a silver splendour, a flame

One night in 929, II Age

A’ve Palmera was quiet, too quiet, and for the life of him, after twelve years, Christophe still couldn’t figure out if he loved or hated it. Out on the mesas, at this altitude, the stars shone crisp and clear overhead. They knew what they were, the stars, but they’d all been given names anyway; names that referenced the great heroes of the first age, glory days that were long gone from the earth now. He wasn’t sure he liked those either. The legacy of those names had been too much to bear, and he and Viktor were ruined for it. Together they’d been so easy to build hopes around: two princes who might someday make the world in its original image again, so well regarded, so talented. The story wrote itself. Until it didn’t.

It was foreign to him, completely, this malaise; Christophe never knew what to do with it. He wouldn’t call it loneliness. A few of his people had made the journey with him; the villa was coming back together as they renovated together; he wasn’t alone, he had things to do. Regret, certainly. Bitterness he recognized. He could taste it, every time he thought of the north, of Viktor, of what it had felt like to remove the crown of the west and place it into Viktor’s hands.

Viktor who hadn’t even looked at him.

That was how the great hope of the second age died: resigned to its fate, in meek surrender.

The solitude was a reprieve from the chaos that had surrounded him his whole life, though; his family, Vaux Romandith, people, everywhere, all the time. Christophe’s magic had come on quick: first, as a child, he’d been uncommonly good at reading people. Then the little flickers of insight had begun. Then it had been constant and inescapable. Emotions so thick and so present that he sometimes thought he’d choke.

Perhaps being removed was for the best after all.

Twelve years and you still don’t know what you think.

Malaise. He’d never been like that. Never withdrawn. His court looked on in silent worry, but a decade had passed already, and Northern fury never just blew over. Christophe exhaled, decided he’d sulked enough, and climbed down half-finished stairs to take a walk. Sand had gathered on them, he noted: the result of the sandstorm that had blown over earlier. That meant a window was blown out somewhere. Another thing to fix. He wasn’t in the mood.

He strolled down to the oasis, idle and wayward, with no other purpose than to go to it because it was there, because a full circuit around it took about an hour and maybe by then he’d be ready to go to sleep. Along the way he'd look at the stars, still so certain of themselves, out here the whole universe shone sometimes and it was too beautiful to ignore. Christophe hit the sandy slope of the southern beach at the same time as someone emerged from the water, raking brown curls from his face, and for a moment the empath could only stand there, stunned out of his reverie, and with it, shaken from his own bitterness.

It was the stranger in his oasis who spoke first. “You are a long way from home, Christophe of the West.”

“Haven’t you heard?” Christophe waved his hand around the oasis, his new kingdom-in-exile. “This is home now.”

“Ah.” The brunette hesitated for a moment. “This is not the sort of place someone owns,” he added, nearly as an aside, and then smiled slightly. It was a charming smile, Christophe decided, made more so because it was also elusive. “You have me at a disadvantage. I’m more than somewhat uninvested in the gossip of the sidhe courts.”

A banshee. Now Christophe was curious, which was new in and of itself: when was the last time he’d been curious about anything? “You’re one of the rangers,” he guessed suddenly, and caught himself searching the man’s auras before he knew to do otherwise. Bemusement. A strange knowing. Deep patience. Stop it. This is what got you here in the first place.

“Yes.”

“You have me at a disadvantage,” murmured Christophe next. “You know my name, and I don’t know yours.”

The stranger’s smile grew. “Fetch my towel,” he said, and Christophe wondered when he’d started thinking of him as beautiful; it was a trick of the moonlight and the treacherous stars. “Then I’ll consider telling you.”

Consider. It was nearly playful, except for this stoic face that gave away nothing. Christophe hadn’t told a good joke in twelve years. “… And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll have to learn to live with mystery, I guess.”

- - -

One week after Imbolc, 1018 II Age

It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to Rafael’s line of work. Part of loving Rafael meant also loving his love of the wilderness, all of the untamed and dangerous places of the world; it meant being willing to relinquish him from time to time to the ranges, and to trust that he intended to keep his word when he insisted that he’d be back. Over the years, Christophe had gotten acclimated to the way Rafael’s thoughts shifted in the back of his mind as he traveled: the determination that sent him racing ahead of storms; the resilience with which he weathered the desert; the survival instincts that kept him safe from the revenants. He’d learned to trust Rafael’s instincts more than his own.

Which is why it was so strange to sit next to Jean-Jacques, discussing the changes that needed to be made in Vaux Romandith in the upcoming year to restore confidence in the new order of things, and hear suddenly:

Christophe.

Rafa?

… I love you.

There was nothing after that: something like a curtain sprang up between their thoughts followed by an attempt, he could tell, to shield him from the ban side’s feelings, but feelings were the entire sum of Christophe’s magic, and even behind the separation Rafael was trying to put up he could sense it: a surge of determination and absolute terror in equal measure.

Rafa. What is going on.

“Christophe?”

He’d stopped mid-sentence and he couldn’t be bothered to care. Jean-Jacques stared while Christophe stood up, marched over to a window, and glared off into the distance.

Rafael, answer me right now.

Silence.

“Is everything —“

He closed his eyes, sought out Rafael’s heartbeat, which was racing, reached for the window frame, for anything that might hold him up, might stop the treachery which had overtaken the floor and made the world tilt. There was something thrumming, like pain, he’s hurt — and then something stabbing, sharp, deadly. This, even through Rafael’s attempt to spare him from it, was enough to send Christophe crashing to the floor. Dimly he recognized Jean-Jacques order for one of the medics, though for a moment he wasn’t in Vaux Romandith, he was off to the East, he was at the Cauldron, that was — oh gods. Rafa, get out of there —

“No.” He shook off every offer of help except for Jean-Jacques hands, and these he only used to get back to his feet, to blink rapidly, to try to get his bearings. “No.” He could still hear it, that heartbeat. As long as he could hear it he was not going to stay here, idle, while Rafael died alone fleeing a dragon out in the wilderness. “I need to leave immediately.”

Breathing hurt. Christophe tried unsuccessfully to gain control over his lungs, to stop the little gasps that still shook him, to remember that his ribcage could not have possibly contracted like this.

“What happened?”

“Viktor. You have to call for Viktor. Tell him Yuuri has to come —”

“… I don’t understand.”

“Rafael is going to die,” Christophe snapped. Idiot boy, trying to be a Prince, still trying to please me — whose fault was that, though?

Rafa, answer me right now —

— ru—run.. ..ning —

He’d never been so glad to hear such broken syllables. Something in Christophe’s chest eased just a little bit.

Head north, I’m coming.

t-too dan …— the cauld— it’s…

I know. Warn your companions if you must. I’m still coming.

He looked back at Jean-Jacques, tried to shrug off the new Prince’s palpable worry. “Call Viktor,” Christophe repeated, though the words felt clunky and slow to come in his mouth. Somewhere, Rafael was half-slung over one of the desert cats, and his mount was wounded and scared too. “… Tell him that Rafael thinks an eruption at the cauldron is likely, and that he’s just fought the dragon they saw in the desert.” He grabbed Jean-Jacques shoulders. “You have to convince him to bring Yuuri,” Christophe added, and he knew how desperate he sounded, how wild-eyed he looked; could see himself in the reflection of Jean-Jacques’ irises this close. He had blue eyes. They were nothing like Viktor’s; the color of the Vaux Romandith lake instead of the clear blue of glaciers or seas.

“Please,” he said, and his voice cracked. “Make sure he brings Yuuri. Do this for me. I have to go.”

- - -

An afternoon in 930, II Age

“Rafael.”

“Christophe. We keep meeting.”

Rafa, I’ll take the cats for water? Rafa. This time he’d come in with three other rangers on patrol, something Rafael had explained the last time he’d been to the oasis. We got separated in the storm, they’ll show up in a day or two.

“Rafa?” Christophe prompted, absently, and gods, it was digging, wasn’t it? Rafael was so calm though, so placid, and he wanted to dig.

“What my friends call me,” said the ban side, and Christophe realized absently that he’d missed Rafael’s voice. It was a light tenor, but something about the cadence of his words was curiously melodic. The first time they’d met, he’d admitted to being angry at the stars, such a silly thing, and Rafael had told him their alternate histories for ages.

The ban side had not named their constellations after heroes. That one’s the eagle and the serpent. Close to the horizon is the one-eared rabbit. He’d listened to that voice for hours, and in the morning, the other rangers had indeed emerged from the shelter they’d taken during the sandstorm, and Rafael had left him without the sound of it, something Christophe had not even known he’d needed until the precise moment where he was left to deal with its absence.

“Friends,” Christophe repeated, and Rafael flashed him that subtle smile again.

“Surely even an aes sidhe can understand the concept.”

There it was, that playful edge which had caught his attention the first time around. Christophe grinned back, unrepentant. “Even an aes sidhe,” he mimicked. “Who’s the snob now, Rafa?” It fell so easily off his lips, and it was cheating, to recognize the little flicker of fondness that burst up in Rafael’s mien, but Christophe couldn’t help it.

“You caught me. What will you do now?”

“Beg you to stay for more than a day.” Stay forever. What a ridiculous thought that was, particularly about someone he could only barely say he knew. “I’m ruthless.”

Rafael laughed, which was music itself. “Yes,” he said, and now Christophe knew he was thinking about that night by the lake, about towels, of all things. “I remember.”

- - -

Nine days after Imbolc, 1018 II Age

He didn’t take the road. Once, Christophe had traveled all over the strange lands that made up the central border of all four kingdoms with Rafael, and in every year since he’d seen all of the major landmarks in his lover’s thoughts whenever they were apart: Rafael’s way of still telling stories, all these years later. He’d volunteered to ride out without knowing precisely what he was getting into, back then, impatient after a decade of drop-ins at A’ve Palmera, unpredictable, out of season: forever a surprise. These were wonderful, always; Rafael’s presence was curiously soothing, and his emotions never overwhelmed. They spoke together like equals and old friends, easily, and Christophe had begun to compile a picture of Rafael the ban side.

It was mournfully incomplete, a list of facts: Rafael had two sisters, who were going to give him hell when they came of age and were sought for handfasting. His familiar — no, his guardian, because that was the word he used — was a great horned owl, and his magic was like nothing Christophe had seen personally: alchemical, able to change one substance into another, glimmered the green of olives, showcased his subtle creativity every time he used it. His favorite constellation was the running puma, for no other reason than he liked the great cats of the desert. When he told stories he got a faraway look on his face that always made Christophe want to kiss him.

It was all rather like only ever eating the appetizer of some promised feast. One morning, back then, Rafael had looked back over his shoulder with such consideration, longing, even, that the words had leapt from Christophe’s body as quickly as he thought them: wait, he’d said. I’m coming with you.

They’d kissed for the first time then, and the other two rangers had whooped around the campfire, because evidently they had known for a long time what Christophe had not, had even made bets. They measured the passing of that year by the moon, and at the end of the first one Christophe had hesitated in front of Rafael’s glowing hands, had known what he was offering. There are things you should know about me, he’d insisted, because he’d done this once before, and it had been such a mistake, and surely he wasn’t worthy.

There was something incredibly clarifying in being on the receiving end of Rafa’s perfect clarity. There is nothing I need to know about you that I don’t already know, Rafael had said, open palms still outstretched. The aes sidhe always linger overlong in the past. He’d been observant, too. You’re afraid to use your magic on me. I have no fear of it. Look at this. This is today.

Today, Rafa was somewhere in the steppes, and Christophe would be damned before he’d let the first person who’d ever given him permission to simply be himself perish alone.

He rode for two days with little sleep, following Rafael’s weakening heartbeat and the slender wisps of their bond, traveled through a brief, biting rainstorm, was hungry and shivering and cold when he finally found him but it didn’t matter. Rafael’d taken shelter in a cave, was hallucinating and nearly unconscious, and whenever Christophe looked at his mangled leg and the unnatural drape of his arm the whole world threatened to spin again.

“Help is coming,” he promised his husband with every fiber in his being, though he could do little other than hope this was, in fact, the case. The python twisted around Christophe’s shoulders as he settled in next to Rafael, linked their hands, let his magic go. Whatever it was Rafael had encountered had done more than crush bones; there was a deep void ripped through his aura, and what remained of his magic was weak, flickering. Christophe threw himself into it without hesitation. He let the python sweep away the feelings of pain, forcibly pulled anguish out of Rafael’s body and dissipated it. Better?

“When you wake up we’re going to have a discussion about the stupid things you don’t have to do to spare me.”

a-m … a-wake

“And in no fit state to talk, for once,” Christophe quipped without humor. Still, he sensed Rafael’s relief, encouraged it to flare up a little more brightly. Thought long and hard about how many times he’d fallen in love with this man. To the ban side, it wasn’t a one time act. Every day was new.

To the ban side, everything happened now, and so Christophe and Rafael were still falling, were in a permanent free fall. He dug for it in the mix of their feelings, that love, felt no guilt whatsoever in redirecting all of Rafael’s attention to it. Christophe had the power to bear him into ecstasy if he willed it, and Rafael had once given him permission to use it to its fullest. He did so now because it was what both of them would've expected. “Now shut up and let me hold you.”

- - -

An evening in 941, II Age

They were married on a full moon in one of the ban side villages at the southwestern edge of the steppes by a woman Christophe had learned was called The Reaper by the rest of her tribe, a title that seemed to inspire both great honor and something that was not quite fear. Awe, perhaps, in the dread sense of the word. Whatever else it meant, she bore some responsibility her peers considered holy.

Rafael had promised to explain it to him later. It’s a ban side thing, he’d teased. You’re not one of us.

“Yet,” Christophe had reminded him then, with a pointed look towards the setting sun, and Rafa laughed one of his melodic laughs. Yet, he agreed. There was no sound on earth that was more beautiful than that voice echoing the vows at the Reaper’s prompt while the ban side’s family tied the knots around their hands.

You cannot possess me for I belong to myself.

“You cannot possess me for I belong to myself.”

But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give.

“But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give.”

You cannot command me, for I am a free person.

“You cannot command me, for I am a free person.”

But I shall serve you in those ways you require,

“But I shall serve you in those ways you require,”

and the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand.

“and the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand.”

I pledge to you that yours will be the name I cry aloud in the night, and the eyes into which I smile in the morning.  I shall be a shield for your back and you for mine. I shall honor you above all others, and when we quarrel we shall do so in private and tell no strangers our grievances.

I pledge to you my living and my dying, each equally in your care.

This is my wedding vow to you. This is the marriage of equals.

“This is my wedding vow to you.”

“… this is the marriage of equals.”

- - -

Nine days after Imbolc, 1018 II Age

Viktor had not slept, and neither had Yuuri, and neither had Vicchan, flying day and night on the rush of Yuuri’s magic, which kept restoring him every time he felt like hunger or exhaustion were going to somehow intervene. Yuuri said little and thought less, steadfast, his gaze fixed on the Western horizon as they flew. Only briefly did he point out a landmark at the edge of the canyon as he crossed it. The flame of the east. The phoenix came to me there.

Then he’d needed to turn them northwards, cutting across towards the oasis. It was best to keep the cauldron little more than a distant column of thin smoke, which made for an unsettling landmark, a reminder that there was still other business to attend to. Viktor turned to examine it often, shared his thoughts freely with Lilia as they flew.

The cauldron has not erupted in this age, nor particularly recently in the last. I believe the last time was shortly after the creation of the mages.

What would happen if it did?

I’ll go look in the archives.

Have father prepare the council of the Princes, please. A’ve Palmera still has a wayseeing stone.

Be careful, Vitya.

Of course, mother.

Viktor tensed suddenly, his attention caught by a rock formation off to their right. He felt compelled to go visit it, curiously so, and because he'd only ever been compelled in one year that still remained crystal clear in his memory, he was reasonably sure he knew who to blame for his sudden inspiration. “Yuuri, head that way.”

“It’ll take us off course, it’s still at least a day to A’ve Palmera …”

“I don’t think they made A’ve Palmera,” Viktor murmured, a small muscle in his cheek twitching. I know what it feels like to be compelled by Christophe, and right now Christophe would very much like for us to make for those rocks.

Yuuri didn’t particularly like that, but he obeyed, turning the eagle that way. “Tell him to cut it out,” he grumbled, though Viktor had no way of doing so, neither of them did. Nonetheless, Viktor exhaled in relief as the feeling abated, replaced by a very brief flicker of something that felt nearly apologetic. As they flew closer, two desert cats looked up from their rest on a ledge, one of them still bearing the visible stripes of a wound. They seemed to be keeping watch in front of a hollow part of the rock formation, a shallow cave, enough to provide relief from the elements. … I see. They didn’t get that far.

Viktor dismounted first and gave Yuuri his hand as they arrived.

Christophe didn’t get up, couldn’t; barely had the energy. “… thank the gods,” he said, voice little more than a whisper. “I wasn’t sure that would be enough to catch you.”

Viktor knew what he saw; Christophe, on the very last edges of his strength, and the man who he presumed was Rafael, who looked to be on death’s door. Stranger than that was the state of one of Rafael’s hands, and his left leg: they looked to be wooden, mangled into a shape that hardly resembled legs or arms. He wondered, suddenly, what it was Yuuri saw, with two lives bound together like this, somewhere near the precipice of death.

“I had him do that once he had enough magic to manage it,” Christophe explained weakly. “His magic … it changes things. It’s less painful.”

“And you’re suppressing the pain, too.” Viktor assumed. He said it without any trace of a grudge, and perfect awareness that in the same situation he would’ve made the same choice without regret.

“Yes.”

Yuuri stepped forward then and knelt gingerly next to them both. “… Christophe, Seung-gil would want me to ask,” he said, after a cursory inspection, sweeping the back of his hand over the Ranger’s forehead, and then checking his pulse. “Is it his time?”

Christophe visibly flinched, as though Yuuri had struck him, and for a moment it looked as though he might weep. “Only the Reaper knows his own time,” he murmured carefully, forcing himself back into some semblance of self-control. “None of them do.”

He’d asked Rafael so many times. How do you know? How can you tell?

For years Rafael had tried and failed to put the process into words, had attempted to explain something indescribable. It had been strange and poetic, part of a world Christophe wasn’t sure he could ever hope to understand. There was some great mystery beyond, and the ban side got to see glimpses of it, sometimes, like looking through a parting fog.

He had never understood it until they’d gone back to the village one year and Rafael had looked at his own father and known and Christophe had felt the edge of that knowing reverberate through every ounce of his being, had realized why it couldn’t be put into words.

The end of a lifetime was a feeling.

Yuuri hesitated, and Christophe looked at him, steadfast. “Yuuri,” he said, firmly, “they made me one of them when I married him.” He looked at Rafa, and counted his breaths, closed his eyes. Today the world was crystal clear and this pain was obvious to him.

The light was no mystery today. This was not how it felt to lose Rafael. “… I am telling you that it is not his time.”

Yuuri looked at him for what felt like an eternity, and then golden magic swirled around his hands as the phoenix emerged overhead, and settled on his shoulder, young and glorious, with a wide sweep of tail feathers that Viktor was convinced was just for show. “Wake him up and make him change his limbs back,” he said.

Rafa, my darling.

… y… you c-call…lled?

I told you help was coming, dearest. Do me a favor and be a real boy again, instead of a tree? Our guests think it's very strange.

c… can’t h-have .. that …

Agreed.

Viktor’s gaze never left them, watched as gold and purple and green wove together, reliving from the outside this time what had almost been another ending on the opposite end of the ranges, far to the south.

This is what you did for me.

Yes.

Was it my time?

No. Yuuri glanced up at him from amidst the settling of magic, as Rafa deeply rasped for breath. … The phoenix chooses his time, he thought, and you belong to the phoenix.

Viktor’s eyes shifted and shone as he let the words sink in. Gods, Yakov had it all wrong; worried about the indignity of his Prince son marrying a halfling, tying the long span of his life to a weaker one to settle somewhere inbetween. The real indignity was Yuuri, who would someday choose death when he was ready for it, and no sooner, sharing the privilege, something Viktor could never possibly hope to repay but would spend the rest of his life attempting to earn, however long they decided that would be … I didn’t then.

Evidently Seung-gil is smarter than I am. Yuuri’s smile was momentarily self-deprecating as he looked up at Viktor. He made me choose, before we left Shen-Osheth.

Well, Viktor thought, chuckling bleakly through the threat of his own tears, curious things, prompted by something much bigger than sadness, it was about time the Reaper had at least one redeeming point. “You’re at least a dozen times more likable than the reaper is, if it’s any consolation.”

“Seung-gil is perfectly tolerable,” chimed in a new voice, Rafael’s, albeit thin and raspy, and Christophe gave an incredulous laugh in response, and then leaned over to kiss him.

“Spoken by the ranger who’s just been a perfect idiot,” he said. “Can you ride?”

“Poorly,” Rafa confirmed, as he gingerly reached for the nearby wall, and began to carefully get to his feet. Christophe helped him, sweeping an arm under the brunette’s shoulders. “Which is to say I’ll be almost as good as you.”

This time it was Viktor’s turn to laugh, though he was surprised to have done so. Once he’d come to A’ve Palmera with Yuuri in tow and it had been Christophe who’d spoken to him about the great ironies of love. “I like him already, Christophe.”

“Rafa is perfectly tolerable,” Christophe echoed, and Yuuri shook his head.

“Get your bearings. I’ll tend to your mount.”

"We saw the smoke from the cauldron on the way in," Viktor said, and he looked that way even though the wall of the cave obscured his view towards the south. "The council of princes will convene as soon as we get to A've Palmera."

Rafael stopped, tilted his head, suddenly curious. "You intend to do something about it, then?"

"It is not yet clear to me whether or not there is anything that can or should be done. I suspect you and Otabek will have to tell me all about it."

This was not the Prince he'd heard stories of, stubborn and set in the ways of the aes sidhe. Not the son of Yakov that Christophe had once told him about, bound by obligations to warriors long since dead. Rafael had sensed the changes, heard of them, even, from Christophe while Christophe made for a longer stay in Vaux Romandith. It was different to see it here and now, face to face.

This was a wisdom older than the mistakes of the first age, in its infancy, at least. Perhaps that was Otabek's doing. Or had it been the work of the phoenix? "... Otabek's here?"

"He rides from Hasetsuil," Viktor confirmed, "with my brother."

With, echoed Christophe, pointedly, and then he gave Rafael a push out towards where the cats were waiting, tended by Yuuri. Rafael paused for a moment, considered all of this, and gave an incredulous chuckle. 

Stranger things have happened.

Yes, Christophe agreed, thinking of that one night all those years ago, when Rafael had appeared in a pond he'd made the mistake of thinking belonged to him. That was not the way of things; he understood now. Places and people were not meant to be possessed; like life, they only came when given, like gifts.

"And more miraculous, besides."