Chapter Text
Dawn spilled pale gold over the coastal brush as Thorns led Elysium along a narrow, overgrown path, dew crackling beneath their boots. The Liberi’s tail feathers kept snagging on thistles, and he grumbled with every step, though he let Thorns tug him forward by the sleeve all the same.
“Remind me why I’m up at this hour and not sleeping in?” Elysium asked, tugging his sleeve free from Thorns’ grip with a mock pout. “You know, I’m not on call for fieldwork until—what was it—never?”
Thorns didn’t bother glancing back, already crouched in the short grass, rucksack open, pulling vials and glass tubes free with the practiced ease of a man who had long since made peace with chaos. “Weedy’s busy. You looked like you had nothing useful to do.”
Elysium huffed, unable to argue. “So you’re saying this is a favor? Because it feels a lot like conscription.”
“It’s urgent,” Thorns said, tone flat, but something in his eyes flickered—amusement, maybe, or just the way sunlight hit the gold in his gaze. “Hold this.” He shoved a glass stirring rod into Elysium’s hand.
Elysium watched as Thorns began to work, pulling out two flasks and pouring powder from a wax-sealed pouch into the first, followed by a trickle of clear liquid. The resulting swirl of color was, for lack of a better word, violently neon—sickly green, swirling like something radioactive. Elysium blinked. “You know, I always assumed you made this stuff ahead of time. Isn’t that what ‘preparation’ means for a scientist?”
Thorns’ hands never faltered, the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth in concentration. “Not when the compounds are this volatile. If they react in transit, we both end up paralyzed in the dirt, and I have to let you explain it to the Medics.”
“Oh, perfect. I always wanted to know what it’s like to be a cautionary tale in the lab safety lecture,” Elysium muttered, but there was an edge of awe in his voice. He watched Thorns mix another vial, careful, almost reverent.
“So… what’s the madness this time? Going to see if you can make the grass grow faster? Turn mud into gold? Or is it just more ways to turn my feathers green for a week?”
Thorns shot him a sidelong look, lips twitching with a rare, fleeting smile. “I need you for the final trial run.”
Elysium’s fingers tightened around the stirring rod.
“Wait. Trial run—on me?”
“Yes," Thorns deadpanned, "I need to observe the toxin’s effects on a live Liberi. Try not to resist too much; it’ll skew the results. This could take a while.”
“You’re—hold on, you’re joking, right?”
A pause. Thorns’ face didn’t so much as twitch, “Of course. I would never waste a sample on you.”
Elysium stared for a moment, then let out a nervous laugh, brushing stray feathers from his ear. “Right. Ha. Very funny. You know, one of these days you’re going to kill me. For real.”
Thorns hummed in response, eyes sharp as he examined the bubbling solution, neon green shifting to gold at the edges. He set the vial aside and pulled a pair of rubberized gloves from his pack, handing a set to Elysium.
“Help me with the test dummies. The mixture’s intended for nonlethal suppression—targeted neuroinhibition, not damage. I’m searching for a reliable means of subduing a hostile crowd without leaving permanent effects.”
Elysium eyed the dummies—a line of burlap targets propped in the field, their interiors stuffed with some mesh of wires and odd, blinking contraptions.
"And those simulate… what, exactly? A nervous system?”
“Close enough. If the dummy twitches, the formula’s effective. If it smokes, I need to recalculate. If it explodes, run.”
The Liberi’s grin turned lopsided, “Always inspiring confidence, aren’t you?”
Thorns just dipped the tip of his blade into the neon substance and approached the first dummy.
“Stand back.”
Thorns had just flicked a measured bead of the neon concoction onto the edge of his blade when he noticed it—an odd fizz at the contact point, a faint shimmer where green bled into a muddied yellow. He pulled back instantly, eyes narrowing, and muttered to himself, “ Maldita sea … Should’ve sterilized the blade again. Idiot.”
Elysium, watching with casual disinterest that barely masked his curiosity, tilted his head, feathers catching the sun.
“What’s the worst that could happen? You already dragged me out here—might as well give it a whirl, yeah?”
Thorns eyed the blade, mentally cycling through worst-case scenarios, “The mixture was stable in isolation. But if traces of the last reagent are still present, there’s no predicting if it will catalyze into something dangerous, inert, or simply humiliating. Not to mention—”
Elysium waved a hand, grinning.
“So let’s see! Science is all about unexpected results, right? You keep going on about discovery.”
Thorns’ brow furrowed further, an argument brewing behind his eyes, but Elysium didn’t give him the chance to spiral. Instead, the Liberi grabbed his wrist, guiding his hand forward in one fluid, impatient motion.
"C’mon, Professor. Just hit the target already!”
The mixture flicked from the sword’s tip, catching the dummy squarely. For a breathless second, nothing happened—then, with a faint sizzle, the dummy’s limbs gave a convulsive shudder, wires twitching in a wild, drunken fashion. The burlap form seemed to stagger, then collapsed with an exaggerated flop, twitching sporadically before finally falling still. A minute later, the dummy’s head jerked upright and the limbs reanimated, stumbling upright with a lurch.
Thorns’ eyes glittered, all traces of his usual dourness fading as he dropped to one knee, notebook open, scribbling notes in a frenzy. “Incredible. Latency between exposure and suppression, eight seconds… duration of effects, approximately two and a half minutes… recovery—fascinating motor incoherence, possible application for riot suppression, maybe—” His observations were a rapid-fire litany, every movement of the dummy hungrily catalogued.
He turned, ready to thank Elysium for his assistance, only to pause. The Liberi was sprawled in the grass, giggling helplessly, rolling side to side, feathers dusted with dirt and twigs.
“Thorns, d’you ever think about… how stupidly pretty the sky is? You’re, like, my favorite lab partner—d’you know that?” His words slurred, a dreamy grin on his lips as he made a valiant attempt to reach for Thorns’ boot and missed entirely.
Thorns just stared, then pressed two fingers to his brow.
“I’ve created a damn laughing gas. Wonderful.”
He scratched his head, bemused as Elysium rambled about how sword oil would make a great hair conditioner and how Thorns’ eyes looked “like expensive honey.” The Liberi was a mess, limbs noodly and coordination shot, but clearly in no distress—just drunkenly, profoundly happy.
Well. That was worth noting.
With a resigned sigh, Thorns made a few careful measurements, jotting down Elysium’s vital signs and timing the duration of his euphoria. Eventually, Elysium’s giggles dwindled to soft mumbles and then to nothing as he fell asleep, curled up in the tall grass like a child. Thorns crouched beside him, checked his pulse, and found it steady as ever. He let the moment linger—a brief peace in the chaos of invention—then, with practiced efficiency, packed up his kit and slung Elysium into the back of the truck.
It was well past noon when Elysium stirred, blinking at the metal ceiling, the world swimming. His head pounded, mouth dry as old sand, and every muscle felt like it had danced with a storm. Thorns’ face hovered into view, upside-down and frowning with clinical focus, a penlight flickering in his hand.
“You’re awake,” Thorns noted, already running checks over Elysium’s temples, his pupils, his pulse. “How’s your head?”
Elysium winced. “Like I drank a barrel of Siesta rotgut and then let Ifrit throw me off a cliff.” He squinted up at Thorns, then managed a crooked grin. “So… did I help?”
Thorns made a noncommittal noise, snapping his notebook shut. “You were, in your own way, invaluable. I’ll need to run more trials. Preferably on something less fragile.”
Elysium chuckled, voice still rough. “You just say that because you can’t admit you missed my company.”
Thorns quirked a brow, the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Get some water. And next time, remind me to double-check the blade.”
He started making notes again, but for a long moment, he simply stood there, watching Elysium recover—silent, but a little lighter, knowing that today’s discovery, at least, was more amusing than catastrophic.