#tuhka turunen
Patron-voted fic of my D&D beeflings! Read the previous comic and the first comic for this series for context!
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
The zinging cadence of his hammer hitting a new blade usually tempers his fraught emotions and lessens their intensity. The rhythm and beat usually calms him, the heat of the furnace and the steady drip of sweat as well. Except his heart thunders on and his breathing remains irregular and his eyes sting—not from stray embers or errant drops of perspiration—and his agitation grows.
It grows so powerfully that he miscalculates and swings his hammer much too harshly, breaking the blade he was trying to fashion which frustrates him further and he throws down his tools with a clatter, pressing the gloved heels of his hands to his brow.
Lazlo.
Tuhka releases a trembling breath.
Barely a day had passed since he had regurgitated all of the regret and agony of his childhood friend’s death right into said friend’s face before gracelessly fleeing, the bitter taste of tears still on his tongue and Lazlo’s look of resounding disbelief haunting him even here in the safety of his forge.
It wasn’t fair.
Why must he have been forced to carry the burden of grief and guilt for so many years? All those moments of remembrance, thinking of a friend—the only one he ever had— ripped away from the world much too soon, endless nights of pain and suffering, wishing he’d been taken instead…and for what? Lazlo was alive. Had been for perhaps as long as Tuhka had grieved his loss.
How much hatred—or worse, indifference—must Lazlo have harboured to fail in seeking Tuhka out…to reassure him, to reunite with him, to talk with him. They had been family.
Tuhka wrenches off his gloves and tosses them to the side, stalking towards the entrance of his smithy for some air, unable to concentrate anymore on his craft. His hands shake when he grasps the wrought iron gate.
A sound distracts him for a moment, one that carries over on the salty evening breeze that cools the sweat of his brow. Gravel crushed underfoot. It’s gone in an instant and even with his sharp hearing, Tuhka strains to listen for something further, ears swivelling in the hopes to catch it.
It doesn’t take too much investigation to track down the source of the sound once he decides to; a dark figure perched somewhat dejectedly on a boulder that offsets a scenic cliffside path Tuhka often takes to clear his head.
“You didn’t waste your grief, if that’s what you’re bothered about,” the figure says.
Tuhka’s breath leaves him in a rush as he’s met with a familiar blue gaze. He feels pulled forward by some invisible thread and settles himself on the far edge of the same boulder, leaving a bit of distance between them.
Lazlo sighs, drops his head into his hands. “When you left that day and never came back, I…believed you’d abandoned me, that you’d made good on your promise—”
“That was a child’s threat, I never meant to—” Tuhka began, needing to explain despite the betrayal he felt, still very fresh, that had upended years of mourning.
The other tiefling shook his head, dropping his hands away from his face and letting them fall to his lap. “I made a terrible decision, I paid for it,” the spectral left hand twitches and Tuhka notices it properly for the first time, heart squeezing despite everything and mind filling with more questions, “and I…went away for a long time. I didn’t think to look for you…I thought you despisedme.”
He releases a mirthless laugh. “I don’t think I would’ve found you anyway. I’d have been looking for someone…quite different.”
Tuhka swallows hard. “I’ve…probably grown a bit since you last saw me.”
This startles a small, but real, laugh out of Lazlo, even if it does sound a little wet.
After a pause, Tuhka gathers strength from the stars and attempts to keep his voice steady. “That day…I went back for you. I did. I wasn’t going to, I was about to start a new life away from those bloody mines and I was so angry with you that I hoped you would stew in them forever…but then I remembered you wanted to get out just as desperately as I did and we swore to do it together so I went back to fetch you.”
Tuhka didn’t dare raise his eyes to Lazlo’s face, staring intently at his own hands grasping his knees even though the image was beginning to waver and blur.
“It was snowing and freezing and I walked through it without stopping, thinking that I would see you soon and whisk us away to a better place, until I saw the smoke from over the hill and I knew you’d gone ahead with our plan without me,” Tuhka let out a shuddering breath, “they said you got crushed in the tunnel along with that bastard foreman. Don’t remember much of what happened after that…just that I’d gone to fetch you and came back empty-handed.”
Tears flowed freely, despite previously believing he had run out of tears to shed. From the corner of his eye he noticed Lazlo wipe his face with a pure, white square of cloth.
“Told you the truth though…” Tuhka continued, after a none-too-discreet sniff, “mourned you like a piece of me had died. Couldn’t think of much else for a good few years,” He runs a forearm over his face roughly and finally turns to Lazlo, raw and exposed, “I would’ve looked for you in a heartbeat if I’d known you were alive. I would’ve.”
Lazlo lets out a sound like an animal in pain, fresh tears rolling down his cheeks that he no longer tries to wipe away. “I didn’t know…I didn’t know— I mucked up my plan and ending up losing everything, I— I was trapped for years without knowing how much time passed, I was…I was isolated from the outside in a way you won’t be able to understand but you must believe me, I never wanted to lose you—”
That final crack in Lazlo’s voice is what forces Tuhka to move closer and wrap an arm around his shoulders, mumbling soothing words until the sobs that wrack Lazlo’s frame subside. It reminds him of when he was younger—and much smaller—when Lazlo would do the same for him after a tumble, a run in with the awful foreman, or when overcome with a sadness he couldn’t understand, much less explain. Lazlo would have been there to comfort him, always.
As if hearing his thoughts, Lazlo lets out a tremulous sigh. “…Tables have turned, hm?”
Tuhka makes a tentatively amused sound in response. There is a whirlwind of emotion to wade through, but he can take this moment just to experience how real and solid Lazlo is. That he’s back.
“A right pair of bellends we turned out to be,” he ends up saying.
“Quite.” Lazlo sniffs, but there’s a small, albeit watery, smile on his lips as he straightens out of Tuhka’s one-armed embrace, and Tuhka tries not to let the empty feeling that remains affect him too much.
Something that has been niggling in the back of Tuhka’s mind takes on more force and the reason finally dawns on him.
“You sound different.”
Lazlo finishes wiping his face with a fresh, white handkerchief and makes a noise, muffled by the fabric.
“Yes, ah…I trained out the accent I used to have and replaced it with a new one.”
Tuhka blinks. “What’s wrong with your old accent? That’s the accent I have! I got it from you!”
“I needed to, ah…move in higher circles of society and I couldn’t very well sound like a common miner, could I?”
Tuhka opens his mouth to argue, a nostalgia for their juvenile arguments filling him in a split second, but Lazlo interrupts, “You know, we don’t have to speak Common if you’d prefer.”
They fall back on Infernal so naturally that Tuhka has to swallow a lump in his throat and keep the waver out of his voice. He never thought he would have this again. He’s a little rusty and out of practice but that doesn’t seem to matter in the moment—it’s like they’re back in the mines, speaking their language out of earshot of the foreman, making plans for the future in a world that was all dreams.
Tuhka tells Lazlo how he adopted Ooria (and not the other way round as she claimed to recall) and how she had helped him find his true self. He tells him about his work, his smithy and how he made a home on this cliff by the ocean. He doesn’t talk about the painful things, like crying himself to sleep every night for years from missing him, or the search for his adoptive mother who was now lost.
Lazlo talks about— what Tuhka suspects is— superficial milestones, his expertise in identifying gemstones, the places he’s visited and the night skies he has lain under and commemorated on his skin. Tuhka notices the glittering constellations peeking out of Lazlo’s clothes and his heart thumps, wanting to ask what made them special enough to wear permanently but he stops himself…still feeling like a stranger. There’s an undercurrent of darkness in Lazlo’s vague statements, of secrets untold, and Tuhka is slightly surprised by a keen disappointment that bubbles within him at not being trusted with them.
There’s a lull in conversation, an impending finality that Tuhka does not appreciate. He refuses to remain a stranger as well, which prompts him to realise that he hasn’t even properly introduced himself yet.
Feeling bold, he holds a hand out in the human way. “Tuhka Turunen.”
Lazlo’s gaze lands on the proffered hand and then flickers up to Tuhka’s face, seeming to weigh his options. He breathes out a laugh and leans forward, ignoring the hand to press his forehead slowly but firmly against Tuhka’s in customary tiefling fashion. An echo of the greeting they shared when they first met as children.
“Lazarus Astrophel,” whispers the tiefling formerly known as Lazlo.
Tuhka smiles. “Nice to meet you, Lazarus.”
They part and Lazlo—Lazarus—clears his throat, “My close acquaintances sometimes call me Laz. You may do so, after all we’re—” a beat of hesitation, “—old friends.”
His vibrant blue eyes are on Tuhka, almost as if expecting him to disagree. Tuhka doesn’t.
“Laz,” he says, smiling, “lot less likely to get mixed up with that.”
The sea breeze sighs around them, ruffling hair and clothing. Tuhka watches as Lazarus gets to his feet.
“It’s late. I should be going.”
Panic flickers through Tuhka. “You’re leaving?”
“I have business in town for a day or two, I’m staying at an inn there…The King’s Cushion?”
Tuhka nods, recognising the name. He gets to his feet as well, unintentionally towering over Lazarus.
“Stars…I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.” Lazarus grimaces.
“You’re welcome to visit,” Tuhka blurts out, trying to keep any semblance of desperation out of his voice and getting the impression that he failed, “you wanted to commission something, we can talk about that whenever you like.”
After a moment of confusion, Lazarus’ expression clears. “Ah, right, yes, that was what got us into this mess in the first place, wasn’t it? Yes,” he smiles, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
This time when he leaves, it’s with a lot less anger than moments after their first confrontation only days ago, and with a promise to come back. They had once shared everything, even their deepest desires. Now, after fifteen years apart, they’ve become completely different people—the fact that Lazarus came here, willing to talk, making promises to return even if there’s a chance he may not keep them…it’s a start. And that will have to be enough for now.
Tuhka sits back down once Lazarus has vanished from sight down the path and gazes up at the same stars he had begged night after night to return his best friend to him.
He thanks them for listening.
