The wine is not helping. There should be drums playing, there should be something, damn it. Gwilym has been pacing up and down and around and back and forth his chambers in the Center of All Things. He has been a wild man, rampaging up and down stairs and through chambers, searching for a book he won't mention the name of, refusing all efforts of help.
     He has seduced half the young men in the high priest's employ and several of the young women. He has given that worthy a hard time of it as well (literally), and pushed himself away to go walking through London, where he's picked a fight that's left three young toughs bleeding and regrettably aware of their own vulnerabilities.
     (The fourth tough he didn't break in half. He dragged him into an alley and ravished him, much to the tough's discomfited enjoyment and dismay.)
     And now Gwilym is back in his rooms, seeing no one, sending for no one, sulking. He is unbearable. He is bewildering. He is amazing and beautiful. And right now, he isn't even drinking; with the one visible emerald eye, he stares into the fire, trying his best not to send for any of the people who could soothe things. Because nobody can make it right. It just prolongs the inevitable. Dressed in black jeans and a Sex Pistols t-shirt, he broods and he drinks, and finally, hurls his cup into the fire before sagging, his face in his hands.

     "That's a terrible waste of wine," Aeron waxes out lowly. He states it as fact. It seems not to be a jest at all. He appears at your chair, his hand landing upon your red hair. He keeps it there, his fingers sliding against your scalp. He does not mention that he's been chasing you since you left the wreckage of your household (and his) behind. They were a grateful, pleasured, twitching wreckage, but a decimation nonetheless.
     You disappeared into alleys, into fisticuffs and he followed along, and followed you here. He is quiet, simply solid, simply with you. Aeron tilts his head to look at you, his hand of benediction still laying on with its blessings.
     If you were he and he were you, you would say: Talk to me. But he is not you.
     "A busy night," is all he says. It is your opening, your cracked doorway. Shall you creep inside and let him look at you?

     He jumps, twitching, then slowly calming under your touch. He reacts to it as if there were manna in it, manna and the threat of divine retribution all in one, looking up at you with hungry, doleful eyes before he looks away.
     "Balthazar came to seek out the Holly King."
     Gwilym exhales and closes his eyes, hunching forward over his thighs. He leaves it to you to continue to tease out answers or not. Or maybe you already know why he is the way he is; or maybe not.

     Aeron looks at you, receiving your distress so calmly. His hands move through your hair, his fingertips padding against your scalp like autumn rain. His touches move to your back as you bend over. Clouds and shadows, soft rain and fog are in his touch, the smell of it in the air. It is the face of the hunter's moon, reflecting away the light of the day.
     "Didn't anyone tell you not to look directly at the sun?" Aeron says, his voice sardonically slow. He pats you on your back and comes around your chair to crouch down in front of you, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet. He could stay this way for hours in his raven's roost. "It is overwhelming," he murmurs, understanding. You do not need to tell him. "The sun does what the sun always does: it reveals everything without a thought as to time and place. That is its nature. His only balance is you. And you...have had me but I'm a lousy Oak King. I simply do not have his.... sunny disposition. I believe I am something of a downer."
     Aeron looks at you steadily. His is the hand upon your shoulder, the shield at your back. "So...what does the Holly King have to say about all of this...good, bad, ugly."

     He groans, turning towards you, dragging you into his embrace if you do not stop him. He buries his face in your shoulder. "It isn't that he is the Oak King," Gwilym answers you, almost unintelligibly for his voice is so low and muffled by your clothes and your skin.
     His arms go around you, his hands paw at you clumsily as he wipes his face, his eyes against your shoulder. He exhales, eyes bright as he looks away. "Never mind it. Let's go set some things on fire, oes? The Holly King is as he always is; there should be no difficulty in work being accomplished. He is willing to be a cannon for our endeavors; all we must do is aim."
     Briefly, Gwilym looks back at you, forlorn. His hand lifts to touch your cheek. "I don't want him, Aeron. I don't want endless cheer and sunshine. It doesn't suit me." It doesn't explain why he is such a wreck, either. "Let's go get drunk, oes? The world can wait a while."

     He holds you easily, Rook and rock. His weight shifts easily, adjusting to your sudden, strong presence. His arms enfold you like wings. "You don't have to tell me that," Aeron notes quietly. "I'm not worried about him," he says, his lips curling in a slight smile. "I am concerned only with you. And... we will drink. But before we drink and put the world on hold, there is the small matter of your heart. It is no small matter to me, actually. Nor should it be to you."
     Aeron remains in his crouch, his arms lowering back to his balanced thighs, his fingers tethering themselves to your waist. "You are sad, but not for Balthazar. It is Iowerth you are mourning," Aeron murmurs. "And it is understandable. You were looking for your other half. How could you know that it would come in the form of his son? You wanted to burn up in Iowerth. Freedom via immolation. But he was never the sun."
     A hand lifts to cradle your own face. It is soothing in its coolness. He smells of ivy after a rain shower. "You do not need to immolate yourself in fire, shoot yourself straight into the sun. You can harness its energy for your work. You do not need to be burned by it to do so, my King. Harness the power of the sun, reflect it on the universe during Dark days, and tangle yourself instead in the arms of shadowy ivy. You already know where your heart is happy. I know you do. The pain you feel is the fear of what could have been. But it would never have been what you truly needed."

     He grieves, and he holds onto you, arms around you as tears leak from closed eyes. I set him free because I was not what he needed. Because it was not good for him and if it could not be good for him then it was not what I should do.
     "It doesn't matter," is all Gwilym says out loud. If only saying it could make it true. A little more strongly, he shakes his head. "You are here and that is all that matters, Aeron. Just ..."
     He aches, and when he aches, he seeks his relief where he can. It hasn't helped; but he has cut a dark swathe through with his brightness, as he has always done. Devastating and beautiful and violent.
     "Duw," he groans it, falling back in his seat. "I just want to forget today has ever dawned."

     You set him free. But has it ever occurred to you, my lord, that he was not what you needed? Because it was not good for you? And it was not what you should do simply because... it wasn't? You should consider it. He was not and is not the only king involved.
     Aeron grins slyly. "Yes. I am here. And I thank you for stroking my immense, and well-deserved, ego. But my being here isn't the point." He knows your moods and methods better than anyone. Better, even, than your twin. He lets you drift backward and he remains perched, your ever-constant companion. "The sun has risen. There is no point in denying it." Aeron finally stands and with a wave summons all sorts of dark delights: deep, ripe dates and figs, fig and mandrake wine, roasted venison. "In a few weeks, the Years will shift," comes the soft reminder. "And he will feel it for the first time. And you, perhaps will feel all the stronger for it, even as you ache now. I think the ache you feel is knowing that your Other is finally here." He pours a cup of the dark fig and mandrake wine for you. "You do know that you are not obligated to sleep with him, just because he is your Other. You can tap into his energy, all you need, simply by standing next to him. Directing him to take action. You can work in concert without having to have that ...concert inside you. I think there may be some ...lingering adolescent confusion. That's just my opinion, my lord," he says to you, holding forth the cup. "Don't throw this into the fire. It's expensive."

     "Perhaps." He is not convinced. Perhaps he doesn't want to be convinced, to admit that he was wrong. Either way, he lolls back with eyes closed, taking the cup from you, still cloaked in mourning.
     It doesn't matter...
     He is still grieving. He is not ready to set it aside. But he takes the cup up without question as to what is within it, and drinks deeply. Take this world away. Gwilym opens his eyes, the one visible and the one not, and looks at you. "What do you want, Aeron? Tell me..."

     "I just want you to ask yourself the questions," he says, tipping back his own cup for a swallow as he stands beside you. His other hand pats your shoulder. He understands. But... he is unwavering. You need to let it go. Face the world that is yours.
     Aeron will allow you to grieve. It is important. He will allow you to sulk. At least a little. He will not allow you to run, or to quit. Wherever you go, he will be there with a mirror.
     Lowering his cup, twisting to take up the bottle for a refill, he glances to you, his black eyes shimmering with their halo of emerald green. "I think you should get into our bed," he says matter-of-factly. "Strip yourself of everything. And remember the best that shadows have to offer." He grins at you. "That's me, of course. See what happens when you stroke my ego? It hardens into twitching vanity..."

     You give your suggestion (really, your command, since in this aspect he is more often your willing slave than not) and he reddens a bit. "Bah," Gwilym grumbles, rising to his feet. "Sex, sex, sex, is that all you can think about? I should go home to mother..."
     He hides as he always does, behind a cut, a thrust, a laugh, a joke. Look at me, but don't see me. But he turns and he goes, heading for the bedroom with slouching shoulders and drooping stride. He is not yet himself. But who else could he possibly be?

Posted by rowan at October 02, 2009 08:27 PM