"Who is someone who suffers and spills his own blood so everyone is guilty? Every suicide is the Christ. Every bathtub is the Grail."

Alexandre Astier, aka King Arthur in the Kaamelott series (2009)

At last, his leg had stopped hurting.

Of course, there was still his bad leg, but the limping was discreet enough to be noticed but by clever eyes. And the ache was gone when he didn't think about it.

"F- forgive me, your G-grace, I-I, he-here is the…"

The maid had emerged from behind the curtain, clinging herself to the soap which she had forgotten. She would barely raise her head to look up at him -this effort would have broken her neck. It wasn't just the trembling light of the candlesticks, nor the golden flickering of the fireplace. She seemed on the verge of fainting or throwing up. Last time Viren had seen someone shaking, wincing, stammering, and blushing so much…

His shirt was open -the maid had seen what no spell had been able to cover up.

"You may go," he said harshly to the young woman, who didn't need to be told so twice. "Hold on!"

She jumped, walked backwards, put the soap on the small table next to the bathtub, then ran away as silently as a mouse.

As soon as he was immersed, Viren proceeded to rub his arm, his torso, the slightest muscles, every last bit of pores with a sort of spite. He had never been a colossus, that was beyond dispute, but prison had made him thinner than a rake. He had taken a bath in the morning, and of course, one as soon as he got out from his cell the evening before. He had thought dying out of utter disgust, seeing the water, blackened by three weeks of rotting, dirt and shit. But this time, the water remained clear with obstination. His eyes fell on the half-melted candles. It was all for nought.

Would he go on, the water would turn red.

Viren put the brush aside and took his head into his hands. He needed to get out of there. He still had plenty of work to do before dawn. When he opened his eyes, not being able to remember when he had closed them, he saw Aaravos's horns emerging from the steam. He was set against a wall and was busy filing his nails. No need to dismiss him. Even when his silhouette would finally get off the floor, the air was still filled with a thousand mocking smirks. Or with sidelong glances, as the ones he was throwing at him right now.

"What?"

Viren had made sure no one had noticed it, but his voice was still hoarse. Aaravos's eyes left his oh-so-perfect nails, displaying an unusual frown.

"This young lady's reaction is hardly surprising. Judging by your limping, I did think you've had some bitter experiences, your Grace…" Through the steam, the Elf waved his chin. "But I had never seen an alchemist in such a sorry state."

"This is hardly your concern."

The room filled itself with a smooth laugh: "Please… I thought we had been over this. Do you still have any reason to not trust your guardian angel?"

Viren closed his eyes as the voice, coming from the depths of hell, kept with its entranced babbling:

"This portrait hanging on the wall… How unsettling. Tall, lean, grey eyes, pale skin, brown hair, cheekbones, chinstrap… This is you, that much is beyond dispute, but something about this makes it hard to say for sure it's the same man. Of course, there are the few grey hairs, the dark circles under the eyes, some tiny wrinkles here and there, and of course, there is your eye, my eye, your... gaunt allure, your sickly complexion... such a brave form carries our lord and saviour... But that must be due to your fever in the cell… Fever! Haha! Ah… you humans -Haaaa!"

Viren opened his eyes, already exasperated. Aaravos was frozen by the official portrait in the attitude of a sudden revelation, his fist in his palm, his ears high, his smirk floating in the steam:

"Got it… It's the smile."

At least, it seemed the Elf was having a lot of fun.

"And this armoured man by your side…"

The boiling water waved. Viren's body arched as if Aaravos had hit him. He didn't -Viren would be dead if this were the case.

"The memory of him torments you."

"No memory torments me."

Aaravos didn't answer. The golden fog made it even harder to guess what he had in mind, but Viren thought he could recognize a hint of commiseration. Aaravos stepped closer from the bathtub, and Viren, without knowing why, didn't say anything to stop him.

"What's this on your arms?"

"Those symbols…"

Viren cleared his throat. Water sloshed as he straightened himself: "… they help me canalize all the magic inside the components."

Those tattoos, as well as his scars, were both his shame and his pride. Swordsmen would show off, strut around, putting their scars, their little bruises on display for everyone to see. Dark mages, however, couldn't risk themselves to let their stigmatas show.

The cat-like eyes frowned. "So you found a way to sublimate all the residual magic until the last drop…"

Aaravos sounded thoughtful more than admirative. He leaned forward and crouched down to take a closer look at Viren's arm:

"May I?" he muttered.

Viren nodded and the Elf's right hand, the one he had to cut to seal the pact, started to stroke his skin. Yet, there wasn't any pressure nor warmth to be felt. The long hair, the breath, should be tickling him; but everything went through him like rays of light. It wasn't a pleasant sensation. Viren let him savour an eyeful until the Elf ended up saying:

"How much time left?"

"Five years, if I'm lucky."

"Do your children – "

"They don't. Nobody does."

Viren rubbed his wrist. His flesh didn't heal properly from the cut, marking his palm with another reminder of his condition.

"They say I bleed black", he said, unable to understand why he was telling all this. "That's what they say about all practitioners of my magic."

"And how is your real blood?"

Viren thought for a second he caught something like a foreign accent, but he merely shrugged :

"You saw it," he said, waving his chin to his left forearm. "I trust you're intelligent enough to draw some conclusions by yourself."

Aaravos didn't answer. He sat on a chair that came out of nowhere, and instead of a nail file, a delicately carved hairbrush was resting on his lap. But the Elf didn't pay any attention to it. He was still observing the intricate markings that were wrapping themselves around the emaciated muscles. The cascading silver silk that was falling on Aaravos's shoulders needed a hairbrush as much as Viren needed some horn jewellery. But thousands of years trapped into a mirror probably got him used to mimick and ogle at his master.

"If you wish so, your Grace," the sweet voice said as Viren was trying to savour a glass of wine, "I can use my power to cure all of these nasty bruises."

The cat-like eyes had landed on the left side of Viren's chest, where the sublimation of the Magma Titan's heart had left a red, large blister of burned fleshes. Where Viren's heart was, there was a bleb on which black veins were drawing an inextricable labyrinth. Back then, the pain had annihilated him. The additional magic drawn through his arms had never been this destructive before. For days, his body had been burning up from the inside. Not to mention the fever, the nightmares, and his newly-limping leg. When Viren finally made it back to Castral Ruboriac, the High Prelate Opeli had merely pointed out, half-spite half-disgust, that he had missed the seven days of mourning required by tradition.

The bleb had long stopped itching some time ago, but even today Viren still wondered if the High Prelate had any idea what mourning actually meant.

"Is that so?" Viren let out a joyless laugh, watching the red liquid spinning into the vessel. Candlelights and the fireplace's flames were glittering on the metal. "During the weeks I spent rotting in my cell, you didn't lift a finger to cure my gangrene. You didn't help us last night to cast the denecrosis spell. And all of a sudden, by heaven's grace, you became a master healer!"

"The Primal Magic of Sun holds a power you could barely imagine," said the Elf, his eyes frowned. "One glance at your scars was enough to tell that the mere fact that you were able to live for so long is a miracle. Most alchemists would have died from this single burn mark. It wouldn't have been wise to channel pure magic through your body until you weren't quite recovered from your gangrene through more conventional ways." Aaravos looked down, scanning from toe to head. "Of course, as far as I can tell, you are not unfamiliar with physical exercise..."

Was it actual greed that was glittering in Aaravos's eyes ? For a moment, Viren thought he was a piece of meat served in its juice. He shivered but didn't say anything.

"... With all due respect, your Grace, you wouldn't have sur-"

"Are you my servant or my nurse?" growled Viren, harshly setting the glass aside. Drops of wine fell on the table. "All of my attempts to cure these scars failed when two thousand years of knowledge stand between you and I. Beside, I doubt you had the occasion to cast any healing spells, all alone in your fairy-tale palace!"

"Please, your Grace." His hand went on Viren's, passing through his arm as if non-existent. "At least, let me give it a try."

"I already told you, no. The matter is closed." Viren said, freeing his hand to start combing his hair backwards.

Aaravos looked like he was abiding by a turbulent child's whim, but he said nonetheless:

"As you wish."

Then he started combing his hair as well. Viren, without knowing why, immediately put his own brush aside. But this game didn't seem to content his servant anymore, for he stopped :

"But please, your Grace", he said resting his ghostly hand on Viren's shoulder; Viren ignored it, sipping a few more mouthfuls of wine, "you need to unwind. You have barely eaten anything. You didn't sleep for days. I know a great task is ahead of us, but you won't be able to do anything in such a…"

"Once again, you are my servant, not my nurse!" Viren almost shouted as he put the glass aside even more harshly than before. "Besides, I still have plenty of work to complete before dawn. I don't understand why you insisted so much on having me taking… losing so much time over ... wine and a mere bath!"

Water dripped inside the vessel as Viren made a move to get up:

"Turn around so I can get out of here!"

"You know," the Elf said without moving, "a bath isn't just for washing."

His phrasing was slow as if talking to a child. "It's also a moment of relaxation. A moment when the mind can have some rest. A moment you can think to nothing."

"Let me ou – "

Aaravos put a ghostly finger on Viren's soaked forehead. "You never stop thinking. You're always planning, organizing, scheming, plotting, rehashing, regretting."

Viren's eyes caught sight of the official portrait for a second; a second too long. Slowly, carefully, he sat back in the vessel, this vessel full of this water that was still too clear for him. A spell kept it just as warm and filled as when he came in. Steam was still perfumed with soap and oils. The room was still plunged into a golden fog and the fire was still cracking in the fireplace. Viren's eyelids were so heavy that to maintain them open was a calvary.

He felt completely drained.

"Sometimes", the velvety voice went on deformed by a sort of echo, "it is good to stop thinking, to empty the mind and to let it go."

The countless vapour's snakes and butterflies were running away from him, displaying their usual ingratitude, spite and frown, floating all around him like thousands of gilded, numerous and intangible "if only". Through the warmth and the memories, a shimmering hand came covering his scarred left forearm. Viren had let it be exposed, once again. Under the long eyelashes, the Elf's stare scanned his body from toe to head; then the golden globes dived into Viren's faded away silver eyes.

"Stop thinking..." Viren repeated, his voice cracking with exhaustion, "... and let it go ?"

Aaravos shook his head as graciously as ever, letting out the shadow of a laugh. "Only for the time of a bath."

The palm, the life line, the cut. The shimmering was large enough to reach his wrist as well. Viren remembered it was this same right hand that Aaravos had cut to seal their pact.

In a whispering tone, the velvet voice went on.

"You..." The tone had a nuance of pity or amusement. "You actually never wanted to erase all those stigmatas, did you ?"

Viren didn't answer.

"And about what they say on the colour of your blood…"

"Don't pretend you care about it," Viren muttered, struggling to not let his head spinning.

"The real blood that is rotting you away from the inside…"

The hands produced a crown, similar in all respect to the real one resting on the table. Aaravos leaned forward, rested it on Viren's head. This was merely a copy of the real one, the one that was on the official portrait, it was an illusion, a ghost, a joke, it was nothing, nothing at all. Yet Viren's forehead felt so painful, so heavy he couldn't keep his head still.

Viren's back hit the vessel's wall. Drops landed on the floor as Aaravos's filed nail was still flattering the wrist. With the other, his right thumb went stroking Viren's sunken-in cheek, under the eye that bore their pact's sigel.

Into his ear, the sateless snake was whispering.

"You want them to see it, don't you?" Viren heard as his eyelids closed.

He didn't know for certain if he would ever want to open them again.

Phewww!

Viren's saviour complex is really fascinating, don't you think? He may be power-hungry and infatuated with a very well developed sense of his own importance, but you don't harm yourself this bad if you value yourself beyond your own utility.

In the 15th century, English writer John Hardyng invented a fanciful new etymology for Old French san-graal (or san-gréal), meaning "Holy Grail", by parsing it as sang réal, meaning "royal blood". This etymology was used by some later medieval British writers such as Thomas Malory, and became prominent in the conspiracy theory developed in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, in which sang real refers to the Jesus bloodline.

I have also read that "gradalis", which "Grail" might have originated from, designated a plate used to serve some extremely juicy meat during fancy banquets.

Do you know what I enjoy even more than depressed dilfs? Corrections (English is not my mother tongue as you may have noticed, I'm French), and above all...

Reviews!