Chapter 287: ​"I feel... grounded,"

Theo didn’t argue further. He gave a sharp, practical nod and reached for his sharpening stone, as if to distract himself.

​Then, Alias began to take off his silk robes. He did it with the same quiet simplicity he did everything else, unaware of the unspoken rules of mortal modesty. But as the silks slid off his shoulders, the movement was like a curtain falling away from a masterpiece.

​Theo’s hand froze mid-stroke on the stone. He felt his breath catch in his throat, a sudden, tight pressure in his chest that had nothing to do with the heat. In the dim, golden-filtered light of the hut, Alias’s skin was a revelation.

It was impossibly smooth, lacking the scars, sunspots, or rough patches that marked every other person Theo had ever known. It looked like fine, cool marble that had never known a day of labor—pure, unblemished, and breathtakingly pale.

​Theo stared. For a second or two, the world outside—the hunger, the baker, the dust—simply ceased to exist. There was only the sight of that moon-white back and the elegant curve of a spine that seemed too graceful for this world.

​Realizing he was gaping, Theo felt a sudden, hot flush creep up his neck. He stood up abruptly, his chair scuffing loudly against the dirt floor.

​"I’ll... I’ll be back," he muttered, his voice cracking slightly. He didn’t look at Alias again as he practically bolted out the door.

​He disappeared for an hour, walking through the marketplace with his head down, the image of that pale skin burned into the back of his eyelids. He had to negotiate hard, trading the shimmering silk for something that wouldn’t get Alias killed, all while trying to ignore the strange, frantic thumping of his own heart.

​When Theo finally returned, he wasn’t empty-handed. He tossed a bundle of coarse, sand-colored linen at Alias’s feet, keeping his eyes strictly on the floor.

​"It’s the best I could get without looking too suspicious," Theo said, his voice regaining its usual rough edge, though he still looked a bit breathless. "It’s clean. Mostly."

​Alias picked up the rough fabric, oblivious to the storm he had just caused in the boy’s mind. "Thank you, Theo."

​"Yeah, whatever," Theo grunted, turning his back to give the stranger some ’privacy’, even though he knew Alias wouldn’t have asked for it. "Just put it on. We’ve got a lot of walking to do if you want to go sightseeing." 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

​When he stepped out, Theo was leaning against the wall, waiting. He blinked, his gaze traveling over Alias. The oversized tunic hung loose on Alias’s frame, and the neutral color made his silver hair and pale skin stand out even more, like a pearl set in rough wood.

​"Well," Theo muttered, looking away quickly and rubbing the back of his neck. "You don’t look like a prince anymore. You look like... a very confused laborer."

​"I feel... grounded,"1 Alias said, adjusting the sleeves.

​That day, for the first time, they didn’t hide and didn’t have to steal. He bought food with the rest of the money he got from the silk, and they sat together to eat a meal of salted fish and fresh greens—things Alias had only ever seen as symbols on a scroll.

​The days that followed were a blur of new sensations. Alias stopped being a ’specimen’ to the people of the slums and started being a person.

​He spent hours by the communal well, watching the women haul up the heavy buckets. At first, he just watched the mechanics of the pulley, but soon he was the one grabbing the rope, his pale palms blistering under the friction.

​"You’re doing it wrong, Moon-boy!" an old woman cackled, swatting at his arm. "Use your legs, not just your spindly arms, or you’ll break like a dry twig!"

"Y-yes," ​Alias didn’t take offense. He did it how they instructed, and when he got the bucket of water all over his body, he laughed.

Laughing. It was a strange barking sound that started in his chest and made his stomach ache. He had never laughed before. In the heavens, there was only satisfaction or dissatisfaction. He had seen Norx laugh and grin, but not quite like this.

Never as hearty as this.

Here, losing a tug-of-war with a heavy bucket of water was funny.

​He played games with the children in the dirt, learning how to flick stones into mud pits. He was terrible at it. His ’perfect’ coordination didn’t account for the unevenness of the ground or the way the wind caught a pebble.

​"I lost again," Alias said one evening, sitting in the dirt with a group of laughing kids.

​"That’s ’cause you think too much!" one of them shouted, sticking out his tongue. "Just throw it!"

​Theo sat nearby, watching. He noticed how Alias’s skin never seemed to tan, despite the weeks spent under the sun. It stayed that pure, moonlight white, though it was now often smudged with dirt or mud. He saw the way Alias looked at the people—not like a judge, but like a student. He wanted to learn everything and was happy for every simple thing they taught him.

​And Theo found himself often staring. Not just watching to see what would happen but actually... staring.

​He stared at the way Alias’s silver hair would get caught in his eyelashes. He stared at the way Alias would smile when Maya told him a story. He stared at the way Alias often smiled, seeming like a completely different person from the one he met at the market alley a few weeks back.

It was a quiet, dangerous sort of fascination.

He placed his hand on his chest and turned to look away.

​One night, as the heat finally began to break and the stars—the very stars Alias had placed in the sky—began to peek through the haze, the two of them sat outside the hut.

Maya was fast asleep inside.

​"Theo?" Alias asked, looking up at the sky and watching the stars twinkle.

​"Yeah?"

​"If you had the chance... if someone told you that you could leave this dirt and the hunger behind... if you could go somewhere where the water always flows and the sun doesn’t bite as much... Would you take it?"

this is like when you say, I feel down to Earth