"Down the Whispering Well," post 10
May. 3rd, 2008 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thrihyrneTitle: Down the Whispering Well
This post rating: general
Warnings: angst
Word Count: 3900
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 (historic)
Novella summary: Being brought back from the dead doesn't mean happily ever after, especially if you're Vaysh. Life has its costs, and he pays dearly. An exploration of Vaysh's character in the years before and through Pellaz's transformation, and the burdens he endures, because he must.
Post summary: A very canon ending; what's done is done, and Vaysh confronts what he must: he is stronger than he realizes. A few quotes, again, from Enchantments, as to ignore them would seem stilted. Continued from post 9, here. Epilogue to follow shortly. My thanks to Storm Constantine for having captured my imagination with Wraeththu so much over the past few months, and having led me, thusly, to those of you reading this.
I'm now ready to write more Wraeththu PWP, or something set far afield from this. These two gapfillers have worn me out, though I still love Vaysh more than life itself. I don't say that this is at all healthy. ;)
We had both been singled out for greatness, Vaysh and I, and the harvest of this greatness had been emotional flaying. Yet neither of us blamed Thiede. He controlled us, bonded us to loyalty; now we had nothing, now we had everything; now we had nothing. It was endless.
~ The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, Storm Constantine
* * * * *
There are moments in everyone's life — or so I assume, I have only mine to go on — that tremble and throb with profundity even as they occur. This heart-stopping clarity manifests itself in making the moments slow down to a near-petrified speed, although even as the seconds are ticking by, one knows time hasn't truly played tricks. For me one of those moments occurred with the simplest of gestures, a faint touch, initially not even on my bare skin. Pellaz's hand came to rest on my back, and I didn't flinch. The soothing touch was just that; I wasn't shaking with revulsion at his splayed palm. In fact, ever since we'd seen Immanion with our own two pair of eyes, I'd felt a sickening, fearful shattering of my resolve to dislike him for what he was and how I'd come to have fealty for him.
As we'd spoken there, in my rooms in Phaonica in those first few hours, I allowed Pellaz to rub my back. I couldn't help my instinctual clutch at the hair at my nape when he wormed around on the bed to put his head in my lap. I felt a soft, warm rain in my spirit and I was filled with an equally diaphanous panic. Smatterings of abject fear washed away as the yet unnamed lord of Wraeththu lay in my lap and offered insights into why I was the way I was. I could barely hear him through my own torrent of worry; what had happened to my glacier-strong reserve? Had the phoenix pendant been a true talisman I'd forsaken too early? Who was I, or Pell, we two creatures who'd been re-created by will and loving breath, we who had died and now conversed in hushed tones in a marble sanctuary universes away from either of our former harish lives, much less our long-forsaken human ones?
"What color is it, naturally?" he asked, reaching up to tenderly entwine his fingers in my hair.
"Light colored," I offered, uncertain that I was even communicating aloud or via mind-touch. It was as though we had no need for speech, and yet, I knew that to him I was truly an enigma, a perplexing constellation, distant and cold. He wanted to raise me up into the clarity of a bas-relief, to plumb me like a shooting star with a blazing tail of light. He radiated sensuality; my body was far past true hunger for aruna, but his proximity and the strength from Thiede's essence broke down another ice shield; another floe drifted off and the blood roared in my ears.
"The color of light…" he asked, and I shook my head.
"No, just sort of yellowish, only darker."
I let my hand drift down, and stroked his face, so warm and bronzed from our few days in Ferelithia. On the road, before we'd ridden into Immanion, I'd told him how I'd come to see him as my own, an extension of myself during his time of initial rebirth and those quiet, anxiety saturated days between the fortress and Olopade. Now I breathed in sacred air, reverently brushing the soft skin of his cheeks, drawing feather light touches across his eyebrows with the back of my fingers. As he looked up at me, tenderness reached up from his soul, and I felt naked, yet unashamed and unabashed. He didn't see this. It was enough for me to know with a surety I'd not felt since the night I bathed him in Olopade, cleaning his body of what little waste he'd created and reassuring him that all would be well: Pellaz did need me.
"No more than this, Pell," I murmured and he closed his eyes, an angelic smile on his face. Did he think he'd uncovered some secret of deepest ephemera or was he merely pleased with himself for having reached in past my barriers and found a warm, beating heart there? It was of no real import to me. We had survived our respective journeys and travails, endured separation from life itself, and despite our admittedly rough beginnings, I found that I believed he would no longer hurt me intentionally.
We stayed like that for a time, his smile softening to a bare upturn of lips as I let my fingers flit through his hair.
"I think some wine is in order," he said eventually, his eyes fluttering open.
"An excellent idea," I agreed.
He eased gingerly out of my lap as though afraid he'd never be allowed that close to me again. I didn't say anything, only raised my eyebrows slightly to acknowledge that I suspected I knew his thoughts. He stretched upward, reaching toward the ceiling. I watched his supple limbs as he sank down, easing out kinks in his spine and neck while I gazed impassively. I walked behind him out to the patio and it struck me that I couldn't imagine him physically naked anymore. He'd not known I'd lain next to him in his pre-sentient state, and then again when he was malformed, a mockery of the self he was now, when I'd cared for him those long days and nights to Olopade. I was brought back from my reverie when I heard Pell call to one of his servants. Moments later, a sparkling wine had been brought, two glasses poured. We toasted each other with somber faces, thoughts our hearts were light. It was a glorious evening; the sun's last rays suffused the clouds on the horizon with vibrant streaks of coral and lavender.
"Dare I ask what you're thinking?" Pell asked. I stood near to him, smelling the faint rose and sandalwood still lingering on him from his bath.
"Don't you assume I'm thinking about you?" I replied saucily. He laughed, a genuine, melodious trill that caused my mouth to quirk in a smile.
"Well, yes, of course." He turned to look at me. Now that the scales had fallen from my eyes, I could no longer feign blindness to how truly magnificent he was. An old, familiar despair crept with stealth from out of its unlocked cage. I would be forever with him, this wanton, desirable creature, so desperate to please. In his heart of hearts, he pined for someone who'd loved him, body and soul, as he once was. I was mirrored, in part, in his dark eyes.
"If thinking about me makes you look that melancholy, we're going to have to do something drastic between now and whenever my coronation takes place," he went bravely on, trying to lighten my mood.
"Oh, Pell. The sun doesn't rise and set on you. Yet," I said coyly, and was pleased to see I'd garnered a true smile in return. "I don't want to say too much aloud. This time with you, my not hating you, it's best for it simply to be, I think. Not discussed overmuch."
He nodded, and stepped close enough to rest his head on my shoulder. He was testing the waters; again, I hadn't flinched, or recoiled. I wasn't, however, about to go and invite him into my bed without so much as a by-your-leave as he'd done with that poseur in Ferelithia. I took a swallow of the crisp, effervescent drink. As the pleasant feeling buzzed in my mouth, it occurred to me that perhaps that was reflective of the savoury taste of trust.
* * * * *
"I'll want to talk with you when I get back. Please be here," Pell said, picking at his fingernails. The gesture was one I'd come to recognise as a subconscious, nervous habit.
"I will. Now that I know where every little thing is in your room, I'll go and make myself comfortable out on that settee in the main room. I've found a few books of interest. Go enjoy your lunch."
Pell snorted. "Right. Think positive thoughts on my behalf."
"Already done. You're going to be Tigron; it's time to show them why."
He gave me a ghostly smile, and then straightened his back, walking with outwardly confident strides as Cleis led the way to Thiede's apartments. I let out a deep breath I'd not realized I'd been holding, and massaged my upper back to get at the bony knots of tension I could feel there. I was restless and felt my skin was too tight on my bones. I rubbed at the goose bumps on my arms and found I'd wandered out to the terrace. It was an inspiring view, even if it seemed too perfect to be real. The sun warmed my spirit just enough to make me at ease again, and I summoned Attica to solicit a small lunch for myself. I had a small plate of cheeses and olives with some crescent-shaped herbed crackers. Every meal was exquisitely crafted, but also too perfect in its own way. I might well need to go out into the city to find a market and make some of my own fare, if such an act of rebellion were allowed.
There was a small carafe of wine with the meal, just enough for me to stop worrying about Pell facing the lions of the Hegemony. Book in hand, I lay down on the couch and read for at least a couple of hours. I'd been about ready to get up and sit back outside again when I heard the door open. Assuming it was Pell, I splayed the book open, spine up, and sat at attention. In the nanoseconds before I realized it wasn't him, but before I could fathom who it was, I recognised I'd been truly worried for Pell, and him meeting—
"Where's the master, then?" Ashmael said, his voice barely concealing his contempt until he saw me.
But he didn't.
Not really, I could tell, as my heart derailed into a frenzied thumping against my ribs. As the seconds careened to a halt, I memorised everything I could from where I sat, frozen as marble. His hair was shorter, worn with a perfected carelessness about his face and shoulders. He was dressed to intimidate, suave and using his height to his full advantage. That handsome face, the architecture of his strong brow and full lips—
I took in a shuddering breath, every nerve screaming into a terror more vivid and inescapable than the freezing madness of the Otherlanes. If I tried to travel without Tassia, this is how I would feel, I thought crazily; every atom would fly apart, hurtled into nothingness and swallowed by stardust eaters.
He didn't recognise me.
As I stood unsteadily, preparing to flee as quickly as possible, I saw the expressions on his beautiful, formerly beloved face change, chameleon-like. In only a few heartbeats I saw annoyance morph to confusion to incomprehension to abject denial. What spurned my feet was the disbelief and shadowed pain which settled there at last. Underneath it, the flickering embers of memory had sparked, if only for the most infinitesimal shiver of time.
I bolted.
Minutes, hours… centuries could have gone by as I cowered in the adjoining room. I'd run away like a scared rabbit, and I despised myself for it. Would Ashmael come after me? I paced, raking my fingers through my hair again and again, uncontrollable and unstoppable, a manifestation of the maelstrom of panic swirling through me like a tsunami. No, of course he wouldn't.
Fuck. I'm dead. I'm dead to him. He probably thinks Pell brought me with him and I just happen to look a lot like some har he used to know, used to love…
Oh God! I was dead to him. I heard his voice in the next room, its sneering quality, threaded with a commandant's sense of superiority. Pellaz was standing his ground— I simply couldn't snatch comprehension from the words, I was still in too much turmoil.
For fuck's sake! I raged at myself, clawing at the edge of a bookcase to force myself to stop. I needed to swallow some bitter, bitter truths, now that the moment of verity had come and I'd fled on the springy feet of cowardice. Pell would want to talk. He didn't need to know Ashmael and I had been chesna, Ashmael and I had been lovers, friends and confidants, Ashmael and I had incepted humans side by side, Ashmael and I had almost— Ashmael and I…
"Shut up," I hissed angrily at myself when Ash's dismissal registered on the periphery of my understanding. "Pull yourself together!"
Pell wasn't an idiot, he'd know Ash and I had a past of some type by my actions. I peered around the door— only Pell remained in the room.
"He's gone," he affirmed, waving at a chair in invitation.
"Thank God," I replied.
I think I spoke, and Pell spoke; the eddies and currents of conversation drifted by until he asked gently, "Is he your Cal, Vaysh? Was it the same for you?"
A thousand retorts, from witty to biting to insightful or maudlin crowded, jumbling violently on my tongue, and rendering me mute. I simply couldn't answer that. No, he wasn't my Cal— he'd been my Ashmael. My Ashmael. Ohgodohgod. I got up, paced again, picking things up and putting them down again, unable to be still, unable to articulate the raging storm of unspeakable answers. Was it the same? No, we'd been apart longer, and I'd had to live for years now with the knowledge that I knew Ash was alive and a privileged counsel for Thiede while Thiede didn't tell him about me. Was that crueler than Thiede not telling Cal that his former chesnari boy-love would be Tigron of Wraeththu? Would Ashmael ponder the impossible? Would he come back to find out, or simply chalk it up to a strange coincidence?
I couldn't speak much of it to Pell; I told him he'd guessed the core of it. I shared my fear, and saw that the violence of my own feelings was nearly enough to cause him to run from the room. He'd not been privy to how deep my emotions truly went. Had he been exposed, I'd no doubt he'd have run and hid behind Thiede himself. Pell tried to comfort me as I explained my fears of thawing, of breaking apart, and I told him it was half his fault. His laugh almost escaped. I realised I was in his arms; he was trying to comfort me. If I could have, I'd have made a bed of his chest and drawn his hair over me like a blanket. Instead I rested my head on his shoulder, chewing a strand of his hair as though I were an infant, or infatuated lover. So many words, sentiments, dizzying motes of fragmented catastrophes echoed in the room, the lingering overtones of a symphony come to its end.
"What did Ashmael say when he saw you?" Pell asked, his arm draped around me, the protective lioness.
I continued to stare, unblinking, off into the distance. "Say? What do you think?" I breathed; my chest rose and fell. "A long time ago, I died in his arms."
His fingers gripped me tighter; I sensed him wavering. He wanted to know how nearly parallel our lives were, now that I'd begun to crumble in front of him. I was afraid for both of us— we'd been in Immanion fewer than three days and I'd already had a breakdown. I felt no need to share the gory details, but neither did I wish for the question to remain between us like a boulder to be constantly sidestepped. He wouldn't ask Thiede. I was disintegrating; the trickling snowmelt of my reserves and the reverence of these strange moments carried me onward.
"We'd gone out that morning, the day after Natalia. We were in Castlegar— a settlement our two clans founded, up on a mountain plateau. We'd had an ice storm; I'd never seen anything like it. I made coffee… Ash doesn't — didn't — do well before his morning coffee. Everything sparkled— it was eerie, and very slick, as you can imagine. We went into the woods. I was ahead, a ways, and fell. And then, when I was trying to get up, I heard this deafening crack. I was still on hands and knees, I just kept sliding, and then… it was a huge branch, it crushed me. The pain of it took my breath away. I was in myself, and not, and things grew so dim. He got the branch off enough to hold me, but I was nearly gone. Oh, Pell. He begged, it was the last thing I heard. I'm dead to him, you do understand? He'll probably think it's a strange coincidence. Maybe I should change my name."
He made a strangled, keening sound. I knew his thoughts; would his reunion, if he had one, with the other part of his bruised and sundered heart, play out like this?
"You could be — I wish — Thiede knew you'd make a strong leader, a princely Tigron. It's in the way you hold yourself." Pell's thoughts drove ahead, though his voice remained hushed, the precious blasphemies for my ears alone. "I'd give it all to you, gladly. If I could see him…"
We curled together on the couch, survivors of experiences which kept us apart from all other Wraeththu, even as we remained intimate strangers to each other about so much of ourselves.
"Why that common singer, then?" No topic seemed taboo, in our time out of time. "He was pretty, but you'll attract that wherever you go."
Pell shook his head, the soft hair falling across my face. I had a sudden flashback to the night I lay next to him in his bed, cradling his delicate frame.
"Aruna's what it is. Necessary," he said. He gave a topcoat answer, knowing I sensed the pentimento he kept hidden. I didn't press him. "Vaysh, how long?"
Now it was my turn to shake my head.
"I could — you're nearly my caste. Thiede's physical influence—"
"No, Pellaz," I interrupted. "Not now. But now would be an entirely appropriate time to see what strong liquor the almost Tigron can have summoned." I turned my head so we could see each other. The rims of his eyes were slightly red; I leaned up to kiss his eyelids. "I plan to get quite drunk. It's no good having a breakdown if you can't forget it properly. Join me?" I asked, enjoying his plaintive sigh.
"I don't know if I can handle this side of you," he admitted.
"It won't last," I promised.
* * * * *
Black is the colour most individuals associate with mourning, but for me, it is dark purple, the shade of a dark aubergine. Cool and dark, rich and presumptuous, the historic colour reserved for kings. Green was what I preferred to dress in, it suited my skin and the vivid red of my dyed hair. The days went on after my so-soon confrontation with Ashmael and I realised that he really wasn't going to seek me out. Jaffa had been distant at first, so in my logical mind, I knew it was unsurprising that even if Ashmael did ask enough questions and discovered that Thiede had done the impossible — twice — he would stay away for a little while, getting used to the reality now presented to him. Days passed, and still no word. Ashmael had to know, and it was then that I had another mental collapse, though I did so away from Pell. I couldn't bear to talk about it. In my fevered imagination, I'd never gone so far as to consider what it might be like, living inescapably in this city of enlightenment and puppetry and bearing the responsibility I did. Ashmael wasn't out on campaign, he was actively questionning the competency of the future Tigron, also my confidante and friend. Ashmael had someone living with him, perhaps someone he was chesna with. Pell had only disparaging remarks about this har Phylax who'd been of such a nervous bent Ashmael had sent him away during Pell's visit.
The awful, incontrovertible truth I had to learn to live with draped my heart with an indigo shroud: Ashmael had moved on. I had died, he had continued living his life. I was years behind him in that regard, and blighted socially for a multitude of reasons. I felt shunned, feared, respected and invisible, all at the same time. Pell was generous during those weeks; he kept me occupied with tasks and intrigues to keep me involved but away from the Hegemony, and respected my need for silent, tear-filled dirges alone at night. I was girded in melancholy; violet carapaces of grief protected my raw emotional wounds while I yearned for them to knit together.
As hara from faraway lands began arriving for Pell's coronation, activity around us in Phaonica continued to ratchet up into an ever-increasing buzz of activity. It's hard to describe the bludgeoning that Pell suffered when Seel arrived three days before he was to take the title of Tigron, and Seel told Pell what Cal had done. Self-exiled in my own maudlin tower, I tried to be a comfort or at least an understanding companion. We stayed drunk for two days, a carnival of despair.
The coronation day came. My colours were those of sacrificial blood, of sunburnt earth. There were hundreds of attendees and I tried to visit with many of the ones who'd journeyed the farthest. To them I was a mere har, though one very close to the Tigron, and they could chalk up my solitary, enigmatic persona to my elevated status. Seeing Ashmael, catching his unguarded look of revulsion before he threw up his own shields — the disgust morphed to a distaste — the sutures in my wounded spirit ripped apart. His eyes gleamed with unrest, his gaze burned, luminous with sickened disbelief. I let his name crumble to cinders on my tongue.
We would never again dwell in the delights of each other. There would never be a reunion.
Despite my tear-blurred vision, I took the darkest route back to Phaonica. I was vespertilian, a fluttering creature desperate to return to the sanctuary of my rooms. I held enough clout to find a serving-hara willing to bring me two bottles of something strong; I didn't care what they were. I'd lived in Megalithica, I'd lived in the cold place, I'd spent time in Olopade, in Ferelithia; nohar would speak down to me that night. I'd been flayed open, and I was going to daub salve on those wounds alone.
Except that, despite all of the razor wire boundaries I'd tried to erect to protect myself, Pellaz returned. He was all I could have been, all that I should have been, and I found myself grateful that he was himself, and I was mine, all mine. I was drunk, I was strong, I was soume, and welcomed him into me, this flesh of my spirit. He said he took advantage, but who is to say? I knew exactly what I was doing. I drew him in, the challenge in my eyes: before he could opt otherwise, he was in my arms.
There is no shame in being oneself.
This post rating: general
Warnings: angst
Word Count: 3900
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 (historic)
Novella summary: Being brought back from the dead doesn't mean happily ever after, especially if you're Vaysh. Life has its costs, and he pays dearly. An exploration of Vaysh's character in the years before and through Pellaz's transformation, and the burdens he endures, because he must.
Post summary: A very canon ending; what's done is done, and Vaysh confronts what he must: he is stronger than he realizes. A few quotes, again, from Enchantments, as to ignore them would seem stilted. Continued from post 9, here. Epilogue to follow shortly. My thanks to Storm Constantine for having captured my imagination with Wraeththu so much over the past few months, and having led me, thusly, to those of you reading this.
I'm now ready to write more Wraeththu PWP, or something set far afield from this. These two gapfillers have worn me out, though I still love Vaysh more than life itself. I don't say that this is at all healthy. ;)
We had both been singled out for greatness, Vaysh and I, and the harvest of this greatness had been emotional flaying. Yet neither of us blamed Thiede. He controlled us, bonded us to loyalty; now we had nothing, now we had everything; now we had nothing. It was endless.
~ The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, Storm Constantine
* * * * *
There are moments in everyone's life — or so I assume, I have only mine to go on — that tremble and throb with profundity even as they occur. This heart-stopping clarity manifests itself in making the moments slow down to a near-petrified speed, although even as the seconds are ticking by, one knows time hasn't truly played tricks. For me one of those moments occurred with the simplest of gestures, a faint touch, initially not even on my bare skin. Pellaz's hand came to rest on my back, and I didn't flinch. The soothing touch was just that; I wasn't shaking with revulsion at his splayed palm. In fact, ever since we'd seen Immanion with our own two pair of eyes, I'd felt a sickening, fearful shattering of my resolve to dislike him for what he was and how I'd come to have fealty for him.
As we'd spoken there, in my rooms in Phaonica in those first few hours, I allowed Pellaz to rub my back. I couldn't help my instinctual clutch at the hair at my nape when he wormed around on the bed to put his head in my lap. I felt a soft, warm rain in my spirit and I was filled with an equally diaphanous panic. Smatterings of abject fear washed away as the yet unnamed lord of Wraeththu lay in my lap and offered insights into why I was the way I was. I could barely hear him through my own torrent of worry; what had happened to my glacier-strong reserve? Had the phoenix pendant been a true talisman I'd forsaken too early? Who was I, or Pell, we two creatures who'd been re-created by will and loving breath, we who had died and now conversed in hushed tones in a marble sanctuary universes away from either of our former harish lives, much less our long-forsaken human ones?
"What color is it, naturally?" he asked, reaching up to tenderly entwine his fingers in my hair.
"Light colored," I offered, uncertain that I was even communicating aloud or via mind-touch. It was as though we had no need for speech, and yet, I knew that to him I was truly an enigma, a perplexing constellation, distant and cold. He wanted to raise me up into the clarity of a bas-relief, to plumb me like a shooting star with a blazing tail of light. He radiated sensuality; my body was far past true hunger for aruna, but his proximity and the strength from Thiede's essence broke down another ice shield; another floe drifted off and the blood roared in my ears.
"The color of light…" he asked, and I shook my head.
"No, just sort of yellowish, only darker."
I let my hand drift down, and stroked his face, so warm and bronzed from our few days in Ferelithia. On the road, before we'd ridden into Immanion, I'd told him how I'd come to see him as my own, an extension of myself during his time of initial rebirth and those quiet, anxiety saturated days between the fortress and Olopade. Now I breathed in sacred air, reverently brushing the soft skin of his cheeks, drawing feather light touches across his eyebrows with the back of my fingers. As he looked up at me, tenderness reached up from his soul, and I felt naked, yet unashamed and unabashed. He didn't see this. It was enough for me to know with a surety I'd not felt since the night I bathed him in Olopade, cleaning his body of what little waste he'd created and reassuring him that all would be well: Pellaz did need me.
"No more than this, Pell," I murmured and he closed his eyes, an angelic smile on his face. Did he think he'd uncovered some secret of deepest ephemera or was he merely pleased with himself for having reached in past my barriers and found a warm, beating heart there? It was of no real import to me. We had survived our respective journeys and travails, endured separation from life itself, and despite our admittedly rough beginnings, I found that I believed he would no longer hurt me intentionally.
We stayed like that for a time, his smile softening to a bare upturn of lips as I let my fingers flit through his hair.
"I think some wine is in order," he said eventually, his eyes fluttering open.
"An excellent idea," I agreed.
He eased gingerly out of my lap as though afraid he'd never be allowed that close to me again. I didn't say anything, only raised my eyebrows slightly to acknowledge that I suspected I knew his thoughts. He stretched upward, reaching toward the ceiling. I watched his supple limbs as he sank down, easing out kinks in his spine and neck while I gazed impassively. I walked behind him out to the patio and it struck me that I couldn't imagine him physically naked anymore. He'd not known I'd lain next to him in his pre-sentient state, and then again when he was malformed, a mockery of the self he was now, when I'd cared for him those long days and nights to Olopade. I was brought back from my reverie when I heard Pell call to one of his servants. Moments later, a sparkling wine had been brought, two glasses poured. We toasted each other with somber faces, thoughts our hearts were light. It was a glorious evening; the sun's last rays suffused the clouds on the horizon with vibrant streaks of coral and lavender.
"Dare I ask what you're thinking?" Pell asked. I stood near to him, smelling the faint rose and sandalwood still lingering on him from his bath.
"Don't you assume I'm thinking about you?" I replied saucily. He laughed, a genuine, melodious trill that caused my mouth to quirk in a smile.
"Well, yes, of course." He turned to look at me. Now that the scales had fallen from my eyes, I could no longer feign blindness to how truly magnificent he was. An old, familiar despair crept with stealth from out of its unlocked cage. I would be forever with him, this wanton, desirable creature, so desperate to please. In his heart of hearts, he pined for someone who'd loved him, body and soul, as he once was. I was mirrored, in part, in his dark eyes.
"If thinking about me makes you look that melancholy, we're going to have to do something drastic between now and whenever my coronation takes place," he went bravely on, trying to lighten my mood.
"Oh, Pell. The sun doesn't rise and set on you. Yet," I said coyly, and was pleased to see I'd garnered a true smile in return. "I don't want to say too much aloud. This time with you, my not hating you, it's best for it simply to be, I think. Not discussed overmuch."
He nodded, and stepped close enough to rest his head on my shoulder. He was testing the waters; again, I hadn't flinched, or recoiled. I wasn't, however, about to go and invite him into my bed without so much as a by-your-leave as he'd done with that poseur in Ferelithia. I took a swallow of the crisp, effervescent drink. As the pleasant feeling buzzed in my mouth, it occurred to me that perhaps that was reflective of the savoury taste of trust.
* * * * *
"I'll want to talk with you when I get back. Please be here," Pell said, picking at his fingernails. The gesture was one I'd come to recognise as a subconscious, nervous habit.
"I will. Now that I know where every little thing is in your room, I'll go and make myself comfortable out on that settee in the main room. I've found a few books of interest. Go enjoy your lunch."
Pell snorted. "Right. Think positive thoughts on my behalf."
"Already done. You're going to be Tigron; it's time to show them why."
He gave me a ghostly smile, and then straightened his back, walking with outwardly confident strides as Cleis led the way to Thiede's apartments. I let out a deep breath I'd not realized I'd been holding, and massaged my upper back to get at the bony knots of tension I could feel there. I was restless and felt my skin was too tight on my bones. I rubbed at the goose bumps on my arms and found I'd wandered out to the terrace. It was an inspiring view, even if it seemed too perfect to be real. The sun warmed my spirit just enough to make me at ease again, and I summoned Attica to solicit a small lunch for myself. I had a small plate of cheeses and olives with some crescent-shaped herbed crackers. Every meal was exquisitely crafted, but also too perfect in its own way. I might well need to go out into the city to find a market and make some of my own fare, if such an act of rebellion were allowed.
There was a small carafe of wine with the meal, just enough for me to stop worrying about Pell facing the lions of the Hegemony. Book in hand, I lay down on the couch and read for at least a couple of hours. I'd been about ready to get up and sit back outside again when I heard the door open. Assuming it was Pell, I splayed the book open, spine up, and sat at attention. In the nanoseconds before I realized it wasn't him, but before I could fathom who it was, I recognised I'd been truly worried for Pell, and him meeting—
"Where's the master, then?" Ashmael said, his voice barely concealing his contempt until he saw me.
But he didn't.
Not really, I could tell, as my heart derailed into a frenzied thumping against my ribs. As the seconds careened to a halt, I memorised everything I could from where I sat, frozen as marble. His hair was shorter, worn with a perfected carelessness about his face and shoulders. He was dressed to intimidate, suave and using his height to his full advantage. That handsome face, the architecture of his strong brow and full lips—
I took in a shuddering breath, every nerve screaming into a terror more vivid and inescapable than the freezing madness of the Otherlanes. If I tried to travel without Tassia, this is how I would feel, I thought crazily; every atom would fly apart, hurtled into nothingness and swallowed by stardust eaters.
He didn't recognise me.
As I stood unsteadily, preparing to flee as quickly as possible, I saw the expressions on his beautiful, formerly beloved face change, chameleon-like. In only a few heartbeats I saw annoyance morph to confusion to incomprehension to abject denial. What spurned my feet was the disbelief and shadowed pain which settled there at last. Underneath it, the flickering embers of memory had sparked, if only for the most infinitesimal shiver of time.
I bolted.
Minutes, hours… centuries could have gone by as I cowered in the adjoining room. I'd run away like a scared rabbit, and I despised myself for it. Would Ashmael come after me? I paced, raking my fingers through my hair again and again, uncontrollable and unstoppable, a manifestation of the maelstrom of panic swirling through me like a tsunami. No, of course he wouldn't.
Fuck. I'm dead. I'm dead to him. He probably thinks Pell brought me with him and I just happen to look a lot like some har he used to know, used to love…
Oh God! I was dead to him. I heard his voice in the next room, its sneering quality, threaded with a commandant's sense of superiority. Pellaz was standing his ground— I simply couldn't snatch comprehension from the words, I was still in too much turmoil.
For fuck's sake! I raged at myself, clawing at the edge of a bookcase to force myself to stop. I needed to swallow some bitter, bitter truths, now that the moment of verity had come and I'd fled on the springy feet of cowardice. Pell would want to talk. He didn't need to know Ashmael and I had been chesna, Ashmael and I had been lovers, friends and confidants, Ashmael and I had incepted humans side by side, Ashmael and I had almost— Ashmael and I…
"Shut up," I hissed angrily at myself when Ash's dismissal registered on the periphery of my understanding. "Pull yourself together!"
Pell wasn't an idiot, he'd know Ash and I had a past of some type by my actions. I peered around the door— only Pell remained in the room.
"He's gone," he affirmed, waving at a chair in invitation.
"Thank God," I replied.
I think I spoke, and Pell spoke; the eddies and currents of conversation drifted by until he asked gently, "Is he your Cal, Vaysh? Was it the same for you?"
A thousand retorts, from witty to biting to insightful or maudlin crowded, jumbling violently on my tongue, and rendering me mute. I simply couldn't answer that. No, he wasn't my Cal— he'd been my Ashmael. My Ashmael. Ohgodohgod. I got up, paced again, picking things up and putting them down again, unable to be still, unable to articulate the raging storm of unspeakable answers. Was it the same? No, we'd been apart longer, and I'd had to live for years now with the knowledge that I knew Ash was alive and a privileged counsel for Thiede while Thiede didn't tell him about me. Was that crueler than Thiede not telling Cal that his former chesnari boy-love would be Tigron of Wraeththu? Would Ashmael ponder the impossible? Would he come back to find out, or simply chalk it up to a strange coincidence?
I couldn't speak much of it to Pell; I told him he'd guessed the core of it. I shared my fear, and saw that the violence of my own feelings was nearly enough to cause him to run from the room. He'd not been privy to how deep my emotions truly went. Had he been exposed, I'd no doubt he'd have run and hid behind Thiede himself. Pell tried to comfort me as I explained my fears of thawing, of breaking apart, and I told him it was half his fault. His laugh almost escaped. I realised I was in his arms; he was trying to comfort me. If I could have, I'd have made a bed of his chest and drawn his hair over me like a blanket. Instead I rested my head on his shoulder, chewing a strand of his hair as though I were an infant, or infatuated lover. So many words, sentiments, dizzying motes of fragmented catastrophes echoed in the room, the lingering overtones of a symphony come to its end.
"What did Ashmael say when he saw you?" Pell asked, his arm draped around me, the protective lioness.
I continued to stare, unblinking, off into the distance. "Say? What do you think?" I breathed; my chest rose and fell. "A long time ago, I died in his arms."
His fingers gripped me tighter; I sensed him wavering. He wanted to know how nearly parallel our lives were, now that I'd begun to crumble in front of him. I was afraid for both of us— we'd been in Immanion fewer than three days and I'd already had a breakdown. I felt no need to share the gory details, but neither did I wish for the question to remain between us like a boulder to be constantly sidestepped. He wouldn't ask Thiede. I was disintegrating; the trickling snowmelt of my reserves and the reverence of these strange moments carried me onward.
"We'd gone out that morning, the day after Natalia. We were in Castlegar— a settlement our two clans founded, up on a mountain plateau. We'd had an ice storm; I'd never seen anything like it. I made coffee… Ash doesn't — didn't — do well before his morning coffee. Everything sparkled— it was eerie, and very slick, as you can imagine. We went into the woods. I was ahead, a ways, and fell. And then, when I was trying to get up, I heard this deafening crack. I was still on hands and knees, I just kept sliding, and then… it was a huge branch, it crushed me. The pain of it took my breath away. I was in myself, and not, and things grew so dim. He got the branch off enough to hold me, but I was nearly gone. Oh, Pell. He begged, it was the last thing I heard. I'm dead to him, you do understand? He'll probably think it's a strange coincidence. Maybe I should change my name."
He made a strangled, keening sound. I knew his thoughts; would his reunion, if he had one, with the other part of his bruised and sundered heart, play out like this?
"You could be — I wish — Thiede knew you'd make a strong leader, a princely Tigron. It's in the way you hold yourself." Pell's thoughts drove ahead, though his voice remained hushed, the precious blasphemies for my ears alone. "I'd give it all to you, gladly. If I could see him…"
We curled together on the couch, survivors of experiences which kept us apart from all other Wraeththu, even as we remained intimate strangers to each other about so much of ourselves.
"Why that common singer, then?" No topic seemed taboo, in our time out of time. "He was pretty, but you'll attract that wherever you go."
Pell shook his head, the soft hair falling across my face. I had a sudden flashback to the night I lay next to him in his bed, cradling his delicate frame.
"Aruna's what it is. Necessary," he said. He gave a topcoat answer, knowing I sensed the pentimento he kept hidden. I didn't press him. "Vaysh, how long?"
Now it was my turn to shake my head.
"I could — you're nearly my caste. Thiede's physical influence—"
"No, Pellaz," I interrupted. "Not now. But now would be an entirely appropriate time to see what strong liquor the almost Tigron can have summoned." I turned my head so we could see each other. The rims of his eyes were slightly red; I leaned up to kiss his eyelids. "I plan to get quite drunk. It's no good having a breakdown if you can't forget it properly. Join me?" I asked, enjoying his plaintive sigh.
"I don't know if I can handle this side of you," he admitted.
"It won't last," I promised.
* * * * *
Black is the colour most individuals associate with mourning, but for me, it is dark purple, the shade of a dark aubergine. Cool and dark, rich and presumptuous, the historic colour reserved for kings. Green was what I preferred to dress in, it suited my skin and the vivid red of my dyed hair. The days went on after my so-soon confrontation with Ashmael and I realised that he really wasn't going to seek me out. Jaffa had been distant at first, so in my logical mind, I knew it was unsurprising that even if Ashmael did ask enough questions and discovered that Thiede had done the impossible — twice — he would stay away for a little while, getting used to the reality now presented to him. Days passed, and still no word. Ashmael had to know, and it was then that I had another mental collapse, though I did so away from Pell. I couldn't bear to talk about it. In my fevered imagination, I'd never gone so far as to consider what it might be like, living inescapably in this city of enlightenment and puppetry and bearing the responsibility I did. Ashmael wasn't out on campaign, he was actively questionning the competency of the future Tigron, also my confidante and friend. Ashmael had someone living with him, perhaps someone he was chesna with. Pell had only disparaging remarks about this har Phylax who'd been of such a nervous bent Ashmael had sent him away during Pell's visit.
The awful, incontrovertible truth I had to learn to live with draped my heart with an indigo shroud: Ashmael had moved on. I had died, he had continued living his life. I was years behind him in that regard, and blighted socially for a multitude of reasons. I felt shunned, feared, respected and invisible, all at the same time. Pell was generous during those weeks; he kept me occupied with tasks and intrigues to keep me involved but away from the Hegemony, and respected my need for silent, tear-filled dirges alone at night. I was girded in melancholy; violet carapaces of grief protected my raw emotional wounds while I yearned for them to knit together.
As hara from faraway lands began arriving for Pell's coronation, activity around us in Phaonica continued to ratchet up into an ever-increasing buzz of activity. It's hard to describe the bludgeoning that Pell suffered when Seel arrived three days before he was to take the title of Tigron, and Seel told Pell what Cal had done. Self-exiled in my own maudlin tower, I tried to be a comfort or at least an understanding companion. We stayed drunk for two days, a carnival of despair.
The coronation day came. My colours were those of sacrificial blood, of sunburnt earth. There were hundreds of attendees and I tried to visit with many of the ones who'd journeyed the farthest. To them I was a mere har, though one very close to the Tigron, and they could chalk up my solitary, enigmatic persona to my elevated status. Seeing Ashmael, catching his unguarded look of revulsion before he threw up his own shields — the disgust morphed to a distaste — the sutures in my wounded spirit ripped apart. His eyes gleamed with unrest, his gaze burned, luminous with sickened disbelief. I let his name crumble to cinders on my tongue.
We would never again dwell in the delights of each other. There would never be a reunion.
Despite my tear-blurred vision, I took the darkest route back to Phaonica. I was vespertilian, a fluttering creature desperate to return to the sanctuary of my rooms. I held enough clout to find a serving-hara willing to bring me two bottles of something strong; I didn't care what they were. I'd lived in Megalithica, I'd lived in the cold place, I'd spent time in Olopade, in Ferelithia; nohar would speak down to me that night. I'd been flayed open, and I was going to daub salve on those wounds alone.
Except that, despite all of the razor wire boundaries I'd tried to erect to protect myself, Pellaz returned. He was all I could have been, all that I should have been, and I found myself grateful that he was himself, and I was mine, all mine. I was drunk, I was strong, I was soume, and welcomed him into me, this flesh of my spirit. He said he took advantage, but who is to say? I knew exactly what I was doing. I drew him in, the challenge in my eyes: before he could opt otherwise, he was in my arms.
There is no shame in being oneself.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-03 12:13 pm (UTC)I had goose-flesh the whole time while reading it! And it was hard to hold back tears during some parts. Especially this time again...
Now I'm sad that it's over, it was sooo much fun reading all along the last few weeks :-)
The scene where Ash runs into Vaysh in Pell's rooms made my heart stop. Of course I knew it would come, but you made it as if I had to read about it the first time. Just great how you described that!
I can really imagine how he must have felt, how the time must have stopped for a while, and that was very creepy indeed.
And I loved the part about the colour for mourning...
And the way Vaysh comes to be at ease with Pellaz at last. Two souls with a unique fate and yet not... *sigh*
I guess I'll have to print your Vaysh-stories and read them over and over again :-) Yeah, maybe this isn't healthy indeed, but at least it's good to know that one isn't the only "freak" on earth who joyfully bathes in far too deep waters sometimes *lol*
And who cares as long as the shore is still in reach ;-) I'd not call it drowning then but rather drinking some of the sweetness fantasy can add to our life - even, and maybe especially, when it's full of enchanting melancholy and despair... Love that!
Thanx for this beautiful story!
(((hugs)))
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-03 04:58 pm (UTC)You're very welcome. Pellaz really surprised me, in the end, and I wondered at the change in focus, but as I kept thinking about Vaysh, and canon, I realized that Vaysh also moves on, and this is when it starts. (((hugs back)))