Page 35 of Keeper of All

After lunch on the fourth day, as Ekon seemed prepared to have another nap, Mao said, “Are you happy here?”

The surprise on Ekon's face almost made him wish he'd kept his mouth shut. Ekon replied, “Yes,” very quickly.

He had been lying flat on his belly on the bed, dressed just in jean cut-offs, staring out the window. At Mao's question, he pushed himself up and twirled himself around, so he was sitting cross-legged on the bed, much like Mao was.

“I can sense that you feel there's something wrong with me,” Ekon continued. “While it means a lot to feel your concern, it’s not needed. Truthfully, I’m just not used to having so much free time.”

Ekon ducked his head and peered at Mao from under his eyelashes and bangs. “I’m taking this time to test out my different animals,” he admitted shyly. “Some of my animals are best at fighting, others are better at tracking, finding people, and assessing threats.” He raised his hands, palms up. “It’s not like I was trained to relax, or to have days where there was absolutely nothing to do, and I’m trying to work out which animal side handles relaxation the easiest. That probably sounds weird—”

“No, it’s not weird at all.” Mao chuckled. “That would explain why your cat's been coming through so often. My cat is much the same, and if he had to choose between hunting down some quarry or traipsing over mountains, he would far rather just curl up in a nice ray of sunshine somewhere, having a nap. Cats of all sizes are good at napping, it seems.”

“That’s the conclusion I’ve come to as well,” Ekon chuckled lazily, leaning his elbows on his knees. “There hasn’t been a time in my life when I haven’t had anything to do, and it just takes some getting used to.”

“But didn't you give up working when that whole council thing went down?” Mao was curious. He knew Conrad had given up his work when he met Kylo, and he knew that Nico and Teilo hadn’t been working even before they were abandoned. Was Ekon still on some roster somewhere, expecting to go to work at a moment’s notice?

That curiosity increased when Ekon shook his head. “I did continue working originally. Marvin said that some of the council members still had jobs for us. But then, when Ajani met and mated Marvin, and Conrad met Kylo…” He looked down, and Mao was hit with a wave of sadness that wasn’t his. “I hadn’t found my person when the others did, and I traveled some. Keeping busy, then six months ago the dreams started and I got to thinking about where I came from and who I am and…”

“That’s when you decided to try to find your file.” Mao glanced over at the journals, and then looked back at Ekon. “Instead, you found your mate. You still don’t know if you’re mentioned in the journals we saved.”

“I know.” Ekon shrugged. “I’ve been putting it off, and that probably sounds completely silly, but… but…”

He looked frustrated before adding when Mao opened his mouth. “If I open those journals, and if I’m not mentioned in there, then that’s it. There are no more records to be found. I’ll never know who I am or where I came from,” he finished, sadness seeping through the words.

“I understand that,” Mao countered, “if you do open them, and there is something, then you’ll find what you’ve been searching for.” Now they were talking about the journals, his fingers were twitching to open them.

“I was putting off bad news. I suppose, putting it off doesn’t make the outcome any easier to handle, does it?” Leaning over, Ekon stretched, reaching for the top book. It was the first book given to him specifically when they were at the bunker.

Ekon winced, hurriedly sitting back in position and setting the journal down on the bed between them.

For a long moment, both of them just looked at it. Mao wanted to grab it, open it, and then shake out the pages to see if anything fell out. Ekon… hmm. Mao was struggling to sense how Ekon was feeling, but he was definitely hesitant.

“I think I did this wrong.” Ekon ran his hand through his messy hair, and then scratched the back of his head. “We want to learn about my magic, and this book should be able to tell me about it if I ask.”

O-kay. Mao wasn’t so sure about that. “How about you just open it up first, so we can see what’s on the pages?” They could be full of mad utterances for all we know.

Ekon opened the journal. At first glance there was a lot of writing. Mao wasn't the world's best at reading upside down, but he could see tight, small handwriting in the same language, and a few drawings that looked like sketches and diagrams. As if the eternal fae dabbled as an inventor in his spare time.

Flicking through a couple of pages, Ekon seemed to be impatient with it, and he picked the journal back up again. Holding it in both hands, he closed his eyes—You’re not going to see anything like that—Mao thought until he caught the faintest whisper.

“Show me.”

Mao grinned. Now the behavior made sense, and he liked that Ekon was becoming more comfortable having magic, even if they didn't know what it was intended for.

Putting the book back down, the pages fell open, and there in the middle was a familiar looking file folded in half, wedged in the spine. The file had a number on it, just like the others, but someone had written next to it a single name… Ekon.

Ekon reached for it, but just as his fingers went to touch the paper, he quickly put his hands behind his back. “I don't know that I can touch it. The journal itself was bad enough. I… I would bear any pain to find out what’s in that file, pain is something I’m well-used to. But…” Mao realized Ekon was looking at him. “I don’t want you to feel it as well. Can you… can you hold up the pages for me so I can read them?”

Mao reached over and plucked what looked like two sheets of paper from the middle of the file. For a living subject, they didn’t record a lot of details, he thought, suddenly bitter and angry in a way that he hadn’t felt when he and Ekon had been scanning the other records.

The other records were heartbreaking in that most of them recorded failed experiments, and Mao was insulted on his mate’s behalf that the hell in his life was reduced to two flimsy sheets of paper.

Two pages is better than nothing at all. Ekon’s voice in his mind reminded Mao of what was important, and while he desperately wanted to read the page’s contents, he held up the first page. They represented Ekon’s life, not his.

There was silence for a moment, and Mao felt as if there was a sudden door shutting on where their mating bond lived, but he didn’t get upset thinking Ekon was protecting himself. Whatever, wherever Ekon came from, reading his own file was going to be hard.

After a few minutes, Ekon said quietly, “Can I see the other page?”

Mao swapped out the first page for the second, holding it in the same way. He could tell by the way the light shone through the paper that there were barely a few lines of text on the second page, so it didn't take long to read.