Where are you? This is some joke of yours, keeping one step ahead of me, ne c'est pas? I go to the library, you are not there but I find a cup of recently emptied tea. I go to the kennels, all I see are the new greyhounds crawling over dame Ophelia. I go to the main hall, the study, I scour over the rooms of the Bei Ragazzi. Still, no sign of you. Perhaps you're right, perhaps Chinon is too big...
Limestone holds the sound of his barefeet closely. No echoes give him away, nothing but the burn of air, the sensation of his own interest. It is a summer night a handful of nights after the return from Chenonceau, from the break both you and he needed -- you from the expanse of Chinon, your reading and your rooms and he from the peculiar smell of a sterile room and paint.
Paint. It lingers around him, pungent as opium, as certain man-eating flowers, pungent and chemical, natural or otherwise. It swirls as he passes through the chateau's underground passage, leaving his studio lab and heading into the Tour de Boissy and the great bath.
There are many colors that suit your William. Red. Blue. Black. But few suit him as well as white. Pure. Pristine. It sets him off, beauty in apposition. Decadence is always best displayed upon a palatte of purity, non? There is only the white cotton bottoms that separates his skin from the thickening air of the warm, underground bath. All else of his form, from gaze, to demeanor, to physique, are visible. Without restraint. Without apology.
Where are you?
Why are you looking for me?
The thought comes with a hint of bemusement and edged curiosity. Ian sits outside in the gardens near the old donjon, on the grass, safely attended by the tops of the turret walls and the old juniper pine trees that swirl up to the sky. With no branches to block his view, Ian has a wide expanse of sky to examine.
Beneath him is an old blue blanket, barely big enough to hold him and aging Ciardan. Few dogs travel with Ian these days, but always at hand is his aging friend, gotten during his time in Newport. His companion before he sent you the infamous invite...
"Hoi, laird," Ian murmurs, leaving his gaze to the heavens. One hand rests on Ciardan's side. The dog lies beside its master, lifting his head barely as you approach. He knows who you are.
"What gives?" Ian chirps, exhaling breath that disspiates unnoticed into the expanse of the universe.
Why else would I look for you? I want to see you. Is this so wrong, amours? Am I so suspicious?
He can ask this, after a thousand years (real or imagined) of living with him. Ever the comedian, Plantagenet. William emerges from the Boissy, smelling of bath water's condensation and the memories of paint. There is something of the underground, the limestone, that comes with him. Above and beyond all else -- cinnamon.
The grass cushions his steps, now he walks quite silent. Then, with stealth that is neither human nor wholly Ventrue. Some trick learned to help with obfuscation, no doubt. The near soundlessness coupled with the languor of his stride, the movement of the thin white cloth against his skin, appearing all the more olive, lends a startling edge to an otherwise common approach to his husband loitering by the donjon upon a blue blanket with an old hound.
"I passed by this way earlier," he says, leaning over, blocking your view of your heavens, and leaving a kiss upon the golden crown of your head. "How could I have missed you. So," he says, meaning not to follow it with any point really. It is a simple transition. He looks to the blanket, to the dog, to the grass and crouches, balanced upon the balls of his feet, before sitting beside you. It is all a pretense to lying down really.
Eyes full of heaven. William turns his head upon the grass, looking to you, eyebrows lifting. In the background, the turning of the windmill blades with the summer winds over the valley. The windmill moves the water and stream that water the orchards. Quite ingenious.
"A good night to be outside. I could not stand to be in that lab anymore tonight. No windows," he rubs his eyes, "... sterility and false light. I needed some fresh air." He smiles then, indigo living, blue and violet interchanging and inextricably blending. "And, of course, I wanted to find you. You have had a good evening so far? What have you been doing?"
"You passed this way?" Ian asks, not having noticed really. He was aware of you on the move, but seems a little surprised to find that you'd been out this way. "Aren't you slipping..." he says to Ciardan off-handedly, giving the dog a pat anyway. Ah well. Brows arch and relax.
"It is pleasant," Ian nods, giving an odd bob to his turned head. His cheek ruddies against the friction of the blanket. "Restful. We have been watching Andromeda and her parents running across the sky -- see, soon Pegasus with Perseus shall come and rescue the princess once again." Ian's hand lifts and he points to the 4-star square that makes up the winged horse's body. Such a familiar tale. Ian lets the story go quickly, returning his gaze to you.
"Sorry to hear that your laboratory grows stifling." Not unexpected that, just a bit sooner than he might have thought. "Other than seeing the movie again," the one above, "...I made a few phone calls. Little more. Intersesting though," Ian murmurs, the sky much like looking at a photograph of a family member, "...I think there is a nova," he motions southsky, "...over there." This ultimate map, having altered slightly in a thousand years, is one only a few entities can know. Astronomers only read and know in mathematics, that the sky has changed...continues to change. For each, each new item is as common and instantly visible like a new bloom in his garden.
"I haven't read of any new nova discoveries in the last month, so..." perhaps its gone unnoticed by professionals and amateurs alike. But not so for Ian.
Time has a face. It is not his, it is not yours, it isn't even Villon's. Sky and stars, the firmament face of Life and Time, is witness to the epochs and eras, the sole survivor of every revolution, from evolution to humanity's petty skirmishes. "Not stifling," William murmurs, his mind more on your story, his eyes following where you direct, a brightness in the sky that was not there a century ago. Something new. Imagine that. "Tedious," he corrects. "The work is very slow. What constellation is that," he wonders, breaking suddenly away, his interest crystallizing on the map. Indigo lifts, taking in the surrounding stars around the nova, trying to find the pattern. They shift to you suddenly and a smile breaks across his expression. "I once was quite good at navigation, a proficient star reader. Now, I can barely recognize Arcturus and Orion. Tragic, non?"
William sits up, and for a moment he stands, moving from his current place dogward more toward you. Gemini to Sagittarius. At the edge of the blue blanket, the Angevin returns to the earth, arms behind his head with his hands forming a kind of cushion. "I will have to resume my studies. It is the kind of knowledge that never goes out of style, mais oui."
There is a flash of light (the opening of the door) and the sound of steps upon gravel (the approach of a servant). The sounds that promise wine...
"Casseopeia," Ian says, distracted momentarily by the arriving servant. Even Ciardan looks over.
"I can't believe," Ian goes on, "...that you have forgotten?" How? This is our world. We know this like others see cloud patterns and the sidereal motion of the sun. Ian grins, knowing you are stretching the truth. "I don't think I could navigate by them no..." he admits, "...I just...remember the celestial map." Not how it coordinates on the earthly sphere.
Ian brings his foot flat, knee up. Muscles pull differently now.
"Where am I," he wonders, smirking as he looks in the June sky to find the marker for his own birth. "Gemini..." he finds it. "And July is coming," he notes it in the sky. "I am already arching. Pity." He smiles as he turns his head to you, distracted momentarily by you, your form, something noticed. "It would come rushing back," he murmurs, "... if it needed to, amours. When we were on the sea in The Rigel... remember... how easily it came back. It is like the native tongue. It is always with us." William pauses, that mouth of his pulling upward just at one corner. "Now, if you blind-folded me and told me to recite it all by memory, I would fail miserably. Ah well, such is the modern man."
He takes his eyes off of you, but only for a moment. They watch you. They wonder. But then there is the arrival of brandy. The valet sets the bottle upon the grass with two glasses and he leaves as there is no look to him, nothing to indicate anything else is or shall be needed. William sits up. "A glass from the orchards?" Pear. Pungent and sweet when the decanter is unstopped. That potent liqueur made of your husband's own hands as a hobby.
"Sure," Ian replies, sitting up in kind. The motion stirs Ciardan, who comes up also to sit on his haunches. Ian sighs, shaking off the stiffness of hours of recline. "And your artwork...despite tonight, it goes well?" he wonders, waiting for you to pour.
Golden liquid, the fruit strained from this batch, fills the wide bowl of the glass and scents of pear and honey lift, swirling with memories of a Spanish villa, Augustino and Felipe and the crowd of brown-skinned Spanish men. He is thinking of it. Images flash to the beach, to the bonfire.
And then to a hand holding a pear, the detail burned against his eyes and against his blood. The painting.
"It goes well. Slow," he says quietly, glass offered to you. He pours his own after. "Such tedious detail," a breath, "... it is less painting and more construction. I am in the Egyptian slave creating stone from mud and straw phase of the project." He laughs, liking the metaphor really.
Pear and honey and Spain and Felipe are swallowed all over again in the sips that follow, punctuating thoughts that are not spoken aloud. "I will work on it again tonight... but... it is such that it does me good to rest my eyes. To rest my mind. I have never... never attempted anything like this..."
"I know, and Genevieve knows, that you will succeed," Ian says easily. The glass is lifted to you quickly before turned up at his lips. Ian watches you over it, to make sure that you have heard him.
He needed that. Remarkably enough, he needed it. A man of talent, a man who knows his strengths and still to hear the encouragement, how can he be anything but encouraged? He did not know it was why he came outside, why he stood up from his chair, removed the cap from his head and set his lenses and his brushes down. He did not know that was one of the reasons he was seeking you out that very moment, wondering and wandering after you. He did not expect to find you in the arms of the Bei Ragazzi, but he would not have been surprised...
William is startled, in fact, when you voice the encouragement and he feels a weight lifted from his brow. He blinks once or twice and lifts his glass. "You always know just what to say... even when I do not know the question, you have the answers at your lips."
And so there you are...
William touches his glass to yours and then the liqueur is finished, a sipping drink summarily swallowed.
At Ian's lips, a slight grin forms. He finishes his first brandy in the same fashion, closing his eyes when he tilts his head back to let the sweet nectar slide down his throat. Ian inhales and exhales in comforted fashion, smiling when he looks at you again.
"It is true," Ian says matter-of-factly, lowering his glass to the ground. "We both have great confidence in you in general and in your artistic abilities in particular. Never forget, hmm?" Grey eyes lift coyly to look at you through pale lashes. Ian winks through the half-hiding shroud.
"Here," Ian starts, waving a hand. "Can you hear the Vienne?" He smiles and closes his eyes once more, extending his senses. The trees rustle louder, and the wind picks up. "Water flowing quickly by your village, laird..."
It is a huge undertaking. While he is not shrinking from it, nor intimidated by it, he does recognize the importance of it. The significance. And this, coupled with the actual process of restoration and recreation, have made for a certain degree of stress. Intense focus. Sometimes too intense.
"I do hear it," William murmurs as he lies back upon the grass, arm folded beneath his head to cushion it. He looks at you then closes his eyes. He hears the water of the river and the voices of his own villagers -- not words, but indications of their existence.
The river is very full. Winding, it feeds the vineyards of the villages that line its banks. Sometimes the Vienne and I run the same: thick and fast. William laughs quietly at that thought, opening his eyes, glancing to you. "I know. It will be done well."
Ian grins, half-realizing where your emotion has wandered. He shakes his head, reclining again as he feels the brandy warm him. "Sometimes, I have to...expand. Otherwise, my eyes...my brain..." Ian explains, "...seem confined. Pained and finite. Too sharp."
You may shake your head and grin, but the momentary thought is not followed by the usual banter, by a grope, by innuendo. He is much more introspective at the moment than that -- but truth is truth. And truth is amusing.
William looks to you, an eyebrow lifting and he focuses his smile upon the sky, the stretch of stars somewhat dulled by the proximity of Tours. "I understand," he murmurs. "... it is to avoid becoming a nova yourself, non? I remember this feeling. So tight, that I might grind the air into diamonds. It helped me... when I learned to... make myself disappear."
Now, here's a thought...
"Would you like to learn how?"
Posted by rowan at August 06, 2003 09:46 PM
