I knew he was going to leave me...
     For years, I have been pleading with him for just more time. More time. More time... just... a little more time...
     It was going to be our time. Just ours. No crown. No kingdom. Just us and our family...
     His thoughts slap him like waves, and the spray of it leaps from his eyes in his anguish. Swift, swift salty waves: the ocean of this has no ending...
     If I would have known...
     I would have left...
     I would have stayed...
     The library is dark with the thudding of evening. The only light at all is from the still burning fire and the few flashes of lightning. Half illuminated, but mostly shadowed, Iowerth sits crosslegged on the floor, his head in his hands, his face hidden in his palms.
     Thunder rumbles over the ocean, distant. It is not enough to cover the listing sobs of a human shipwreck. And in the background, the fire pops, ember-cymbals crackling like the wood of his hulled heart being breached.

     Gwilym arrives without fanfare, without dramatics. There is enough drama right now without him adding to it. He makes no jokes; he doesn't speak at all, rising out of the shadows and moving to drop to the floor behind and to one side of you.
     In silence, his arms go around you; a hand to your waist, guiding you back against him, a hand to your shoulder to do the same. His hand lifts from your shoulder to touch your hair, your face, and he presses his lips to the back of your head. I'm here.
     That's all he says, silent though it is to anyone else. Right now, Gwilym is not the Holly King; he is not the Prince, the White Stag, the thief. He is only your brother, the one who feels your pain.

     As solid as Iowerth is, he is able to be moved and guided easily. There is no resistance there. He gives his heavy body over, as if he were suspended, weightless, in water. In more stubborn moods, he might eschew such mercy. But he does not. There is no stiffening to resist the comfort that is offered. Iowerth takes a breath, swallowing his grief.
     Maybe if I swallow it, I will be solid enough to stand...heavy enough not to just ...float away...
     His breathing is labored in his emotion. He chokes on the enormity of it, turning his head against your mouth. "I don't know what to do. I have to go in there," Iowerth says, his voice quietly ravaged. "I have to be in there when he tells the children. How am I going to be there for them when I am drowning? God," he sighs, his hands covering his face again. "He's leaving. What will be left in the wake of that?"

     "Shhh," Gwilym murmurs it, as gentle as a nurse. He holds you, encourages you to vent your grief - what of it you can, in this moment. "It is cruel. I know, brawd. I know."
     As inconstant as his heart has been accused of being, he has loved, and loved faithfully, and you have been one of the targets of that faith. What can he tell you? How can he comfort you? He can't, not truly; his heart aches in echo of yours.
     "You will be here," Gwilym says quietly, "and the children will be here. And he will be gone, and it will hurt, brawd, for a long time." His arms go around your waist, holding you to him. "But you will have the fruits of that love, your sons and daughters, the grandchildren coming on their way. I won't insult you by saying you'll have memories, I wouldn't be that cruel to you, Io. But he loves you, and has loved you, and has given you everything he could for all these years. If you want it of me, I'll go to Heaven and pick a fight - I'd offer myself in his stead, but I know I'm not cut to the cloth of their jib. But he's changing, and ... there's one suggestion I'd make, but if they said no... I'd be bearin' the weight of your pain all over again."
     He is half talking aloud, now. He sighs, and he presses his face to the back of your shoulder. "I love you, brawd. He loves you most of all. Remember that, if nothing else."

     "I'd almost rather not remember," he murmurs and he frowns. It's not true; he sighs at the lie as it leaves his mouth. Iowerth closes his eyes, his hands covering his face again as he tries to catch his breath. "I feel like I'm drowning, brawd. Like there's water in my lungs. Why did Zafirah not tell me," that pulls from him in agony. "Why did they all let me retire, let me step off of the throne, let me turn the wheel back and lock it into place? Now I am here, and I will be without him, without anyone. You can't sit behind me for the rest of my life."
     He hears of your love. He doesn't dispute it, nor Tiernan's. Love is the stone bashing his heart at the moment. He doesn't want to hear about love. Iowerth closes his eyes, his hands dropping to his lap. "Changing. He's changed already," he says. "And I am sure I was cruel. I was trying to understand the incomprehensible. How will we not be together. How is that possible?"
     There is a strange sound, the snort of his laughter. It is hollow and without joy. "Remember. Yes... I will do that. And little else, I'm sure." Iowerth shakes his head, his copper-bronze hair out of sorts from all the raking of his fingers through it. "It's what he wants, what he needs, hell... it's even what he deserves," Iowerth mutters. "He's far older than I. He's been trapped a hell of a lot longer than da. That's the worst part of it all: I don't even fucking begrudge him..."
     "I'm sorry," he closes his eyes, wincing. "That was selfish of me. I know you love me. I know you would do anything for me. You'd pick a fight with God," he snorts a short laugh at that. "And with the devil. At the same time." Iowerth shakes his head. "I don't want you to do that, brawd." He turns his head to look at you. "You've done ... and given... enough. Don't you think? The most generous thief in the universe..."
     Iowerth takes in a deep breath, at last, and holds it. "I hate feeling sorry for myself. I'm sorrier for the children. And for him, even. What he's going to miss. All the... all the things, just the stupid, little things." That twists in his gut and tears are squeezed from his eyes. "I'm going to miss him... so much. How will I stand it? Looking at him until Yule. Sleeping in the same room. I should cling to him right now, spend every waking minute memorizing him. But it's too much, it's too much. And now he feels terrible. I can't begrudge him the time. He's the one who's ... moving on."

     "Shhh," he murmurs quietly. "You know he wants to stay with you, brawd. Who wouldn't?" He tugs lightly on a lock of your hair, holding you with him. "I don't know why she didn't tell you. I suppose because it was possible, maybe, that he'd turn from his purpose? Or because it simply wasn't her place? I don't know. We can guess, we can theorize with the best of 'em, brawd."
     But he doesn't know. He rubs your scalp, not even trying to smooth your hair, that's a lost cause if he ever saw one. "He is moving on," Gwilym assents quietly. He wishes he could soften this blow; his eyes prickle with your tears. "I don't know, brawd. Is it possible ..." He cuts off the thought. He wants to hold out hope to you, and yet, if he is wrong, how much greater will the let-down be? With a sigh, the Holly King holds you and tries to comfort you. "There is nothing I would not give if it would bring you happiness, Io. Nothing."

     You feel him start to tremble again. "I told him... just the other day...that... love was my priority. It was going to be my time to take care of them. Of you," he murmurs. "I ... just didn't think I was going to be doing it alone, Gwilym. How am I going to do it alone?"
     Grief is a wave and he can taste the salt of it in his mouth. It is not merely a pain of the heart or emotion, of the spirit, but of the body, too. Cells and muscles grieve as much as heart and mind and spirit. For a moment, he quakes, his body wracking, twisting in seasickness.
     Iowerth quiets himself again, moments of composure stolen. Though it's like trying to catch a wave with one's arms, he tries to hold onto it. His breaths quiet again, steadying. Iowerth opens his eyes, sighing. "I know you would, Gwi. You'd give until there was nothing left. That's what you've been doing. I know. You've done enough, brawd." He shakes his head. "I was supposed to be taking care of you, not you tending to me. Again." He rubs his face with his hands, the heel of his hand pressing at his eyes to stave the burning liquid from the corners. "Is ...what possible," he wonders.

     He does not shush you this time, his arms around you, pressing his face into the back of your shoulder. "It is nothing I do not give freely," Gwilym answers quietly. "You are my brother, oes? I love you... and I know how much strain my love has put on you, Io. It shouldn't have to be that way."
     Your hair is stroked, but without sensuality. All he wishes to offer you is comfort, and he does his best to give you that. "If," he says finally, "it seems cruel to suggest it, in case I'm wrong, and it's impossible ... but every one of them has a territory, a beat they walk, oes?" Only he would think of it as celestial police. "Could his not be ... here?"

     "Your love hasn't put a strain on me," it is a hush, that truth. "My not knowing how to return it properly put a strain on us both. I am sorry," his voice is hoarse with that apology. He closes his eyes, resting against you in the dichotomy of pain and comfort. Only in the arms of the Holly King could one find both simultaneously.
     The fire pops loudly as it sparks its way toward death. Without the sound of his puffed voice, his strained words, and his grunted tears, the popping is all the louder. "I think it would only delay the inevitable," he murmurs. "He is moving on. I am staying here. That isn't changing. His could be here. But if Duma was correct, angels blink millennia. Covering time and space as they do, must, Time passes... even faster. It's far sadder for him, if one thinks of it that way. He ..." Iowerth pauses, his composure starting to crack again. "... he will miss it all."
     Face contorting, he avoids additional tears. That, too, is only delaying the inevitable. "You do love me, to look for loopholes. I don't know that I could ... it wouldn't be fair for me or for us to try to continue some sort of ...something. All I would hope is that he would be able to see his children grow up, and his grandchildren. If he is able to have that, then... that is what's really important. I am just one heart. He is now going to care for more hearts than mine."
     Hand going to his face again, Iowerth sighs. "I feel sick. I am seasick. Queasy." He pauses again, his eyes staring forward. "How do I...handle this, brawd? I mean, what do I do now? Move back to the Capitol as the sad old king emeritus? It would be best for Ani." But it would be horrendously painful. His body and soul flinch at it. "What would you do...I mean, apart from stealing Tiernan and locking him away and daring God to come and get him..."

     "I know," Gwilym answers quietly. "I know." Your pain is real, and he doesn't know how to answer it. He wishes he could. And then you ask him the question, and he takes a deep, ragged breath.
     "If I were you... I would follow him, Io. I would ask Ani if he wants to be an angel or a man, and ... I would go with him." Gwilym says it very quietly, and now there are tears in his own eyes, which he does not let you see. He hugs you gently, oh so gently. "Maybe this is what is meant, hm? It would hurt us all - it is hurting us all, oes? But Ani is thirteen now. Who are we to say that this is meant to be his story? Maybe he is meant to be elsewhere. Maybe this is where you, and he, are needed... and not just Tiernan."
     His heart aches to give you up. But he knows, knew even before this, that someday he would have to. He's chosen a different path from yours. "I would kidnap him if I could. I would beg, if it would change things, Io. I will go and spit in the eye of God if that is what it will take. But you do not want him to stay under duress, oes? This transformation ... it is what it is. So the choices are to stay or to go, to be with him as he has been with you all these years, in his shadow instead of he in yours. And - knowing how you love him? If it were me, I would go."

     "I am not an angel," Iowerth says after a time. "I merely married one. For a time. My children...our children... they might have such ability. But you are earth and shadow, brother," periwinkle eyes find you. "... and I am the sea. I'm of this place. And so long as my children are here, and my grandchildren, this is where I am supposed to be. My place... isn't up there. And I wasn't invited." He looks at you a moment. "But it is what you would do." There is almost a smile, which is in itself a major victory for your comfort, however quickly it comes and then goes.
     "This isn't about me," he says quietly. "I'm in pain. But this is about Tiernan. I have no right to go, even if we didn't have children. But we do. And as long as they are here, I will be here too. You...never stop needing your parents. And they're still... all so young."
     It isn't about me. Iowerth wipes his hand across his face and rolls forward, sitting up. "It is a nice idea, a nice thought. I'm sure I will fantasize about that from time to time, or that he will tire of Heaven and return to me. But ... we both know the truth for what it is." Iowerth looks to you. You are part of that we. He takes in a big breath, holds it, then lets it out, his shoulders sagging. He repeats that motion, clearing toxins of grief with every inhale, exhale. The grief, however, remains.
     "I look horrible," he notes. "Poor Ani. He and Balthazar and I... we all hang on Tiernan's every word." Iowerth shakes his head, struggling to stand up. Placing his hands to his head to steady himself from the vertigo, Iowerth looks to you, then offers you his hand. "Winston Churchill said: If you are going through Hell, keep going. At least you've been there. You can give me directions."

     He smiles at you, though it is not his glimmering, quicksilver smile. He has his own pain, as always. And as always, he is keenly attuned to yours. He rises to his feet, pulling you into a tight hug, kissing your cheek before he releases you.
     I bring my Hell with me. I am in it now.
     He does not share the thought. He squeezes your hand. "I will see what I can do, Io." Gwilym says nothing else. What else can he say? He looks through shadows in search of answers, looks for a way that you can have your cake and eat it too. After all, he doesn't need cake. Fuck cake. He never liked cake anyway.
     "Let's go get you cleaned up a little, oes?" is all your brother says, keeping an arm around your shoulders. Gwilym doesn't crack wise; he just gently steers you towards the door. "And sommat to drink. We'll all be drinking before the night's out."
     And before dawn, damn me if I don't find something I can do, or someone I can stab...

Posted by rowan at August 11, 2010 09:04 PM