Dismay. I think that is the emotion. Dismay.
     How strange a thing it is to be walking while unable to feel one's feet...
     His voice, even his mental voice has been strangely quiet over the past hour or so. And even if one were to seek out his feelings, his mood, it would have seemed strangely elusive. But he was not far - one could certainly get the feel of that - and it is not so long, two hours at the most, before his quiet steps could be heard again, soft bare feet on the marble hallway.
     His servants have certainly seen him in this trance before. Nearly sleepwalking, it seems, but he is quite awake. But unlike those other contemplative strolls, he seems to be taken aback. Quite. He waves off any offer of drink or late night snack - by now it is far too late, much too late for that. Besides which, he's not altogether sure that anything would find its way past his gullet and to his stomach without a map, so shocked is he.
     I guess the long and short of it all is... Wow.
     Iowerth wanders with a tilted head and a narrowed gaze from his living room to the bedroom. Everyone else in the palace is surely asleep by now. Young princes and princesses are dreaming away. A queen is tending over their dreams, he expects. And Tiernan...
     Are you awake? he wonders. The issuing of his voice beneath your skin is faint. He does not want to wake you if you are already sleeping. A careful hand turns the latch of the high king's inner sanctum, and the high king himself quietly draws within.

     Tiernan is not asleep, however; though he is in your bed. He is shirtless, his skin bearing forever the markings of a long dead witch-queen's malice. He is sitting upright, loose white trousers worn with the drawstring tied at his belly - still flat after all these years, from constant work of one sort or another. He is barefoot, and his sketchpad is propped on a thigh as he works to dream up some new design or plan.
     I am in here. There is fondness in the trail of the thought; eyes as blue as the Aegean sea lift to look for your arrival, his mouth already pulling into a slow, warm smile. My king. What affairs of state keep your crowned head awake?
     His hair is as dark as ever; but of late, a double streak of silver has begun to appear, curling from above his ears and back over and down, like the marking of a wave, or the curling of a ram's horns. There is still knowledge in his eyes, and still purity. "I think I have a solution to that problem with the crumbling aqueduct," Tiernan tells you quietly. "How are you, best beloved king of kings? You are up late; too late. You will work yourself into an early grave."

     "And my family will be there, to be sure, to kick me in the hole and dance on the headstones," comes the droll tug of his voice. Quiet, though young princes live several hallways away. Pushing off the closed door, Iowerth makes his way toward his bed. "I was talking to Gwilym..."
     "Or rather," he continues as he steps to the side of the bed and tugs the drawstring of his bedclothes, letting them spill to the floor, "... I was trying to listen to Gwilym as he talked. But ... the sound of my blood rushing in my ears made that difficult."
     He gives his body heavily to the bed, an arm thrown across his eyes -- a pose his father would recognize. He is quiet a moment, and then he turns his head to you, peeking up at you past his own arm. "It is good I have you here to keep my confidences," he notes. "I need to borrow your ears a while, my love. Do you mind?"

     Well, another one of Gwilym's bombshells. He's good at throwing them, is he not? You've known him for more than half your life. He should have gone into the fireworks business. He'd be richer than he already is.
     "Gwilym often has that reaction on people." There is no malice to his words; he says it as a truth, and he smiles at you as he says it. The pad is closed; calmly, unhurriedly, set aside in the same way to a secure place, and your husband and lover opens to you his arms.
     "My ears are yours," Tiernan says simply. "Is it something so terrible that time and solace will not make it more endurable? Come here."

     Iowerth rolls over to give his large body to you to hold, his head rolling to lie upon your lap. In the light, close as he is to you now, you can see the flecks of gold beginning to invade his hair. He will go blonde, then platinum rather than silver grey. "It is more shocking than terrible, though I'm just as shocked that I'm so surprised." There's a wry note for that realization.
     "He and Aeron are lovers. Little Aeron! I know he's not little anymore...but still. Wasn't he just five?" Iowerth sighs, closing his eyes. "I don't know how I feel about it. I know that I am shocked and I am confused and I don't know what to think."

     There is silence as he listens to you, as he lets you give words to the air. His hands slide through your hair with a gentle, loving touch as he looks down at you. He smiles; he bends, touching his lips to your forehead.
     "Aeron was born a debauched old man," Tiernan murmurs. "He is arrogant in his sexuality, and for some, that makes him the more attractive." He grips your hair, then releases it, letting you settle against his lap. "Gwilym will never age; not like you, not like me. He is someone who needs to bear a heavy weight, and cannot bear ease."
     He lets the words settle, then drags his fingers down to your shoulders. His hands have known hard word of their own; less with swords and more with hammer and chisel, but work, all the same. He squeezes, rubbing your skin. "You love him, and he is a part of you that you never want to let go. I am sure that he feels the same. He had you before I did, and after as well. But you have chosen to live linearly, Io. He ... has chosen something else."

     There's a smirk for the comment on Aeron. He's sure you're right. "I never thought this night was coming. He has always been with me, right beside me the whole time. And I don't ...I don't want him to not be happy or to have some amount of... something, and god only knows what he's getting. I don't want to think about it too much or too hard. I just thought I would always be able to turn my head and catch a glimmer of a wink from the darkness. But I just feel like he's left the building. He's really, and truly, gone."
     Was it a mistake, I wonder, choosing to age? Choosing the linear path so that our children could have some sense of passage, something to attain, to strive for? Should we have remained young men forever?
     Iowerth is quiet for a time, his eyes scanning the darkness and the ceiling, and then they lift to you. Wise and calm, as you ever are. "He told me once that the king is the center of the wheel. And I feel it now, love. He's jumped to another spoke and I, the center, I cannot follow him. It is very strange, this feeling. Do you think I'm overreacting?" It is a sudden tangent, but he raises an eyebrow in genuine askance, not in deflection.

     "If he could have had you, he would have chosen you." Tiernan says it simply, with absolute conviction - and absolute ease. "I know how he looks at you; and you love him, Io, and you would do anything for him. Perhaps you would have left your center for him; I don't know." His fingernails lightly scratch against your scalp in soothing patterns. "But for all his bluster and selfishness... he wouldn't ask it of you."
     He has seen it. He knows. He rests a hand to your forehead for a moment, aware of your grief, your pain, the edge of bewildered shock that is still in you. "I think ... if there were not that fate and duty ... he would have asked you to choose him over me, years ago."
     I do not know. I may be wrong. He is effortless at admitting it. There is no pain in it, though, where once, long ago, there would have been. He touches your face, your lips, a squared thumb pressing there for a moment before drawing against your chin. "I don't think it was a mistake. You are the center, as you say; and you have seen with your own father, the difficulties that go with remaining. Stepping down, stepping aside - it has its challenges, and there will always be those who struggle with the new when the old is so palpably present. Time as an arrow makes it easier; inevitable, perhaps, but it's the inevitable which is easiest to bow to. As for following him or not..."
     You see his compassion, his love for you in his eyes. He is silent for a time, then asks you, "Even if you could, Io - would you follow him? Ignore the weight of crowns and family. I may be wrong. But I think that as much as you love him... you would be less than yourself, if you followed him. You would consume each other. You chose to age, you say, but I think that you chose it because there has always been a part of you which has aged. You were serious even when I met you; planning, looking to the turning over of the clock. And your brother, for all his plans, all his activities and actions? He is Peter Pan and Pan. He is Dionysus. You are Prometheus. Prometheus suffers, but in the end, he escapes to build. Dionysus... does not."

     "No," he says it simply, truthfully, quietly. "No, I would not ... I cannot follow him. And I would never leave you to do so." He looks to you and his shock melts away. There is nothing behind it but love for you and love for his brother, and the crossroads that has always been present and before him. He and Gwilym have been walking side by side for years, seeing it up ahead, knowing it, fearing it. And now it is here.
     You see that sink in. And he nods. "I think it was right, our choosing to feel Time. Our legacy depends upon Time, and Time's passing. From our hands to our children. And from them to their own. And so on. No... I don't regret it," he says suddenly, quietly, after additional thought. Our shared legacy, our shared purpose, our shared family. What has been his has been yours all along.
     And so that's the truth of it. He was out of is brother's life longer than his brother has been out of his own. The fork in the road that they saw, that they noted, that they dreaded, even, was actually passed some time ago. Back before all this began. Back when he found you in the library and took you for a ride on his ship. Gwilym was right all along.
     That's going to be hard to live with...
     "But Aeron," Iowerth chuckles suddenly. "I suppose it's some consolation that it's not one of our own sons." He suddenly smirks slant-wise, half a smile, half a frown. "It could have easily been Gruffydd." He gives you a look, you above him, his favorite sky. "So... we should be thankful to Aeron...yes?"

     "It could have been. I think Aeron would have liked to try Gruffydd. And then you would have had to kill Aeron, and it would have been difficult or impossible for me to talk you out of it, and it would have led to all sorts of trouble with your mother... so I am relieved that it was Gwilym, instead."
     Your husband smiles at you, his hand lifting to tug your hair. I love you, his eyes say, even though his mouth does not move. "Gruffydd will make his own path. I suspect it will be awkward; I think I know what he needs, but it will be awkward. And perhaps difficult to arrange. I am no seer, my beloved king."
     He chuckles, suddenly and quietly, and drops his head to brush a kiss, open-mouthed, against your forehead. I would tell you. But I think you have had shocks enough for one night.

     Oh, now he has to know. You know that look. What's he into? Oh, if Iowerth could himself see his own look he'd roll his eyes and wince at it, for he's seen it on his father a thousand times. And by his very own doing! "Mm...I love you too," he says softly to the kiss, a hand coming up to surround you as you bend. "You might as well tell me. I'm not going to be able to sleep until I know anyway."
     There's a grin from down below. You know him. He knows himself. Eyebrows arch outward. "So... what is going on with our eldest son, our prince of princes?" Iowerth shifts, sitting up for this discussion. He gives his weight to the solid headboard, his body flush to your own. An arm opens outward. It is your turn for the lap, if you want it.
     "I don't want to think about Aeron and Gruffydd," he notes quietly. "But I will give him this: he saved the high king from fratricide. I would have to kill him." He snorts at that. "Course, I'd have to wait in line..."

     "It is not knowledge. It is suspicion." He chuckles, shifting to turn towards you. There is love of you, for you, in his expression; the warmth and quiet adoration with which you have been showered since adolescence. It has matured. But it has not changed. It has grown, spreading roots, becoming solid and unafraid; and he holds you with a tenderness to his strength that bespeaks it.
     I think that if we wish him to be happiest, we should seek out a brother and sister for him - or, at least, one of each. He is not so emotionally fragile as your mother - but there is something in him which reminds me of her, all the same. You are informed as calmly as a weather report; he thinks it might rain tomorrow, don't you? Tiernan presses a kiss to your stomach, then to your lips. I may be mistaken. I may not. But that is what I believe...
     His arms tighten around you with fervor, the joy of having you and the distant memory of thinking he might lose you. He is content. "He seems to have tripped your brother, not your son," Tiernan notes. "And - without any irony at all, Io... I do wish them joy. I hope that they will find it. Your brother has always struck me as a tragic figure."

     One of each. You see the eyebrow cock up. "I try not to listen to the rumors. I don't want to know." He closes his eyes - he really doesn't want to know. "I just want him to be happy." He pauses, realizing he means that for both his son and for his twin. And even, yes, he must admit it. Even for Aeron.
     That makes his mouth twist. He never thought he'd be staying up late at night worrying over Aeron.
     "I'm very proud of our eldest boy. Of all of them, of course. But Gruffydd... has retained his sweetness. If not his innocence. I hope he keeps it a while longer. I will support whatever our son wishes to do, whomever he wishes to love, so long as they endeavor to deserve him."
     His arm comes around you and holds you firmly likewise. Packed, the two of you, in bed. It makes Iowerth smile. "I want them to be happy ... all of them. Even Aeron, But I will say this: I'm not going to go out of my way to cover for him. He's so clever," he smirks, "...let him cover his own backside."
     The high king Iowerth Rhudd Draig grins then. It is a brilliant expression, full of love and humor. "There is only one backside I want to cover," he murmurs, bowing his head to put his forehead to your own. He suckles at your mouth briefly. "I have you. Thank god for that."

Posted by rowan at June 15, 2008 09:22 PM