Open thread

"Haha! What the fu** dude, you look like a Dokkalfar had you as an appetizer before handing your corpse to the Draugar for dessert. Who did you offend so much, didn't even spare your face?" Ozias said from behind Xaloc.

Xaloc did not feel like responding, even though he did not feel pain in this dream realm. Seeing his injured body and his dangling arms caused a kind of psychological pain to Xaloc that he had never experienced before. 

It made him so angry. 

Every dime. He would pay them back in the exact coin.

Ozias laughed again at the swollen face. "You always looked so high strung. Good to see that you can be injured like the rest of us lower chaff."

"I don't look high strung, besides how did you get here?" Xaloc did not feel at ease with the other seeing him in such low straits.

Ozias lay down at the exact spot at last time. "Let me teach you something. In the immortal realm, if you open a bond, channel, whatever, remember to close it. You left the thread open, it was so easy tracing the divinity back. I have a good nose."

"That is because you are a wolf. Thank you for teaching me this, I owe you."

Ozias laughed rambunctiously and then frowned, " You see what I mean by high strung. Whenever you speak to people, it is said you are looking down on them, it is very annoying." Ozias confessed, staring at those pairs of black eyes. It especially annoyed Ozias who had been looked down on by a lot of people.

It was not just the confident aura by which Xaloc always carried himself like he was in control of every situation.

"I don't think I am to blame if the way I speak triggers someone's low self-esteem."

Ozias laughed again. Low self esteem? "You are being awfully chatty this time around." He rubbed his ears, "You will heal."

Xaloc just looked away. Of course, he was being chatty. He did not want to think about what had happened or to internalize it any further.

Both of them stayed in silence. Even though they had some exciting encounters so far, for their kind of people, it was not emotional enough to completely open up.

"Do you hate them? Do you want to tear them apart?" Ozias suddenly asked in a whisper, it was as if he was not talking to Xaloc but himself.

Xaloc sighed and got up. The silence had helped him clear his mind better and focus on what is next. "I doubt tearing apart is a word I would use. I think that word is more suited to you."

"I take offence with that. Tearing  your enemies apart is only proper." His nose twitched as he sniffed the air, he got up in a hurry and faced the Xaloc who was watching the chained doors.

Ozias's mind subconsciously registered that there was another door when he faced Xaloc. "You are not angry? Why? Your face is bruised, your hands are broken and your ribs suffered a lot of damage as well. Why are you not angry?" He had tried to sniff the air earlier but he could not perceive the emotion of anger anymore.

Xaloc smiled at the other…was it too soon to call it worry for him? He could not bring himself to say 'I was beaten black and blue for a woman by her suitor'.

The thought of that almost made him laugh. It was crazy, wasn't it?

"It is called making peace with something." That was not the full truth. It is called compartmentalizing, locking something up so that it does not affect you anymore so that you can survive.

Ozias gave him a strange look. "You are leaving, you are about to wake up?" 

He asked in a much lower voice as he gazed away from Xaloc. "Are you closing the thread?"

Xaloc shook his head. He could not help but notice that Ozias cursed less frequently today. "I am not closing it but I would if you misuse it."

Leaving the thread open was a liability but still, Xaloc did so.

He laughed at himself.

With that, he reappeared in the starry expanse with lots of threads. He lay on the floor, closed his eyes and slept.

__

Xaloc woke up and stretched lazily on the bed. He glanced at the clock, it was five p.m. He sighed, he had missed both breakfast and lunch again.

Ever since he was beaten by Chad and his friends last week. The time he woke up got later and later. Well, it was his theory that it was due to his body healing itself and needing to recharge itself.

Well, it was the theory that he hoped was correct. He would rather it than his too much sleep being a side effect of using the Sleep divinity a lot nowadays. Too much use and he just sleeps and does not wake up one day.

Xaloc shook his head. He would not let assumed matters be the reason for his hesitation. His fighting abilities and the physical strength that he had been so confident on earth were of no use here where people could turn their bodies to iron, shoot fire from their hands and all sorts of things.

He needed a weapon that was tailored to himself. That was Xaloc's decision. He needed to adapt himself to his divinity and fast too.

He eased himself out of the bed and he stretched himself to feel the state of his bones and muscles. There was almost no pain. If he was in the mortal realm, perhaps he would need more than a month to recover but in Atlantis, it took just over a week.

The ice-cold floor chilled his bare feet. He pulled out the sneakers by the side of the bed and wore them. As for what happened to his bag of clothes and socks, sometime last week while he was out, someone ravaged his room and burnt his belongings.

Luckily, he had his money and the book on him at all times but the family photo that he had dropped in his bag, for reasons unknown to him, was destroyed in the flames. He blinked his black eyes. Maybe it was for the best as well.

His throat felt dry and he walked to the bathroom. Bending to the sink, he let the water drip almost silently into his palm and then his mouth. After drinking, he gathered again to splash his face.

Suddenly, there was a knock on his door. It was slow, almost teasing. Xaloc frowned, that was neither Chad nor Selene. Who knew him?