shere and the village that he has become caretaker of. Talkuatika Tepetl is growing quickly and Zeke is pleased to talk to the village elders who treat him with respect. If anyone notices the strange bumps hidden by his clerical vestments no one mentions it.

They spend several hours in the village and then head out into the woods to help with the gathering. Zeke jokes that he is too old for such things, but he enjoys the time in the jungle alone with Cuemoni. He picks a flower for her to wear that is the same color as her eyes. He collects various herbs and good things to eat that will surely show up in their meal tonight and all in all seems to have forgotten the hurt of the morning. It's easy to do when he is spending time with his Cihuaa.

Cuemoni has foraged in the jungle many times, and it is her who spots the wild fruits and peppers, growing here in the jungles of Am'shere where they would long have wilted in Alexandria. She wanders a small distance away from Zeke, having agreed on shouting if she needs something.

She spots a beautiful-looking fruit dangling from a tree, and it's no surprise when she reaches up to catch it. What she does not expect are the two jaguars that come out of hiding in the tree line, tearing through and lunging onto her before she can pull the fruit off the tree. "Cihuaa!" she bellows as she hits the ground, her clawed hands going up to protect her face and neck from the jaguars as they viciously snarl and claw at her.

Zeke turns toward the sound of the call from Cuemoni and launches himself in her direction, not even thinking about the fact that it's two dangerous cats that are hunting his mate. His only thought is that he must *reach* her.

Pain is a distant thing as something rends through his clerical vestments. For a moment the back-blow of weight has him thinking there's another jaguar coming after him, but then the weight cascades away from him; propelling him forward and he feels *light*.

Unbeknownst to Zeke he stands over Cuemoni with wings of crystal and gold shimmering brilliantly around him. They create a halo of light in the sun that filters through the tree boughs, so that for a moment as he snarls and fiercely growls at the jaguars the creatures are blinded and stunned by his wings.

His *wings*.

Cuemoni's golden eyes are wide as she, too, beholds those wings. They look like they are _part_ of him. It's not the same as when he casts magic that lets him fly or gives him the illusion of wings. She realizes in a moment that both of them had assumed the very worst of the possibilities.

"Praise to the Dragonfather!" she cries out, tears spilling down from her eyes that she hadn't realized had been there until the moment that they darted down her scales. "Cihuaa, you are blessed by him!" She draws her scimitar off her belt in the moment that the jaguars are rendered useless by Zeke's beautiful crystalline-and-gold wings.

It's not until Cuemoni speaks that Zeke understands, his own eyes filling with tears of gratitude. It is rare for a sith-makar to grow wings, but not unheard of and he can *feel* these. They are a part of him. His left hand becomes a sword instead of a claw and he growls at the jaguars that threatened Cuemoni. "GO!" He shouts the word to frighten the creatures off, and they bolt.

The sword becomes a claw again, but the wings do not fade from him. They remain, beating behind him like a heart that is as light as a feather. He turns toward Cuemoni, offering her his hand as he has a hundred times before. "Are they..." He doesn't know what to ask. Are they okay? Are they... wrong somehow? Are they pleasing to her?

Cuemoni sheathes the scimitar, and she takes his claw, her golden eyes marveling at Zeke as she's done so many times since they became a couple. He is beautiful to her--always has been--and the wings are even more of him to admire. "They are like the rest of you, Cihuaa," she replies gently, her other claw gently going to rest on his cheek in a loving manner. "Beautiful."

She gives him an affectionate bump of the snout against his. "We assumed the worst... but we were proven wrong, Cihuaa. This is a blessing. Are you in pain? How do you feel?" Even a blessing may have other effects, and the fact that they'd erupted from his back does not go unnoticed by Cuemoni. She must tend to him, even if it means ignoring the claw marks that have been scored into her turquoise scales. She is bleeding a little here and there, but it is far less important than the two new limbs that Zeke has.

Zeke pulls Cuemoni closer. Loving her all the more for her worry. For her loving him through every trial they have faced - together. "Thisss one will heal usss both." He murmurs. Though in truth the wings don't hurt any more. The warmth of the Dragonfather embraces them both and he scent-marks Cuemoni with all the adoration he can muster.

His wings wrap around her as he does so, and he catches a glimpse of them. She's right. They are beautiful. A gift from the god who loves him so much that he will never be able to repay the kindness of that deity.

"Notlazohtlé cihuaa. Mosssst precioussss of giftssss. Thankssss be to the Dragonfather, that he hassss blesssed ussss onsce again. That thisss one issss well, and that thiss one will be with Cuemoni." Zeke hardly realizes that he is speaking, but they are the words in his heart of hearts. His gratitude.

He is so grateful.

-End