Oh ... gods, I'm tired...
     Three weeks in the fairy realms. Only a couple of days on the mortal plane, but if it were the mortal plain, this wouldn't be an issue, would it? He has been gone...
     No note, no warning...
     He was there and then he was not. There was not so much a blip to indicate his presence for two of those weeks, and then midway through the third week, a brief blip; brief only. Not that anyone saw him. Someone said they heard him talking to his brother. His voice was recognized, or thought to have been.
     And another week went by, or most of one...
     And then he was seen. He appeared from Shadow, footsteps quiet as he approached the manse. His hair, plastered to his face by rain water; his closed, the light black armour of the thief, the scout, the walker of darkened paths. His sword in hand, held down and at an angle, as if he is unaware that he has it drawn. Dark spatters stain the metal.
     There is a curious lightness to the emerald of his eyes, the colour lacking in the usual intensity. Faded, as if exposed to too much light. Diffuse. He walks to the door, and it is only when he goes to open it that he seems to realize he still holds naked steel. Shadows are found, wordlessly; silently called up, and shadows eat the steel to somewhere else.
     Then and only then does Gwilym ap Rhodri, called of the Order of the White Stag, Gwyn Garu, now the middle son of Queen Fiona of the Kingdom of the Flowering Tree move to open the doors, to admit himself.
     His lips have not parted. He has made no sound. Not by his footsteps and not by his words, not by his breathing and not by the turning of the knob of the door. He moves inside, and his motions are graceful but slow.
     So fucking tired...

     The General does not question -- where have you been, why did you say nothing -- the doors of his manse were, as he swore, open to you. Always open to you. As was the door to his personal suites, that knob that turned in your hand and opened heavily. As he looks up from his desk, his desk covered in scrolls and maps and correspondence, there is only the quiet acceptance of your presence.
     And then he notices the sword.
     A platinum eyebrow quirks up, and he gives his attention to you, still sitting but now facing you. A hand lifts, gesturing for you to close the door behind you and, yes, lock it. "Even the moon must turn his face to the sun now and again," the general murmurs. His silvery eyes take in the sight of you there with your weapon. "I know what it is like," he says, and now he is rising, slowly, the creak of his weight lifting from the chair sounding loudly, far more so than his voice, "... to step into dungeons, to travel dark roads, and exhausted," his eyebrows arch at you, "... not quite know where I am... with weapon drawn, staggering between villages. You've been... adventuring... haven't you."
     He is clothed in his white ruffles and silk, white trousers, his platinum hair unbound, the curls of earlier braids, though brushed out, still spiraling. It is as if he knew that he would be the moon to your dark sky tonight, but he couldn't have. It is coincidence only that you are wearing your colors and he is wearing his. His feet are not bare, but are sandaled. Yet he steps as if he does not touch the floor, his stride gliding toward you. Not the steps of a general, but that of a thief who was never caught.
     "May I take that from you," he says of your weapon. "It should be cleaned. And you, too, Gwyn Garu. And you should eat. You should enter the world again and become a solid thing. You cannot be a shadow here, nor should ever be one long." Ramanthus pauses, one hand reaching palm-up to accept your weapon, his other lifting to brush back the wet strands of your hair now sticking to you. "Welcome home."

     He closes the door slowly; the lock clicking is perhaps the first real sound he has caused, he has made. And he turns to you again, eyes upon you as he watches you approach. No movements in that watchfulness - nothing but the locking of the door to signify that your words have reached him and have been understood.
     Where he has been, there have been none who would understand him; no common tongue shared. No warmth, nothing of humanity, nothing where tenderness or gentleness could be understood. His head tips towards you, eyes watching your motions, and the point of his sword lifts, and is turned; hilt-first, it is offered to you.
     But it is not until you touch his face that his expression alters. It is almost a flinch; with a low sigh, the red-gold eyelashes lower, and he closes his eyes.
     I am not yet solid. I do not know if I can be solid. For a long time, I have lost my shadow, Ramanthus, Precious Snowflake. So he calls you. For the first time. Perhaps for the last. It is a curious feeling, the losing of one's shadow. Even though it is my new brother who is Peter and not me. I think perhaps I took this fate so that it would not befall him...
     His hand comes up to catch at yours, pressing your palm to his cheek. His eyes open, suddenly brilliant again, the bright emerald as he looks to you. Gwilym swallows, eyes slowly drifting closed again. Forgive me; I should not touch you when I have not washed. His hand lifts again, yours no longer caught. He moves to step back, a slight sway in his step. Slowly, his gaze drifts downwards; he stands there, chin tilted down, eyes still closed. If it were not for the light rise and fall of his chest, he could be asleep on his feet, or some clothed statue.

     The sword is taken, and the damage it has caused may be felt. It hums with the power that has wielded it, and by what it has wrought. All swords sing. "Open your eyes. If you consign yourself to shadows, how might you ever master them. You... are their king, not the other way around." He waits for your eyes to open. If they do, they will witness the dragging of your sword against the white of his cloth. He cleans it with his own clothing, blood and shadows clinging to the once pure fabric. He tends to it carefully, his gaze on you all the while.
     "And do not apologize to me, nor ever remove yourself from the touch given. If I were concerned for my clothes more than for you, I should be a shameful being, not worthy of being called by any name." Your sword is lovingly rubbed until it is cleaned. But it will need to be oiled to truly return to its full glory. That will come later. Cradled in his arms, he carries it to you as if it were a newborn child.
     "You mention the new son. The earth-bound boy," his voice is soft. The kingdom (or certain elements of it) have been told of his arrival. Certainly, the Queen's closest advisors have been, for they were apprised hourly about her health. "What fate is that, precisely? That which has befallen my beloved and my liege."

     Slowly, slowly the eyes again open, his lips open as if this time, he might speak. He looks at you; his attention is upon you. He shudders as he watches the dirt, the darkness, the grime, the blood transferred from steel to silk, and he bites his lip, silencing a protest that you nonetheless see. Stoic, he watches. But it brings words, finally, finally spoken. "You should not soil yourself with my sins."
     The words are uttered so softly that they might almost go unremarked upon. But your ears are sharper by far than any human's; yours are ears which have listened in darkness for worse than he to appear. He takes the steel from you quietly; his eyes leave you as he carefully replaces it in its sheath.
     "There are those who believe that the soul and the shadow are one. A man casts a shadow not because he simply is in the way of a light and thus the darkness falls behind him, but that he is solid enough to hold some spirit which materializes itself. There are those who believe that with the loss of one's soul - with the loss of a shadow - one stops."
     For him, it is a long speech, given over to flights of fancy and metaphysics. He is quiet, meditative, with a curious lightness that flickers about him, as if he is still not quite solid; not quite real. The steel passes beneath his hand and into its sheath as he speaks, and slowly, he looks up, looks to you. "One stops aging. One stops growing. With such a mistake - as people think it - one can never move past that cataclysmic moment, that catastrophic error. But that's false, isn't it? We all make mistakes. No matter how terrible the mistake, we go on. And we cannot undo our mistakes, but we can move forward. Unless the mistake takes away something sufficiently valuable that the world can never ever recover."
     Gwilym looks away again. Slowly, he begins to undo the lacings, the catches, the buckles and clasps of his armour. Undoing without removing; loosening until everything sags slightly, drops slightly askew. He turns his back to you as he bends to step out of his boots, as he straightens to roll his shoulders out of his armored jacket. "My mistake was in thinking that, having outwitted an ancient evil, that ancient evil would not try to claim its due years later in another fashion."

     "For all the mistakes of man and gods, the worlds continue to move," Ramanthus notes quietly. "There is great evil in the universe, but persistent good. Between them, we all exist in a gradient, good, evil and all things in between." It is a gentle reminder, and perhaps it is something for you to absorb, to comfort the pangs of your own mistake.
     "There are others who say that all sins are equal and belong to us all, that we make the fabric of the universe, for all that is good and all that is wrong with it. No good ever lasts forever; no wrong ever lasts forever. And we, however many we are, though it seems sometimes both too many and too few, move on."
     He removes his outer robe, now dirtied with your sins, whatever they may have been, and he drops it. "My valet will clean it. Hmm... but what of you." Ramanthus watches you unclothe not with the pleasure of previous evenings but with the keen curiosity of one who knows that the story is only beginning, and you have not yet gotten to your point.
     He takes a seat, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair and his long, fine fingers steepled in between. "There is for every action, a consequence. But tell me... specifically... what was your action, and what do you fear the consequence to be? Or are you saying you have already suffered such a consequence..."

     The armour is dropped at his feet. Beneath it there is a thin shirt; it might have been white once, but now it is dark grey, stained with sweat and blood and whatever else. He releases a long sigh, low, from the pit of his being as he rolls the material up from him, pulling it wearily over his head and letting it fall. There, at the base of his spine, the grey diamond rests. It glows faintly; its edges are sharp, like jagged glass. Dried blood encrusts his skin at those edges.
     "I diced with a daughter of death when I was younger. If she won, she would have claimed my soul, and with it, my life. I would have forever disappeared from this world or any other outside her halls; would have become her page-attendant, hers to do with as she saw fit." Gwilym speaks the words without any emphasis; not the jollity of a good story nor the abashedness of confessing a mistake. His arms are covered with small nicks and marks which are healing slowly; evidence of battles won, as he's still there standing in evidence of his presence and success. "She cheated; I cheated better."
     He shrugs off the weight of the leather gauntlets, the armour of thighs and waist, the sword-belt and sheathed weapon set aside at last. And he stands a moment, in what once was a pair of anachronistic denim jeans, shirtless, his back to you, arms folded in across his chest.
     "She gave me the keys to what I now know was mine all along. My 'kingdom'. My shadow road. The power to walk in among them and come out wherever I liked. She didn't give me anything which wasn't going to be mine anyway; she just let me get it ahead of schedule. But it cost her to do so nonetheless; a fragment of her power, embedded in my spine as a warning to me, and as a lesson to her."
     Gwilym turns. He faces you, and across much of his chest, the night sky glows. The constellations which on Earth would have one looking for Mars and Venus among the Andromeda and Milky Way stains, here are not present; instead, his markings are wholly of this world. Of this place. Of the sky, and beyond.
     "When she realized she could not have me, and that I would master the shadows and would not die," Gwilym says quietly, arms unfolding and his hands lifting to his head, "she did not give up her intent to have her price, and her revenge. She simply chose a new target, my General. One small enough and weak enough that he could do to her no harm, and whose soul, should it be taken, would please her while grieving those near to me. So that I would be punished, my lord; if not by my family, then by the clawed whips of my own despair. She set her sights on my mother's newest son."

     His head tips back as you reveal your point. Those silvery eyes full of blizzards and lightning take in the sight of your chest, of the constellations and configurations of stars. Night sky. He looks at them a moment and then back to your eyes, his expression revealing nothing but his intent, keen intent, to listen.
     "Thus the difficult nature of your mother's pregnancy. I have been briefed." And now by you, a more complete set of circumstances. His fingers lace together and Ramanthus sits forward somewhat. "But he has been born, and he is alive. And your mother has survived. This is what you have fought for. What has it cost you, Gwilym Gwyn Garu." It is a real and also rhetorical question.
     Have you slain the witch, his eyes wonder. Or are you here, between the realms of spirit and being, a moment of clarity out of Chaos, to speak with those you love a final time before surrendering to something beyond even our reckoning. For there are layers even to this reality. I have seen such things, barely survived them. Demons of such darkness. Angels of such light.

     "She is not slain. Nor am I." For the first time this night, you get the faintest hint of a grin from him, some aspect of humour. What, you thought I'd die that easily?
     The jeans are undone and discarded. Beneath them are a pair of shorts; like the shirt, once white, perhaps. Perhaps. He staggers from the pile of clothes, settles onto the floor in a loose heap, leaning forward across his knees, head bowed. "...I fought in shadows, my General. I entered the strongholds which she still had there. I cut her from those roads. She may choose to live in light or darkness, but in the Between, there is no place for her. May she find surcease somewhere else, with someone else. But from the time my mother went into labour until now, I have been in Shadow, rooting her out and blocking her efforts to steal my newborn brother. Twice I left Shadow in all that time, and both times, she took opportunity to try and strike."
     One hand reaches behind himself, absently rubbing at the mark on his back. His fingers come away with flecks of dried blood and traces of red ooze. "She struck me," Gwilym says quietly, eyes finding you, "and until I could be sure that there was no taint in me to be carried back here, to you or any other, I stayed away. I am no danger to you now. But I am still fighting her poison. I can feel it, tickling in my blood."

     Only now does his expression flicker with anything other than absorption. To see your blood. A general is used to blood, but when it is of a beloved, or relative, or friend, there is always a difference. "You must let me see it, to see what I may do," Ramanthus says quietly, sitting up, his hands unfolding. He motions for you to come nearer.
     "Does your family know of this," he wonders, doubting it even as he asks it. His eyes flick toward you. "If not, you should tell them. A danger known, is often a danger avoided. And your family is quite powerful. You cannot do everything alone, Gwilym Gwyn Garu. You and your Twin -- you are not the only two men in all the world, and yours are not the only shoulders that should bear up the sky. Your father and the High King should know, at least, those two who could navigate the shadows with you, should further need exist. Your grandfather, his majesty the High King, is reportedly both fairy-blessed and wraith-cursed." He does not expect for you to confirm it either way. One hears such things and feels such things. Perhaps he does not need you to confirm it. He is a paladin. He can sense, of all things, the undead.
     "You must stay here, my prince," Ramanthus quietly insists. It is a personal insistence, rather than command. "And you must rest to regain your strength, particularly with the poison in you yet. Your strength ... is needed by your own system. You cannot ignore it. You must respect what the body and soul have done, and give them their deserved restoration."

     "I have told you, haven't I?" His humour is there, even if he is damaged. He closes his eyes, laugh low and without real mirth. "But no. I haven't told my family yet. There hasn't been time; if I took my attention away, she might have struck, you see? Now, though - now I've hurt her enough that she won't be able to continue for a while. But I didn't kill her."
     You beckon him, and slowly he rolls to his hands and knees, with a sigh making his way over to you. To where you sit. His cheek lands against your thigh, and he shudders. "Da has mum and the baby to worry about it. Papa has mum and da and the baby to worry about, and the kingdoms. Io's ... got his own things going on," Gwilym whispers to you. He is stubborn, this one, as if you did not know it. "Don't you see? There was noone left. Even if they knew, it had to be me. Besides, I had to fix it. It was my fault, oes? I broke it in the first place."
     It is the cry of a child, in its way. Guilt and responsibility burdened onto his shoulders; young man though he might be and not a boy. A hand lifts, his head lifts, and he rubs his eyes. "I am not going anywhere yet. I know, I know, I need to rest. I will, I promise. Just, I should just finish what I started..."

     His hand lands upon your head, the benediction of one who has learned the healing arts. How a thief became a paladin? That's a story in and of itself. A suffuse warmth fills you, a warmth that is light and Light both. "No, it is not all on you to fix, even if by your actions you started it. You have to know when to call for help. No man is a kingdom of himself. You must tell your father and your grandfather, Gwilym. You must tell those who love you. And you must rest. Without your strength you are a help and a threat to none."
     Ramanthus breathes steadily in, steadily out. His hand widens upon the crown of your head, his grasp light. The warmth and Light move along the stem of your brain to your spinal column, from there straight to your root energy. The brilliant gleam of Purity knocks back the tentacles of undead or evil shades. Such light is capable of slaying undead, of rooting out the poisons of evil, and soothing the spirit of psychic damage.
     "Rest or that which you should finish shall finish you," comes the soothing tones of the General's voice. "She went outside the boundaries of your agreement, such as it was. And she has involved your father and your father's father. It is their strength, combined with yours, that is needed. It is no sin, Gwilym, to ask for either help or forgiveness."

     His eyes are closed again. Tired. He is so tired. "They can know when I've finished," he tries to argue weakly. Weak - but he is stubborn even in weakness, even when he lacks the energy to do more than slump against your lap. And he sighs. "That feels nice..."
     There are shadows which are revealed, now, beneath the surface of his skin. Not Shadows such as he commands, but lesser things, malignant. Blackness creeps along his veins, sapping his strength, robbing him of his usual vitality. But darkness cannot exist where a light is struck. That is the call of the paladin, isn't it?
     "I will tell them," Gwilym whispers, eyes still closed. "If I have to. If I can't do it on my own, I'll tell them. But I have to fix my own mistakes. If I don't..."
     Perhaps you can see what he thinks. That if he does not, then he falls from second to third, from what he is to something low. That a mistake can only be forgiven by those he loves if he has already corrected it; admitting to it is not enough, working to fix it not enough. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, oes? And he believes himself the weakness in his family. He struggles, and he tries, and he works, while that light demeanor is kept, the facade of the smile, the role of the fool...
     To defeat the darkness, one strikes a light. The poisonous shadows swimming in his blood cannot bear such light; purity is the enemy of poison. Gwilym cannot see, cannot sense it; cannot hear the howls of terror, defiance and finally, defeat as that light shreds away at the dark. He is unaware; as oblivious as he has ever been. It's a family trait in some ways, isn't it?
     "I just wanted to be strong," Gwilym whispers. It isn't to you, that whisper; not really. His eyes are still closed; his head now bowed against you. "What's the use of a boundary if it never gets pushed, oes? But I was wrong. I couldn't let Pedwyr pay the price for me."

     "You are strong, Gwilym. There is no doubt of that. But the strong man, the brave man, must know that he cannot hope to shoulder it all. There is greatness in understanding one's mistakes, but in understanding, too, that one cannot always right all consequences oneself. You prove yourself stronger in being able to admit it, to request help in stopping it, and to alert them to the possible dangers. If you are slain and they are ignorant, who have you saved? Not even yourself."
     Ramanthus is quiet for many moments. The warmth continues within you even after he has felt the last tendril of that darkness slithers away to lick its wounds. "We will talk of it more later. You need to rest, not lectures from the white capped mountain," a soft tease at himself. But there will be a discussion, to be sure. One based in logic and strategy, for that is what the problem requires in order to be resolved. "For tonight, and until you are stronger, I will tend to you. You need food, drink and rest. You will sleep in my bed and your dreams will be filled with Light, my prince."
     His hand begins to stroke your head, and the warmth lingers where the shadows did earlier. "I am so glad to see you," Ramanthus murmurs. "My strong King of Shadows. I love you." His hand gently strokes your hair, massages your scalp. "Hmm... yes... you have been through many trials, those that have tested your faith in yourself. But here you are with me, your family spared, your enemy for the moment contained. You have done well, no matter the root cause, Gwilym. Let that bolster your spirit as you prepare for the next round..."

     To the lecture, there is no answer; not even a roll of his eyes. (You knew he was sick, right?) He is still exhausted. There is no protest. No argument made. Gwilym sighs, a quiet sound.
     I knew I had to get here. There was nowhere else that I could go. My brother has his own problems, and, with any luck, his lover back. As fated as he and I are, I know - that is his first true love. Arriving now, I would only get in the way, even if I were willing to appear this weak. My mother has her child, and only you would be able to hide my presence, conceal my condition...
     And there is noone else...
     There has only ever been you and Iowerth to tug at my heart. To remind me that though I walk in the Shadows, I am not one of them; I am not a lost thing, but a man. I am so very bad at telling you this...
     He tries, now. One hand lifts, brushing your side. It flutters down again, as Gwilym rests against you as if he might never rise. "Funny," he whispers, the humour threading through his voice as finely as lace woven by blind nuns. "Here I thought I had done poorly. She got away, didn't she?"
     "Oh, and I love you too..."

     Ramanthus smiles gently down to you, his head tilting. "Hmm... no, my White Stag, any battle from which you stand is a success. We will talk of it more later." His fingers curl and uncurl at your scalp. "For now, I recommend a bath. I shall bathe you myself and put you in our bed. You need to eat and rest. You should find your injuries healed. How do you feel, apart from exhausted?"
     His hand pats your head, your neck and he begins to shift, to move from his chair and to help you rise. You do not have to tell him that you love him, for as you do he likely knew already. He accepts the words much as he does other things you tell him: with a quiet look of absorption. "You always have a place here. My doors are always open to you. The doors of my home, those of my bed, and those of my heart. Come," he gives you his hand as he rises. "...take a hand..."
     We all need a hand now and then...

Posted by rowan at August 23, 2006 07:08 PM