Apoy Island was so different from any other place he’d ever travelled to in Revaliir.  For a while now he’d been trying to take Nemu to as many places as he could to see all that the world had to offer outside of his shackles, and as luck would have it the man that had locked him away was still unable to catch up to him.  Nemu deserved his freedom, he deserved to enjoy the world and see it for how truly beautiful it could be.  There were some less hospitable places to be sure, but for now he had made extra careful to avoid them.

It wasn’t always easy, especially since he still had his job to do while traveling, and so far he had been able to keep his profession from being talked about.  He didn’t want him to see him as a killer, it wasn’t often that he was able to make friends and keep them, this one had been through so much that he didn’t want him to grow afraid of him. 

They made it to the part of the island that he’d wanted him to see the most, the part that made him think of home since it was so similar: hot springs.  As there was no target for him to pursue today he’d be able to completely relax and spend time with him.  He was already down to only his pants, no shoes, and was weaving in and out of the trees that surrounded the vast spread of springs. 
Other people where there, all of them speckled about in different pools of their own, families, friends, it reminded him so much of when he would go with his brothers.  Hopefully Nemu would like it just as much as they had.

“Remember, you probably don’t want to wear all of your clothes when you go in.  The full effect comes from how much of the water you can feel on your bare skin.”   His smiled grew and he nodded once, stopping next to one of the further springs.  Already his hair was being weighed down by steam as he sat cross legged next to the bubbling pool.

He squatted next to the pool, wrapping his long arms around his long legs, eyes watching the steaming water with wild wonder. The water here was bubbling. Naota had taken him to many amazing places in the month since his escape, and yet every new thing brought renewed fascination with the world beyond the walls of Master’s home. What makes it bubble, I wonder? Nemu glanced over to Naota sitting beside him. Naota is a good person. A really, really good person. The thought of befriending someone with such a measure of kindness he’d not experienced before, it made him smile.

He returned his gaze to the water before them, bubbling and steaming the air around them. Reaching out his hand, Nemu grazed the water with his fingertips to be met with an incredible warmth that creeped up his hand. He gasped, thrusting his hand in further and twiddling his fingers to feel the warm waters rushing over his skin ”It’s so warm!”

He breathed into a smile, nodding as he undid the fastenings of his pants.  “Of course it is!  The heat comes from the volcano itself.  The minerals in the water are good for you but to be honest, I just love sitting in the hot water…It gives you time to think.”   He slowly nodded, moving the rest of his clothing off and pulling himself into the water.  Instantly his eyes closed, already soothed from the steam around his face and the warmth seeping into his skin.  His arms rested on the edge of the pool and he looked back at Nemu,

“If you think it feels good on your hand wait until it goes up your legs.”   Part of him had worried that it might scare him since some people weren’t always comfortable the first time they came to the springs.  But Nemu always seemed to take things in stride.  Sometimes he wondered if that could be a dangerous thing, to be so kind and accepting.  You’ll be all right… 

He knew that one day they wouldn’t always be able to be with each other like this, but that was something to think about later.  Right now he wanted to enjoy the time they had with each other.  Maybe he would introduce him to his family one day, he wanted him to know that there really were good people in the world.

A volcano? He stared at Naota, watching him undress and eventually settle into the water. Truth be told, he liked to watch his friend move. His friend had proven as much a fascination as the places he’d taken Nemu to see. He would often boggle at Naota as they walked, his feet his hands his shoulders, there was a coordinated grace to his movements that was such a contrast to his own. They were like, candle-smoke in the breeze, or flower petals down a river. Like a cat. Nemu had to slap his hand against his grinning mouth to stifle his laughter. Naota, a cat.

Nemu quickly undressed, though without so much coordination or grace as his friend, trying his best to not laugh. Stark naked, he crawled into the pool and submerged himself into the warm and bubbling waters. The sensation was incredible - warm water, all encompassing and seeping towards his bones. Relaxing. Nemu felt light, weightless, he closed his eyes and felt as though he was back in the night sky, back home. He felt a pleasant buzzing, his glow growing stronger as it illuminated the waters of the pool. This, just stay like this for a while longer…

His eyes closed and his head leaned back against the edge of the pool as the warmth continued to flood over him.  Sometimes he had to be careful not to let himself doze off while he was in a hot spring, but knowing there was another person there with him would keep him from drifting into sleep.  

As if on cue he heard him go under the water and opened his eyes, lifting his head up to watch him.  His eyes widened and he sat up right, realizing that he’d completely submerged himself in the hot water.  Nemu’s glow was even brighter than usual and he couldn’t stop himself from moving his hands to his shoulders under the water and lifting him back up, 

“H-Hey, careful.  You can make yourself sick getting overheated like that.”  Not to mention it probably wouldn’t be good for you to get any of it into your stomach, certainly not your lungs.  He still wasn’t sure of Nemu’s inherent abilities but this wasn’t the way he would have wanted to test them.

Taking extra precaution to be gentle in case his skin was sensitive from the water, he moved a hand out to Nemu’s chin, turning his head this way and that slowly to check for irritation.   “You don’t want to breathe any of that in either, or swallow it down.  The minerals are good for you but probably not on the inside.”  

Oh. I’ve done something stupid again, haven’t I? 

Nemu flushed, eyebrows raising at the middles as his head was tipped side to side, I’m fine, no please don’t worry. He hated the idea of making Naota worry. He wasn’t the smartest by any means, but he knew well enough the risk his friend was taking in spending time with him. It tugged at his heart, but he knew Master must be looking for him by now and their time on these adventures would have to end at some point. Each moment was more important than the last as this time went on, and spending any of them making his friend worry was… stupid.

But Naota’s worrying over him left the two face to face, and Nemu got distracted from his own worries with looking at his friend’s eyes. They were neat. The irises, shimmering and surrounded by a dark ring, looked different than Master’s, his own or even anybody they’d met in their travels. Sometimes they would change colors, too - a slow fade or a quick flash, never quite the same. Nemu had observed long enough to know the changes were somehow linked to his friend’s mood, but hadn’t yet been clever enough to figure out if the colors indicated a specific mood or if the change itself was random. 

”You have pretty eyes.” Nemu remarked, reaching his fingers out to press them against the upper cheek of his friend.

When he was sure that Nemu wouldn’t be sick or asphyxiated from the water he moved his hand back from his face, sighing as his shoulders drooped.  He was fine, thank goodness, but he still had so much to learn about the world.  It wasn’t a subject he broached too often, but he knew this wasn’t his land at all.  The heavens were his home, but he wasn’t quite ready to question him too extensively on that.  Things had to be so different there than here, so much so he couldn’t even begin to imagine.  Hopefully his origins would be more good than bad for him here.  Already someone had tried to exploit him into slavery…he dared not question any further than that for fear of his own protective rage.

His lips parted when he touched his face and he had the immediate urge to quickly draw back from him.  Not wanting to startle him he withheld that very urge.  He wasn’t used to having his face touched in a way that wasn’t aggressive given his line of work and a soft laugh escaped his lips, his eyebrows raising to his comment, “Well thank you, it’s nice of you to think so.”  His eyes narrowed in thought, studying Nemu’s for what felt like the millionth time since the two had met,

“I have to say, yours are quite interesting.  Is there any correlation as to why they resemble the night sky so much?”  His legs pulled up, crossing them at the ankles to sit comfortably while still facing him, all the while he kept from moving his face too much.  Thus far he’d kept Nemu from any harshness since helping him escape from his past dwellings, and he wanted him to continue to feel comfortable around others.  

The personal space bit was something they’d need to work on in the future, but luckily he himself was an understanding person.  In all reality he still had a problem with touch from others at all, and it would do well for him to get over his own hurdles too, so helping Nemu was inadvertently helping himself as well.

“Is that what they look like?” Nemu’s fingers moved from the cheek of his friend to his own. I never knew. Truth is he’d never seen himself before. Not except what he could see by looking down, anyways. Before coming to the land it hadn’t occurred to him he even had an appearance, and even then it wasn’t something that frequented his mind. Nemu drew his hands in front of him just above the water’s surface, turning them over and inspecting them as he pondered. Do I look odd, maybe?

His hands - they were different than Naota’s, or really anyone they had passed in their travels. Pale and iridescent, unusually long and thin. Spindly, like a spider’s. Freakish, Master would often say in passing. Nemu returned his gaze to his friend sitting before him. Naota was strong, toned muscles curving around his body underneath a layer of lightly tanned skin. Certainly he was a pleasant to look at, but normal, and even still he looked different from the people they had encountered in their time together. Everyone they passed looked a bit different, somehow. Nemu thought back to home, the night sky and his neighboring stars in the far distance, would they have looked something like me? If I met one now, would I even know it?

“Eh, Maybe… At home I liked to look at all the other stars, and I’d think to myself, who are they, what are they doing? I never met any, so I just watch and wonder.” Nemu grinned, waving his hands in the general direction of the sky above “Maybe my eyes watched too long, the other stars get stuck in there?”

He laughed, openly, at his own joke. He missed it, home. He truly did, but had he never been taken from it he would have never known any of this existed. He wouldn’t be having such deep thoughts as the nature of appearance, he wouldn’t have felt the warmth of volcano-water, he wouldn’t have met anyone, and certainly no one as curious and interesting as his friend Naota. Even still, the idea that he perhaps somehow managed to take a piece of home with him - it was comforting.

His head tilted to the side as he listened to him and he felt his eyes shift ever so much despite himself.  That amount of solitude, or loneliness, he couldn’t begin to comprehend.  But something he said caught his attention and made his heart skip a beat.  Star?  His lips parted, eyes instinctively raising up to the sky.  Right now it was midday and the light of the sun was blocking out the rest of the stars but he knew they were there.  They were…alive?  He looked back down at him, hearing him but unable to keep the shocked look from forming: lips parted, eyes wide, trying as hard as he could not to stare immediately now that he knew what he was.

Now that he said it, it all made too much sense.  How had he not put those pieces together?  Nemu talked about it as if it was something extremely common, and admittedly for him it would be, but this was beyond what Naota could comprehend.  Everything he’d been taught, their advances thus far in the sciences, all of it could be completely wrong.  Yet it didn’t frighten or upset him in the least, on the contrary it interested him greatly.  Even though he’d heard everything Nemu had told him, this was what his mind was focusing on, and he moved closer to him in the water quicker than he meant to, all of a sudden feeling exuberance he hadn’t felt since childhood,

“You’re a star?  An actual star, from the outer regions-You-”  He shook his head, all of his words coming out faster than he meant but still not keeping up with the thoughts racing in his head.  There were so many questions, so many things he wanted, almost needed to know.  “Are all stars like you?  Alive?  Thinking, breathing, conscious?!”

His hair, his eyes, he looked at all of his features as if he’d just met him and had the sudden urge to reach out and touch him but refrained as much as he could.  For extra measure he kept his hands under the water though they were balled into excited fists.  His eyes shifted, turning from emerald to blazing sapphire as he smiled, their glow bright enough to cast shadows on his own cheeks despite the height of the sun, “Th-That’s amazing!  Do you realize what this means?”   Even he wasn’t sure if he knew how to properly put into words what this could mean.  Not just for Revaliir, not just for Nemu: people existed past their own world.  It was as amazing as it was terrifying…but somehow in a good way.

Nemu recalled the night of their first meeting, how he had explained his arrival on land by simply pointing upwards then downwards, ’from there to here’ no wonder. That doesn't make any sense, now that he thought about it. Nemu smiled sheepishly and tapped the side of his head ”I’m sorry, I did not explain well.”

”The other stars…” unknown. Naota was closer now, the water rippling from his sudden movements and Nemu could feel the excitement beaming off of him. He is alive. The other stars, too. However distant, he could feel their happiness when they flickered, their sorrow as they faded to nothing and their curiosity and confusion when they flashed in from nowhere. Perhaps the neighbors so far away had been looking down on him and feeling the same. You are alive, why wouldn’t they be? ”Yes, they are.”

Intense, wide-eyed, color-changing and glowing, Naota stared at him as he had that first night they met. Nemu was entranced, caught in wonder of Naota’s curious eyes. He leaned forward, reaching out to once again to touch the cheek of his friend, just below those eyes. Then he said it. Me, amazing?! Nemu flushed, freezing in place as his eyes grew wide from shock, not you, can’t be you that’s impossible - he’s amazing, this world is amazing… not you. In spite of his own nay-saying thoughts his heart raced, a furious pink spreading across his face as he knotted fingers together in some vague attempt to calm down ”Eehh…” Nemu tilted his head to the side, trying to hold a smile against quaking nerves ”I think… ehm - I am not s-sure what it means.”