At the sound of his nickname in Eitan's voice, Stefan managed to draw his eyes slowly away from the other version of himself. He wanted to keep looking, but one of the feelings being projected at him the strongest was the idea that he wouldn't be left, wouldn't be abandoned. So he wasn't afraid to look away for a moment.
Eitan was there, as he had been, but not exactly as he had been. The older man blinked at his brother-in-law, not sure if his eyes were being confused by the strangeness of the light inside the bubble. It felt like a bubble, but of water or magic, or both, rather than air.
Rubbing his eyes with the back of one hand he tried to blink away the oddities but they persisted. Eitan's features were sharper; most notably his ears, so expertly cropped before Stefan had ever met him, appeared to have regrown themselves in an instant. It didn't feel real, any more than anything else felt correctly real, so he stepped forward without thinking to ask first, and gently ran the tips of two fingers over one high, elegant point, as one might brush away a rebellious strand of hair. Realizing, only after he had done so, that the touch might be offensive he pulled his hand back and said,
"I'm sorry, I don't seem to be thinking very clearly."
As he spoke the winged man behind him watched, a smile that might have been pride and might have been loving indulgence crossed his face. It was the sort of expression that had never, in all his life, crossed Stefan's own face. Its eyes flickered briefly to Eitan and there was a shadow of the same sort of love in them, as though, by being loved by Stefan, the half-elf was also vaguely loved by this Other. Beyond that, the creature, or person, or whatever it was, looked only at Stefan. It floated closer, without moving its wings or making any other physical effort, as though it moved by thought alone.
When it reached him, Stefan could feel it close behind him, even before it touched. Touch it did, reaching down its arms and wrapping around him, resting its head on his shoulder, holding him at once protectively and needily. It looked, for all the world, like this winged copy had missed Stefan very much, for a very long time, and thought that, even now, it might not have very long to express that.
Stefan's eyes closed all at once, as though seeing was being replaced by something so much greater that he gave it up without a thought. Lifting his arms he wrapped them around the ones wrapped around his chest. The pair looked as though they were swaying, and Stefan nodded now and then as if to someone speaking, though no more words could be heard aloud. Eventually, a frown crossed his face and he opened his eyes, turning his head to see the Other, saying,
"I can't. I can't fly." The Other frowned too, so perfectly mirroring Stefan's expression that it might have been funny to someone not caught in that place. Pulling gently away from their embrace the Other lowered until his feet were on the ground and slowly, as though it were difficult, stepped into Stefan. They were proportionally perfect, so, aside from the impossibility of two bodies existing in the same place, it was an exact fit. The Other's wings disappeared as soon as the rest of it was entirely inside Stefan.
For one long moment, everything was still. Stefan turned to look behind him, finding the copy of himself was now gone, turned back to Eitan.
"I..." He started to say, then the expression on his face darkened; mouth and brows drawing down in confusion, and then pain.