Two
By the time Stefen made it back to his room, he felt something like the walking dead, and had very little left for coherency. It was still early afternoon, though one couldn't tell from the rain that had resumed beating the buildings. He pulled off his once again soaked boots, and managed to pull off his tunic before he collapsed on the bed, only half listening to the rain as it beat against the window panes. He was too many floors down to hear it against the roof, but it still hit the walls as the wind howled around the buildling.
Stefen let loose a sigh and rolled over, feeling cold as his damp hair was pressed against the nape of his neck. He peeled the hair out of his eyes and stared at the ceiling, a shiver shooting down his back. He didn't even have the energy to pull the blankets over himself as his eyes fluttered closed, hand falling to his side.
He was asleep before it hit the bed.
They always started out the same.
On some distant, subconcious level, Stefen knew he was dreaming. He knew the grove that he was trying to force himself into wasn't real, and he knew that there was something very not right about the reality around him.
That didn't make it less of a reality.
He had seem planes, realized things and heard things that had no place in reality and they existed.
So he knew he was dreaming, but he couldn't change the things that were going on around him. He couldn't stop himself from trying to force his way into the grove, even when on that same subconcious level he knew exactly what he was going to find.
He wanted to stop, he wanted to turn and run the other way, he wanted to deny, he wanted to hide...
The only thing he did was push himself between the trees.
They scratched, struck unkindly against the bare skin of his chest, trying to pierce the skin, trying to make him bleed...
Stefen fought his way passed them.
He had to get to him... he had to...
He stumbled as he hit the clearing, no longer anything to push himself against, he lost his balance and his knees struck the ground, tearing the cloth of his riding breeches as rock struck his skin. The grass was soft under his hands, but it still tore through the skin on his knees.
Close your eyes, damn it, close your eyes...
His body didn't listen.
It never did.
He searched wildly, he had to find...
Vanyel.
His body froze, his eyes wide, heart beating painfully in his chest the moment he saw him.
Vanyel lay in the grass, nestled beneath a tree, his eyes closed and his breathing even.
He was still beautiful. His face didn't look quite the way it had when he'd known him. It was the Vanyel he'd met in Sorrows. Younger, younger still than Stefen was now... The silver washed from his hair, the lines gone from around his eyes.
He was beautiful...
And so was the man lying next to him.
Stefen's chest began to hurt every time his heart made contact with the wall of his ribs, pounding as though it wanted to break free of its cage of bone.
The man lay beside Vanyel, an absent hand stroking his raven black hair, brushing along his cheek. That man was beautiful. He was a foil to Vanyel's darkness, rudy blonde hair curling around his face in thick ringlets, bright as though they shown with a light all their own. Something about him so forever beautiful...
Stefen's lips formed his name and though no sound ever reached the air around him, Tylendel looked up.
Looked directly at Stefen and smiled.
Stefen woke in a cold sweat, breathing hard, his eyes fluttered open as he finally regained control of his body...
"I love you..."
Stefen jerked around, throwing himself up, stumbling in the blankets he'd twisted himself in.
That voice... that voice...
He whirled around, searching his room, eyes flying from one corner to the other...
His room was empty.
He sat there, still twisted his blanket, sweat running down his back as he chilled, panting.
No one had said anything.
He was hallucinating again...
Stefen fell back, still breathing hard as he fought the urge to break down sobbing, fought it hard, swallowing past the lump in his throat.
It was a dream, it was just a dream...
Then why does it feel so damn real...
Stefen ran his hands over his face, pressing hard against his eyes in, rubbing the tears from them and he leapt into the air, jumping nearly a foot at the knock on the door.
His settling heart went right back to slamming itself into his ribcage, breathing ragged. He sat there stupidly, staring at the door like he expected a parade of the dead to come marching into his room.
The knocking came again, though softer this time, Stefen still felt his muscles tense with surprise.
Rapidly, he threw himself to his feet, struggling to get disentangled from the bed sheets and pulled a dry shirt back over his head, not bothering with a tunic, before padding barefoot across to the door.
Medren took one look at him when he opened the door and winced. "I was afraid I'd woken you," he said with a sigh, features still pulled tight with regret.
Stefen mustered up what he could of a smile. "No, actually, I'd just woken up."
It wasn't a lie... but Medren still didn't believe him. He merely raised a skeptical eyebrow and stepped across the threshold as Stefen held the door wide for him.
Medren stood where he stopped for a while, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. Stefen had let the candles burn down to near nothing, and with the darkness that had gathered with the sun's fall, there wasn't much light left to see by. Stefen busied himself in throwing a tunic over his head and lacing it up as Medren glanced around the room, trying to be discreet.
Stefen hadn't bothered to unpack...
"So how is Lady Treesa and her flock of birds?" Stefen inquired, and Medren glanced at him, surprised at his voice so cheerful in the silence. A moment before Stefen had been looking like he'd just come face to face with a ghost, and now he smiled at Medren, sweeping that increadibly long hair out of his eyes.
Medren managed to smile back, trying to ignore the unease that was falling over the conversation that had always before seemed to flow so without reservations. "As appallingly appreciative of the Bardic Gifts as always," Medren laughed, shaking his head as he took a seat against the wall across from Stefen. "I thought she'd have gotten over that with all the Bard's she must have playing for every function she attends here in Haven."
Stefen grinned knowingly. "No, I've long since given up her ever being anything but 'appallingly appreciative.'"
A stiffness clung to the air as the silence fell. Stefen took a chair across from Medren, glad to be off his feet once more, waiting for Medren to say something...
"And Withen?" Stefen pressed, but the tightness that was beginning to slip into his words did not go unnoticed by the long time friend across from him.
"Busy with the council buisness," Medren informed, though his smile was gone. "I swear, he was meant for the position he's in. I just can't believe it took him so long to get here."
Stefen could find no response. He ran a hand over his features, fingers tracing across his skin, closing his eyes breifly. Even in waking, sitting there with Medren, talking, he could not shake the images from his own dream.
The silence settled and Medren shifted uncomfortably.
"So," Medren hazarded, not sure how else to begin. Finally he gave up with attempting small talk and his voice darkened. "How was your little trip down the East Trade Road?"
Stefen flashed another tired smile, but Medren took more comfort in it than any of the other expressions he'd seen on the Bard's face. At least it was honest. "Misearble as always," he admitted. "Gods Medren, things aren't getting better, they're disintigrating." He shook his head with a disgusted sigh. "The people are still running scared. After this war with Karse... there was so much distruction." Stefen shuddered a little, beyond his control. The distruction this time had been far too close to Haven, and he'd been so wound up and ready to go out on his little quest to convince the Bards- that he'd been far too careless. "Now even with this tentative little peace Treven has cooked up, people are still utterly convinced these wars have been worse than any other. And they're absolutely positive it's because with the loss of the Mages. They think Valdemar no longer has the strength to protect them."
Medren heaved his own sigh. He'd been around Forst Reach and Tashir's land for a good long time, and as far away from the fronts as that had been, he had not been entirely spared the effects of this war. And the people of the west, even in Baires and Lineas were just as scared as they were as far south as Horn.
Medren let his head rest in his hand a moment before looking up, trying to ignore the headache that was beginning to form just above his right ear. "For the longest time I thought you'd gone mad, Stef," Medren said unexpectidly, catching Stefen's attention. "I thought all your talk of Heralds and Bards was completely mad." He shook his head. "But the more I see, the more that happens, the more I realize exactly how right you were." He looked up to meet Stefen's dark hazel eyes, burning emerald in the dim lighting. "We have got to bring the people back to trusting the Heralds. It's the only way to make this peace last. The Sunlords are running wild on this holy crusade, and they have our own people's doubts eating them alive and turning to believe the order speaks truth. They are finding our weakness, even in this so called peace, and they're turning it against us. We have to bring them back to trust..."
Stefen ran a hand through his hair, breaking his gaze from Medren's large hazel eyes. "And we're the only ones who can do it," he added with a nod, knowing exactly what Medren was feeling, and sympathizing.
"But I still don't know how we're supposed to achieve this," Medren snapped, air suddenly rather hostile. "How are we supposed to do this with nothing but a handful of Bards wandering from town to town trying to turn people over with a song?"
'Oh, come now! You don't really expect me to agree with that old cliche that music can change the world, do you?' Stefen blinked as his own words came floating back to him, unable to ignore the clarity, nor the ease with which he remembered the response, the words, the tone, his expression, the very inflection of his voice... 'Thing usually become cliched precisely because there's a grain of truth in them...'
That was all Vanyel had said.
For a moment he closed his eyes. Then Stefen shook his head.
To Medren Stefen didn't look any happier than Medren felt, and Medren saw the sorrow that was creeping across his face. But his voice was hard, the reluctance to admit the words he was about to say never making it into his tone. "Slowly, Medren. We do it slowly and surely. Because they listen to us, and even if its one voice at a time... they will eventually see the strength in what they already have."
And how long is eventually, lover? I said I could do this, I said I would... but it has been so long already...
Stefen closed his eyes once more in the darkness.
Medren let a sigh drain the anger from him, instead leaving him with an embarressed, lopsided grin. "Sorry Stef, but you of all people know how frustrated the Bards are getting. We're not used to being handed something important like this." Medren shrugged. "I guess we just have to learn to live with it."
Stefen hauled his head up, ignoring the exhaustion he felt, trying to purge it from his system with another brilliant smile. "I'm sure we can handle it."
Medren nodded and for the first time they lapsed into a perfectly comfortable silence, each wrapped in their own contemplations however different, until Medren finally chose to speak again.
"Haven's, listen to us, droning on like a couple of Heralds ourselves... and I bet you haven't even taken the time to eat yet!"
The half embarrassed, half shyly guilty smile that tickled the corners of Stefen's mouth was more than enough answer to that question and Medren let loose a groan of dispare. "You are impossible," he pointed you, "you do realize this."
Stefen only grinned.
They rose together, each knowing what the other intended as Stefen crossed the room to join Medren at the door. The way Stefen leapt into the air at Medren's touch was almost natural as Medren poked him in a particularly ticklish spot between his ribs.
"And I thought you were a pathetically skinny little creature when you were eating the meals of four Companions six times a day!"
Stefen's reply was to peg Medren's far broader shoulder, though the smile never left his face. "And where in Haven's did I pick up that particular habit."
"I haven't the slightest," Medren tossed back, not raising himself to the bait Stefen had laid out.
Stefen responded with a sharp bark of a laugh as he shut the door behind him. "At least I had the excuse of being a half starved street rat, what was your excuse?"
Medren glanced over his shoulder, smiling broadly. "You always ate half my meals and I never got a chance to finish them."
Together, they made their way towards the dining hall.
In spite of all the days it had been since roaming the streets with his legs wrapped tightly against non existent injury, Stefen hadn't quite lost the talent for the wide eyed needy stare that seemed to make the cooks melt and deliver anything they could scrounge up for the pair of late comers. Medren always supposed they were used to keeping all hours for other members of the palace household, but in his case, it didn't make them any less pleased when he showed up looking for a late night meal.
Stefen, however, they took one look at, and immediately began to fix him something, and being in his company, Medren was quickly shoved a plate of food himself.
Medren stared at his companion for a brief moment, surprised to see the look on Stefen's face as he came up with both apology and request in the same breath. He almost believed Stefen himself until Stefen turned. As the flustered cook turned her back, Stefen flashed an impish, self satisfied smile that nearly broke Medren's resolve not to dissolve into laughter.
Stefen barely had to speak a word, but they, met his widened, rather pleading yet embarrassed hazel eyes and probably would have given him just about anything he asked for.
Medren stood patiently waiting while his stomach worked itself into knots and he struggled for breath with the supressed need to laugh.
Finally they took their meal, rapidly and in silence before Stefen gushed gratitude to put even himself to shame and they made their way back to the Collegium.
Only then did Medren allow himself to double over in his laughter.
The pair of them got into the open night air, still fresh from the frequent rains. Cool air wrapped around them, it was a releif as the both flushed red in their gasps for air between streams of their giggles. Medren let himself sag against the building they'd been walking behind, desperately glad of its support keeping him from ending on his rump in the wet grass as Stefen staggered with his hands on his knees for support.
Medren wrapped around his now aching stomach and gasped from breath as Stefen too got a better grip on himself, though neither could wipe the grin from their features.
Haven's, Medren thought a little off hand, It's been years since I've laughed like that. It's seemed like forever... He glanced over at Stefen, all at once realizing how much he truly missed his fellow Bard's constant companionship.
"You know," Medren placed in carefully when he was sure he had enough breath to talk, his eyes gleamed of mischief. "You really should go on stage." He widened his own hazel eyes forming his expression into what he could manage of an imitation of what Stefen's had been, then raised his hands as though in prayer. "Please m'lady..."
He ducked the swat Stefen aimed at his head and the two of them collapsed again.
Like being children again... Medren continued to muse, surprised how calmly distant his thoughts seemed to be, even as he all but convulsed with the spasms of laughter that flew through him between the playful bantor the friends shot at each other.
Finally they straightened, wiping the tears from their eyes and started towards the Collegium again, strides easy and rather lazy, neither in a hurry to get out of the pleasant, rather vacant evening air. Save the crickets, it felt almost as if the pair of them were the last left in Haven.
But as they did so, Medren took the chance to take a better look at Stefen, and was not pleased with what met him. The stage... Kernos' horns, those women probably just took one look at him and didn't even need to see his pitiful, pleading looks. Medren shook his head, forcing himself not to stare. Gods, he is so thin... he looks like he'd break if I knocked him over. And I could probably do just that by bumping into him.
Stefen had always looked... fragile. He'd never been weak, but the fact remained that he truly was a lover, not a fighter. Even if he might have been able to hold his own often enough, Medren himself had been the one to pull him out of a number of rather unpleasant situations when Stefen had first begun to finally realize what he was. It had been very lucky- though in the long run for both of them- that Stefen had ended up with Medren to room with. Having Vanyel as an uncle had long before purged Medren of any prejudices he might have possessed, and he was more willing than anyone to stand up to those who were not so enlightened on Stefen's behalf.
But now Stefen was no longer merely slight, he was down right malnurished looking. His hands were the strongest indication. In spite of the way his cheek bones stood out more prominantly, and his eyes seemed larger... it was the way his hands had looked when he'd been pressing them to his knees, even in his laughter that had disturbed Medren the most. He looked like a skeleten, literally skin and bone. The bones of his wrist seemed to jut unnaturally from his skin and his knuckles looked unusually large...
Medren shook his head and sighed, making Stefen a silent promise that the younger Bard would likely have protested against had he been able to hear it.
You are not going anywhere, Bard Stefen. Not for a very long time- and not if I have anything to say about it. You are going to take care of yourself if I have to put you under lock and key- and there is nothing you're going to say or do to change my mind.
Medren nodded to himself, pleased with his own desicion and followed Stefen back to his room where once more the conversation dissolved into laughter over nearly a bottle and a half of very thick apple brandy
The moon above them lit the Companion's feild in an unearthly glow. The sky had cleared for a barely more than a moment in the past weeks, and now the dark clouds billowing across the sky drifted across their source of light periodically, plunging the night back into darkness before illuminating it once more.
Eren picked her way delicately across the slick grass, stark white and ghost-like in the eery lighting. Her hooves made little if any sound as they thudded gently against sodden earth and her nostrils flared as she drank in the sent of crushed needles her footsteps stirred.
Gracefully, she stepped up slowly beside her fellow Companion at the waters edge and lowered her head to the stream.
For a long moment, neither said anything in the silence of the night. Eren was distantly aware of her Chosen's thoughts, drifting softly through her head, warm and yellow as he spoke with Jisa softly in their private quarters. But she left Treven be and did not force herself in on his thoughts, nor listen to his words. She left them be.
Instead, Eren raised her head, white mane tickling her ears as she flicked them back and forth, the crickets singing around them, night insects bringing out their chorus. She arched her neck, turning those bright, intelligent eyes on the Companion beside her.
:You're leaving.:
It wasn't really an inquirey, for Eren didn't truly have to ask. She knew, they all knew.
Yndela raised her own head and snorted her response, swinging her head like a human nodding. She pranced a little in spot and slowly backed away from Eren.
:It's finally time.: She spoke calmly, but there was concern in her that Eren could feel, and it worried the mare as she watched Yndela dance away slowly.
:Are you sure?: It was an involuntary question. Eren knew... but Yndela and she had formed bonds that extended beyond what they both felt to their fellow Companions- they were friends.
Again Yndela threw her head up in a nod. And Eren felt drained.
:You're worried,: Eren added quite suddenly, and Yndela lowered her head to look into the water once more. For a long moment she offered no response.
Finally, Yndela looked up, her bright blue eyes questioning. A foal looking for guidance in her elder. :Is this...: Yndela shook her mane, her tail flicking nervously behind her. She looked down. :It will be alright?:
It was a desperate question and Eren could only wish she could give her the answer she so desperately needed.
But she could not lie.
:If It is calling, you must hurry,: Eren placed carefully instead, and for another long moment Yndela stared at her, blinking her wide eyes.
Eren couldn't help but wonder- if we could cry the way our Chosen's...
She wrapped her eloquent neck over Yndela's and the filly returned the gesture, her eyes closed before they mutually pulled away.
:Good-bye,: Yndela put in suddenly and slimply, a moment before she turned, rearing as she pivoted, front hooves dancing in the air before she leapt off into the darkness, a cloud drifting once more across the full moon above.
Eren offered nothing more.
:Are you safe and warm, beloved?: Treven's gentle mind brush brought with it a surge of gentle care and pure love that made Eren's unease almost completely melt away. Her Chosen always did that to her.
She sent him a burst of pure emotion, a smile in her Voice, and she could feel him laugh. Fresh and sweet, purple... :Yes dearheart, and you?:
Again she felt another rush of his sweet, almost childlike laughter, pure happiness filling her. :I could hardly be anything but.: Eren closed her eyes breifly and merely reveled in his own contentment, his arms wrapped firmly around his lifebonded as she slept peacefully against him.
:Always stay that way, Chosen,: Eren placed to him carefully, opening her eyes as she stared after Yndela, her hoove beats long since faded for any to hear, no matter how they stretched. :Always stay that way...: