The workshop is tidier than it used to be. There are fewer works in progress; he has had too much to think about. And he is in pain, in his heart, thinking still about his missing friend. But the workshop is still some solace, even if he cannot bury himself in work...
     Tiernan looks through his binders of his works, seated at his bench. There are diagrams and schematics on every creature, every invention he has ever made. And the oldest of them, the notes written in a childish hand and updated only years later with the notes and questions of an adult, marked in red ink: L E O N.
     He sits, and he wonders, and he thinks. He has much about which to think.

     I just need a minute. Just a moment. A place to ...just think. I need to get my head clear... His thoughts spring to the surface of his mind and slip from it like random leaves falling from the limbs of a hibernating tree. There is one place he knows is safe from brothers diddling enemies and distracting girlfriends.
     The door to the workshop opens quietly without a knock -- it's late afternoon, he doesn't think, can't think, would one or more of his fathers be present? Balthazar turns to close the door behind him, his hand remaining on the door. He exhales, turning to fall back against the door, his back to the surface of it...
     There is frustration in that sigh. And anger. And impatience. It is as if the universe has tilted, racing back in time to show the image of an impatient, frustrated and angry Iowerth Rhudd Draig. But it is his son... and yours...
     Balthazar...

     He looks up, and he smiles at you, closing the book and setting it to one side with the same reverential hands as he'd lifted it. "Balthazar," Tiernan greets you, quietly. "I was not expecting you."
     He wasn't expecting anyone, after all. But he doesn't say that. "Please, come and sit. Would you like something to drink?"

     He is startled by you -- he wasn't expecting to find you here either. He blushes a little. "Sorry... I didn't knock, papa." That seems to be the motto for the day: Sorry for not knocking. "I just needed a moment." Clearly. Golden eyes look up again, his blush of surprise fading away. He nods to your offer and then pushes off the door to join you. "I just walked in on Gruffydd and Preston in my room." How he says Preston. It is filled with the sizzle and pop of his own emotions, become the recipient of the focus of all of his own, unrelated frustrations. "You'd think after that, I'd learn to knock. Sorry. Am I interrupting? I can leave..."
     But he's approaching all the same, the scent of oranges and cinnamon lifting off of his burning skin. He takes a seat, giving his body roughly to the chair. "I could use something strong." He looks to you. "What about you? How are you? I'm sorry," he winces. "Maybe I should just ... go somewhere else..."

     "It's quite all right." He listens, then nods, with a faint smile. He understands your distress, reads your distaste and dislike as clearly as if it were written, but smiles for reasons he isn't getting into just yet. "Have a seat."
     A chair is nudged out for you, and already the spider-urn is unfolding to prepare tea and biscuits. The spider family are running around, weaving the doilies and the cloths and napkins; the firedog's toasting biscuits that are being mixed by the trayful inside the belly of a dough beetle while firecats curl around the body of the spider-urn to heat the water for the tea.
     Tiernan pays little attention beyond an absent smile of thanks to his creations. He watches you thoughtfully. "It could be worse, you know," he says quietly. "Your uncle was not always happy about me."

     Meteors flash in his eyes. "Preston has made his feelings about me quite clear. And Gruffydd has made his alliances regarding Preston quite clear. That's the beauty of Gruffydd. There is very little real ambiguity." There is a momentary pause. "I don't like him."
     His flash of ire is paused for interrupting wonderment to watch your little creatures go. I remember playing with them. Balthazar softens slightly to watch them.
     That's when things made sense...
     The beautiful face hardens in the frown, the star-bright eyes still flashing. Balthazar is silent for many moments. "I didn't really have issue with him until Gruffydd forced the issue. It's infuriating. They want to play at that? Fine. Let them. I couldn't care less." He chews and swallows the rest of his biting sentiment, choosing to look to you. "So what was ... I'm assuming we're talking Uncle Gwilym? What was his beef?"

     Tiernan listens to you, lets you spill your animosity onto the air, while the creatures go about their work. One of the fire cats lazily rolls over and he leans forward to tickle its belly with a potholder. "I was the son of an evil Queen who tortured and killed her own people for her amusements and had no qualms about espionage, rape, murder, or really, very much of anything else."
     You asked, after all. He answers with a calm equanimity that is opposite your flashing eyes. "Iowerth chose to partner with me without telling anyone - not even his twin. I was presented fait accompli to Gwilym; and Gwilym, prior to that, had not even known that Io was into men. For him, it felt a multiple betrayal, and he was determined not to like me, and to think me a possible danger to Io, to the family, or at least, a bad influence."
     He smiles absently as a cup of tea is provided to him by one of the little dogs, and as a squadron of gilded bees drop honey droplet by droplet in. The cow that lovingly moos its way over to provide cream is almost too much. And then he looks to you. "It wasn't easy for him. He felt betrayed and alienated by his brother, his twin, and he had no one in his life then; and he was not yet coming to terms with his own needs and desires. He didn't like me, either."

     There is a ... kernel of similarity there. Upon the word betrayal, Balthazar lifts his gaze to you. He sits back in his chair, listening. He waves off the cow and its... offer of milk... taking the tea straight, no honey, no milk. The beautiful face of the sun makes his visage candescent. "I suppose it ... Preston... irritates old sores. And his insistence on hating me only makes it all the more frustrating for me. If I hadn't tried to make him like me, he would never have been on that trip and would never have even met Gruffydd."
     And now Gruffydd is choosing him over me.
     Beyond even that, however, he is troubled. "I don't know what I'm doing or why. I'm frustrated because I don't know. I don't have a passion anymore. I just feel like I'm ... wandering around aimlessly. I just wanted to get away... do a little thinking. I can't think when I'm with Madison." Balthazar frowns, sipping his tea finally. "She's too distracting."
     He looks ahead. There is always so much truth in your face; he's not sure he can face it right now. "So I came to my room, and there were clothes all around. They were in my bed. So... is it wrong," he wonders suddenly, spinning about to face you, "... to be upset about that? It felt like a slap in the face. Like he was marking his territory. He's marked my brother. He's marked my space. And I'm homeless as it is. I don't have an earthly home and I don't belong here either. It's like... having my nose rubbed in it. You know?"

     "You can't make people like you, Balthazar," your father tells you gently. "He strikes me as the sort of young man who's had people try to play up to him for a long time, to try to get what they want from him. Look, give me your hand."
     He sets his tea down, holding both his hands out to you. No matter how big you get, you are still his son, and there is love in his eyes when Tiernan looks at you, and sympathy and, yes, understanding. But he isn't going to rush through it all, all at once. "Do you want to wallow in it, the hurt of it? We all do, sometimes. I wallow with the best of them, and have hurts I still have not confessed to your father. It is something I should," he sighs, "do, sooner rather than later."
     He pats the cow as it passes, and he looks to you. "Or do you want to understand what's going on?"

     "What the hell is his problem? I'm a nice person," he protests suddenly. "I've treated him with respect...well, until today anyway. I've tried to help him. Actually, not tried. I have helped him. He's a spoiled, ungrateful elitist. And I don't want to wallow in it. I just don't get it."
     And Preston's sort of the least of the things he doesn't get. Frustrated, Balthazar exhales again. He resists handing over his hand, but then he relents. Turning about in his chair to face you, he takes your hands.
     "I don't know anything," he frowns. "What I thought I know..." he shrugs. "Turns out I didn't know that either. So I guess... tell me..."

     He takes your hand in both of his, smiling at you with his usual gentle patience. "He might be a spoiled, ungrateful elitist. It's hard to say. But it is also a mistake to expect or ask for gratitude; it is the surest way to not find it," Tiernan tells you. He squeezes your hand, and sighs.
     "Some of it is that you are dating his sister. Some of it is just - he is overwhelmed, Balthazar. Magic. Angels, and sons of angels. He is confronting his own sexuality, coming from a time and a place where it is not acceptable to be who and what he is finding himself to be. You and Gruffydd both understand it less because you grew up with me and Io being - as we are; before us, your grandfather was ... not very open, to love between men. There were ... words, and there were many fears."
     He surrenders your hand; you will likely want it back, uncomfortable as the topic is, and your own stubbornness will likely require it back. Tiernan picks up his tea instead. "He chooses to dislike you because you are a convenient representation of his fears, his anxieties, and his struggle. It is not you, personally, that he dislikes as much as you believe it is. Now, this does not mean you should try to make him like you. The opposite, in fact - he grew up, as did I, surrounded by people who wanted things from him, other than for his own personality, his own company. He does not trust that which is offered too readily. If you look in his eyes, you can see that."
     "As for your room, that was disrespectful," Tiernan agrees, "and Gruffydd should have known better. Do you think that it was done deliberately, though, on Preston's part? If it was, then I will need to have a word with Gruffydd about his choice."

     "I told him to take a flying leap off of the balcony. Maybe I should just speak my mind freely. Nothing else has worked. It soon won't matter." He does take his hand back as you surrender it. Balthazar wraps it around his cup, his eyes on the tea. "I don't think it was deliberate. Just convenient," he mutters. "Bad timing, I guess. He can have the apartments. I don't care. I just... was trying to go somewhere to think. To have a moment to myself." He looks up to you. "It's difficult... trying not to seem as lost and searching as I am around Madison. She's the one giving up everything to follow me around, and I don't even know what I'm doing or why or where I'll be."
     His anger dissolves, revealing the emotions that were driving it: fear, worry, discontent. "I feel like a failure," Balthazar says quietly. "I don't know what I'm looking for. I don't know where I'll find it. I don't know where my home is, even. It's not here anymore."
     Rootless. Aimless. It reminds him of his shadow lessons with his Uncle Gwilym.
     "I'm not ...unsympathetic to Preston. He just makes it really hard to care," Balthazar finally looks to you. "And I'm supposed to be an agent of Love. I don't even feel that at the moment. Or what it even means."

     "There is something which is easy to forget," Tiernan tells you with a faint smile that holds, all the same, sympathy. "We are all supposed to be agents of Love, Balthazar. Each and every one of us. You have somehow gotten it dunned into your head that you should, better than the rest of us, know what that means and how to do it. Why?"
     He lets you pour out your concerns, but this is the one he seizes upon first to address. And he waits for your answer.

     "Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing? What is this ... ascension for, then? Everything has shifted and changed, but now... I don't know to what. Nothing fits me anymore. That is all I know." Balthazar exhales. "I mean, it has to be more than just... making people want to be fertile and multiply whenever I'm around, doesn't it? Isn't it now my job, my responsibility to BE the Love that each of us needs?"
     "Everything has changed," Balthazar echoes, looking to you. He's hardly sipped his tea, but it doesn't go cold in his grasp. "I don't know what Sun Kings or Oak Kings are supposed to do," he flushes in embarrassment. "Perhaps this should belong to Gruffydd. He would know what to do with it. I haven't the slightest clue..."

     "I do not know," Tiernan tells you quietly. "Maybe Gruffydd would know, but the job is yours, not his. There is nothing to keep you from talking to him. As for being that love - I doubt it. You are still only flesh, Balthazar."
     He shrugs gently, picking up his tea. This is not his realm, not his milieu. He cannot speak to you with certainty. "I would say pray on it, and speak with your mother - she is closer to Heaven of all of us." His smile is wry, self-deprecating. "I am far from Heaven, I know, even if it is as she says, a distance I put between myself and it. But it does mean that I cannot tell you what your path is. I can say that compassion should be your guideline - but that it should be, whether you are Sun King, Oak King, or no. What do you want to do, Balthazar? Leave duty aside for this moment."

     "I don't know," he answers quietly. "Nothing fits me anymore. Nothing I've known or considered or dreamed." It is perhaps that which is most distressing. Until his ascension he was quite clear: he wanted to make music and he wanted a certain girl. Now he has a girl but music isn't it anymore. "Maybe I should be by myself until I figure it out, I don't know. The story's completely changed. Now, I just have this... blank page..."
     Balthazar sits back with a weary exhalation. "I thought the... ascension would make things more clear, not less." He stands up in his frustration and his restlessness, hands to his golden hair as he wanders from the table.

     "You need to know what you want," Tiernan agrees. "I think you should come home, Balthazar, until you do."
     He gives it to you as his opinion, not as a father's command. And he waits to see what you say, what you think. There is no less love in his eyes for it...

     He looks at you, his gaze then lowering, and then his hands. He knows it is the right thing to do. You can see it in his face, the twitch of his full mouth. "I would like to speak to Uncle Gwilym about using his quarters, if I do," he murmurs. "I really don't want to be next door to Gruffydd and Preston."
     Balthazar frowns. I am a failure. Golden eyes can't look at you for long. "I'll ... talk to Maddie in the morning. Anyway... I have interrupted your afternoon long enough, I think." You recognize that, surely, that inheritance from you. "'ll just try to stay out of Gruffydd's and Preston's way for now."
     Balthazar turns to go. The maturity of the ascension has not waned. It has only made his search that more painfully acute. He knows the dreams of his youth are insufficient. It happened instantly. He remembers the exact moment.

     "Speak to Gwilym," Tiernan agrees. "I will speak to Gruffydd." He rises to his feet and enfolds you in his arms, drawing you in before you can pull away. His lips press, gently, to your forehead, before he sets you at arm's length again.
     "You have not failed. You are embarking in a new job, a new role, without so much as an instruction manual. Why is it that this family seems to think that everything must come immediately and easily?" Tiernan wonders out loud. He sighs, then smiles, brushing his fingers back through your hair. "Tell her you need to spend some time with your family, what with your parents preparing for a transition in leadership. And then come home, and we'll sort things out, yes? It will work out, Balthazar."
     "I give you my word."

Posted by rowan at July 31, 2009 06:14 PM