Coming Home Part I
Lykon woke in stages, his eyes the last to open. His breath was ragged, so much - so much pain.
He slowly sat up, looking down to see himself fully healed. He was somewhere dark. He could hear the jungle outside - the sound of insects chirping to one another. They created a natural music that helped ground him.
He smiled softly even in death his Sun and Moon cared for his body. He looked at the rock that sat in the entrance keeping him safe, keeping anyone else away.
He stood and brushed at his clothes, sighing as his clothes fell off him in tatters pieces of dust.
He'd have to fix that soon. His mind went back to the images shown to him in dreams.
Quynh thrown into an iron maiden. He swallowed, had his moon not found her then? Is that why he could feel his sun's pain even now? Her terror and rage?
He sighed and ran a hand over his shoulder, flinching as he remembered the knife wound on his Andromache's shoulder.
He needed to get to them soon, he could feel something coming.
He pushed the Boulder out of the way and stepped into the dappled light of the sun.
He whistled high and sharp, an answering call - he grinned. His birdcalls were coming in handy.
Oh, how his loves had teased him about such things. How no one could know where they were by bird calls.
He shook his head, who was the fool now loves? He was in somewhere in the French countryside.
He'd have to wait for his dreams to know where to go. Better he get some food and water in him before then.
As if on cue his mouth went dry, his body began to shake. He was so hungry.
He spent the rest of the day hunting some rabbits and finding water. He roasted them over an open fire devouring them.
He looked up at the nightsky, the fire crackling before him.
He smiled soflty remembering the first time he had met Quynh. How like fire her eyes had been.
Andromache had dreamed of Quynh first but had found him first. She had left him somewhere like this to get Quynh.
***
He remembered the moment he saw Quynh. He had thought that the fire paled before her. Her aura so bright it eclipsed the stars.
When he had told her this 10 or so years later she had laughed delighted. She had pulled him into a searing kiss.
She had asked what he had thought of Andromache when they had first met.
Lykon had smiled at Andromache as she skinned a rabbit, her back to them. Though he knew she was listening.
Lykon had said she had stood in the silhouette of the moon. How she had looked to be chiseled from ivory.
Bone tired and weary of the world as she had offered her hand to him.
He had remembered thinking this wasn't a God like the rumors had swirled.
This was a star, a piece of the moon given form. Beautiful and deadly. A moon that stood still as her waves drowned and remade kingdoms.
A moon who had seen civilizations rise and fall, who had grown numb to all the suffering around her.
He had vowed to remind her of the beauty around her, of the nurturing and care mothers held for their children.
Quynh had sniffed and nodded.
That had been her first thought too, to break through the wall Andromache had kept up.
Andromache had finally turned to them, she stood over them before she gave a small smile.
She laughed as she slid to her knees before them.
"If I am the moon and Quynh is the sun, you are the earth Lykon. You ground us, you temper our rage and bloodlust. You remind me love is not a weakness."
Quynh had nodded and turned Lykon's face to look at her.
"You are wildflowers and overhanging branches. Shade and beauty, you remind me to look at the beauty around me. Even as I lay bleeding out on the ground."
He had given a watery smile, he hadn't remembered what he had said...but they had forgone dinner that night.
***
Lykon blinked and brushed the tears away. How long had it been? 600 and some odd years?
How had his little brothers faired? Had their love stood the test of time? Thinking of them now, of how Yusuf and he used to bicker about what constituted as art.
How they had pressed each other against a wall to place bruising kisses to each other's lips. Their ink smudged hands and paint stained fingers tracing patterns on each other's skin.
How Nicolo and he had spent dawn many mornings sparring and making love in the grass.
How they had loved to mediate as the first rays of the light had peeked over the horizon.
He knew then that they must be just fine. Even if Yusuf had such backward thoughts on art. His twin comets - blazing across the sky and into his life.
He took a breath, he didn't know what he was walking back into. But he knew he wasn't going to be leaving.
Not even the old gods could pull him from his loves. He'd kill them all if he needed to.
Sleep came to him quickly - his belly full, his mind at ease.
The images that assaulted him were not what he expected.
His comets strapped to metal tables, things poking and prodding at them.
Two new immortals, one so broken he felt his heart break for him. Another so hopeful he felt his heart swell.
He vowed to protect these two new ones as he had the others. To love them as he had the others.
Quynh's rage creeped in again, her fury at the broken one - Sebastien. The name came to him dreamlike and beautiful.
Why had his loves abandoned Sebastien like this? He was hurting, he needed companionship not prejudice.
For now it seemed Sebastien and Quynh were getting along. He had no delusions of that happening when his sun and moon met.
He would need to stop them, before they broke everything.
He opened his dreams to the others, the happiest memories he could pull. The secrets and promises whispered together in the dark. Promises that only had the stars and firelight as their witnesses.
Morning came too soon, he awoke to a gun being pointed at him.
He frowned at the French obscenities shoved at him. The derogatory way the Frenchman was speaking on his skin tone.
Lykon moved snapping his neck before the man could fire.
Lykon gritted his teeth and shot at his foot. Screaming in the pain. But he was rewarded to see his wounds slowly healing again.
Not at slow as before but still slow. He worked around it. Taking the clothes from the corpse and putting them on.
Adjusting what he could. A few hours later, his foot had healed and he was dressed.
He left the forest, seeing that it opened on a small French village.
He needed to get to Paris, somehow he knew that was where Quynh and Sebastien were.