It was a rough, long road for Milot but somehow he patiently endured and survived the following years without disturbing Dorian at all.
And then, eventually, the day came when he stood in front of a locked door, holding a key and a bunch of documents that made him the brand new tenant of this place. He was barely able to contain his joy. Pawie sat next to him, still as preppy and alert as ever, on the pavement and when its now grown-up owner/slave didn't say anything, the cat let out a long, distracting yawn and began to sharpen his claws on his jeans. Milot flinched and almost dropped Esmeralda's enclosure to the ground. He looked at Pawie and the cat stared back, with curious, amused eyes.
"Well, aren't we going inside?" Pawie asked. "It's cold out here."
"Cold!?" Milot smiled. "It's summer."
"It's the end of April, you ass!" Pawie protested. "There's still snow up in the hills. No leaves on the trees. You call this summer! Why did we move here?"
Milot chuckled, lowered Esmeralda's enclosure to the ground, and slipped the key into the lock. The door opened into a bright, spacious studio where anything he dreamed about could be created and only the sky was his limit. Before Milot had the time to pick Esmeralda back up, Pawie already jumped in and began to inspect the place. The cat roamed around the large room and its paws made a small tapping sound that echoed in the empty space.
The place Milot rented resided in a small, two-story commercial building. It was built only a few years back, made out of ochre bricks and it had space for three smallish companies. It was located right next to the main road that slithered through the town and where most of the other companies and storefronts were situated as well. The upstairs could be used as storage or as in Milot's case, an apartment. It had a small bathroom, a kitchen, a tiny living room, and a bedroom with a french balcony. The contract he signed included both floors.
There were two large windows with shutters that brought a lot of light downstairs. The studio he rented was located at the west corner of the building as so one of the huge windows faced north and the other one to the west. From his small balcony which was placed just above the front door, he was able to see most of the town, the ski slopes, high, snowy mountains, the river, and the lake. Large, round hill with lush forests surrounded and embraced the river valley and its inhabitants. All this was visible from his bedroom windows. Pawie didn't waste time as it climbed up the stairs and Milot heard it jump to the windowsill and back to the floor three to four times.
He lowered Esmeralda's closure onto the floor, sat down, and laid back. His face was right next to the glass and Esmeralda, who was pretty old and big at this point, stared at him with its lifeless, dark eyes. It was surprisingly calm and strolled leisurely around in its thick, white web castle. Like all of them, it was getting older. Older and wiser, hopefully, Milot thought. He dreaded the thought of losing Esmeralda. By now, he was so used to having her around that life without her just seemed so empty. And he was running out of loved ones to lose.
Finally, after all the exploring, sniffing, and marking, Pawie joined them downstairs and jumped on top of Milot's stomach.
"You approve of this place then?" Milot asked and placed his hands behind his head.
"Even if I didn't, there's nothing I can do about it," Pawie said. "We're here now. And where you go, I follow."
"Cheer up," Milot caressed it. "We're going like it here. It's a place where we can finally settle in. No more moving around from one small room to another."
Pawie sighed, stretched its legs, and lay down. It rubbed its whiskers and its scent glands to Milot's hand and began to purr. Milot looked up at the ceiling. He was feeling so peaceful. He was finally here, back where it all began hundreds and hundreds of years ago. This area was so familiar to him; it brought peace knowing that he was here, back to his roots. He hadn't had the time to walk around and see what had happened but he suspected that the most sacred sites remained unchanged.
The old riverside where their tribe used to live.
Dorian's tribe.
He opened his eyes and realized that Dorian was actually very close to him right now. He could literally get up, get in his car, drive for ten minutes and be on his doorstep. After thirty years of mortal life, he was finally able to come to where Dorian lived and face him as an equal, more or less. He should have known that Dorian wouldn't move, he would remain here for as long as he could. His memories were still safely tucked away in Milot's pockets, but he retained an emotional tie to this land. Maybe he didn't even understand the reasons himself but moving away and relocating was something he probably couldn't do. Hadn't even thought about doing, in decades.
He sat up and Pawie slid down to his lap, but the cat didn't mind, it just continued to purr, turned upside down and its tummy was ready for a good, thorough rub. Milot patted Pawie absentmindedly and of course, that half-assed attempt wasn't good enough for it so it bit his fingers with its sharp fangs.
"If you are going to do it, do it properly, or don't do it at all," Pawie said when Milot yanked his hand away and cursed under his breath.
"You are getting old," Milot muttered. "When you were a kitten, you were never this demanding."
"And exactly because of that, I need more attention!" Pawie said. "Can you see the state of my fur? I'm getting grey hair all over!"
"You were always grey," Milot reminded him.
"Don't contradict me," Pawie growled and jumped off to the floor. "Even when I'm like this, sprawled open in your lap like a willing participant, you can't just stop thinking about him, can you?"
"Ugh," Milot scrunched his face in disgust. "Mind your words, cat."
"Tell me it's not true then," Pawie demanded.
"It's not that," Milot defended himself. "But you know I have to make things right."
"If that was the most important thing in your mind, you'd go there right now and returned his memories," Pawie pointed out. "But you don't, because you are scared of what he does if he finds out."
"When he finds out," Milot corrected him. "Because he will. I'm not planning to keep things from him for an eternity."
"Seven hundred years is an eternity for a mortal!" Pawie said.
"So what's a few more weeks then?" Milot asked.
"Weeks?" Pawie scoffed. "As if that's your schedule. It's going to take longer than that. I know you. We can safely reserve at least another year or maybe even two."
Pawie was probably right. The following weeks would give him very few chances to actually interact with Dorian. His furnaces, his blowpipes, his colors, his lamps, and everything else would arrive at the beginning of next week. He had shelves to build, displays to mount, and getting the whole glass furnace up and running would most likely take a week, maybe even two. And since he couldn't start blowing before everything was ready, he was glad he already a dozen or so items he was able to sell, and the online store he set up a few years ago, was getting quite popular.
He sold his parent's house ages ago and the money he received from that, he used to learn, to grow, and to level up his skills. He saved some of it because at that point he knew what he wanted to do and now was the time to use it. He had now worked for more than ten years with glass and was quite good at it, still far from an expert because he still had so much to learn.
He had spent years in Venice and in the US, learned from the best masters there were, worked in their teams, listened, and heed their advice. Pawie followed him everywhere and he was glad his cat was sentient. Pawie was able to take care of himself, most of the time. Sometimes it even followed him in the hot shop and observed his work with its golden eyes.
At thirty years old, Milot was tall and lanky, muscular but not overly so. His arms were covered in old scars and burn marks but he didn't mind, they made him proud, reminded him that he actually used his time to make something out of himself.
Lifting heavy objects and molding a considerable amount of scorching material dangling at the end of a thin pipe made his arms strong and steady. The constant heat made his skin rough and he had frizzled his eyebrows and his lashes, not to mention some of his hair, several times. His facial appearance hadn't really changed that much since his eighteenth birthday. Same deep blue eyes, same black, thick hair. The only difference was that now he had stubborn stubble or a full-grown beard that he tried to keep under control by all means necessary. He usually failed and his chin and his cheeks were covered by a messy tangle of hair that itched and gathered sweat whenever he worked. Only when it grew too long and got in between his lips and the entrance of his blowpipe he finally shaved it off. Now his facial hair status was somewhere in the middle. He didn't look like the Bigfoot but not exactly like the David statue either.
"Are you hungry?" Milot asked from Pawie and the cat nodded eagerly. They walked back to his car and he pulled out Pawie's food and water dishes, his small, soft, and very well used pillow bed that almost tore apart as he touched it and Pawie's stylish litter box which was far from modern or automatic. Owning a self-cleaning litter box was something that Pawie constantly dreamed of. The only other things he had in his car were his own air mattress, a blanket, a pillow, and the small cockroach colony that Esmeralda's main diet consisted of. He sometimes used crickets and mealworms as well but Esmeralda was not very fond of those.
Milot carried Pawie's bed and food upstairs and while his little, furry pal filled its stomach, he carried Esmeralda and her prey items to his new apartment. There was no desk or drawer he could place her on to so he just laid her on to the floor, next to Pawie's food dishes. And because he fed her once a week, Esmeralda certainly wasn't hungry since she got her latest roach feast just yesterday, before they left for this small, northern town. And besides, her butt was getting huge. If Esmeralda could talk, she would probably accuse him of fat-shaming her. She was all about body positivity. She was not fat, she was thick and deliciously curvy in all the right places.
Pawie was very tired from their long drive so as soon as it gobbled down its meal, it crawled inside his pillow bed and began to snore before Milot was out of the door. He smiled, gently closed the door behind him, and walked downstairs. He opened a bottle of soda, sat down on the floor, and read his rental agreement one more time. There was really no reason to go through it again, he knew every detail on the paper by now but he was only giving himself a little time to think about what he was about to do.
Screw it! He thought and stood up. I have waited for the last twelve years to see him. And if I can use this rental agreement as a legitimate reason to go to him, then that's what I'll do then.