Chapter Text
When you found him, or rather, when he found you, he was hardly anything but scarred skin and small bird-like bones and those big, intelligent eyes.
You found him by accident, but he was the one looking for you.
When you learned of his life before he escaped his bonds, not only from his speech but by seeing the marks and the brands on his back, it did nothing but strengthen your devotion to freeing the ones like him, those who could not free themselves.
He's not much better now, but he's better, and it warms the deepest cavities in your chest to think that you helped him bloom into something closer to what he deserved.
But darkness tends to linger in corners and cracks even when you light a candle, and you couldn't hope to extinguish all his woes and the horrors he'd had to endure, not when the darkness was so, so thick and you were merely one flame.
It happens one night when Porrim ushers you to start packing what little you have so that you can keep moving along.
You're bleary-eyed and groggy, and feel that you have not slept nearly as much as any troll should be allowed to, and the sudden rush prods at your nerves.
You see Meulin standing a little ways away, sniffing the air and looking towards the edges of the woods.
Porrim hisses something and you get up, stumbling, and look at the figure sleeping next to you, as close against you as possible.
It's odd when he sleeps, because he does it so seldom, and to see his eyes dim and covered and not glowing, knowing, is almost surreal.
On the nights when you, him and Meulin are huddled together, for one reason or another, you often drift off to the soft light of his eyes shining into the night, and wake up to them gone somewhere.
Sometimes he will not even indulge you and your feline bedmate, but sits for hours and hours close to wherever it is you're sleeping, watching the darkness and challenging it to attack.
You're grateful for his loyalty and dedication to your welfare, but he often ignores his own, however much the rest of you try to care for him. You worry to the point where him sleeping like this brings relief.
He must have been terribly tired, light sleeper that he is, if he wasn't roused by Porrim scurrying around.
You can't blame him, it has been a rough few nights, and according to the haste with which the girls gather their belongings it is going to be a few more rough ones.
You toe him in the shoulder while dusting off your cloak, but he does not stir, merely curls in tighter.
You nudge him again, a little harder, and in hindsight perhaps too hard, and when he opens his eyes your voice is perhaps a bit too rough when you say "Get up, Psiioniic."
And he responds "yes, master."
You don't realize what it is that made your stomach churn before you realize the word used, and you look at him in shock while he mindlessly helps pick things up and tie them together so that they can be carried.
He keeps his head down and his shoulders hunched, and he does not speak, like before he realized his right to freedom, like so many others you have seen weighed down by the chains of a highblood.
"Mituna," you utter after a bit, and he flinches before turning to you, blinking and rubbing his eyes.
"Kankri? …Uh, sorry, I was half asleep, were you saying something?"
You merely continue staring, with a stone instead of your bloodpusher, and when he realizes what he'd said he gets a look on his face that you imagine mirrors your own.
"No, I didn't mean-"
But Porrim calls to you, Meulin is crouched as if she senses danger, which she most likely does.
So he casts an apologetic glance at you while you both hurry to catch up.
But even as you walk quickly through the underground with Mituna's flashing light around you, your Disciple and your cherished guardian by your side, you can not shake the sickening film that has clung to you as soon as he called you that title.
Mituna told you you'd freed him, but if that means he was merely imprinted onto you like a slave to a new master, it defies everything you've tried to teach and everything you believe in, and it is the last thing you want your most treasured friendship to be.
But Meulin is wary and the night won't last long, so you keep walking ahead with the night soaking into your sandals, but with the feeling that you've somehow betrayed the brilliant light walking in front of you.