When Will awoke, he didn't know where exactly he was at first, parts of the seer still tethered in a state of dreaming that never truly ended for him. It was the slight rocking sensation that was the giveaway though. Landships were a rare mode of transportation, basically a couple of small rooms on wheels but it was far more comfortable than the unprotected confines of a cart or having a sore ass from riding a horse for hours on end. Will had only ever head of the King Baratheon having one but Hannibal seemed to exist to surprise others. It was also further proof of the Lord's wealth.
Of all the conveniences within the confines of the wheeled vessel, the bed had to be the most welcoming. The floors of it were strewed with sweet smelling reeds, the bedding was stuffed with fresh goose down, and the linens were fine cotton. It was in far better condition than even his own room back at his father's keep had been. If Will had a dog or two or six with him, it would have been perfect. As it was though, he had a lord as company, Lord Lecter to be exact. Awake enough now to realize in whose arms he lay in, Will froze in place, considering his next actions very carefully.
Hannibal Lecter, High Lord whose house was borne from the blood of the First Men, had chosen him of all people to marry. A seer from a fallen house of little note, who had bouts of sleeplessness and the nervous tendencies to sweat and avoid human contact. Will personally didn't see the appeal but apparently, Lord Lecter's mind was set upon him. What he was, was a rare thing indeed, but not enough of one for the efforts extended, at least not in Will's opinion. The visions that seers had were uncertain things at best. Some was more turned to the future which was always subject to change, very few things actually fated. Others were more aligned with the past, giving insight and clarity where it had been lost, but little else, since the past was unchangeable. Will's talent was hitched between the two, his pale horse ridden by death, going where it liked.
Shifting carefully as to not disturb man holding him so close, too close, Will studied his soon-to-be while his face was safe to do so, the watchfulness of sanguine eye guarded by closed lids. "I should really think of him as Hannibal. We are to be wed soon." Will mused, still half in and out of rare sleep as his sight lingered over high, pronounced cheeks and an elegant nose. Thin but vividly colored lips pouted in sleep, striking Will with the sudden urge to kiss them. He reasoned he would have to get used to the idea eventually. Hannibal had not forced himself on Will but he had been increasingly more tactile as their days of travel went by, the Lord taking every opportunity to let his touch linger over Will's body.
The rocking was soothing and the arm around him like an iron bar was more grounding than uncomfortable to him as the seer lost sight of the real world and was lulled back asleep. Will's dreams were confused things that didn't know what to do with him and were indecisive about whether they should remain pleasant in his company. Nightmares were far more resolute, telling Will about the truths of other people, most of whom were already dead or fated to die.
If Will were not careful as he walked through paths of waking visions and crumbling shades of dreamscapes, he could become lost and remain inside his own head for days at a time. He would return from these journeys with a fever and chattering rants that had a bad tendency to come true for other people.
Will wondered if he should just give in to the urge and lose himself to the wilds and wilderness of his nearing madness. He could let Lecter deal with his unresponsive body and absent nature. It just might be the only sort of freedom Will could look forward to so he might as well embrace it.
Too cold hands ran themselves over Will's face though, the sensation calling him back despite his best efforts to remain adrift. The sharp taste of tart red wine was pressed up to his lips, fed into his mouth by Hannibal's own, an intoxicating kiss of strange new life as fingers massaged his throat, making Will swallow.
"You need to wake up, Will." he heard Hannibal say, the man's accented voice cutting through fogs and mists that tendriled through Will's perception. They clung to him like the fingers of reluctant lovers, their grips slipping away at the stern demands of that voice.
Opening his eyes, Will's stuttered waking was met with strange sanguine eyes, the color of a battlefield's mud. "I want you to repeat after me. I am Will Graham. I am on the King's Road, and I am safe."
"But we both know, I'm not any of those things." Will said in defiance. His name had been sold, his grip on reality was a tentative thing, and he knew deep down that no one was safe with Hannibal. Even now the stag with raven's feathers for fur stood over them, watching as Hannibal petted Will's curls and played with them. Will still wasn't sure what it was or what it represented. All he was confident of was that it was Hannibal and Hannibal was it.
"My dear Will, this will go so much easier for you if you stop being difficult." Hannibal sighed.
"It is all part of my charm, my lord." Will managed a weak smirk, making himself sit up. He was grateful at Hannibal allowed him to, the man's hands finally falling away from him. Will growled at himself at the flicker of disappointment that it caused. Focusing outwardly, he realized that he was covered in sweat that was chilling him, Will shivering from his damp clothing. He had been ill since Hannibal had taken him from Wolf Trap, his father's keep. After Hannibal stunning proposal in the hall, Will had passed out, his mind unable to handle all the staring faces and his body the accompanying stress. When he had awoken tucked into bed with Hannibal, Will found that he was already on the King's Road with all his few worldly possessions packed minus his beloved dogs. Will had basically remained there since, sweating out fear and misery. He slept fitfully when he grew exhausted from that.
To Will's surprise, Hannibal kept him alive and well, plying the seer with food and drink. Even now, he was stripping Will of his damp clothing, the seer too weak to protest about his modesty as he was laid bare, the cotton sheets cool against his skin. Will flushed at his own nudity but made himself compliantly lay there on display. His Lord had the right to take from him everything if he so desired and any privacy he was allowed was a privileged façade at best.
To his relief, Hannibal only seemed interested in changing his clothing, a loose robe wrapped around Will's chilled indecisive body. The seer became mildly depressed that Hannibal was a monster with morals. It would have been easier to hate him if he were not.
"What were you dreaming about?" Hannibal asked, running a moistened cloth over Will's face to rid it of some of its soured salt.
"Nothing." Will sighed, leaning into the coolness of the material as it was pressed up against his forehead.
"You do not know this about me yet, but I do not make idle inquires. I wish to know what you saw." Hannibal said, his tone even but firm as he took a hold of Will's chin, making the seer look at him.
"Fragments. None of it making any real sense, my Lord." Will told him, closing his eyes. The stag loomed over them now, its hot breathe lingering over Will's skin, making it glisten with sweat again.. The blood coming off of its horns were staining Will's skin red in places before flaking off like ash. It astonished Will that Hannibal could not see it, it felt so real to him. He had learned a long time ago though not to react to any of his waking visions, though he did watch the patterns bloom on his skin out of the corner of his eyes.
"I am your Lord but I would like you to call me Hannibal." Soft pressure placed against Will's lids told the seer he was being kissed gently even as hard fingertips bit in under his chin's cleft. "Tell me."
"You'll think me mad." Will whispered, mouthing the words into lips placed against his own so that and his breathe were stolen at once.
"I will not ask again in a pleasant manner, William." the warning was soft but so full of ill purpose, Will couldn't help but shudder from it.
"I was walking though a grove of gods wood, all white bone bark and bloody leaf. I walked hand in hand with a little girl with dark hair and eyes. She was singing a song in a language I do not understand and only hear in my dreams but I know it is lullaby about the moon and its lonely nature. Her words are just as lonely, sad, desperate even. She is scared and I fear the worst for her. As she and I walk, her flesh falls away from her body in bloody bits and bites like she is being eaten alive. She's crying and I can't help her. I can only hold her hand while she suffers and sings. I keep going until all I have left in my hand of her is her skull. It whispers the last few words of the song to me before it crumbled into ash." Will said, keeping his eyes closed as he feels the words fall from his mouth in a torrent. He feels possessed now to tell Hannibal everything, even if it makes him sound insane. The dead girl's song was still in his heart, every lyric eating it way out of his soul to leave him feeling void.
"That was the past. You were dreaming of things from long ago." Hannibal said with such calm certainty that it left Will reeling, the seer staring back at the lord with an incredulous look. He hadn't expected such a reasonable answer. Most other people would be calling for a healer about now. "How do your dreams speak to you?
"With noise and clarity." Will told Hannibal numbly in the bleak tones of the damned, waiting for the other man's judgment. To Will's surprise, it never came.
"Calm your mind and belay your fears. Those forests you spoke of are the same ones that surround my keep and that dream is the history of my house. We are almost there now if you would like to see it for yourself." Hannibal informed him as he signaled for the land ship to come to a halt, the doors swinging open to reveal a forest that should have remained only in Will's head.
In what he would later call self preservation or at least a form of it, Will did the only thing he could when faced with one of his dreamscapes made terribly real as he stared out into the grove of godwoods and it stared back at him with carved faces full of red eyes.
Will left his headspace.
oOo
The seer came back to himself in a great hall made all of polished black stone, confirming the stories he had heard about Chesapeake Rock, the Lecter's keep. The legend behind this dark hall was that it had been made by Bran the Builder from the obsidian rock that could only be found in this space of strange earth covered by gods wood trees. It was said that the blocks were carved and fitted together so perfectly that no mortar had been needed in the keep's construction, leaving no seam behind.
Will blinked confusion at his new company, the seer trying to stay calm as he took in the new location. Will had lost time before so it was not a new experience for him to arrive somewhere mentally late. His body tended to go through the motions of life for him perfectly well. Back home, it helped that he didn't usually converse with other people on a regular basis and his dogs hadn't cared either way as long as they were fed. Currently, Will found himself sitting above the salt beside Hannibal at the Lord's end of the table, being regarded curiously by a seated group of strangers.
"Welcome back." Hannibal greeted him with a slight smile as he pressed a cup of water into Will's hand. "You are just in time to join us for the evening meal." Will nodded back his understanding, thankful that Hannibal thought enough to tell him 'when' he was. He hated losing time, the disorientation and displacement that came with it. He was also grateful that Hannibal was trying to make this as natural seeming as possible for him, like Will was simply being inattentive for a moment instead of blanking out entirely for the better part of a day.
"Let me introduce the vassals of my house. To our left is my warden and forester, Garret Jacob Hobbs and his daughter Abigail. Beside him are Master Chilton and Master Gideon. Both are healers, though Gideon specializes in the body while Chilton the mind. The man playing the lute is my bard Tobias and the fool beside him is Franklin who is also my wine cellar keeper. To our left is Lady Bedelia Du Maurier, my master of coin, Lady Beverly Katz, my master of laws, and Lady Fredricka Lounds, my master of whisperers. Finally at the end of the table are my counselors and keepers of the castle's library, Master Zeller and Master Price."
"Everyone, this Will Graham, this court's new seer as well as my intended. You will all show him the same respect that you would show me. His words are my own and your lives are in his hands."
Will jerkily nodded his silent greetings to everyone at the table in turn, not trusting his throat enough just yet to speak. Hhe kept his eyes down at their plates as he memorized other details that did not pertain to faces. He would always be one of those rare people who would be able to identify a person with greater certainty by the appearance of their hands rather than their faces.
"A seer. Well, that is interesting." the man named Chilton drawled. Will instantly didn't care for him, the man putting too intent on the meanings behind the word 'interesting'. He also sounded like a man who liked hearing his own voice far too much and the inane questions that it asked. Will was proved right as the man continued. "How does that work? I've only read about seers in dusty tomes and even then the references are few and far between."
"Easily. I look at you and tell you how you are going to die or steal your secrets." Will told him bluntly. He didn't feel like playing nice, the strange new environment making him want to curl inward and hide. He risked a glance to find Chilton and Gideon smirking at him. It made something in Will twist painfully and rise up to the challenge, the hidden part of him that he tried so hard to keep hidden and tamed. The beast inside that kept him away from other people and made his avoid eyes. Not only did it keep other people safe, it kept him safe as well. It didn't help anything either that Will could feel Hannibal watching him, waiting for an reaction. His lord seemed content to see how this played out.
Giving in to his baser side of self, Will looked at and out at the men, meeting their eyes straight on. "You killed your wife and her family. You enjoyed it though you're rather confused now. You killed a part of yourself as well and not you will never know yourself again." Will told Master Gideon with certainty that left him stunned, blank faced and blinking before he turned his attention to Master Chilton. "You will die split in half, holding your own offal. It will be slow. It will be painful. You will leave this life lying in mud and shit and be remembered for nothing."
"Wow. I can see why you like him." Lady Beverly said brightly with a smile, breaking the stunned silence that followed Will's unexpectedly brutal announcement. Flushing, Will returned his gaze back down to his plate, but not before risking a look over at Hannibal.
Will wondered if he should feel worried that his lord looked so pleased with him.
oOo
TBC
