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The waves pulled her under and filled her nose and mouth with an alarming rapidity. She flailed against them but the weight of water fought against every jerk of her body. She screamed and bubbles escaped from her mouth, rising above her head and bursting before she could follow them to the surface. The water was a void around her. She would drown alone.
She woke from the dream with a start, but had already forgotten why it caused her heart to pound against her ribs. She whimpered, her hand reaching for him. Her fingers met only the air. She sensed Cicero's absence before she opened her eyes and saw that the other side of the bed was empty and cold. The blankets had been pushed aside carelessly when he rose, and she wondered how careful he had been not to wake her. His efforts had proven useless in the end.
Reyye sat up and rubbed the tiredness out of her eyes. The taste of salt and brine sat in the back of her throat and she coughed. Her room was dark and cold. No sounds or bits of conversations drifted down to her through the hallway outside her room, and the silence left her stranded in the darkness. Cicero was not there to share it with her, and it was the loneliness that pulled her to her feet and drove her to dress. Where had he gone to so late?
Pulling a blanket around her for warmth, she made her way through the darkness and to the door. The dim light from the sconces in the hallway made her blink, but her eyes adjusted soon enough as she padded quietly down the hall, her bare feet making little noise against the cobblestone floor. She encountered no one as she passed through the hall, not even a sleepless initiate making their way back from the common room for a late night snack. Even the light from beneath Babette's door was dark, though she doubted the child vampire were asleep.
The common room was abandoned. The fire in their small makeshift hearth was dead, and every chair at the dining table was pushed in neatly. She gazed around the room, her stomach uneasy from nervousness.
Something stirred in the entryway near the Black Door, and in the silence his voice drifted down to her easily.
"Sweet, sweet, Mother..."
Cicero. She let out a sigh of relief and walked quickly towards the sound of his voice. She paused in the archway at the sight of the Night Mother's open coffin and saw that it was empty. Of course he would be tending to Mother. Why did she worry herself over nothing?
She passed through the archway then and peered down the hallway. The light of a lantern flickered off to her right around the corner and she took a few steps closer.
"Cicero?"
She rounded the corner and smiled to herself when she saw him there, barefooted and wearing only a pair of long breeches, bent over the Night Mother's body. Embalming tools and various alchemical ingredients and fluids were laid out on the table neatly around them. He spoke softly to the Night Mother as he smoothed back the corpse's hair in a loving gesture, oblivious to Reyye's presence.
"Cicero's head was only playing tricks… a mean, mean, trick… a trick! Mean, mean, mean." He took a shuddering breath, and the light cast from the lanterns reflected off of the tears that fell down his cheeks. "Cicero loves Mother. Cicero wishes that she would speak loud enough for him to hear..."
She could not bare to watch him weep alone. Before she had thought it through, she took a step toward him and laid a hand lightly on his shoulder. The Jester spun around with a growl, the sharp end of an embalming tool clutched in his hand and ready to strike. His eyes and nose were red, and he glared at Reyye as if he did not know her. The rage in his expression caught her off guard and she stumbled backwards, tripping over her own heels. She landed hard on her backside and looked up at him tearfully. They stared at each other in still silence, and she watched as a notion of clarity began to return to his eyes.
"C-Cicero… it's me. It's Reyye…" her lower lip trembled.
The knife fell from his hand and clattered to the floor, its echo deafening in the silence. He fell to his knees and took her hands in his as he kissed her palms, his head bowed toward her reverently.
"Listener… my Listener…"
She crawled towards him and curled up in his lap, weeping silently into his shoulder. The grip he used to hold her was strong and suffocating, as if he feared that she would turn to dust in his hands.
"Cicero is sorry. So sorry, sorry, so, so sorry…" he began to rock back and forth as he held her tightly to him, murmuring apologies into her hair. She squeezed his arm like a vice as she sniffled, yearning to feel the warmth of his skin instead of the cold.
The reality of the madness that consumed him gnawed away at her. He could never fully belong to her if his mind was half here, and half… wherever else it went to. It was as if he had one foot on the shore, and the other in the sea.
He knelt on the floor with her for what felt like hours, cradling her against him as she pressed her face into the warm, bare skin of his chest. She pressed her ear against his chest as he hummed, his cheek resting against the top of her head. Eventually she was calm enough again to disentangle herself from Cicero and stand. The Jester gazed up at her, his brown eyes wide and surprisingly clear. She offered him her hand and pulled him to his feet. He continued to look into her eyes, her hand still in his. She squeezed it and gave him a weak and tired smile.
"Please come back to bed when you're done."
Cicero nodded and bowed his head. "Yes, Listener."
She squeezed his hand again before releasing it and turning on her heel towards the common room. The sanctuary was still just as silent and dark, and the common room just as abandoned as she passed through it on the way back to her room. Soon she was back in her bed again and buried under a pile of blankets of furs to keep out the cold until Cicero returned. She had left her door cracked for him, and the silver of light that fell into her room illuminated the way to her bed. She drifted in and out of sleep as she lay waiting for him, sometimes dreaming of water and darkness, and other times of faces belonging to people she no longer knew or remembered. After the last face faded, she was asleep.
He woke her when he returned. The light from the hallway had disappeared as he closed the door behind him. Cold air kissed her skin as he pushed the blankets back and climbed in beside her. She rolled over onto her side and pressed against him, nuzzling her face into his chest. Cicero pulled her closer to him and whispered soothingly into her hair, rambling to her softly about flowers, and Mother, and his own love for their Matron and for her. And then she was asleep again.
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She dreamt of darkness, and of a secret place hidden somewhere deep. There was no sky, only the glow of mysterious plants and the sound of mighty waterfalls. She walked alone along a paved cobblestone road, the plants around her emanating light and color, and a low hum that made the hairs on her arms stand on end. Even as she walked miles and miles down the road, her surroundings changed very little and she came to realize that the road she wandered had no end.
The road and the scene around her shimmered and changed, and then she stood on the ashen shores of a black ocean. Miles out at sea a volcano sat on the water spitting black smoke that turned the air around it into grey. The sound of waves crashing on the shore overwhelmed her. She stared blankly out at the water and did not notice the waves coming closer until they were lapping at her calves. Panic consumed her. She struggled to move her feet but found that they had sunk into the ash and sand, and that the ash had claimed her as its own. She cried out, digging furiously through the sand to free herself.
Her tears fell and were swallowed by the ocean as it climbed higher and higher up her legs. She called out for help. Her voice was swallowed by the waves that were up to her chest, and then to her neck. And then the ocean swallowed her whole.
She cried out for him, and then remembered that he could not be reached. She would drown alone.
The ocean around her changed, and she felt as if it had spat her out. She lay on the ground with her eyes closed, water dripping from her soaked clothing onto the floor beneath her and pooling where she lay. It was cold, and she longed for warmth.
She felt something warm brush against her face and flinched away from it, startled. She squeezed her eyes shut stubbornly, afraid of what she would see if she opened them. The warmth returned to her face and she felt that it was a hand. Then there were two hands pulling her up, and arms that held her. She opened her eyes then and looked up into familiar brown eyes. Cicero smiled at her.
"Reyye."
It was the only time he had ever called her by her name, and she smiled. Displaced Cicero smiled back at her and brushed a wet strand of hair out of her face.
He leaned in and kissed her hard then, his hands cupping her face as his lips worked against hers. She returned his kiss enthusiastically and melted into him, grateful for the warmth he offered. He kissed her once more and pulled away, his thumb caressing her cheekbone.
"I'm not unreachable. Now wake up."