"Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like."
― Lemony Snicket
-ooo-
Judar returned from Balbadd in pieces, though it hadn't been until weeks later - after he'd finally woken up from his recuperative slumber and slunk away from his sick room - that Hakuryuu had begun to realize the true extent of the damage.
To see that whatever physical wounds Judar had suffered in that sweaty little armpit of a country had been the least of it.
That whatever had transpired had changed something in him had carved pieces out of his soul and he could see the void left behind leaking out from behind his eyes every time their gazes met, hear them like an echo of the screams that haunt in his dreams.
He wonders what haunts Judar's dreams, but he will never ask.
After all, Judar is one of their creatures… her creatures.
He did not cry when he saw them return with Judar lying limp and lifeless across the transport carpet.
He had not cried.
Not even when the sight of his dark-nailed hand dangling limp and useless over the side of that carpet had been quick to join the images of fire and blood that shaped his dreams.
And if his throat had felt tight and rough for days after, it was probably simply due to the sudden change in the weather.
Storms had followed their carpet across the sea as if the world itself ached to see a Magi laid low.
His hair and face had been damp when he'd come in from training that day.
That day and the next.
He tried not to think about him and- when that plan failed miserably- he tried instead to simply forget the way his throat had tightened at the sight of Judar lying like a broken doll across the pillows of his sick room each time he passed by.
Not that he went that way very often.
It was just the most convenient path from his rooms to the training grounds, particularly on those mornings when he was too late rising to see to his own breakfast and had to stop off in the palace kitchens on his way to grab something to sustain him until evening.
And if he occasionally took a peach or two and left them at Judar's bedside whenever he found the room blessed free of those men, it was only because he'd simply forgotten that he didn't really care much for peaches and there was no sense in wasting food and with all the people going in and out he was certain they'd be eaten one way or another.
He tried not to let it bother him when those dark-veiled men were present and would twitch the curtains shut between them just as he passed by as if they were shielding their charge from his gaze.
He wonders if they're smiling beneath those veils.
If they find it amusing that he's there at all, lurking outside the sick room of their puppet.
It shouldn't make him feel ill, but it does.
It makes him feel sick and small and like he's waking in that bed again, wishing it had all just been some terrible dream, but never quite able to believe it because his skin was so hot. Burning still- always- as if he'd never quite escaped the fire that shattered his whole world into pieces and left him alone with a truth he hadn't wanted to face.
It wasn't as if he'd wanted to see him or even that he was truly concerned.
How could he be?
He'd always been relatively certain that the world could drop a palace on Judar's fat head and he'd still somehow manage to emerge laughing and relatively unscathed.
Still, he could admit that it was, perhaps, a little disconcerting.
Whenever those men were there, he would spend the remainder of his day at the training grounds, returning to his quarters only when he'd managed to so exhaust himself that each step had seemed a nearly insurmountable effort, an utterly thankless chore.
Yet even as he collapsed into bed at the end of those days, he found the oblivion of sleep elusive.
Sleep had always been a fickle companion at the best of times, but it was worse in the days that immediately followed Judar's return and whenever it finally did come, his dreams made it anything but restful.
He dreamt of the heat of the fire warm against his face, the cold of sweat and blood dripping down the back of his neck and stinging his eyes as he wandered frantically through a maze of certain death with Judar's laughter echoing in the distance.
Judar himself always just out of sight, out of reach.
He woke each morning to a parched throat, stinging eyes and Judar's name tumbling off his lips like a curse.
The sleepless nights made the days seem long and longer still as days passed into weeks and Judar still stubbornly refused to awaken from his slumber and those men continued to flock to his bedside to say their useless prayers or work their terrible magic or whatever it was they were doing.
All he knew was that, whatever it was, it wasn't enough.
And knowing that made him anxious, made it impossible to focus on lessons when half his mind lingered elsewhere.
It felt foolish - that unwarranted, unwanted concern - but he found himself waiting and watching nonetheless as if doing so might change something, anything.
If he was relieved the morning he stepped past that sick room and heard Judar's familiar voice complaining, it's only because he would finally be able to return the full force of his attention back to the task before him.
Only….
Somehow Judar became more of a distraction out of the sick bed than he'd been within it, because when he'd finally shrugged off the priests attentions and freed himself from his sickroom, he'd been nothing like himself.
He did not seek him out as was his wont.
He did not seek anyone out.
Instead, he's quiet and foul-tempered, choosing to pout in solitude in trees and on rooftops, a fact which seemed to amuse his minders initially. They'd spend the whole of the day calling out for him again and again in those first days, tracking him from one hiding spot to the next, their voices grating against Hakuryuu's nerves like desert sand chafing against his skin.
"Come down, Lord Priest," they'd called, again and again. "Come down, Lord Priest. Come tend to your duties, Magi. The King demands your presence, Lord Priest."
There was laughter in their voices, as if they found his willfulness amusing, as if they knew he would answer if they simply kept at it and, in the past, it might even have been true.
But not anymore.
He wasn't sure what had happened in Balbadd, he hadn't asked any who were there and had purposefully ignored the increasingly outlandish rumors being whispered throughout the palace. Whispers of magi and battles and kings and monsters. None of which, he knew, would have been enough to make such a change in him.
As time passed, the priests' amusement seemed to fade and every day was filled with their increasingly exasperated calls as they sought anew for his latest hiding spot.
"Have you seen the Lord Priest?" They would ask him again and again, always stopping just outside the training fields to call out to him, lingering there even if he answered them as if they didn't believe his denials. As if they thought he must know and that if they annoyed him enough with their continued presence he might change his mind and give them the knowledge they sought.
And though he usually did know, he never told them.
He had no reason or desire to aid either side of this ridiculous conflict, after all.
Though he did wish they would stop trying to involve him in it.
He's not even certain why it is that they're having such a difficult time of it.
It's easy to find Judar when he looks, easy to sense him if he tries. Like picking a mango from a cart of limes.
"Can't you see I'm busy, old man?" Judar snapped one day, when they'd spotted him in a tree near the training grounds. He glared down at the priest who'd found him, drawing himself up further into the tree as if he intended to scale the highest branches to free himself from the demands of the world below.
Though that would probably have been too much effort, Hakuryuu decided. It was far more likely that he would use his magic to simply float up there. After all, he was fairly certain Judar had never actually climbed anything in his life.
Too much pointless, physical effort, he'd probably have said.
"The Emperor requires your presence, Lord Priest," the veiled man replied, his voice jovial and pleasant, the white strain across his fingers where they were curled around his staff the only obvious sign of impatience or displeasure. "You can not keep ignoring your duties."
"Tell him I died," Judar snapped, tossing a peach pit at a guard passing by on his rounds. "Tell him I've gone to Sindria. Tell him I'm sleeping. Tell him whatever you want, I don't care."
"As you wish, Lord Priest," the man bowed his head before he scuttled away to do whatever it was those veiled men did when they weren't planning the downfall of kings and countries or trying to convince wayward magi to behave.
"You know, I can see you, right?" Judar called, the faintest hint of amusement coloring his words and he stiffened at the sound.
"I don't care if you can see me or not," Hakuryuu answered, still feeling a bit like he'd been caught spying even though he'd only been passing by.
"You could come keep me company, you know," Judar's sly voice replied, winding its way out of the trees as if it were an enchanted snare meant to coil around his wrist and reel him in. "I wouldn't mind the company if it were you."
"I'm late for practice," he heard himself answering weakly, a far cry from the harsh refusal he'd meant to give.
"Who cares about that?" Judar scoffed, falling easily into the familiar pattern of conversation they'd tread and retread for years. "If you want to be strong, I'll just take you to a dungeon instead."
The words spill a chill through his veins as they always have, as they always will.
Come with me.
Depend on me.
Let me help you.
He remembers her smiling as she introduced him to them, a possessive hand curved over his shoulder.
The way Judar's eyes had focused on him that day.
The way he'd smiled.
The way his gaze had lingered on him even as they were ushered off to different lessons, to live different lives.
Third prince and child priest.
The way Judar had found him again and again in the days and weeks and months that followed.
In his mind, those memories were blotted over with rot, stained and pitted with decay, corrupted and ruined as if the knowledge he'd carried with him since the fire had poisoned everything that had come before.
"No," he answered quickly, darting around the tree and hurrying off with renewed vigor towards the courtyard, towards lessons that would allow him to gain strength by his own means, his own effort, though he already knew it might never be enough. "I'm not interested."
And he wasn't.
He wasn't.
He didn't need Judar's help, he didn't want it. He didn't need anyone's help, he could become strong enough to defeat them, to defeat her, on his own.
He could.
He could do everything on his own.
He just needed the right plan.
The right allies.
The nights that the Sindria delegation were there were rich with celebration, noisy and warm. The wine flowed as freely as song and the great, groaning tables in the courtyards had been heaped with food. Every day was filled with fruitless, pointless meetings he was not permitted to attend and every night was a banquet to honor their esteemed guest and his entourage which he was expected to attend, but never did. Too many people, too many strangers, too loud and too close and it was impossible to know which might be spies from the organization. It made his skin crawl and itch to be surrounded by so many people, faceless and nameless and touching him so casually. No chance to speak with the King alone, the risk of being overheard always too great. It seemed those veiled priests were everywhere he looked and that woman sat at the head of it all smiling, smiling, smiling.
He knew it was unwise, that it would likely draw attention he couldn't afford, but he still avoided the courtyards and halls, choosing instead to fix his own meals and eat them hidden away within the quiet of his rooms, shut away as far from the revelry as he could get. It was easier to breathe there though he still never slept well or soundly, could never relax entirely, jolting awake at every unfamiliar noise.
The unfamiliar tread of hurried feet in the corridors sent his heart racing time and again, the murmur of distant strangers and their quiet disembodied laughter echoed through the night startling him from the edge of sleep again and again to stare out into the darkness with his heart in his throat.
And, in those terrible moments just after waking, he found himself looking towards the door again and again as if his brothers might burst through. As if those doors might open unto hell as they ran and fought, the palace crumbling to ruins behind them as the crazed laughter and enraged shouts of pursuit echoed above the roar of consuming fire and the thunderous crack of rupturing beams.
In the dark, he could almost smell the smoke and beneath it the heavy, toxic scent of charred flesh and wood.
When exhaustion finally took him as dawn lightened the sky, he found himself thinking of Judar, sprawled across a bed of pillows in the banquet hall his dark eyes glittering and unpleasant in torch-lit darkness as strangers, servants knelt around him pressing fruit to his lips and begging small magics in return for their service.
When the night of the closing banquet arrived, it did so with a personal command from the Emperor that he should be in attendance. He wasn't truly surprised that his absence had been noted, but disappointment and dread still pooled in his belly as he smiled at the servant who had delivered the message and thanked them, conveying his intention to appear as if the message and left him any other option.
The servant smiled sympathetically.
He wondered vaguely if the servants pitied him. Displaced prince, relic of the past, a poor reminder of what had once been, trotted out like an exotic pet as a show of the Emperor's benevolence and strength.
If tears of anger and frustration burned his eyes and blurred his vision after he closed the door, at least no one was there to see them.
The closing banquet was the grandest and most lavish celebration of them all.
It was loud and dark and his sister had smiled widely as if she were enjoying herself and he could see that woman lounging upon her throne, her smile so satisfied that it made him feel sick. He picked at his food and drank far too much wine and when the revelries reached their height he murmured his excuses to his sister and slipped away from the bright lights and noise into the quiet, deserted halls that would lead him back to his rooms.
Only they hadn't been deserted.
Judar had been there, laying in wait, leaning against the wall and smiling as if he'd known he was coming.
He hated being so predictable, so obvious that even Judar- who only cared about himself- would be able to see through him so easily.
Annoyed, he sped past him without a word, as if there was even the slightest chance that if he simply walked fast enough Judar might simply allow him to pass by unremarked.
"You looked miserable out there," Judar commented, laughter in his voice as he fell into step beside him. "Like you'd rather chew off your own arm than stay even a minute longer."
"And what's your excuse?" He asked quickly, because Judar was never so quickly distracted as when he was talking about himself.
"It was boring, it's always boring," he complained, sighing heavily as he drifted along just behind him, almost out of sight, but never quite.
"Well, I'm not going to stay and entertain you," he snapped.
Judar fell silent beside him and as they continued down the corridor, his were the only footsteps that echoed down the long, long hall that led to his rooms.
Judar rarely walked from place to place, though he'd never been sure whether it was because Judar was simply that lazy or because he simply enjoyed making such an ostentatious display of his power. Even when he looked like he was walking, his feet still never quite brushed the ground as he propelled himself forward by magic or force of will or some combination of the two.
If not for the fact that Judar's presence always prickled along his skin like the stirring of a breeze before a storm, he would have thought he'd managed to leave him behind.
The silence was… disconcerting.
Judar was many things, but reluctant to speak his mind had never been one of them.
He doesn't want to ask, yet the words tumbled out anyway, falling from his lips to fill the silence between them. "Have your wounds finally healed?"
Judar laughed at the question and something about the sound stopped stuck his feet to the floor, his heart beating double-time. It was nothing like his usual laugh. Judar's laughter has always been like the chatter of carrion birds or the cackle of hyenas thankful for a meal, joyous and terrible.
There was no satisfaction to be found in this laugh.
There was only darkness, bitter and sharp.
"Oh yes," Judar replied, lips curved in a rictus smile when he floated past him as if he hadn't noticed that he had stopped or simply didn't care. "Say what you want about those old fools, they're never stingy when it comes to patching up the things they value."
It felt as if his feet had taken root, as if those words, that laughter, had turned the floor to sand beneath him and he was slowly sinking beneath its surface, "What do you want, Judar?"
Judar hovered back towards him, falling from his lounging position back to the ground, his feet slapping loudly against the tile as he crowded in close, his breath quick and warm against his cheek. He reeked of wine and the heavy perfumes favored by the women of the court.
Hakuryuu found himself marveling distantly at how strangely desperate the grip on his shoulder seemed, as Judar's fingers curled and dug in against the familiar uncomfortable numb of the scarred flesh beneath the gauzy material of his shirt. His voice- when he finally spoke- was rough, "Don't you know by now? I'm tired of waiting for you to see it."
"See what?"
"That we're the same," Judar murmured, soft lips brushing moist and warm against his ear, bringing heat to flood his face. "My King."
King.
He'd heard the word before, all those stories of candidates and kings and magi and dungeons going back years and years to the beginning of the world or sometime after, no one was ever quite certain.
His brothers had often told him such stories to thrill him or scare him or make him smile before bed. Stories of the great dungeons and all their many perils, of the powerful Magi who summoned them and the brave warriors who sought to tame them.
They'd laughed when he'd asked if Judar would summon dungeons for them one day.
Their laughter had always made him smile, because it had been tough to picture Judar - who had spent most of those early years dressed in layers upon layers of frills like a fancy dessert - as some great figure of legend.
Judar had been stingy with his powers in those early days, showing him new magic he learned in private as if it were a secret just for the two of them.
He tried not to think about that.
About those early days before the fire.
About floating candles and quiet laughter.
About Kings and their Magi and how the power gained through Judar's dungeons hadn't been enough to save his brothers.
Instead he forced himself to think only of how he could never rely on power gained by any hand but his own.
Most especially not his.
He couldn't trust him or anything he had to say.
Couldn't trust his motivations.
Couldn't rely upon any power he offered.
Judar had summoned dungeons for so many would-be Kings.
For his brothers and sister….
But also for Koen and all the others.
For the benefit of the empire.
For the benefit of those veiled men and their ambitions.
For her.
So he did not ask why Judar persisted in his pursuit of him.
Why he spoke of dungeons he would never enter and a crown he would never wear.
Because he was afraid Judar might not answer.
Was even more afraid that he would.
That he would offer words he couldn't trust or promises he didn't dare believe and worse that he might be weak enough someday that he would allow himself to believe it, to believe him.
So, he let whatever questions he had fall away unanswered between them as they always had- as they always would- even as the chill of Judar's magic flitted against his skin, warm as breath and cool as a night breeze, a taste of power like candied fruit on his tongue as if it were attempting to curry favor, to urge him closer, to bend him to the Magi's desires… whatever they might truly be.
He wasn't even certain Judar himself knew what he was asking, what he wanted from him in that moment. His voice was jovial still, teasing, but the grip of his fingers against his shirt, the scrap of nails against his throat, felt like a plea, "Say you will be and I'll take you someplace special."
"No," he whispered in response as he always had on those rare occasions when Judar persisted in asking.
As he always would.
Always.
Because even if he could find a way to trust the desperate, fraying thread of sincerity in his words or the seductive whisper of power in his tone, he was certain they would destroy each other. If they were, as Judar said, alike, then the void within each of them would be too deep, too hungry, to ever be filled by what little the other had to offer.
And he could not die before he'd fulfilled the promise he'd made drenched in his brother's blood with fire licking at his heels.
Most days he felt as if when he'd passed through it, the fire had burned through the core of his being and left him hollow, an empty vessel that had been waiting to be filled with the rage and hate that had colored his days since.
Sometimes he thought he could see a similar emptiness in the blood red of Judar's gaze, but he could never quite believe it was true.
"Fine, do as you please," Judar snarled, as he jerked back and away, his gaze narrow and mean as if he'd disappointed him, broken some promise between them.
If he hadn't known better he….
His eyes burned with tears, sudden and inexplicable, and before he could stop himself he was reaching out, catching Judar's too warm hand in his own.
He was always so warm.
Always had been.
As if there was a fire burning beneath his skin.
It made his skin crawl now, but it hadn't always.
Revulsion shuddered along his spine and he would have dropped Judar's hand if those fingers weren't already wrapped tight around his own.
Judar was staring at him, his face washed clean of expression.
He wasn't sure how long they stood there staring at each as tears rolled down his cheeks and Judar's hot fingers clutched at his own, sharp nails digging in painfully against his palm.
He should have pulled away.
Should never have reached out to stop him in the first place.
Wasn't sure why he'd done so at all.
Or why he couldn't stop crying.
It was mortifying and it didn't help that this whole scene was probably just Judar's idea of a joke.
That any moment he'd confess to it and laugh at him.
Only he never did.
Instead he just stood, a still and silent witness to his tears.
It didn't mean anything.
He was one of theirs.
He'd always been one of theirs.
Even before the fire.
Sometimes he thought….
But every time he had only to remind himself that it had been those veiled men who had brought Judar to them. That it had been her who had introduced him to them with a smile so bright and proud that remembering it made him feel light-headed.
He knew well that Judar was their creature.
Knew.
And yet… he still… weak.
He'd never get anything accomplished at all if he continued to walk paths that lead him nowhere.
He dashed the back of his free hand across his cheeks and ducked around Judar to rush down the hall toward his rooms. There was no thought to it besides the urge to go, to move, but he didn't stop even when Judar kept hold of his hand and he ended up towing him silently down the hall behind him as if he were a reluctant kite caught by a stiff breeze.
His hitching sobs and thick, noisy sniffles seemed all the louder for the silence of the empty corridor as he moved, the revelries far too distant to reach them there.
His neck and hands were damp with sweat, his body uncomfortably warm, his clothes sticking unpleasantly against his back and he thought he could smell smoke from the kitchens as he stepped more quickly down the corridor.
The echoing scrap and slap of his boots against the tile made him flinch again and again.
What was he thinking?
He'd never heard Judar go so long without speaking in all the long years they'd known each other, but he was silent now.
If not for the warm hand still clasped around his own and the mild resistance straining his muscles, he might have forgotten he was there at all.
He stepped faster, a fine tremor running through him, a chill creeping up his back.
The corridors were darker in this part of the palace, the torch-lit darkness hazy and filled with heavy shadows.
His shoulder hurt and he squeezed the fingers locked against his own painfully tight.
He almost wished he would speak.
That he would say something abrasive, anything that might give him a reason, an excuse to shake free of his hold and leave him behind.
Maybe he knew that.
Maybe that was why he kept his silence.
He wasn't sure.
It probably didn't matter.
Some things were probably better left unsaid, after all.
Was the hall always this long?
It seemed as if it had gotten longer, a thousand times longer, narrowing impossibly around him, the warmth of the torchlight hot against his skin.
His scars itched and his fingers ached.
He needed to get back to his room.
He couldn't breathe here.
He couldn't-
And then he was there.
Stumbling to a stop in the middle of his darkened bedchamber gasping for air, tears still cascading freely down his cheeks and he almost screamed when something bumped gently against his back, the force of the blow shoving him a step forward and stealing what breath he had from his lungs.
He gagged on his fear, his eyes wide with panic even as a hand fell against his shoulder resting there briefly before lifting away like a bird taking flight.
And just like that he could breathe again and the world was steady around him, the air cooling as if by magic.
"Want to see a trick? I learned a good one today."
Snow burst had burst around him like fireworks as he clapped and laughed.
And Judar smiled.
He shuddered as Judar stepped past him into the room, his steps quiet but audible for once as he moved, brought to earth at last though whether it was by choice or circumstance, he wasn't certain.
The motion tugged his hand forward briefly before Judar shook free of his grasp altogether.
His hand was sweaty as he balled it into a fist at his side.
"It's a lot smaller than I remember," he commented as he moved further into the room, towards the overly ornate bed that dominated the space.
Moonlight streamed through his windows, casting long shadows that made Judar seem pale and transitory, a spirit summoned of light and shadow, just a trick of the light liable to vanish at any moment.
Why had he brought him here?
Why had he taken his hand at all?
He wasn't sure.
Perhaps… he hadn't liked the look in his eyes.
How it had seemed a mirror of his own heart.
Desolation.
Desperation.
Rage and hate boiling beneath the surface, masked by a blank expression just as he had masked his own with a congenial smile he'd practiced in the mirror until he'd been certain it would fool them all.
He hadn't been like this before.
Before he had been the empty vessel.
Now….
Now he was filled.
He did not know what had changed for him and he still did not want to know.
All he had wanted in that moment was for it to stop, for that mirror to shatter.
But to bring Judar with him, to show him weakness, had been… foolish.
They had been strangers far longer now than they'd ever been anything else.
When they were young, Judar had been quick to lay claim to his time, his person, his space. He could remember him sneaking into his rooms in the middle of the night to crawl beneath his blankets and tuck himself against him. The way he would escape his minders and curl close beside him in the dark, hiding himself away in a place they would never dare look.
It had scared him sometimes, the way Judar's fingers would dig in against his wrist, hard enough to bruise, as if he were afraid he'd vanish or leave if he didn't hold on tight enough.
He hadn't understood it then.
He understood the impulse better now, even if he still didn't understand Judar.
Still, in those days, he'd been glad for the company, glad to have Judar's favor, strange though it had sometimes seemed. He'd never really understood why Judar had come to him each night and not to his brothers or sister. Why he hadn't sought the company of his strong, courageous, amazing siblings who were always so serious and had always made him feel so completely safe.
But he hadn't.
He'd never asked why.
Never asked, because it had seemed like asking might have spoiled it.
Judar was special and being the focus of his attention- childish and selfish though it had been even then- had been like being bathed in sunlight.
But that had been in a different bed in a different room far, far away from the room they currently occupied.
They'd been children.
Now they were something else.
It had been years since he'd let anyone except his sister enter his rooms and even that was uncommon; their meals together an infrequent pleasure made all the more precious by their rarity.
It hurt to watch her fret over tiny details like the dust collecting on high shelves or the aging pillows. Her gentle admonishments that perhaps he might at least allow the servants in to clean occasionally.
He has never lied and said he would though the temptation had always been there.
Instead he had just changed the subject and the next time he knew she was coming he had taken the time to temporarily replace the more worn aspects of his room, to make sure all the dust had been wiped away, caught as always between the desire not to worry her and the desperate, inescapable need to be completely self-reliant.
"It isn't smaller. You've just never been here before," he offered finally into the expectant silence left in the wake of Judar's words.
"Oh," Judar murmured, voice flat and disinterested, as if they were talking about something that didn't matter very much at all. He padded across the room, the soft slap of bare feet softened by the rugs laid out around his bed. "Huh. I guess not."
He wasn't truly surprised when heard the rustle of bedclothes as Judar threw himself down upon his bed without another word, he wasn't the sort to ask permission or beg forgiveness and the bed had been the most obvious destination.
He sighed and stepped further into the room until he could better see Judar's shadowy form fussing with the blankets as he slid across the length of his bed as if he had every right to be there.
As if he belonged.
He shivered at the thought, at the sight of Judar's long, dark hair trailing behind him across the moonlit pale of his bedding.
Judar moved with the sort of effortless natural grace that had always made him feel clumsy and dull by comparison, but which he'd always uncharitably thought must be the result of some sort of weird trick or cheat.
No one moved like that naturally.
Not even his sister - who was a thousands of times better and more interesting than Judar could ever hope to be - moved like that.
Which, upon reflection, might be another reason why she wasn't married yet.
Not that she didn't have many other fantastic qualities.
Because she did.
But she sometimes moved with such purpose... like a horse leading a stampede.
While Judar was more like….
He watched Judar shift and flop about like a landed fish beneath the blankets on the far side of the bed, bullying the pillows back and forth as if he couldn't quite find a comfortable position.
Well… perhaps Judar wasn't always a portrait of grace and beauty himself.
Huffing irritably, he forced his attention away from the uninvited guest twisting in his linens and to the matter of unlacing his boots and setting them aside. His head ached and it was difficult to breath through his nose, but at least his tears had stopped.
Normally he would have changed into a nightshirt, but the idea of baring himself that way in front of Judar -even if the Magi was very deliberately and obviously ignoring him - made him feel ill again, as if a serpent were slithering around in his belly.
"Are you getting in or what?" Judar asked irritably, sudden and sharp enough that he couldn't help flinching back from the words.
"This is my room and that's my bed, if you don't like it you can always go find your own, you lazy weirdo," he snapped, nerves finally getting the better of him as embarrassment flooded his face with heat once more.
Why had he brought him back here?
Why?
Judar flipped onto his side, hugging a pillow against his chest and tucking it beneath his chin as he stared at him with eyes that glittered in the moonlight, a sneer on his lips, "That's why I like you best, you know."
Which could have meant anything or nothing as Judar fell silent once more without bothering to quantify his words with even the barest hint of explanation.
The night was bright and the air was cool as he finished removing his boots, setting them aside neatly as he ignored the heavy weight of Judar's gaze.
He should just kick him out.
Instead he padded on stockinged feet to the bed and lifted the blanket Judar had managed to leave in a hopeless tangle between them and slipped beneath, still fully clothed.
Not beside him, obviously, the bed was far larger than he'd ever needed.
There was nothing improper about it.
Nothing at all.
They might as well have been in separate beds for all the space there was between them.
Only they weren't and Judar was still staring at him, daring him to ask.
"What?" He finally snapped, embarrassed and defensive and painfully aware that Judar had chosen to sleep on the side of the bed he himself liked best.
Judar didn't answer, instead he merely whirled around in a huff and it was apparently his turn to stare as Judar tossed and turned across the far side of the bed, shifting and twisting and fidgeting with the blankets.
If he hadn't known better, he'd have said he was nervous.
It was a strangely comforting idea.
He couldn't help but wonder how long it had been since Judar had slept a night in an actual bed rather than up a tree or on a rooftop or sprawled across pillows in the midst of a dozen attendants ready and willing to cater to his every whim and desire.
Why he'd chosen to wait for him today.
To follow him to his rooms.
Why he was so insistent upon finding him a dungeon to conquer when there were plenty of other candidates who would leap at the opportunity he had turned down over and over again.
He wouldn't ask.
Judar's hair was very dark across the space between them.
He brushed a finger across it.
It was as soft as he remembered.
That night, he hadn't fallen asleep for a long, long while.
Neither had Judar.
Instead they'd lain together through the night, never speaking, never touching, never reaching out across the expanse of empty space that separated them as he stared at the dark panels of the ceiling above them and Judar twitched and tossed and huffed out a series of loud, overdramatic sighs.
Maybe Judar wanted him to ask, but he hadn't.
Even if he'd wanted to know - which he hadn't - he didn't know how to ask him such things anymore.
If he ever had at all.
Before the fire, he never would have had to ask or wonder, Judar would simply have told him.
In those days, he'd thought Judar could never have any secrets at all since it had always seemed as if every thought in his head simply spilled from his lips like fresh water to splash across the floor for all to see and know.
He didn't think that way anymore.
Now Judar was a book written in a language he could not read, a book whose contents he was afraid to know.
On the edge of sleep- or perhaps in the first moments of a dream- he thought he heard Judar whisper something to him, but the words tasted like loss and he couldn't make sense of the shape the syllables took.
Fingers brushed against his in the dark- soft, so soft- and he wondered in a vague sleepy way which of them had reached out first or if it mattered at all.
He was certain if he opened his eyes, he would find Judar staring back at him, strange crimson eyes shining like a cat's in the moonlit darkness.
He'd always thought his eyes were beautiful.
That he was….
When he'd woken from the verge of death, plastered in bandages and drowning in pain, he was certain Judar's had been the first face he'd seen, his eyes bright and eager as he'd peered up at him over the edge of his sick bed.
"I heard you calling," he'd whispered as if his words were a secret meant for his ears alone. "You're so loud, even when you're sleeping."
Fingers had curled against his own and he was pretty sure he'd been crying because everything had seemed blurry even as the world faded into darkness, the pain swallowing him back down into the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness.
When he woke again, it had been Hakuei at his bedside with tears in her eyes and the pain had been there once more to greet him, a constant companion he couldn't shake.
He woke and slept, slept and woke and each time there was pain. Pain and an itch beneath his skin he could never reach and brother's desperate words echoing in his head.
Sometimes he could still feel his blood dripping down the back of his neck, warm and cool all at once.
Judar's presence while he laid in that room had always seemed like a dream or a trick his mind was playing on him as he only ever seemed to appear when everyone else had gone away.
Only when he was left alone with his pain and the dark turbulent water of his thoughts would Judar slink in to lurk in the corners of his sick room and stare at him with hungry eyes.
"What do you want?" He'd asked again and again, exhausted by the healer's treatment and the slow, frustrating attempts to force his muscles to work as they once had.
His brother's words were weights around his ankles, pulling him down beneath the dark surface of his thoughts again and again. Somewhere in the distance, were his memories of his kind, beautiful mother, of the happy family he'd always thought they were, but he couldn't touch them as if they were sinking too.
Sometimes he dreamt of Judar's hands, cool against his face as he whispered words he couldn't hear against his bandaged flesh.
Hakuei said she was busy in the wake of all that had happened, that she loved him, that she would visit as often as she could.
He almost told her the truth he'd been entrusted with a dozen times, but each time he'd swallowed the words back.
He'd tell her if it was true, he'd decided every time, he'd tell her once he knew for sure.
Because it couldn't be true.
It had to be a mistake.
"Aren't you better yet?" Judar had whined each time he came, petulant and impatient, as if he were healing slowly just to spite him.
"What does it matter to you how fast I heal?" He'd snapped back.
"I can't take you to a dungeon while you're this weak." he'd insisted, taking a bite out of one of the peaches he always brought with him. "So, hurry up and get better."
Juice spilled down across his chin and he wiped it away carelessly against the back of his hand.
He remembered her hand on his shoulder as she introduced him to them, the way she'd smiled.
His burns ached.
"I'm not interested."
"Liar."
"Go take someone who actually wants to go."
"Lame," Judar sighed, tossing the pit out the window. "I hate waiting."
"Then don't."
"Don't be stupid," Judar sighed heavily, rolling his eyes, "I've always known you were worth waiting for."
Dawn had crept in, dim and blue, when he'd awoken from that strange fog of memory and dream to an empty bed years distant from that long-ago sick room and the child he'd once been.
Judar was gone, leaving only the tangled wreckage of blankets to convince his groggy mind that the other's presence hadn't simply been another aspect of his strange, nostalgic dreams.
He imagined that if he were to bury his face against those blankets they would reek of peaches and honey and the rich bite of smoke and sandalwood that always seemed to cling to Judar's skin and clothes like it was as much a part of him as his long, dark hair and the crimson madness in his eyes.
It was early still and no one would look for him for hours yet, if they ever did.
And he was certain even if they did, none would be able to discern what weakness it was that drove him to slide awkwardly across the bedclothes to slip beneath that tangle of blankets, to cling to what warmth lingered there and breathe in that scent he was still learning to hate.
To lose himself in the momentary dream of a different life.
Where his heart was whole and his life and body and soul had not been ruined by hate and rage and despair, where his brothers lived and his sister smiled and that woman….
That woman was who he'd once thought she was.
And his greatest worry was….
He woke to the bright yellow warmth of late morning to find himself soaked in sweat, his clothes clinging unpleasantly to his skin as he struggled free of the blankets to find Judar floating near his bedside.
The crunch of the peach he bit into seemed startling loud in the otherwise silent room.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, dumbfounded, heat scaling his throat to burn across his cheeks.
"You invited me, didn't you?" Judar scoffed, gesturing vaguely toward a mostly empty bowl of peaches and a lopsided stack of bread rolls that had been left near the foot of his bed like an offering. "And don't complain. I made you breakfast."
"You mean you took a bunch of food from my kitchen and put it on a plate," he snorted, unimpressed.
Though his disdain was almost immediately undermined by his stomach rumbled loudly and unpleasantly, demanding to be fed.
"I had to go all the way to the kitchen, you know," Judar sniffed, clearly put out that his efforts were not eliciting whatever reaction he'd been expecting. "And then you were in my spot when I got back."
"You don't have a spot," he snapped, rubbing a hand impatiently against the heat in his cheeks as if he might be able to wipe away the mortification of the moment if he only scrubbed hard enough. "It's my bed and I'll sleep where I like."
"Yeah?" Judar inquired, lips quirking at the edges as if he's fighting back a smile.
"Yes, feel free to show yourself out if you don't like it, freeloader."
His cheeks were still unpleasantly warm as he scoots down the bed to pluck a single bread roll from the plate.
It's just bread.
Bread he's made and eaten a dozen times before.
It doesn't taste any better just because someone- especially not that someone- brought it to him.
Yet he wolfs it down all the same, reaching for another before he's even finished the first.
He very deliberately ignores the grin that spreads itself out across Judar's face like a flower blooming in the sun.
He doesn't care what Judar thinks.
He never has.
They eat their poor excuse for a meal in silence and when he's licked the last of the juice from his fingers and flicked the last pit into the emptied bowl, Judar leaves without a word.
And if his step seems lighter than it's been in weeks, he's certain it's just his imagination.
He continues to eat his bread, watching the shadows in the courtyard shift as the sun moves higher in the sky.
And if his heart feels lighter than it's felt in weeks, that's probably just the result of finally managing a decent night's sleep.
Nothing's changed.
Nothing at all.
-fin-