Vladislaus liked to consider himself a man of winter. It seemed only fitting.
The beginning of winter brought rain that would within days become snow, and Vladislaus found himself observing not the change of the weather, but Gabriel, whose eyes seemed forever fixed on the distant horizon. The soldiers marched in the wet without complaint, but it was Gabriel who ventured out after the battles were over, to stand in the rain and stare upwards into the clouded sky as though seeking some divine truth. It was Gabriel who rose without fail in the early morning dark to await the rise of the sun, Gabriel who had said, with that patient smile, "If you're the winter, Highness, then I must be the summer."
And that was undeniable. Gabriel was as warm as the summer's dawn, with his mussed hair and his great sword in its worn leather scabbard, with his quiet good humor and his dark eyes and his absolute defiance of any position of authority Vladislaus might have taken over him. Gabriel spoke kindly to gypsy children, flirted with the women and listened with a strange intensity to the earnest priests in the tiny churches they passed. He murmured to himself in Latin when he thought he was alone, he shivered with sensation that was not cold when Vladislaus ran fingers across his bare shoulders, coiling afterwards in the sheets like a weary tiger, and always, always he watched the skyline, as though waiting for something unexpected to come spilling over into their camps with the morning light.
Vladislaus wondered if perhaps his longing looks were because he missed his home, which was in some distant and unnamed place; Gabriel seemed amused by the question. "I have chosen to be here," he'd said one night, his voice very low and muffled into the prince's hair. "I must be here, until this war is won and your purpose filled."
"Purpose," Vladislaus had responded slowly, rolling the word on his tongue, considering the meaning and the implication. "What is it you know of my purpose, Gabriel?"
"More than you'd think."
The season flowed on and winter settled upon them in full, freezing the world and turning it white and too bright, and Gabriel grew restless, pacing and impatient, his usually boundless patience shortened by the bite of the cold. He snapped one day at Vladislaus over something small, and instead of the righteous indignation a prince should have felt at being addressed in such hostile fashion by a man technically his inferior Vladislaus instead found himself just a little bit cowed. Something about Gabriel's broken temper warned of danger very real and very violent. That night he made use of a willing woman and they did not speak again for two days.
Winter ghosted onwards, and when Gabriel returned to him he murmured only, "Media vita in morte sumus," and Vladislaus found himself with the tiger in his bed once again, wearing the patient, tolerating look of a momentarily tamed predator. Gabriel did not apologize- Gabriel was not a man who apologized- but his hands were a little gentler than usual.
In his ear Vladislaus whispered, his fingers tracing shapes across Gabriel's shoulderblades, "What did you mean by that?"
Gabriel, sprawled on his stomach unmoving with his hair across his face and against his cheeks, his back bared to the freezing night and to the prince's hand, said, "That life is too short."
"Power is the meaning of life," Vladislaus said, his hand pausing, flattened against Gabriel's spine. "Power and control. Death is my purpose and war is my tool."
"No," murmured Gabriel, tired, patient, and maddeningly certain, his eyes closed and his breath even and deep enough for slumber. "Love is the meaning. And power is weakness."
"Love," he said, a little derisively, but Gabriel muffled sudden, sleepy laughter into his arm, and so he let it go.
Winter was static and unmoving, hanging over their existence in heavy curtains, and they sparred with swords at dawn as the sunrise filtered through the frozen trees and breath frosted into steamy clouds. Gabriel held the edge over him, a little quicker, a little stronger, until some of the men appeared to watch the battle; then they were evenly matched, and Vladislaus could not shake the distinct impression that Gabriel was holding back. Eventually he struck the knight off balance, sending him to his knees in the snow, and he leveled his sword at Gabriel's throat. Gabriel looked up at him as the men cheered, breathing hard, his cheeks reddened by cold and exertion, and he smiled so slightly that Vladislaus knew only he could see it.
He turned away, towards the assembled soldiers, and held his sword aloft in triumph, as behind him Gabriel climbed back to his feet and shook the snow from his hair.
"Your stubborn nature wins out again," Gabriel said quietly as he moved past, their shoulders brushing, and Vladislaus half started forward to ask him what he meant, but there were too many people here and a war prince did not ask such questions. He was silent instead, watching the back of Gabriel's head as the knight walked away.
Winter met spring and the battle of change was upon the world once more; tiny plants fought to flower up through the still snow-bound countryside. To Vladislaus it seemed a weak and futile struggle, for the snow was heavy and smothering as a warlord's rule, and winter would not relinquish the stranglehold it held until it was completely ready.
"Nature cannot understand its own inevitability," Gabriel told him, on the other side of the evening's bonfire, his worn sword across his knees. His eyes glittered in the light. "And fighting to exist is natural. You all do it."
Something in that statement made Vladislaus pause. "And you do not?"
Gabriel smiled again, the strange and hidden smile that often emerged when he was preparing to evade a question. "I don't need to."
"You speak in circles," Vladislaus said, frustrated and beyond caring as to if Gabriel knew it or not. "Endlessly. I should have you killed for all the grief you cause me." He lifted his chin. "I could, you know."
"And then," Gabriel replied smoothly, unfazed and calm in the face of such a threat, "Who would be there to tell you when you're acting like a spoiled child?"
Vladislaus glared at him, but allowed it to drop. All too often there was nothing he could say against Gabriel's words.
Spring breathed relief across Romania, winter rolled over in submission, the sun grew warm and welcoming again, and still Gabriel rose every morning to watch it arrive, as though he were welcoming an old friend. Vladislaus observed the change of the season as it moved over the knight, observed the lightening of winter's tension and felt something ease inside himself as well.
"Summer will be here soon," he said quietly, and at his side Gabriel turned over with a quiet whispering of sheets. "The snow is nearly melted. Life is returning to the country."
"Summer never lasts," was Gabriel's matter-of-fact reply, his voice edged with morbid certainty. His eyes were closed, and one arm was draped across his stomach in a posture of complete relaxation. His hair was a tangled mass against the pillow. "Winter is the death of the world."
Vladislaus found himself hesitating, yet again, and Gabriel, reading his silence for what it was, opened one eye and smiled at him with knowing gentleness. His words were clear and ironic, the language lyrical as song on Gabriel's lips, as natural as the air and the earth.
"Media vita in morte sumus," he said, and he turned over again.
"Death even in life," Vladislaus whispered with a grim smile. "How very true."
The next morning they watched the sun together, and Vladislaus knew now that Gabriel was there not only to observe the sun's rebirth, but also to watch for the coming of summer.
Observing Gabriel, Vladislaus found himself thinking that perhaps, summer had been there all along.
NOTES: This piece is something of a sidestory to a much longer story me and RackhamRose are working on. It takes place, obviously, in the past, before Dracula was Dracula and when Gabriel still knew himself. Also subscribes to the "Van Helsing is the Archangel Gabriel" theory... whiiich you probably already noticed.
I realized after writing it that this story can be basically summarized as such:
VLADISLAUS: "I love you."
GABRIEL: "That's nice."