A newly exiled Samaren struggles with soul-hunger (post-revolution)

[guardiansverse]

"Done it again, Saul?"

It wasn't the unpleasantness of the matter itself that bothered Festus, nor the waste of food, even if that food had almost certainly been stolen from the larder. He'd expected it all when he had taken the young exile into his own home. But he'd also expected to be able to at least take away the habitual bucket next to the bed by this point. It had been weeks. He'd thought the boy stronger than that.

He came in, nudged the bucket away with his foot with a look of open distaste before leaning on the wall next to the bed to look down at the boy. Saul had his face in his hands, still breathing shakily with lingering nausea. He'd never catch up on his growth like this, Festus thought with annoyance, never mind build the strength he wanted in a Guardian. Sixteen years old, and he wouldn't peg him for fourteen, especially when hunched over like that.

He decided against sounding sympathetic. "You could eat until you choked and died. It wouldn't help."

"I know," Saul rasped between his fingers. He was on the verge of tears, and furious. "I don't mean to do it. I forget."

"Surely you never forget that you're in exile."

The boy sprang from the bed and threw himself at Festus, thin arm going under his chin, shoving at his throat. Once he grew into himself - if he ever did - Festus thought that viper-quick, perfectly formed attack could break men's windpipes, just like so. For now he let Saul back him into the wall, just to give the boy a taste of the possibility, then kicked his unsteady feet out from under him.

"You have to learn," he said to the crumpled form. "The emptiness is in your bones, not your stomach. The hunger is not your body, it is your soul aching for its homeland. Overeating won't fill it."

Saul made a choked sound, then drew himself back up, wavered to his knees. His fists and lips were bloodless. Festus dropped to a crouch besides him, put a hand on his back.

"Damn you, old man," the boy muttered, without shrugging off the touch. "You don't know. You're Land's Own Guardian. It's tearing my insides to pieces. I want - I miss - I - " he slipped into his mother tongue, echoed those words again like a broken litany.

"You know what you want," Festus said softly. "So next time you're driven to stuff yourself sick, you will focus on that. You'll learn to tell the hungers apart. You have to learn, or you will die."

The too-thin body stiffened under his hand. Saul raised his eyes to him. The eyes that had drawn Festus to the exile boy on the filthiest street in the backwater border town. Steel smelted in dearth, poured in violence, forged in war.

"I won't die," Saul said, in the cold voice of a grown man.

Oh no, my boy, my Guardian. You will live gloriously. Festus clasped his shoulder, took his arm to help him to his feet. "Come along. I'll watch you eat properly. I'll make you strong again in time."