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thrihyrneThis is when I wish I were writing an AU fic. This is the final post; you knew it was coming, and here's my take on how this pivotal event may have occurred. I just keep reminding myself that this is all Storm's plot, her 'cruelty', but living it through Ashmael is quite painful indeed. Continued from post 9,
here.
Title: Maelstrom and Mage, Desire Thine Darkling
This post rating: adult
Warnings: rooning, Angst with a capital A, character death
Word Count: 5,775
Disclaimer: Ashmael, Vaysh, and the harish world all belong to Storm Constantine; I'm merely playing with great abandon in her sandbox.
Pairings: Vaysh/Ashmael
Summary: Genesis. Paradise. Illumination. Exodus. Before they went to Immanion, before Thiede manipulated their destiny, before death and despair, Ashmael and Vaysh knew and loved each other. This is one way their story may have been told.
For those who have been reading this, thank you for your companionship in my first foray into Wraeththu fanfiction. A sequel will be starting up soon from Vaysh's POV. I've also put together a 'soundtrack' for Maelstrom and Mage which I should have uploaded for your listening pleasure later this weekend.
"Saltrock."
I blew out the word in a stream of cigarette smoke.
Out in the small lake, Ondin continued to float in the patched-up inner tube he'd managed to repair using methods I couldn't begin to fathom. "What about it?"
Parallax swam up behind him before letting out a triumphant yell. He cupped his hands and slammed them into the water so that a small wave soaked Ondin's left side.
"ARRRRGH!" Ondin spluttered as Parallax gave an evil laugh. He swam away on his back, kicking more water at him in the process. "You know this means war!"
"Bring it on!" Parallax taunted as he got to shore. He pulled himself up on one of the small boulders and stood aggressively, gesturing at his chest. He shimmied just a bit and my eyes couldn't help watching his dancing ouana-lim as it slapped from thigh to thigh. He really had been blessed with a great many gifts.
I took another drag off of my cigarette. It was a perfect summer day: hot, but not oppressively humid, enough of a breeze that the insects weren't swarming. It was a market day so I didn't feel the need to be roaming the Castlegar grounds or doing anything that remotely resembled business. I'd wanted to bend Ondin's ear much more in depth about their months spent at the other solitary outpost, as well as other aspects of their trip. At breakfast I'd suggested that we take our horses and go out to a secluded natural pool down the mountain. Parallax had been eavesdropping and managed to wheedle his way into the outing. I didn't mind; I felt he should know what was really going on. I hadn't said as much to him, or anyhar for that matter, but I hoped to bring him to Immanion as well, as my own personal aide. Thiede had one, and besides, Thiede had seemed serious enough about adding Parallax to his list of fawning acolytes. Or potentially useful hara, whichever.
"What do you think was so compelling about Saltrock that made them want to say?" I asked Ondin, reviving my line of thought.
"I don't know. It seemed a bit more rustic, fewer rules, a bit more like the wild west?" Ondin offered. His gaze had also drawn to Parallax, who'd come over to sprawl by me, bumming a cigarette and showing off his rather masculine glory. "To be honest, I think they wanted to make more of a name for themselves. Belvac has felt like he's in your shadow, held back, I guess. In Saltrock he and Abelard can do whatever the fuck they want, and their skills are definitely needed. I don't think it's really all that personal."
I snorted at that. It wasn't the end of the world that they'd decided to stay, leaving all of their personal possessions here in Castlegar unless they decided they absolutely couldn't live without some knickknack or sentimental treasure. But after two and a half years of having hara be drawn to Castlegar, if I were being honest with myself, it stung my pride that someone from my original clan had defected to another outpost of harish life. Then again, Belvac and I had been butting heads for months. Perhaps it was better that he and his equally enigmatic lover had decided to stay in Saltrock. Our shouting matches during Regents' conferences had almost become regular enough to be an agenda item.
"Had Thiede visited Saltrock?" Parallax asked Ondin, now taking a drink from the wine bottle that trailed after him, bobbing in the water.
"I don't know. They already have somebody really powerful there, Orien. I talked about him at the Regents' meeting," he reminded Parallax.
"I know. But that was a more formal event. Now we're just three hara, friends, sometimes more…" he let the words drift off as he looked up at me and raised his eyebrows.
I gave a reciprocal acknowledgement.
"We should have a name." Parallax stated.
"What?" Ondin asked.
"A name. Ahalenia and Eleu, and little Lemmy, of course, they're Colurastes. Mabast is Unneah. There are the Varrs just north of us, and you all told us about the Kakkahaar further south of Saltrock," he went on, gesturing at Ondin with a newly lit cigarette. "I've talked with Blaze, Firestorm and even Thorn on my own, and they shared with me the name of their human ancestral tribe. They were Chickasaw. But we don't have a name," he finished, his brow furrowed. "I think we should."
"Thiede and Arahal don't seem to have a tribal name," I said reasonably. "A name doesn't make you more or less Wraeththu."
"The hara at Saltrock don't either." Ondin paddled to shore, where he engineered a makeshift shade and helped himself to more wine. "But you have a good point. We could use a self-identifier."
"Shouldn't things like that happen naturally?" I asked.
"What, like inceptions? Or our race in general?" Parallax's voice held no malice, just dark humour.
"What name would you deem appropriate?"
He mused for a time and finally looked at me, giving a rueful shrug. "Don't know. But I'll think about it."
"No doubt!" Ondin said with a short laugh and a warm smile.
"It's good to have you back," I said to my old friend. "And a bit jealous of all that you experienced."
"Well, I'm glad to be back, though you've apparently had your own share of highly unique adventures!"
I huffed a laugh at that and beckoned at his wine bottle.
"When do the Kakkahaar arrive?" Parallax asked, now sitting cross-legged. He'd pulled his bag of beads and hand tools to him and begun working on an intricate armband.
"In a couple of weeks."
I was both intrigued and no small bit wary of their upcoming visit. They had taken in our hara as guests, however, and we needed to return the favour. Besides, I wanted us to have allies. Even though we'd not had direct run-ins with the Varrs, or Uigenna, since the attack which had claimed Monarch's life, I was under no illusion that the peace would last. News of our presence would travel; it was bound to. There weren't nearly enough of us to take on a fully armed battalion, especially if, as both the Kakkahaar and residents of Saltrock had told our envoys, the Varrs were actively pursuing the dark avenues of magic our race possessed. Then again, according to Opequon's private discussion with me once the triumvirate chesnari had returned without Belvac and Abelard, the Kakkahaar were doing far more than dabble in dark arts themselves.
"Did they have any harlings?" I asked Ondin, the question having just popped into my head. I was beginning to correlate tribal spiritual advancement with harlings as evidence, though I'd only said such a thing aloud to Vaysh.
"Not that we saw," he replied, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his head on his knees. "But for all of their hospitality— and I'll say it again, Ash, they were very hospitable —"
I sensed Parallax's attentions snap to attention, like a fox suddenly sniffing a tasty scent.
"They're a secretive tribe," Ondin continued. "Still, I think if they had managed to generate new harish life like that, from the feelings I got, they would have had the child on display. They're really private, and I didn't truly relax the entire time we were with them. They're quite proud."
"Very astute, Ondin. And since you are, I have another question. I'd like your opinion too, Parallax."
"All you need to do is ask!" he said with a beguiling smile.
"And so I am. Ondin, the scarabs you and your chesnari have have inspired me, as well as some of the tribal markings on Blaze and Firestorm. I'm thinking of asking Wycker to draw one for me, about Vaysh. I just can't seem to come up with just one symbol."
"Ashmael," Ondin drawled, his face gleeful. "How romantic! I'm shocked! How very unlike you."
"That's not true!" I blustered. "I don't feel the need to shout my feelings from the rooftop, but I do unexpected things for him not infrequently."
"You want the tattoo to be about Vaysh? Or the two of you, together?" Parallax asked, still busily threading beads on a tiny loom.
"Just him."
"What about a horse?" Ondin suggested. "Or the horse constellation since he's fond of astronomy. Or maybe you two aren't looking at stars at all when you spend time up at that tower."
I didn't answer that, but saw a conspiratorial smile traipse on Parallax's lips. The three of us had repaired one of the telescopes in the former astronomy tower but we'd also taken advantage of the privacy and novelty to take aruna a few times as well.
"Pegasus," Parallax said. "A flying horse. That'd be a good choice— it has the constellation idea, and a horse that gallops through the skies, like that one that Arahal rides. Vaysh couldn't stop talking about your unbelievable trip through space or however you got to Immanion. His tone of voice when he talked about Tassia was eerily similar to how he sounds when he talks about you," he said with a wry smile. "When he's feeling generous, anyway."
"What do you think he would get? For me?" I asked, thinking I might really do this and wanting to give Vaysh suggestions if he felt like doing something similarly permanent. Oddly enough we hadn't talked about a blood-binding ceremony, or even spoken aloud about trying to conceive a harling; I guessed that Vaysh felt as I did after Immanion, which was that those two events would occur once we were there. We'd have Thiede's approval and even participation, at least in regards to a blood-binding ceremony.
"Vaysh is not getting a tattoo," Ondin declared, easing out from his rigged shelter to go and retrieve another bottle of wine from its tethered point near the edge of the water.
"You're underestimating him," Parallax challenged.
"He's more innately soume than I am," I said, "but he's fearless. I've never seen him shirk from anything dangerous."
"Still, I don't know that he would. He's quite vain about his flawless pale skin," Parallax went on with a disdainful shrug. His own skin had tanned to a dark, tawny gold. "But if I were him, or if I were chesna with you, I'd probably ask Wycker to ink in a sword, since you're so into defense. Maybe a sword with ivy twisted around it, or on the blade or something."
"I still say he'd never agree to it," Ondin said, handing me the bottle of wine.
"Is that a bet?"
"Certainly!" he said, eyes dancing. "But it can't be forever. Since our bodies are so hardy, we might live to be two hundred years old! I bet Vaysh won't get a tattoo to do with you or anyone else in the next year."
"That's not very long!"
"A lot can happen in a year."
"Okay, fine. But what are the terms?"
"You don't need terms," Parallax scoffed.
"Of course we do," Ondin said. "You have that really nice leather coat, the dark maroon one. If I win, and after a year Vaysh's skin is as pristine as ever, I get the coat."
"Hmmmph." I really did love that coat, and wasn't sure I wanted it to be a part of this silly bet. I'd started it, though, and I couldn't back down now. "Well, you have that pistol with the mother of pearl set in the handle. If I win, I get it."
He looked at me with incredulity.
"Tiahaar!" Parallax said, shaking his head. "You're being way too serious. Ashmael, if you lose, you should dye your hair blue for a few months or something. Or run laps around the chancellery in the nude."
Ondin snickered.
"And you, Ondin, if you lose, you'll have to cook Ash's favourite three course meal, or cook personally for him and Vaysh for a week. None of this ridiculous favourite coat and pistol bullshit."
"I think Ashmael would look stunning if he had green hair, actually," Ondin said brightly.
"All right. One year from now, high midsummer of… well, next year. If Vaysh has a tattoo, you cook for me for a week. And I get a massage a day."
Ondin groaned, but nodded.
"If he doesn't, then I'll dye my hair green and keep it that way for a month or so."
"Don't forget the laps!" Parallax said, grinning.
"Nobody wants to see me run around like an idiot in the nude," I insisted, but Parallax's expression seemed to indicate otherwise. "Fine."
Snatches of that conversation still peppered my thoughts when I went to Wycker a few days later. I had a drawing from Parallax in hand and a few strands of Vaysh's hair taken from his hairbrush.
"Are you sure you want his actual essence in the ink?" he asked uncertainly when I explained why I had the hair.
"Of course," I said, defensive. Then I realised he was just trying to look out for me. "We're chesna. We haven't jumped into a blood-binding, but I don't doubt we'll do that in the future as a formality."
"Well, if you're certain…" he said, looking relieved.
It was exquisite, a rather tribal looking Pegasus, the shape of the constellation visible within the overall form. Even after it healed it remained faintly warm to the touch, a legacy of the magical infusion of Vaysh's hair. His blood would have made it even more potent — and vibrant — but I couldn't get any from him without him asking why. Once I unveiled the tattoo to Vaysh, he said he loved it. He kept insisting that I walk around shirtless so he could admire it, inked across my left shoulder blade, opposite my heart. To Ondin's chagrin, he lost the bet far sooner than he imagined when Vaysh sought out Firethorn and Wycker and got his own. It was a narrow, intertwining plait around his left bicep in colours of red, green and purple. He said the red was for him, the purple for me and the green to symbolise growth, all bound up together. The two of us ate quite well for a week and Ondin, to his credit, didn't complain. Much.
Three emissaries from the Kakkahaar came in the waning, sultry days of summer, welcomed with a large feast and live music by Thorn, Jaffa and a couple of others who had made a band of sorts. After a week or so for them to get used to our very different environment and rather eclectic host of hara, they began giving instruction to a dozen or so individuals particularly gifted in the spiritual and esoteric powers. Vaysh, Parallax and Firethorn were avid students, also Mabast and others who had come to the mountain in the past year. The Kakkahaar slowly became more open and less isolationist as the first month went on. They also met regularly with our own spiritual leaders. They were fascinated by Firethorn and his sirelings as well as Lemuel, but they were only this side of frosty with the two adult Colurastes.
Everyone in Castlegar came out for a full day and night of bacchanalian revelry at the autumnal equinox. At the geographic heart of our community there was all kinds of food, singing, copious amounts of wine and all other varieties of alcohol, dancing, and hara dressed in their finest, tightest clothes. Those with skills in tailoring and jewellery making must have engaged in a brisk trade given the parading hara all decked out. Some were ostentatious, but others were more simply clad though elegant in a less fussy way. The scent of aruna and swirling perfumes of desire and lust hung like a thick velvet canopy over the grounds.
Vaysh and I certainly weren't immune. We took a somewhat drunken walk out to the viewing area I loved so much and were delighted to discover no one else was there. One thing led to another, and soon one of my nicest tunics was covered in grass stains. I didn't care because Vaysh was spread out on it like a luscious, ripe peach. I licked and kissed and drank down his juices while the stars watched impassively. I crawled up from between his trembling thighs to nip and nuzzle at the band inked around his arm. In a throaty voice, he demanded that I kneel near his face. What a wicked, talented tongue he had. My ouana-lim flowered as he swallowed and swirled his tongue around my hard length; the petals curled back so no sensitive spot was held hidden from him.
When neither of us could bear the relative separation any longer, I knee-walked back down to the beckoning vee of his legs and sank into him. His body welcomed me; I wanted to bury myself forever in the grasping, fierce coals of his passion. Like diamond smoke, his desire poured into me as we shared breath; as once before, I was drawn with him into enchanted wilds of plum and musky shadow. Deep within my ouana-lim, I felt as though a spring had snapped— a butterfly tongue unfurled, and I drowned in the warm silver of Vaysh's eyes.
Yes, Ashmael, yes, he said without speaking as a secret chamber deep within him began to open, rapture blazing from his face.
Without warning, we both felt a painful shock, a resounding, silent clang as a force from outside of us barred Vaysh's pulsing centre of creation. Even as I looked in his panicked eyes, our arunic energies were stirred up into a pleasure so intense I screamed with it. Our bodies spasmed and shook as our unbearable ecstasy roared and stretched relentlessly on until I thought we would be ripped apart. Dizzy, ghostly stars danced in my peripheral vision. After long minutes the thundering waves of our release subsided and we lay on the ground, gasping like nearly drowned hara spat out of the sea.
I was crying; I choked out hiccoughing, syrupy sobs of anger into Vaysh's wreck of hair. I knew with all of my heart what that should have been and who had halted it so abruptly.
"Damn you Thiede, you bastard!" I growled brokenly, clutching Vaysh to me and trying to stop my hands from shaking.
"Shhhhh, Ash, it's okay. More than him, I felt ours," he whispered, which caused more tears to stain my face. "He's still there. This wasn't the time."
"What kind of fucking god does Thiede think he is to decide when is right?" I ground out bitterly until all at once, my anger was scoured away. I felt battered and ravaged, chewed up and most importantly, warned.
Vaysh was my angel, somehow consoling me when he'd been just as mauled, just as violated. He'd felt that secret, sweet harbour open its gates to me for the first time—
"Next time we'll know, for certain," he said softly, running a hand through my hair and the other fanned out on my tattoo, the spot thrumming warmly with his spirit. "Our son should be delivered in Immanion. Thiede must want him conceived there, too. He wants us Ash, so much." His tender voice tore at my heart with the edge of a jagged knife.
Wrapped in Vaysh's wings of comfort, I cried again. I wasn't sure which he Vaysh meant.
* * * * *
Another glorious autumn spread its colourful cheer over the mountain, but I was preoccupied and didn't marvel at the display as I had the prior two years. I felt Thiede's presence not infrequently, and sensed him distantly watching us, though his focus seemed primarily to be on Vaysh. For several weeks after our experience at the equinox, I held back when we took aruna, unwilling to experience that heartbreak again. I now knew how it felt to be climbing to that plane of consciousness, and we were both careful not to allow ourselves near that path. Eventually I began readying myself to leave Castlegar and as I did, I was aware of doors opening for me, of difficult situations resolving themselves. I marvelled, yet again, at how powerful Thiede's desires must be if they could grease the wheels of life itself. Arahal even spoke at the Regents' assembly at which Vaysh and I formally announced that we would depart for Immanion a few days after Natalia. Our harbrethren were going to miss us, but we promised to return to visit, and Arahal extended the arm of hospitality on Thiede's behalf to any who wished to see us once we were settled in.
Winter had just curled its frosty toes into the ground when we had another leaving feast. This one was for the Kakkahaar, who were quite ready to return to their desert climes. Parallax and Galen, one of the two nearly dead hara we'd found in that ramshackle barn a year ago, went with them to continue their caste studies. The night before they left, Vaysh and I invited Parallax to our bed, exhausting him in the fiercest, most loving way possible.
"They're so good at mind-touch, over incredibly long distances," he informed us later. We'd curled around each other in front of the fire like sluggish snakes under the sun. "I should be able to communicate with you, at least until you're across the waters. I'm not sure after that."
"You just learn all you can," Vaysh encouraged him, his pale, delicate fingers combing gently through the tight curls at Parallax's groin. "Before you know it, you'll be summoned to Immanion, too. What a reunion that'll be!"
"We have a last Natalia to experience here," I reminded him. "Vox and Polaris said it'll be especially memorable. Pity you'll miss it," I said to Parallax, leaning in to nibble teasingly on his earlobe. He groaned, the baritone of his voice roughened by his vocal enthusiasm through the night.
"You two have worn me out. I won't want to think about rooning again for ages!" he said, a sensual smile gliding onto his lips as he stretched out his long limbs.
"I don't doubt that the Kakkahaar will give in-depth instruction in every skill they pride themselves," Vaysh said silkily, his fingers toying with the girth of Parallax's ouana-lim. "And they are a very prideful tribe."
Parallax turned his head to me, his hazel eyes awash in mirth and gratitude. There was none of the angry, smart-mouthed human at whose head I'd held a gun those seasons ago; he'd truly blossomed into an extraordinary har.
I'll look forward to you joining us in Immanion, whenever that is, I said to him telepathically.
One thing at a time, he said blithely, his ouana-lim being brought expertly back to full flower in Vaysh's skilled fingers. "Didn't you mention something about tying me to your bed?"
* * * * *
Natalia was a lively, raucous celebration as it had been in years past, though Thiede didn't appear. Arahal did, though he now seemed like an honorary resident of Castlegar rather than a guest. He brought a powerful har with him named Tharmifex, whom I took a liking to immediately. We arranged to meet for breakfast at a reasonable hour the next day before Polaris, with the subtlety of a wolf among sheep, led him away.
Early the following morning, I was awakened by a strange sound I couldn't place. It was eerily quiet, with a tinkling noise tapping on the roof. Vaysh's eyes fluttered open when I got out of bed and he pulled the covers around himself. Looking out of our windows I saw a surreal, frozen landscape— ice blanketed every surface, glinting in the watery dawn. Plinking notes of tiny frozen pellets danced through the hushed air; it was a wonderland of translucent beauty.
"What is it?" Vaysh asked sleepily.
"An ice storm," I said, shaking my head. "It's beautiful."
"Is it worth getting out of bed for?"
"I'd say so."
After a time, curiosity got the better of him, and with a bit of grumbling, he pulled on a dressing gown and joined me, gazing out at the trees, encrusted and frozen. Each surface was a hardened mirror, glittering and silent.
"It's gorgeous," he breathed. "We've got to go out for a walk. It'll warm up and be gone by mid-day, don't you think?" he asked, all at once a flurry of activity.
"It's pretty cold," I said, but I put on my coat and boots, woolen trousers and tunic. "I've never seen anything like it. It's very different from snow."
I took a quick turn in our bathroom, and was surprised to see Vaysh busying himself in the kitchen when I got out.
"Thought I'd put some coffee on so it'll be ready when we get back," he explained. We'd found several unexpected and welcome containers of oil over time and most residences now had working generators. Things that had been luxuries when he'd first arrived were now far more commonplace.
"Awfully nice of you," I said and he gave me a wry smile.
"I like you better after your first cup of coffee."
" I like me better after my first cup of coffee," I agreed as we left the house.
My feet skated and I nearly took a nosedive my first few steps; it took me scant seconds to develop a very healthy appreciation for just how slick the ground was. I warned Vaysh even though he was already quite aware of the treacherous surface under our boots. With shuffling steps, we slowly, cautiously made our way across the courtyard, and then the paved road with its many gaping potholes. The sun wasn't far above the horizon and not very bright, but the effect of any light on the shining branches and shrubs was breathtaking.
"This is unbelievable!" Vaysh said, turning around to gesture at me, a wide smile on his face. He almost lost his footing and slid, nearly stumbling to the frozen ground. His expression snapped to one of intense concentration.
"Be careful!" My heart raced from seeing his near catastrophe. "As beautiful as it is, one misstep and you'll be flat on your ass. I don't want to try and carry you to see Ondin."
"I'm as agile as a cat," he insisted, but I noted gratefully that he was far more cautious as we went into the woods. The path was slightly more easy to traverse, and I held back a bit, taking some time to look around at all of the naked branches, now clad in hard shells of ice. The tinkling, melodious sounds were occasionally overshadowed by a staccatoed barrage as a squirrel or bird shifted a branch. There was the rare crack or groan as a tree complained under the weight of the ice.
Vaysh had gone deeper into the alcove than I wished; my imagination had already gone to Vox or Jaffa, trudging to the dining hall to make breakfast, underestimating the elements, and falling. The sparkling ice was beyond treacherous, and it might not melt until tomorrow, or the day after, and most hara were probably hung over from Natalia—
I heard Vaysh let out a surprised cry and swear loudly as he fell. I grimaced, and hoped to God he hadn't broken anything.
"Are you all right?" I called, shuffling as quickly as I could, which wasn't very fast.
"Yes, but— ow. Fuck!"
I could see he was sprawled out on his stomach, arms stretched out and trying to gain purchase somewhere, when I heard a resounding, thunderous crack. I jerked my head to the side, trying to place where it came from. My gaze whipped back in front of me and I shouted, my stomach clenched instantly into a knot. I watched the terrible, inexorable motion of a heavy limb as it fell, crushing Vaysh with a sickening explosion of ice and cracking bone.
"VAYSH!"
I screamed his name, trying to run and sliding, falling, tears bursting from my eyes as I scrambled to get to him. I scuttled on hands and bruised, aching knees, calling his name again and again. Once I got closer I saw the nauseating trajectory of the branch that had thudded against his spine and skull. He was broken, shattered. With strength borne from abject terror, I heaved the branch away, but the damage to Vaysh's head was— I couldn't bear it. I could barely see him; I couldn't focus through the wet sheen of my eyes. I sounded like a wounded animal as I tried to hold him, blood everywhere.
"Vaysh, Vaysh, Vaysh, ohgodohgod, no, you can't, no, don't go," I sobbed, trying to lift his bludgeoned head into my lap. I saw his chest rise, and fall; clumsily I smeared matted clots of hair out of his closed eyes.
"Vaysh," I pleaded, choking on bile. I was wheezing; the air was a razor in my lungs and I coughed, unable to catch my breath. With what must have been tremendous effort, Vaysh laboriously opened his eyes, but I didn't think he could see me. Wild horror knifed clarity into my thoughts: I needed him to know I was with him.
"Vaysh, it's me, your Ash. For the love of God, don't leave me, I'm here, right here," I said hysterically. I was going insane; Vaysh's blood soaked my lap. The pungent scent of so much blood was an abomination. My vision started to go black, phantom stars were crowding out the atrocity of my beloved, dying. I couldn't move, only chanted his name, over and over and over as my reason seeped into the unforgiving, scarlet stained ice.
A gurgle lodged in his throat; a thick, wet cough coated his mouth and my fingers with more blood. He gasped and stilled, his unseeing gaze locked on mine.
I screamed, bellowing anger and maniacal hopelessness until my voice was a pitiful, unrecognisable mewl. I rocked him in my arms; the world shattered into nightmarish crystalline shards of nothingness.
Vaysh was dead.
. : ~ Epilogue ~ : .
The next year was a threnody for Vaysh. I was inconsolable; I abhorred everyone's company, anyone else's touch was loathsome. In my rages against a world that blithely continued to exist without Vaysh in it, I wished for a human photograph of him, then railed against myself at my own lunatic folly. A picture couldn't have begun to capture even the smallest grain of the endless sands of his being. I thought back to the night when we could have conceived a harling, and wondered if he would have been able to console me, or if it would have twisted the knife too deeply to see Vaysh's likeness in a creation of our own flesh… I obsessed about what our son might have looked like, how it would have been to hold him as together, he and I mourned the loss of his hostling, my chesnari, my beloved. Under the crushing anvil of grief, my heart was ground into a mealy pulp, a quivering mash beating feebly in my chest. It was with relief that I sank into the yawning maw of darkness; I let depression and futility count my days as my body forced me to stay alive. I could have cared less.
I spent the rest of the winter living with Firestorm, Cloudblaze and Firethorn. For a few days after we buried Vaysh, I tormented myself in our home. I pulled all of his clothes from their drawers and covered myself with them in our bed, desperate for his scent which still clung to his tunics and leggings. Polaris finally forced me out of the tomb I'd made for myself. He plied me with bourbon until I couldn't fight him with my fists anymore, and he and Jaffa held me up during the march over to my temporary lodging.
Cloudblaze washed me, a thankless task after the several days I'd lain inert and rank. He combed out my hair and didn't balk when I asked him to shave my head entirely. Firethorn tiptoed around me, his eyes red; he'd never seen anything like the punishment I now suffered, and he felt powerless to help. After a few days when I continued to do nothing but eat when commanded to and heeded my body's demands to expel the extra when necessary, Cloudblaze came into my narrow bed in the room I shared with Thorn. He'd insisted on being there when I woke up yelling, unable to escape the nightmares of Vaysh's death happening in front of me again and again. I could do nothing but receive, and Cloudblaze was astute enough to know I would have gone absolutely mad to take aruna in such a state. He shared breath with me, sending healing images. His taste of windswept sage and leather gently sought out the bottomless fissures in my spirit, filling some of the deepest shadows with his concern and affection.
The months passed. I spent much of the time in a drunken stupor. I stayed in the Nayati for days on end, in silent, morbid brooding. Thiede never came; he didn't send even a flicker of thought to me. Vaysh, however, was everywhere— in the pungent scent of hay and horses; in the heady red of wine; an eternal pulse under my skin. Parallax returned from the Kakkahaar at Natalia and did what nohar else could: he laid hands and heated breath on me. His anguish at seeing me in the pathetic state to which I'd declined was matched by his unwillingness to let it continue. For three days he sequestered me away; we ate, meditated, drank, and took aruna. He poured himself into me with unsurpassed generosity until my will to live had again been set alight.
Arahal arrived the next day.
Zephyr nosed at my hand, his bewilderingly intelligent eyes giving me a message of hope I didn't immediately dismiss out of hand. Castlegar was too full of memories; it was a vibrant tomb, filled with the spirits of my innocence. Parallax kept a small phial of my seed, with my request that he plant a mountain ash at the spot where Vaysh lay in the ground. Once it took root, he was to pour out my essence at its base, the legacy of my love for my chesnari.
I've occasionally felt pity for the hara who have fallen for me in recent years; I feel no need to apologise for how I am, but I've never led anyhar on. I am Ashmael Aldebaran, General of the Gelaming armies in Thiede's service.
Once upon a time, I loved.
here.
Title: Maelstrom and Mage, Desire Thine Darkling
This post rating: adult
Warnings: rooning, Angst with a capital A, character death
Word Count: 5,775
Disclaimer: Ashmael, Vaysh, and the harish world all belong to Storm Constantine; I'm merely playing with great abandon in her sandbox.
Pairings: Vaysh/Ashmael
Summary: Genesis. Paradise. Illumination. Exodus. Before they went to Immanion, before Thiede manipulated their destiny, before death and despair, Ashmael and Vaysh knew and loved each other. This is one way their story may have been told.
For those who have been reading this, thank you for your companionship in my first foray into Wraeththu fanfiction. A sequel will be starting up soon from Vaysh's POV. I've also put together a 'soundtrack' for Maelstrom and Mage which I should have uploaded for your listening pleasure later this weekend.
"Saltrock."
I blew out the word in a stream of cigarette smoke.
Out in the small lake, Ondin continued to float in the patched-up inner tube he'd managed to repair using methods I couldn't begin to fathom. "What about it?"
Parallax swam up behind him before letting out a triumphant yell. He cupped his hands and slammed them into the water so that a small wave soaked Ondin's left side.
"ARRRRGH!" Ondin spluttered as Parallax gave an evil laugh. He swam away on his back, kicking more water at him in the process. "You know this means war!"
"Bring it on!" Parallax taunted as he got to shore. He pulled himself up on one of the small boulders and stood aggressively, gesturing at his chest. He shimmied just a bit and my eyes couldn't help watching his dancing ouana-lim as it slapped from thigh to thigh. He really had been blessed with a great many gifts.
I took another drag off of my cigarette. It was a perfect summer day: hot, but not oppressively humid, enough of a breeze that the insects weren't swarming. It was a market day so I didn't feel the need to be roaming the Castlegar grounds or doing anything that remotely resembled business. I'd wanted to bend Ondin's ear much more in depth about their months spent at the other solitary outpost, as well as other aspects of their trip. At breakfast I'd suggested that we take our horses and go out to a secluded natural pool down the mountain. Parallax had been eavesdropping and managed to wheedle his way into the outing. I didn't mind; I felt he should know what was really going on. I hadn't said as much to him, or anyhar for that matter, but I hoped to bring him to Immanion as well, as my own personal aide. Thiede had one, and besides, Thiede had seemed serious enough about adding Parallax to his list of fawning acolytes. Or potentially useful hara, whichever.
"What do you think was so compelling about Saltrock that made them want to say?" I asked Ondin, reviving my line of thought.
"I don't know. It seemed a bit more rustic, fewer rules, a bit more like the wild west?" Ondin offered. His gaze had also drawn to Parallax, who'd come over to sprawl by me, bumming a cigarette and showing off his rather masculine glory. "To be honest, I think they wanted to make more of a name for themselves. Belvac has felt like he's in your shadow, held back, I guess. In Saltrock he and Abelard can do whatever the fuck they want, and their skills are definitely needed. I don't think it's really all that personal."
I snorted at that. It wasn't the end of the world that they'd decided to stay, leaving all of their personal possessions here in Castlegar unless they decided they absolutely couldn't live without some knickknack or sentimental treasure. But after two and a half years of having hara be drawn to Castlegar, if I were being honest with myself, it stung my pride that someone from my original clan had defected to another outpost of harish life. Then again, Belvac and I had been butting heads for months. Perhaps it was better that he and his equally enigmatic lover had decided to stay in Saltrock. Our shouting matches during Regents' conferences had almost become regular enough to be an agenda item.
"Had Thiede visited Saltrock?" Parallax asked Ondin, now taking a drink from the wine bottle that trailed after him, bobbing in the water.
"I don't know. They already have somebody really powerful there, Orien. I talked about him at the Regents' meeting," he reminded Parallax.
"I know. But that was a more formal event. Now we're just three hara, friends, sometimes more…" he let the words drift off as he looked up at me and raised his eyebrows.
I gave a reciprocal acknowledgement.
"We should have a name." Parallax stated.
"What?" Ondin asked.
"A name. Ahalenia and Eleu, and little Lemmy, of course, they're Colurastes. Mabast is Unneah. There are the Varrs just north of us, and you all told us about the Kakkahaar further south of Saltrock," he went on, gesturing at Ondin with a newly lit cigarette. "I've talked with Blaze, Firestorm and even Thorn on my own, and they shared with me the name of their human ancestral tribe. They were Chickasaw. But we don't have a name," he finished, his brow furrowed. "I think we should."
"Thiede and Arahal don't seem to have a tribal name," I said reasonably. "A name doesn't make you more or less Wraeththu."
"The hara at Saltrock don't either." Ondin paddled to shore, where he engineered a makeshift shade and helped himself to more wine. "But you have a good point. We could use a self-identifier."
"Shouldn't things like that happen naturally?" I asked.
"What, like inceptions? Or our race in general?" Parallax's voice held no malice, just dark humour.
"What name would you deem appropriate?"
He mused for a time and finally looked at me, giving a rueful shrug. "Don't know. But I'll think about it."
"No doubt!" Ondin said with a short laugh and a warm smile.
"It's good to have you back," I said to my old friend. "And a bit jealous of all that you experienced."
"Well, I'm glad to be back, though you've apparently had your own share of highly unique adventures!"
I huffed a laugh at that and beckoned at his wine bottle.
"When do the Kakkahaar arrive?" Parallax asked, now sitting cross-legged. He'd pulled his bag of beads and hand tools to him and begun working on an intricate armband.
"In a couple of weeks."
I was both intrigued and no small bit wary of their upcoming visit. They had taken in our hara as guests, however, and we needed to return the favour. Besides, I wanted us to have allies. Even though we'd not had direct run-ins with the Varrs, or Uigenna, since the attack which had claimed Monarch's life, I was under no illusion that the peace would last. News of our presence would travel; it was bound to. There weren't nearly enough of us to take on a fully armed battalion, especially if, as both the Kakkahaar and residents of Saltrock had told our envoys, the Varrs were actively pursuing the dark avenues of magic our race possessed. Then again, according to Opequon's private discussion with me once the triumvirate chesnari had returned without Belvac and Abelard, the Kakkahaar were doing far more than dabble in dark arts themselves.
"Did they have any harlings?" I asked Ondin, the question having just popped into my head. I was beginning to correlate tribal spiritual advancement with harlings as evidence, though I'd only said such a thing aloud to Vaysh.
"Not that we saw," he replied, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his head on his knees. "But for all of their hospitality— and I'll say it again, Ash, they were very hospitable —"
I sensed Parallax's attentions snap to attention, like a fox suddenly sniffing a tasty scent.
"They're a secretive tribe," Ondin continued. "Still, I think if they had managed to generate new harish life like that, from the feelings I got, they would have had the child on display. They're really private, and I didn't truly relax the entire time we were with them. They're quite proud."
"Very astute, Ondin. And since you are, I have another question. I'd like your opinion too, Parallax."
"All you need to do is ask!" he said with a beguiling smile.
"And so I am. Ondin, the scarabs you and your chesnari have have inspired me, as well as some of the tribal markings on Blaze and Firestorm. I'm thinking of asking Wycker to draw one for me, about Vaysh. I just can't seem to come up with just one symbol."
"Ashmael," Ondin drawled, his face gleeful. "How romantic! I'm shocked! How very unlike you."
"That's not true!" I blustered. "I don't feel the need to shout my feelings from the rooftop, but I do unexpected things for him not infrequently."
"You want the tattoo to be about Vaysh? Or the two of you, together?" Parallax asked, still busily threading beads on a tiny loom.
"Just him."
"What about a horse?" Ondin suggested. "Or the horse constellation since he's fond of astronomy. Or maybe you two aren't looking at stars at all when you spend time up at that tower."
I didn't answer that, but saw a conspiratorial smile traipse on Parallax's lips. The three of us had repaired one of the telescopes in the former astronomy tower but we'd also taken advantage of the privacy and novelty to take aruna a few times as well.
"Pegasus," Parallax said. "A flying horse. That'd be a good choice— it has the constellation idea, and a horse that gallops through the skies, like that one that Arahal rides. Vaysh couldn't stop talking about your unbelievable trip through space or however you got to Immanion. His tone of voice when he talked about Tassia was eerily similar to how he sounds when he talks about you," he said with a wry smile. "When he's feeling generous, anyway."
"What do you think he would get? For me?" I asked, thinking I might really do this and wanting to give Vaysh suggestions if he felt like doing something similarly permanent. Oddly enough we hadn't talked about a blood-binding ceremony, or even spoken aloud about trying to conceive a harling; I guessed that Vaysh felt as I did after Immanion, which was that those two events would occur once we were there. We'd have Thiede's approval and even participation, at least in regards to a blood-binding ceremony.
"Vaysh is not getting a tattoo," Ondin declared, easing out from his rigged shelter to go and retrieve another bottle of wine from its tethered point near the edge of the water.
"You're underestimating him," Parallax challenged.
"He's more innately soume than I am," I said, "but he's fearless. I've never seen him shirk from anything dangerous."
"Still, I don't know that he would. He's quite vain about his flawless pale skin," Parallax went on with a disdainful shrug. His own skin had tanned to a dark, tawny gold. "But if I were him, or if I were chesna with you, I'd probably ask Wycker to ink in a sword, since you're so into defense. Maybe a sword with ivy twisted around it, or on the blade or something."
"I still say he'd never agree to it," Ondin said, handing me the bottle of wine.
"Is that a bet?"
"Certainly!" he said, eyes dancing. "But it can't be forever. Since our bodies are so hardy, we might live to be two hundred years old! I bet Vaysh won't get a tattoo to do with you or anyone else in the next year."
"That's not very long!"
"A lot can happen in a year."
"Okay, fine. But what are the terms?"
"You don't need terms," Parallax scoffed.
"Of course we do," Ondin said. "You have that really nice leather coat, the dark maroon one. If I win, and after a year Vaysh's skin is as pristine as ever, I get the coat."
"Hmmmph." I really did love that coat, and wasn't sure I wanted it to be a part of this silly bet. I'd started it, though, and I couldn't back down now. "Well, you have that pistol with the mother of pearl set in the handle. If I win, I get it."
He looked at me with incredulity.
"Tiahaar!" Parallax said, shaking his head. "You're being way too serious. Ashmael, if you lose, you should dye your hair blue for a few months or something. Or run laps around the chancellery in the nude."
Ondin snickered.
"And you, Ondin, if you lose, you'll have to cook Ash's favourite three course meal, or cook personally for him and Vaysh for a week. None of this ridiculous favourite coat and pistol bullshit."
"I think Ashmael would look stunning if he had green hair, actually," Ondin said brightly.
"All right. One year from now, high midsummer of… well, next year. If Vaysh has a tattoo, you cook for me for a week. And I get a massage a day."
Ondin groaned, but nodded.
"If he doesn't, then I'll dye my hair green and keep it that way for a month or so."
"Don't forget the laps!" Parallax said, grinning.
"Nobody wants to see me run around like an idiot in the nude," I insisted, but Parallax's expression seemed to indicate otherwise. "Fine."
Snatches of that conversation still peppered my thoughts when I went to Wycker a few days later. I had a drawing from Parallax in hand and a few strands of Vaysh's hair taken from his hairbrush.
"Are you sure you want his actual essence in the ink?" he asked uncertainly when I explained why I had the hair.
"Of course," I said, defensive. Then I realised he was just trying to look out for me. "We're chesna. We haven't jumped into a blood-binding, but I don't doubt we'll do that in the future as a formality."
"Well, if you're certain…" he said, looking relieved.
It was exquisite, a rather tribal looking Pegasus, the shape of the constellation visible within the overall form. Even after it healed it remained faintly warm to the touch, a legacy of the magical infusion of Vaysh's hair. His blood would have made it even more potent — and vibrant — but I couldn't get any from him without him asking why. Once I unveiled the tattoo to Vaysh, he said he loved it. He kept insisting that I walk around shirtless so he could admire it, inked across my left shoulder blade, opposite my heart. To Ondin's chagrin, he lost the bet far sooner than he imagined when Vaysh sought out Firethorn and Wycker and got his own. It was a narrow, intertwining plait around his left bicep in colours of red, green and purple. He said the red was for him, the purple for me and the green to symbolise growth, all bound up together. The two of us ate quite well for a week and Ondin, to his credit, didn't complain. Much.
Three emissaries from the Kakkahaar came in the waning, sultry days of summer, welcomed with a large feast and live music by Thorn, Jaffa and a couple of others who had made a band of sorts. After a week or so for them to get used to our very different environment and rather eclectic host of hara, they began giving instruction to a dozen or so individuals particularly gifted in the spiritual and esoteric powers. Vaysh, Parallax and Firethorn were avid students, also Mabast and others who had come to the mountain in the past year. The Kakkahaar slowly became more open and less isolationist as the first month went on. They also met regularly with our own spiritual leaders. They were fascinated by Firethorn and his sirelings as well as Lemuel, but they were only this side of frosty with the two adult Colurastes.
Everyone in Castlegar came out for a full day and night of bacchanalian revelry at the autumnal equinox. At the geographic heart of our community there was all kinds of food, singing, copious amounts of wine and all other varieties of alcohol, dancing, and hara dressed in their finest, tightest clothes. Those with skills in tailoring and jewellery making must have engaged in a brisk trade given the parading hara all decked out. Some were ostentatious, but others were more simply clad though elegant in a less fussy way. The scent of aruna and swirling perfumes of desire and lust hung like a thick velvet canopy over the grounds.
Vaysh and I certainly weren't immune. We took a somewhat drunken walk out to the viewing area I loved so much and were delighted to discover no one else was there. One thing led to another, and soon one of my nicest tunics was covered in grass stains. I didn't care because Vaysh was spread out on it like a luscious, ripe peach. I licked and kissed and drank down his juices while the stars watched impassively. I crawled up from between his trembling thighs to nip and nuzzle at the band inked around his arm. In a throaty voice, he demanded that I kneel near his face. What a wicked, talented tongue he had. My ouana-lim flowered as he swallowed and swirled his tongue around my hard length; the petals curled back so no sensitive spot was held hidden from him.
When neither of us could bear the relative separation any longer, I knee-walked back down to the beckoning vee of his legs and sank into him. His body welcomed me; I wanted to bury myself forever in the grasping, fierce coals of his passion. Like diamond smoke, his desire poured into me as we shared breath; as once before, I was drawn with him into enchanted wilds of plum and musky shadow. Deep within my ouana-lim, I felt as though a spring had snapped— a butterfly tongue unfurled, and I drowned in the warm silver of Vaysh's eyes.
Yes, Ashmael, yes, he said without speaking as a secret chamber deep within him began to open, rapture blazing from his face.
Without warning, we both felt a painful shock, a resounding, silent clang as a force from outside of us barred Vaysh's pulsing centre of creation. Even as I looked in his panicked eyes, our arunic energies were stirred up into a pleasure so intense I screamed with it. Our bodies spasmed and shook as our unbearable ecstasy roared and stretched relentlessly on until I thought we would be ripped apart. Dizzy, ghostly stars danced in my peripheral vision. After long minutes the thundering waves of our release subsided and we lay on the ground, gasping like nearly drowned hara spat out of the sea.
I was crying; I choked out hiccoughing, syrupy sobs of anger into Vaysh's wreck of hair. I knew with all of my heart what that should have been and who had halted it so abruptly.
"Damn you Thiede, you bastard!" I growled brokenly, clutching Vaysh to me and trying to stop my hands from shaking.
"Shhhhh, Ash, it's okay. More than him, I felt ours," he whispered, which caused more tears to stain my face. "He's still there. This wasn't the time."
"What kind of fucking god does Thiede think he is to decide when is right?" I ground out bitterly until all at once, my anger was scoured away. I felt battered and ravaged, chewed up and most importantly, warned.
Vaysh was my angel, somehow consoling me when he'd been just as mauled, just as violated. He'd felt that secret, sweet harbour open its gates to me for the first time—
"Next time we'll know, for certain," he said softly, running a hand through my hair and the other fanned out on my tattoo, the spot thrumming warmly with his spirit. "Our son should be delivered in Immanion. Thiede must want him conceived there, too. He wants us Ash, so much." His tender voice tore at my heart with the edge of a jagged knife.
Wrapped in Vaysh's wings of comfort, I cried again. I wasn't sure which he Vaysh meant.
* * * * *
Another glorious autumn spread its colourful cheer over the mountain, but I was preoccupied and didn't marvel at the display as I had the prior two years. I felt Thiede's presence not infrequently, and sensed him distantly watching us, though his focus seemed primarily to be on Vaysh. For several weeks after our experience at the equinox, I held back when we took aruna, unwilling to experience that heartbreak again. I now knew how it felt to be climbing to that plane of consciousness, and we were both careful not to allow ourselves near that path. Eventually I began readying myself to leave Castlegar and as I did, I was aware of doors opening for me, of difficult situations resolving themselves. I marvelled, yet again, at how powerful Thiede's desires must be if they could grease the wheels of life itself. Arahal even spoke at the Regents' assembly at which Vaysh and I formally announced that we would depart for Immanion a few days after Natalia. Our harbrethren were going to miss us, but we promised to return to visit, and Arahal extended the arm of hospitality on Thiede's behalf to any who wished to see us once we were settled in.
Winter had just curled its frosty toes into the ground when we had another leaving feast. This one was for the Kakkahaar, who were quite ready to return to their desert climes. Parallax and Galen, one of the two nearly dead hara we'd found in that ramshackle barn a year ago, went with them to continue their caste studies. The night before they left, Vaysh and I invited Parallax to our bed, exhausting him in the fiercest, most loving way possible.
"They're so good at mind-touch, over incredibly long distances," he informed us later. We'd curled around each other in front of the fire like sluggish snakes under the sun. "I should be able to communicate with you, at least until you're across the waters. I'm not sure after that."
"You just learn all you can," Vaysh encouraged him, his pale, delicate fingers combing gently through the tight curls at Parallax's groin. "Before you know it, you'll be summoned to Immanion, too. What a reunion that'll be!"
"We have a last Natalia to experience here," I reminded him. "Vox and Polaris said it'll be especially memorable. Pity you'll miss it," I said to Parallax, leaning in to nibble teasingly on his earlobe. He groaned, the baritone of his voice roughened by his vocal enthusiasm through the night.
"You two have worn me out. I won't want to think about rooning again for ages!" he said, a sensual smile gliding onto his lips as he stretched out his long limbs.
"I don't doubt that the Kakkahaar will give in-depth instruction in every skill they pride themselves," Vaysh said silkily, his fingers toying with the girth of Parallax's ouana-lim. "And they are a very prideful tribe."
Parallax turned his head to me, his hazel eyes awash in mirth and gratitude. There was none of the angry, smart-mouthed human at whose head I'd held a gun those seasons ago; he'd truly blossomed into an extraordinary har.
I'll look forward to you joining us in Immanion, whenever that is, I said to him telepathically.
One thing at a time, he said blithely, his ouana-lim being brought expertly back to full flower in Vaysh's skilled fingers. "Didn't you mention something about tying me to your bed?"
* * * * *
Natalia was a lively, raucous celebration as it had been in years past, though Thiede didn't appear. Arahal did, though he now seemed like an honorary resident of Castlegar rather than a guest. He brought a powerful har with him named Tharmifex, whom I took a liking to immediately. We arranged to meet for breakfast at a reasonable hour the next day before Polaris, with the subtlety of a wolf among sheep, led him away.
Early the following morning, I was awakened by a strange sound I couldn't place. It was eerily quiet, with a tinkling noise tapping on the roof. Vaysh's eyes fluttered open when I got out of bed and he pulled the covers around himself. Looking out of our windows I saw a surreal, frozen landscape— ice blanketed every surface, glinting in the watery dawn. Plinking notes of tiny frozen pellets danced through the hushed air; it was a wonderland of translucent beauty.
"What is it?" Vaysh asked sleepily.
"An ice storm," I said, shaking my head. "It's beautiful."
"Is it worth getting out of bed for?"
"I'd say so."
After a time, curiosity got the better of him, and with a bit of grumbling, he pulled on a dressing gown and joined me, gazing out at the trees, encrusted and frozen. Each surface was a hardened mirror, glittering and silent.
"It's gorgeous," he breathed. "We've got to go out for a walk. It'll warm up and be gone by mid-day, don't you think?" he asked, all at once a flurry of activity.
"It's pretty cold," I said, but I put on my coat and boots, woolen trousers and tunic. "I've never seen anything like it. It's very different from snow."
I took a quick turn in our bathroom, and was surprised to see Vaysh busying himself in the kitchen when I got out.
"Thought I'd put some coffee on so it'll be ready when we get back," he explained. We'd found several unexpected and welcome containers of oil over time and most residences now had working generators. Things that had been luxuries when he'd first arrived were now far more commonplace.
"Awfully nice of you," I said and he gave me a wry smile.
"I like you better after your first cup of coffee."
" I like me better after my first cup of coffee," I agreed as we left the house.
My feet skated and I nearly took a nosedive my first few steps; it took me scant seconds to develop a very healthy appreciation for just how slick the ground was. I warned Vaysh even though he was already quite aware of the treacherous surface under our boots. With shuffling steps, we slowly, cautiously made our way across the courtyard, and then the paved road with its many gaping potholes. The sun wasn't far above the horizon and not very bright, but the effect of any light on the shining branches and shrubs was breathtaking.
"This is unbelievable!" Vaysh said, turning around to gesture at me, a wide smile on his face. He almost lost his footing and slid, nearly stumbling to the frozen ground. His expression snapped to one of intense concentration.
"Be careful!" My heart raced from seeing his near catastrophe. "As beautiful as it is, one misstep and you'll be flat on your ass. I don't want to try and carry you to see Ondin."
"I'm as agile as a cat," he insisted, but I noted gratefully that he was far more cautious as we went into the woods. The path was slightly more easy to traverse, and I held back a bit, taking some time to look around at all of the naked branches, now clad in hard shells of ice. The tinkling, melodious sounds were occasionally overshadowed by a staccatoed barrage as a squirrel or bird shifted a branch. There was the rare crack or groan as a tree complained under the weight of the ice.
Vaysh had gone deeper into the alcove than I wished; my imagination had already gone to Vox or Jaffa, trudging to the dining hall to make breakfast, underestimating the elements, and falling. The sparkling ice was beyond treacherous, and it might not melt until tomorrow, or the day after, and most hara were probably hung over from Natalia—
I heard Vaysh let out a surprised cry and swear loudly as he fell. I grimaced, and hoped to God he hadn't broken anything.
"Are you all right?" I called, shuffling as quickly as I could, which wasn't very fast.
"Yes, but— ow. Fuck!"
I could see he was sprawled out on his stomach, arms stretched out and trying to gain purchase somewhere, when I heard a resounding, thunderous crack. I jerked my head to the side, trying to place where it came from. My gaze whipped back in front of me and I shouted, my stomach clenched instantly into a knot. I watched the terrible, inexorable motion of a heavy limb as it fell, crushing Vaysh with a sickening explosion of ice and cracking bone.
"VAYSH!"
I screamed his name, trying to run and sliding, falling, tears bursting from my eyes as I scrambled to get to him. I scuttled on hands and bruised, aching knees, calling his name again and again. Once I got closer I saw the nauseating trajectory of the branch that had thudded against his spine and skull. He was broken, shattered. With strength borne from abject terror, I heaved the branch away, but the damage to Vaysh's head was— I couldn't bear it. I could barely see him; I couldn't focus through the wet sheen of my eyes. I sounded like a wounded animal as I tried to hold him, blood everywhere.
"Vaysh, Vaysh, Vaysh, ohgodohgod, no, you can't, no, don't go," I sobbed, trying to lift his bludgeoned head into my lap. I saw his chest rise, and fall; clumsily I smeared matted clots of hair out of his closed eyes.
"Vaysh," I pleaded, choking on bile. I was wheezing; the air was a razor in my lungs and I coughed, unable to catch my breath. With what must have been tremendous effort, Vaysh laboriously opened his eyes, but I didn't think he could see me. Wild horror knifed clarity into my thoughts: I needed him to know I was with him.
"Vaysh, it's me, your Ash. For the love of God, don't leave me, I'm here, right here," I said hysterically. I was going insane; Vaysh's blood soaked my lap. The pungent scent of so much blood was an abomination. My vision started to go black, phantom stars were crowding out the atrocity of my beloved, dying. I couldn't move, only chanted his name, over and over and over as my reason seeped into the unforgiving, scarlet stained ice.
A gurgle lodged in his throat; a thick, wet cough coated his mouth and my fingers with more blood. He gasped and stilled, his unseeing gaze locked on mine.
I screamed, bellowing anger and maniacal hopelessness until my voice was a pitiful, unrecognisable mewl. I rocked him in my arms; the world shattered into nightmarish crystalline shards of nothingness.
Vaysh was dead.
The next year was a threnody for Vaysh. I was inconsolable; I abhorred everyone's company, anyone else's touch was loathsome. In my rages against a world that blithely continued to exist without Vaysh in it, I wished for a human photograph of him, then railed against myself at my own lunatic folly. A picture couldn't have begun to capture even the smallest grain of the endless sands of his being. I thought back to the night when we could have conceived a harling, and wondered if he would have been able to console me, or if it would have twisted the knife too deeply to see Vaysh's likeness in a creation of our own flesh… I obsessed about what our son might have looked like, how it would have been to hold him as together, he and I mourned the loss of his hostling, my chesnari, my beloved. Under the crushing anvil of grief, my heart was ground into a mealy pulp, a quivering mash beating feebly in my chest. It was with relief that I sank into the yawning maw of darkness; I let depression and futility count my days as my body forced me to stay alive. I could have cared less.
I spent the rest of the winter living with Firestorm, Cloudblaze and Firethorn. For a few days after we buried Vaysh, I tormented myself in our home. I pulled all of his clothes from their drawers and covered myself with them in our bed, desperate for his scent which still clung to his tunics and leggings. Polaris finally forced me out of the tomb I'd made for myself. He plied me with bourbon until I couldn't fight him with my fists anymore, and he and Jaffa held me up during the march over to my temporary lodging.
Cloudblaze washed me, a thankless task after the several days I'd lain inert and rank. He combed out my hair and didn't balk when I asked him to shave my head entirely. Firethorn tiptoed around me, his eyes red; he'd never seen anything like the punishment I now suffered, and he felt powerless to help. After a few days when I continued to do nothing but eat when commanded to and heeded my body's demands to expel the extra when necessary, Cloudblaze came into my narrow bed in the room I shared with Thorn. He'd insisted on being there when I woke up yelling, unable to escape the nightmares of Vaysh's death happening in front of me again and again. I could do nothing but receive, and Cloudblaze was astute enough to know I would have gone absolutely mad to take aruna in such a state. He shared breath with me, sending healing images. His taste of windswept sage and leather gently sought out the bottomless fissures in my spirit, filling some of the deepest shadows with his concern and affection.
The months passed. I spent much of the time in a drunken stupor. I stayed in the Nayati for days on end, in silent, morbid brooding. Thiede never came; he didn't send even a flicker of thought to me. Vaysh, however, was everywhere— in the pungent scent of hay and horses; in the heady red of wine; an eternal pulse under my skin. Parallax returned from the Kakkahaar at Natalia and did what nohar else could: he laid hands and heated breath on me. His anguish at seeing me in the pathetic state to which I'd declined was matched by his unwillingness to let it continue. For three days he sequestered me away; we ate, meditated, drank, and took aruna. He poured himself into me with unsurpassed generosity until my will to live had again been set alight.
Arahal arrived the next day.
Zephyr nosed at my hand, his bewilderingly intelligent eyes giving me a message of hope I didn't immediately dismiss out of hand. Castlegar was too full of memories; it was a vibrant tomb, filled with the spirits of my innocence. Parallax kept a small phial of my seed, with my request that he plant a mountain ash at the spot where Vaysh lay in the ground. Once it took root, he was to pour out my essence at its base, the legacy of my love for my chesnari.
I've occasionally felt pity for the hara who have fallen for me in recent years; I feel no need to apologise for how I am, but I've never led anyhar on. I am Ashmael Aldebaran, General of the Gelaming armies in Thiede's service.
Once upon a time, I loved.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-09 07:49 pm (UTC)Thiede doesn't kill or arrange the deaths of either Pell or Vaysh but he does have some prior knowledge (and has prepared for their deaths) and does nothing to stop "fate".
Also in a later book, Ash (while speaking to Cal) says that he just can't think of Vaysh as the har he once knew and loved - he sees him as some sort of zombie... and Vaysh's presence sort of freaks him out. *shrugs* I know I'd be pretty freaked out if +10years after he died - hubby showed up. LOL I'd have to give up my boytoys hehehehehe
He may have questions about Vaysh/thiede etc... but he is definitely not interested in rekindling things. It took between 5-7 years after Pell was shot to "rebuild him" (I'm having 2 million dollar man flashbacks LOL) and who knows how long it was between Vaysh being killed, rebuilt, and deemed "unsuitable" and Pell's demise.
Also... I wonder why Vaysh didn't push about Ash... he "remembers" but he doesn't make an effort to seek Ash out or send him a messsage ("oh hei! Ash, I'm alive btw)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-10 02:08 am (UTC)Eeeek. Yes, I'll need to get Vaysh's mindset firmly entrenched before I write too much, because that's just as valid a question. Or perhaps he demands that Thiede let him see Ashmael, and Thiede says no, or says that Ashmael has moved on. ::digs knife::