Chapter Eight
Euclid's home was a wonder. A beautiful, enthralling wonder.
Just past the storeroom, through a short, narrow passage, was a massive hot spring. Shelves had been built to hold various bathing items, and there was a bucket and basin in one corner where Euclid washed himself before settling into the hot water to soak.
A hot soak sounded like the best idea ever, but Dipak would never be so rude. Well, he would and had been, but he was trying.
From that 'hallway,' the caverns opened up again into a series of interconnected caves that gave the impression of a home, the type of manor home that did not have hallways, simply went room to room.
The first one, just off the hall to the storeroom and hot spring, was filled with racks upon racks of clothes.
So many clothes. Enough to fill every secondhand clothing shop in the city at least once. "Where did you get all this?"
"They're pretty, aren't they?" Euclid said with a happy sigh, reaching out to stroke the lace of a gown that a queen would cheerfully kill to possess.
"I find them, trade for them, buy them… Sadly, I do not get much opportunity to wear many of them, especially the pretty gowns. Not practical for the forest."
Dipak's mouth went dry at the thought of Euclid in a lace gown and nothing else, the skirt hiked up as Dipak knelt to put his mouth—
He cut the train of thought off before he did something embarrassing. He wasn't twenty anymore, he could act like it. Where had that thought even come from? That wasn't their relationship, and he had no business even thinking about such a drastic change. He wasn't going to be another Pitambar.
Past the world's most impressive closet was a smaller cave that had been turned into a dressing chamber, complete with not one but several mirrors, a vanity, a large chest holding all manner of bottles and jars and boxes, and a large settee over which many articles of clothing had been thrown, as if considered and discarded.
He hadn't realized Euclid put so much effort into his strange, mismatched attire. Not ignorance of which clothes went together, simply strange preference. Proving yet again he still had so much about Euclid to learn.
Through a different passage off the dressing room was a room filled with jewelry of all shapes and styles, from simple rope and hand carved wood, all the way up to precious jewels he'd never seen outside of a book. "You have more wealth than kings."
"Yes, well, I've had a long time to acquire it," Euclid said quietly. "Anyway, I trade it as often as I keep it. You'd be surprised how often a piece I trade away eventually finds its way back to me."
Through a larger passage out of the dressing room they finally came to actual living quarters.
It was, as everything had been so far, another beautiful space.
There were sofas, settees, piles of pillows, tapestries, rugs, blankets, and so much more.
Heavy curtains were hung on the walls to help with the perpetual chill and add color.
A large stove was in the middle of the room, funneling away smoke via a pipe, keeping the room toasty from the center out.
There was a table and chairs to one side, currently scattered with books, papers, drawing implements, and other miscellany, a workstation that was probably rarely clean but organized in a way only Euclid understood.
In pride of place of the entire room was a large tapestry that displayed a man on a throne with a large, gold dragon wrapped around him, head resting on the man's lap.
The man smiled softly, fondly, as if the dragon was the most important person in the world to him.
There were words stitched along the top, but not in a language he knew.
"What does it say there, along the top?"
"King Bran and Topaz," Euclid replied, eyes on the tapestry.
"It is one of the oldest and most beloved legends of my kin, of a man who wanted to die but was saved by a dragon and eventually became king of a lost and forgotten land.
Sometimes people hate dragons and only want to kill us.
Sometimes, perhaps most often, we are a delightful hunting challenge and a lot of useful parts they can't wait to use up.
Sometimes we are treated more like gods and blamed for things we have no control over.
"Sometimes, though…sometimes we are seen, and that is more precious than any treasure.
" He sighed softly, then turned away and went to fuss at a different table, where food and wine were spread out, fruits and cheese and cured meats, pitchers that must have been filled from the barrels in the storeroom.
"How long have you been here in this forest?"
"A few hundred years now. Before that I traveled, and before that I lived with various family in a place very far from here that I could not reach again easily, not even with magic and paths unseen."
Dipak smiled wryly, glancing back at the tapestry briefly before looking around the rest of the room again, taking in the little details this time, like the many, many pillows, each more colorful and ornate than the last. The piles of books everywhere, the twenty or so shelves against one wall not enough to contain them, another area had various chests of all shapes and sizes stacked haphazardly.
It was the room of an active, industrious mind, of a person who seldom held still in body or mind, probably not even in sleep, until he was too exhausted even to dream. Dipak was not surprised at all, though he ached to help Euclid get some real rest.
Returning to his side, Euclid offered a steaming cup. "Tea, unless you'd like wine or something else."
"Tea is fine. I've had enough wine to last me the rest of the year. Thank you. It smells nice."
Euclid preened slightly. "Spiced tea, my own blend." He swept an arm to a sofa that was set close to the stove, where Dipak hadn't even noticed he'd boiled water for the tea. "Sit, please."
He hadn't seen Euclid's bedroom, but Dipak would have been astonished if he had.
This was probably already far more than he ever showed people.
Euclid spent countless hours serving the people of the forest and had created at least one beautiful gathering point for them—a place safe enough for people to sleep in the open overnight.
He probably valued his private time and personal space even beyond what people did already.
The sofa was plush, soft, finer than the costly furniture he'd commissioned from the finest maker in the city. Euclid gave him one of the many blankets lying about, a crochet piece in a diamond-like pattern made from five different colors.
He sipped the tea, draped the blanket across his lap, and enjoyed the simple, eternal comfort of good company in front of a warm fire. City life rarely left room for such things, and he had always missed it, though there'd been other things to enjoy. "Thank you for showing me your home."
"You haven't seen all of it, but I'm glad you like it so far. This is the heart of it, though, the room that means the most to me."
"It's lovely. I can tell you've spent a great deal of time gathering all your possessions. Especially all those books. I'd wager some of them aren't even in print anymore and haven't been for a long time. Libraries across the world would weep."
Euclid laughed. "Perhaps, but if they want them, they will have to trade."
Dipak smirked and drank his tea, which tasted even better than it smelled, redolent with cinnamon, clove, anise, and lemon, with a hint of honey to round it out. He liked his with cream when he could get it, but this was how they'd drunk it growing up.
"So tell me more of how you walk paths no one can see," he said into the silence.
"Every up has a down, every forward has a backward, west has an east, light has a dark.
Likewise, what is visible has an invisible.
Every road has a shortcut. If you know where to look, you can take the shortcuts that are in the invisible, the paths that exist in the dark that is opposite the light.
It cannot be done without a cost, but when you are ageless, like dragons and fae and other immortal races, the cost is nothing. "
"So the cost is…time."
"Essentially."
"So I can't do it."
Euclid gave him that look of knowing and mischief that Dipak liked far, far too much. "I would not offer to teach you something you cannot do."
"There is nothing at all I could trade to equal such a skill."
Euclid leaned forward to set his empty cup on a small table, then sat back and took a deep breath.
"Trade is everything to dragons. It is our way.
People have accused us of being greedy, selfish, conniving, and worse for always insisting on trade, but it is simply our way of doing things.
It is how nature is. Predators get their fill of prey, but that means sometimes they go hungry and other times that prey gets the best of them.
Flowers of incredible beauty are poisonous to the touch.
Earth, water, wind, fire exist together in a delicate balance of give and take.
Trade. But… but there is sacredness in simply giving and expecting nothing in return.
We do it for family, for our dearest friends, and for lovers.
True lovers, not the fleeting ones who last hours or days or months at most."
For a second, it felt like Dipak's heart truly came to a stop in his chest before it remembered how to beat. He nearly dropped his cup in his haste to discard it. "Euclid…"
"Come, I'll show you the rest of my home," Euclid said, and rose.
Dipak hastened after him, keeping the soft blanket wrapped around him because he was oddly reluctant to let it go. Anyway, who knew how cold some of these caverns could get, though it seemed like between the stove and the hot springs, everything stayed relatively warm where it mattered.