God of Discovery [high fantasy, slow build, mlm]

Past mistakes, part 1

Content warning: this chapter contains mentions of a suicide attempt and non-con restraint. Please do not read if this is triggering for you. A short summary will be provided at the bottom of the chapter.

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D'Argen was walking down one of the hallways that led to his rooms in the castle. It was a nicer one, where one side was covered in the white marble that was a signature of the castle, while the other side was completely covered in glass. The windows were huge, the stone pillars between them thin, and D'Argen was always in awe at the large sheets of glass, something extremely hard to come by.

Past them, he saw the trees swaying with a strong wind. It was too early for a spring storm. When the faint scent of dew wafted over him, he thought of Lilian but then immediately got distracted when he saw two mortal staff members ahead of him. They had one of the giant glass panels swung inward, cleaning it, and leaving the hallway open to the cool breeze outside.

He passed them with a smile and as soon as he was gone he felt a new scent waft over him. He knew that one. It was his own sweat. Since returning to the castle, he had just gone from one meeting to another and had yet to return to his own rooms and change robes, let alone take a bath.

He rubbed at that sore spot under his ribs as he considered whether he should indulge himself and order for a bath to be drawn up in his rooms rather than go to the communal baths underground. He definitely wanted to clean himself up before he met with the others.

Especially Lilian. They had a habit of scrunching their nose in this really cute way, not that he would ever tell them it was cute, whenever D'Argen forewent bathing for longer periods of time.

Thinking of Lilian, he decided to skip ordering a bath as it would be quicker to use the communal ones. Lilian had been alone with Vain, of all people. Vain was a know-it-all. Nobody liked Vain.

That was a lie.

Everybody loved Vain. Even D'Argen liked the man, even if his perfect memory sometimes freaked him out.

"Do you know what it means to have perfect recall of the last few thousand years?" Vain had asked him once when D'Argen thought it would be quicker to ask the head scholar a question rather than spend hours looking for the right books for the answer. "It means sorting through everything on a regular basis."

At the time, D'Argen had not understood it and had thought the man was just brushing him off. He had been annoyed. Two months later, Vain found him and answered his original question. D'Argen had, at that point, completely forgotten what he had even asked. It was only then that he realized how hard Vain had it.

But nobody had the patience to deal with Vain sorting his memory. And Lilian barely had the patience to deal with D'Argen when he was in one of his manic moods.

As he turned the corner and spotted the doors to his rooms, the pressure under his ribs narrowed down and then dug deeper. He paused and pressed down on it. As if his hand pressing on it was enough, the pressure increased and moved deeper into his body, past his organs and into something more. It turned sharp.

Three mortals were walking towards him with woven baskets filled with linens. They were chatting but stopped as soon as they noticed him. One smiled, a shy blush painting the man's cheeks and his eyes quickly darting away.

D'Argen tried to smile back but an intense tingle under his ear, something that felt like lightning hitting that tiny spot, had him snapping his head to the side in surprise. He accepted the message though, the magic of a long distance communication spell wafting over him and then he heard Vain's voice.