Unlike in AO3 this isn't fully edited to fit in the rp verse because im lazy. only somewhat because i apparently was an idiot and saved some of the edits i did dammit
Mevek, even though he's (she's?) only lived for a few twenty years, has always liked the screams of people. Well, she thinks, not people. Nobles. She likes people, humans to be exact, dearly.
She's never known why but she thinks that it may be because of how their words are just as expressive as their faces despite how little their vocabulary may be. Might be because of their pretty eyes and colours. Or maybe it's because of how cold the nobles are.
Of how they can go decades, centuries, without talking to one another, and how they don't try to see each other unless the lord calls for them. The nobles are like that.
It's not like they're cruel or vicious or terrible. He's moreso that than the kind men and women who smile at him as he walks by his father's side, holding his hand. They're, just not human.
He's not a human either, and neither is her father or her auntie –the books say she must greet her properly as she is Ungkyo-gaju first and foremost rather than auntie Ungkyo but she doesn't care much for formalities so he won't do it if it's only them– or his clan. Neither is his grandfather who went to sleep five years ago with his lover, though she thinks of grandpa Lounès Siriana as his prey as well, but that's obvious because even though grandpa Izîl was small and cute and petite, he was a bit of a monster. They're all nobles, but her father says that every clan has their unique points and theirs is that although they are undoubtedly nobles, their minds are like those of humans, or as he said it at that time, they are hydras so they aren't as cold as other nobles because of their burning fire. So surely that's what he meant. They have other traits that are only theirs as well but Mevek doesn't like to think about them. It's too painful for him.
Though, he's almost quite sure that their red hair must be an Agvain thing even if nobody's mentioned it since only they and the rare person from the tall nobles have that particular colour. The next closest is that of a man who looks her father's age, like a human ready to marry perhaps, but it's more a dull purple. Yet, it's extremely pretty so he can't help but stare.
When his father guides him to where her aunt kneels in front of the lord –a short lady (child? she's not because she's an adult, yet) with grey hair done up all fancy– he nudges him to kneel down.
"Greetings to the lord," he says, head bowed, and Mevek mimics him. Keeping her head down she repeats after her father.
There are all the other gaju lined up by both sides of the carpet, but she can see the empty spot between the pretty-haired man and a tall woman with short white hair that obviously belongs to his auntie. They watch, respectfully, but he can feel their curiosity slithering up his back and sliding into him. Curling around and up inside his veins like a sun-satisfied cat or lizard. It's better than the dark indifference that covers his eyes like a blindfold or the fog of boredom that tries to make his head blank.
"Well that's that," the lord says cheerfully, "Stand up all of you, you have something important to say don't you Ungkyo Agvain?"
"Yes," his auntie says. There is a heavy weight of disapproval on his head that hurts a bit but it's not from the lord and her auntie doesn't let it affect her so she ignores it.
He holds his father's hand again, because it's big and warm and rough, and he's safe even though she's surrounded by icy sculptures as long as her father is here, so she's not scared. Her father is like a shield that lets her feel emotions without drowning in them.
So, she stares impassively at the lord. She looks like a child despite being over a thousand years old and she can't help but think that she's trying a bit too hard.
"I would like to introduce an Agvain child. They are the child of my brother, Vaktel, and a pure-blooded noble." His aunt pauses there, and smiles at him, and he knows that she wants him to introduce himself.
Because of that, she puts on her nicest smile since the clan elders always say that you have to be nice to everyone, especially on the first meeting, though it isn't really any different from her face before. Looking directly at the lord, because eye contact is very important, at least that's what Miss Kunzki and her husband who she isn't married to told her, she steadies her mind.
"My name is Mevek Agvain. It is a pleasure to meet you." She stands there after she speaks. It wasn't nerve wracking or anything like that, and she wasn't nervous. The way the lord looks at her is strange though, and she wants to leave the throne room.
"That, was adorable! Oh my," she says, eyes sparkling. "You all saw that right? How old are you Mevek Agvain?"
He blinks at that. He's been called cute countless times by his clan but there's a dissonance in the way that she does it. As if her words don't match up to her thoughts. Even though she knows that they do from her emotions she can't help but feel distressed since her face didn't even twitch. Only her eyes changed.
"I have been of this world for twenty years."
"Oh. My. No." Disbelief circulates through the room, filling up every corner.
"I wasn't going to believe that until I remembered that the Agvain children are always introduced on they day they've officially reached twenty. Still? Can you all believe this? She's speaking better than all of us ever did at her age, and even now! I refused to even speak until I was seventy and knew I wouldn't make any mistakes."
The lord spoke on for a bit, leaving auntie amused and his father rolling his eyes. He ignores how she keeps on talking about how advanced he is for his age, instead thinking of humans and how they live and die before nobles even reach close to maturing fully. Of how the lord assumed that he was female. Of how it's normal that these nobles who don't talk until they have perfected their speech take so long because they can't learn from mistakes that aren't made.
"My lord-" the pretty-haired, pretty-faced man interrupts the lord's reverie "-I believe Ungkyo had an important matter to announce."
The man smiles at him gently, and Mevek blushes, clutching onto his father's robes. He feels the warm surprise tickling his ear and neck like stray hair but he ignores everyone's looks and shyly smiles back at the man.
"Ah it's just like you said Ran Tradio, Ungkyo Agvain did have something to say. Not that it matters as much as that cute scene but I suppose I've got to do my duties. Now Ungkyo Agvain. Speak."
"Yes. I have come to inform everyone that I shall be making Mevek my successor; the next gaju of the Agvain family shall be this child."
The lord stares at his auntie.
"Are you sure? Not planning on children? That's not a good choice, I'm just saying."
Auntie bows her head and she wants the insensitive lord to shut up. What does she know?
"Yes."
"Well then. I'm good with that. Anything else?"
"Yes," auntie says, and he recognises that mischief that licks at his eyelids, "How are you so sure that Mevek is a girl?"
"Oh." The lord is speechless; she wants to laugh. A fiery flame burns against his eyes but it's comforting and doesn't hurt the slightest bit.
Slowly, hesitantly, she asks, "Is Mevek Agvain a boy then?"
Grinning, auntie Ungkyo replies. "Now-" her eyes glinting and her smile morphing into a cold smirk "-wouldn't you like to know."
The lord's disbelief, and the general discontent wrap around her arms like chains. She calms herself by gripping her father's hand tighter and watches as the lord takes a deep breath.
"Right. Got it. Meeting adjourned then. Everybody have a good few decades 'kay? 'Cuz I certainly won't."
The lord leaves the throne room first, bouncing away like some sort of deer as she mutters about stress, and the other gaju follow after, congratulating auntie Ungkyo and her father on their way. She greets them clearly as they go.
Loyard-gaju comes first, while the rest talk amongst themselves. She laughs as she talks, her short hair swaying, and presses a kiss on his auntie's knuckle, pulling her into a tight hug. She quickly lets go, kissing auntie Ungkyo's cheek before striding away.
With a stiff nod but a cheerful face, Kertia-gaju asks him not to be so formal like the gaju who has white and yellow hair. She tells him to call her Miss Reim as the Ra-gaju she mentioned frowns, displeased at her, by her side.
Then there is a gaju with a willowy figure of the Mergas clan who is easily the tallest person Mevek has ever seen. She has a shy look and blushes when looking down at her, face going red. Quickly, she leaves, though she can catch words like 'cute' and 'red' that Mergas-gaju murmurs under her breath.
The Landegre-gaju says a bit more. She mentions her son Gechutel and how he's only two hundred or so years older than Mevek so she can't wait to see how they'll get along.
As she walks away he wonders if what she means is that she hopes the two will talk at least once every few years. If it is she'll be disappointed. She'll definitely talk to him more than that.
The pretty man stays behind, obviously wanting to say something to them. He really does look gentle with his soft smile, iridescent markings and the curve of his eyes. His long hair, tied messily yet still seemingly neat, only accentuates his smell of fresh earth. He must like gardening.
Respectfully bowing, Mevek speaks much more quietly than before, and stutters.
"Greetings to Tradio-gaju."
"It's fine little one. You can call me Ran."
He stares up at the man.
"Ran-gaju."
The man gains an amused glint in his eyes and she hears his auntie laugh.
"I'd prefer Ran."
Confused, she fiddles with her shirt's hem.
"Mister Ran."
"Well, I suppose that's good enough. Even Reim didn't get only her name out of that mouth of yours." Mister Ran holds out his hand, as if he wants him to shake it.
"Now may I have your name little one.
His father is glaring at the pretty man for some reason and her auntie sighs, deciding to save him.
"Vaktel do stop being overprotective. He adores children, nothing more. It is true that the Tradio clan have the traits of them but he won't do much. Won't be able to. Mevek's too smart for him you know."
She really doesn't understand what's going on but...
"I already introduced myself before Mister Ran. You have a bad memory."
He laughs at that, and Mevek stares at him. At how his body shakes slightly as he tries to control himself and the way his eyes tear up, glistening, and how his fingers come away wet when he wipes his tears.
"Now, I guess you did little one. Do visit me often. Maybe once a year? I look forward to seeing how you grow child."
Mevek smiles, cheeks red.
"Okay."
Her father scolds her for agreeing when Mister Ran leaves, and auntie Ungkyo shakes her head fondly, but she's happy. Mister Ran seems like a good person, and a good friend. So, she's glad.
As they walk back home, even though it's so far away, because her father wants her to see Lukedonia now that she's old enough to explore, because he doesn't want her to get lost, she thinks about how she likes to hear nobles scream.
He realises. It's not that he likes to hear any noble scream. And it's not that he doesn't like hearing humans scream. He's fine with anyone's voice, as long as it belongs to a being that's committed horrible sin.
That doesn't make it any better, but at least she isn't as horrible a person like she had thought she was. And, that's a good thing.
Cradling his cousin in his arms, Mevek hums a melody for her as she giggles and plays with his hair. Her hair is the same stunning white as her four older siblings, and, he thinks, the same lovely shade as that of the Loyard-gaju. The same straight strands.
Her auntie is nowhere to be seen but she knows that she is crying in her father's embrace. She wanted to be here but Lilyek, tiny little blessing that she is, told her to leave.
With her skin paler than it should be, and eyes cloudy despite her clear voice, she smiles up at him. This beauty, one he knows is a goddess-to-be since he first laid eyes on her sixteen years ago at her birth, when he was in his ninety-third year, hugs him happily.
He ignores his tears at the cold of her skin and smiles back, humming as sweetly as ever. Even when his arms are empty and the air scented with smoke, decorated with stars, he continues to sing. It's all he can do.
It's all any Agvain has ever been able to do.
It's been two hundred or so years since she first appeared in front of the lord, and she's dear friends with Gechutel, Landegre-gaju's son. They talk once a week when she invites him over for tea on Saturday at four in the afternoon until two at night where she then sends him off back to his home then returns. Talking isn't all they do but it's definitely a major part. She enjoys it greatly and so does Gechutel.
Sometimes, whenever they can pounce on him, the two invite Elenor-gaju as well because he's only a bit older than Mevek. Definitely younger than Gechutel by fifty years at least. He pretends not to enjoy it but they can see how he has a small smile whenever he sees them, and they look at each other with joy when they make him laugh with that beautiful voice of his.
On the next day, Sunday, he accompanies the Madam Noblesse, Ma'am Crespo Iglesias di Xuvunue. She prefers calling her Ma'am Xuvunue.
She first went that one time thirty years ago because of just how lonely she looked with the way that even the lord avoided talking to her in the meeting that was held then. Mevek had been there to observe because one day he'd be the Agvain-gaju and would need to know the proper ways to act.
Tiny Gentilus, a cute lil button born seven years ago to the lord, yet already nothing like her with her entirely too serious demeanour, goes with him as well. Like a leech, she sticks to Mevek with scary quiet eyes, but her small hand clasping his is undeniably lovely, and so is the warmth that sits on his neck like a scarf whenever he calls her 'younger sister'. Ma'am Xuvunue finds it therapeutic as well, and he won't deny the Madam Noblesse of the few pleasures she has. Of the rare periods of enjoyment she receives in her life. He hears that the Kertia-gaju, Miss Reim as he is told to call her, visits her often as well but she only knows of her as a noble a far thousand, or three, years older than herself.
Little Gentilus follows her around as much as she is able to without tiring, which isn't as much as the tiny thing hopes for because her schedule is definitely a hard one due to her duties and leisure activities, but he likes to let her sit on his lap as he reads. If he feels like it, he reads to her small stern face whatever he has in his hands. Though she stares at it, focused, he knows that she can't possibly understand anything that he narrates. Despite that he still does it. Only on rainy days, where he lights the fireplace in his room (she is the only non-Agvain that has set foot in the Agvain manor without having any relations to an Agvain) with his fingers and makes drinks for them, does he take a simpler book for her. One that she'll enjoy.
Mevek certainly does, with her hair tickling his nose and how she traces his lips with fascination as he reads, and her snort when the ashy air makes him sneeze.
As often as Mevek can, usually three-four times a week, she visits Mister Ran. The man is still as beautiful as he was when she first saw him.
Now, once again, he finds himself sitting on the stone benches in the Tradio gardens. She doesn't know why they're called that, since they're more a forest with their intertwining branches that cover up the sun and their strange plants that grow for over a hundred kilometres in every direction.
Never once has she been lost in these forests, but that's only because of the way she follows Mister Ran. How when he begins to wander off Ran-gaju's fingers ghost over his left wrist and his waist, and how he can't help but be aware of the cold pressed against his back, or the cool breath that licks at his neck. How he lets her explore the bioluminescent plants and other strange greenery, but when she wants to leave his grip on her finally tightens, seeming to materialise instead of being a dream, and he guides him back. How a silver haze clouds his mind whenever Mister Ran is close, and how he knows that his clan can feel it as well with the way their eyes clear whenever a Tradio leaves their presence.
Mevek doesn't understand it.
At least, he acknowledges, she won't get lost in the Tradio gardens now. She's been in far too deep to not be able to do something so simple.
She doesn't care about that now though. Not with how ethereal Mister Ran looks with his hair knotted up high on his head and how vines curl around his limbs affectionately. With flowers purring by his ankles and feet and knees, and the rustling whispers of the lemon-smell giving grass. She doesn't understand his pattern of picking fruits and herbs and stems, or other plant parts, because it's not by ripeness or colour or the bitter scent that screams in his nose even as he sits far away, but in a strange way, she supposes, it doesn't really matter.
His way of murmuring to the green and white and purple leaves is ever so soft too. She can't help but be curious about what he says but there's nothing he can do. Every clan has their secrets, and the way that Ran-gaju prays for the other nobles, the way he blesses the chicks born to the blue-feathered rooster when he is in the Landegre clan's living room, is one of them.
Mister Ran stands up, straightening his back, and looks over at Mevek. He smiles at her, quick and brief, before coming to her.
Chuckling slightly, he curls her hair in his hand –the left one– and rests it on her neck. It's heavy there, and dangerous, but he doesn't feel any fear. Rather, there's a steady trickle of something cool down his lashes, not water, that keeps him from succumbing to the silver haze.
"When did you come? It's terribly rude to watch without a single word of greeting," he says, though it feels natural in this place, as if Mister Ran is breathing instead of talking.
"It would be ruder if I disturbed you. So I waited for you Mister Ran."
He smiles, some sort of emotion that Mevek doesn't know ghosts over her tongue at seeing that strange quirk of his lips, and looks at her with a familiar look upon his face.
"I suppose so. You really are kind aren't you Mevek. Though, you wouldn't be here to give me your name would you?" he says, voice teasing.
He frowns at those words, year after year they repeat but he still doesn't have the faintest clue of what the noble means.
"I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. I only came to visit you Mister Ran."
"Yes–" there is a strange glint in his eyes that has been there for the past few years but she has no clue of what it truly is or how it got in there for it seems to be a living being "–you really are slow in that regard it seems. Come, Lagus has been wanting to test his concoctions out in a proper cauldron. Light the fire for him."
So Mevek follows him as he walks with a covered basket in his hands. She can smell the cold and rotting dirt even with the thick cloth stoppering it. What is in there, she wonders. Medicine, she thinks, or, grim, and mouth frowning, poison.
"Elenor-gaju!" Mevek calls out, walking quickly towards the noble with beautiful black hair that runs down his shoulder to his waist. Gechutel is next to her, and they see the curiosity on his face. She feels the white hot love burn into her calves and smiles.
"We are going to be travelling the world for several decades, and we were wondering if it was possible for you to come along with us."
He looks at his, friend, eagerly, and smiles widely as Gechutel convinces him when he looks hesitant.
Sighing, he answers, "I will see to it that I can accompany the two of you. There are several things that I must do first to prepare. We shall be able to leave in a month."
"Of course!" Mevek says, and leaves laughing with Gechutel as they look forward to their outing.
It is the first time in his life, in his four hundred years, that he shall be able to traverse a world outside of Lukedonia. Father is protective of him, and strict. So now she has his approval, and her freedom.
Being able to see humans, to immerse herself in their lives and learn of them, is causing a river to roll down her throat; she wants to speak their tongue, eat their food, touch them and run her hands over all that they do. She needs to learn of what they have and their work. Of their wants and needs and their musts. The way they survive, because humans do not need nobles, and how they love. How they hate and anger, the way they conduct themselves with their emotions. What dress they wear. Their norms. The children. The culture.
Yes, he wants to know everything. How do they see the world, she thinks. Gasping, her eyes shine. She's happy. Ecstatic. For so long she's asked these questions and now she can answer them.
It is normal for nobles to walk alongside humans. Ordinary for them to know who they are and what they do. Not for an Agvain though. The clan has always been protective of their children, so they are born in Lukedonia where they are safe, instead of the vast earth where humans roam. Never do they receive the feelings of the outside before they are finally allowed to leave Lukedonia.
And because of that, when Mevek sees Gechutel coming to where he waits on the shore with Elenor-gaju, his heart screams.
Mevek blushes as Elenor-gaju focuses on the instrument in his hands. He doesn't know what it is, only that it is some large wooden thing with whale tendon and heart strings woven in amongst thin strips of bark that are hardened with crystallised sap. Red and white and gold, it's an impressive sight, for Elenor-gaju made it himself, just like the other instruments that are stranded in the air, unmoving.
She won't deny that she finds him cute. Who wouldn't? Although he comes off as cold and uncaring, he is the opposite. He cares too much and gets attached too easily to things, to people. Has a drive that makes tiny glowing orbs of colour beam brightly and flicker like sparks against a black that looms over him, that is him, with a vigour of excitement. And he has the most beautiful voice Mevek has ever heard. Like a siren, he thinks, because he is without any doubt, enchanted.
So when Elenor-gaju starts to play, face concentrated and all the instruments swaying, he laughs, voice sweet to the wind. Sweet to the ears of the musician whose happy smile goes unnoticed by him as he dances along.
Sighing, Gechutel watches Mevek and Falin-gaju. He should report this relationship of theirs, or what could become of it to be truthful, for it is the duty of a noble. Yet, these are his dear friends. So, with pity, because he knows that they will never have the love they will want, he looks at the two. Mevek dances to Falin-gaju's music, quite well too, joyfully, his movements matching the song and the words.
At the very least, Gechutel thinks, they will be able to have some happiness. He cannot find any relief in that thought.
Tying the last letter she has to a tawny brown owl's leg, Mevek walks out the small hut with an assortment of birds perched on her body.
There's a crow in her hair, and its claws dig into her scalp but she's used to the pain after sixty years of sending letters. Two pigeons rest on his shoulders and a raven on his wrist while the owl sits content in his hand.
Smiling at Elenor-gaju, who returns from the village they stay near to with fresh milk and cheese, he watches as his birds fly off towards Lukedonia in the darkening sky of the evening. They are trained by the wizard noble, whose magic was welcome with animals, though he knows that a Tradio would have been better at it. With his help, she has been sending letters, so many that she thinks they must fill up a whole manor if put together, to all who she knows back in Lukedonia as she travels through the world with her dear friends.
Every week she will sit down and write them, then send them off so that her clan, her father really, won't worry. So that she can keep Ma'am Xuvunue smiling, his little Gentilus' warmth around his neck. For the lord to joke with her or to inform the gaju of anything important and to keep in touch with his friends. So he can talk to Mister Ran who always asks him to bring back some honeydew wine for him.
She still hasn't found a place that makes it.
It doesn't matter though, there is so much time, and even as Gechutel raises crops here while she tends to the animals and hunts for food, with Elenor-gaju foraging and concocting his potions, they will leave soon enough. Every decade they settle down in a new place, staying for five years or so, before they wander again. He and the wizard noble have tended to many wounds over this time, animals and humans both, and of the land and mind and body.
Strangely, every time the humans look thankful, or call him an angel, her heart flutters. Such little things cause her so much joy and it makes her realise how much she loves the world. And how she adores seeing all the advances that humans make over time.
They certainly aren't the same as they were sixty, or even ten, years ago.
Yet, as she sees their daughter, young but she's a noble so she walks easy, following behind Elenor-gaju while clutching his cape eagerly, he realises that her hair is the same bright red as that cute girl who has visited them almost everyday since they moved here. The girl who watched in awe as Elenor-gaju worked his magic and managed to get the cold noble to warm up to her and give her that tired smile that he has whenever he knows he is going to do something that will pain him. That tired smile that he makes when he does things that he knows he won't regret and the same one that he gives to Mevek and Gechutel because he will sleep long before they ever will for he is a gaju and they are not. As he is an Elenor.
For yes, he loves that girl with red hair, who was sick till she coughed up blood, as if she is his sister. The girl who they could do nothing for because a sickness of the mind is not something they can heal. That girl, who had encouraged Elenor-gaju to go against the natural order of things. The one who had made it so he and Mevek were sharing kisses beneath the stars and the great tree by the village. Such a fate it was, and, as he looks at the way he smiles back at him, he knows that the girl with red hair has fallen into a deep slumber. One that she will never wake up from.
Kneeling down in front of her daughter, she feels Gechutel coming to them, hearing how cloth rustles as his friend takes his gloves off when he sees the tears that threaten to break Elenor-gaju's face. Mevek laughs her child clutches onto her, not protesting like many noble children would, and picks the tiny thing up with a practised ease.
She holds her close, letting her feel the beat in her chest and the warmth of her body, before she stands and leans against Elenor-gaju. He trembles, and then pulls her tight against him, with their daughter between them, but his tears only fall on her.
Gechutel waits for a calm, and their daughter stays still with a confused air, but her father will not stop shaking or crying. So Mevek takes it upon herself to patch things up.
"Now, Mariah, can you go with Gechutel for today? Your father and I need to talk about some things."
Mariah grins happily, not doubting anything, and joyfully latches onto Gechutel's arm. He looks a bit panicked at the sudden bout of responsibility, but carries her with steady hands. Going off to behind the woodshed where he is certain to be able to entertain her, Mevek watches him walk away before guiding Elenor-gaju inside their house.
It is big, much larger than any that belongs to the humans down in the village, and there are many rooms inside. For a moment she is unsure of where to go, but Elenor-gaju goes towards his own room, so she supports him there.
Inside, she brings him to sit on the soft nest of blankets in the corner of the room. He does not have a bed, does not like them, and if he ever sleeps, which is rare for a noble, it is here. This room of his is clean and tidy, even with all the herbs and potions, and thick books that he has piled up everywhere. The curtains are drawn and she bound the door shut behind them, so it is dark; still, he can see things just fine.
"Mariah, will you tell her the truth? When she grows up, will you tell her about how that human woman was your sister and not your lover? Tell her," Mevek asks, finding it hard to breathe, "about us?"
Elenor-gaju's face twists in pain, and Mevek cannot help but bury his face in his shoulder, arms clutching at his back, so that he can avoid it. It doesn't work well, for he can still feel his heart burn because of how he could never ignore Elenor-gaju's emotions. He could never block them out.
"I cannot," she hears him rasp out, "You know that I cannot."
And she does know. Knows of how he is an Elenor and that he is an Agvain so that means that the two cannot ever be allowed to love each other. Of how his father told him that if the fire that burns in their bodies meets the magic that courses through an Elenor, things will end badly. Like the eruption of a volcano with its choking black smoke that fills lungs with ash and tastes the same, or with how it devastates everything around it. He thinks of how long ago, in the days of the first nobles, an Elenor who wasn't sure of how their magic worked, for they were the first of their kind with a human appearance, cast a spell. That spell which was meant to bless the land instead turned out to be a curse which would cause any union between the two clans to turn out in tragedy. Of how the Elenors have no way to protect themselves against the thorns of a rose and its bush, so they get hurt easily.
Yet she also knows, despite how they should not love each other, that their feelings are in tandem. That even though Elenor-gaju has countless cuts from the rose garden that surrounds the Agvain manor, he still visits Mevek whenever he can. Of how, when there is nobody to know, to see and to hear, she is held close by him like how they are now. That his heart beats only when he is with Elenor-gaju. That the spell that is spoken of is nothing more than a baseless rumour. A fantasy.
"It is fine," she says, lifting her head to look at her love, "She will not know. So she will not tell."
Though it will surely pain both of them. For they will have to act as they did back on Lukedonia, where their love was little more than a will-o-wisp. Rarely will they be with each other anymore, at least not alone, and never again in their lives will they have the pleasure to see each other as proper lovers again. For the love of an Elenor and an Agvain is doomed to end in tragedy.
Though, sometimes, she thinks, the only reason it ends that way is because everybody is so insistent on it ending as such. In her heart, there is a vault of knowledge that lies locked, and inside it tells of only truths. There you will find a happy-ever-after that will never come true even though it could have.
She wants to scream to the nobles, to her Lukedonia, that their love won't end in a tragedy so it will be fine to let them be. She knows that they can be happy till the end, and so does Elenor-gaju because of how his lips tremble against her fingers and her own mouth, but that does not matter. After all, their love doesn't exist in the eyes of the nobles, they see only an end of despair, so they will keep it that way. There will never be a love between them. That's how they will let the nobles say it.
"I love you in ways that I shouldn't," Elenor-gaju says, eyes filled with tears.
Mevek looks at him at that, and tells him, "No, you love me in ways that I love you back. In ways that we can and we will. But in ways that we are not allowed to for fault of theirs, not ours."
Crying, he says, "Our love could have worked. Would have worked. She knew a way, and now. She is gone."
"The way does not matter," Mevek replies. "Grieve for her, and for us as you hold me close, because this is the last time we can be together like this."
It is the last time, because he is an Elenor, and every Elenor has gone to rest with their lord. Because every gaju before him was loyal to their lord so he is expected to sleep when this lord decides her time to rest has come. Because his mother loved her lord so much that when they slept and she did not have a child, her willpower made it so that his dear Elenor-gaju was born. Her will made it so that she pushed into him what a gaju's child would learn in five centuries to two instead, and joined her lord in their sleep when he turned two-fifty. He does not have the same loyalty but it does not matter. He will join her anyway.
He remembers seeing Elenor-gaju then, how empty he looked, for he was still no more than a child like he himself, and how that made him want to be his friend. How that caused her to become close to this noble with his cold eyes and black hair. With his tired eyes and messy hair. She thinks of how she loves him so and how she will never speak of it.
As he lays down slowly, pulling Elenor-gaju on top of him, he smiles sadly.
"Take of me everything," he whispers, "Strip me of all that I have and leave me desolate. I need for nothing but you."
He closes his eyes as Elenor-gaju leans down to kiss him, and loses himself in the present.
It is the next day when Mevek wakes, and her hair is being stroked gently as she stares at the ceiling. She moves to get up, but stumbles, and is held up by a warmth at her back, and arms around her bare form.
"Careful, Mevek," Elenor-gaju says, and he can't help the blush that covers his face and being. It hurts to think that he won't be able to be with him again.
"I'll go prepare food for you. You do enjoy eating. Check on Gechutel, and Mariah."
"Okay." It comes out as a whisper rather than a word, and he flees, dressing himself, as Elenor-gaju laughs with that stunning voice.
Treading out into the back, she sees Gechutel watching the sun as it rises, dyeing the sky the way she does to a medium, to walls and floors and dirt, to wood, stone, and paper. Her daughter is not with him, and she assumes that he must have put her to rest.
"Gechutel, Mariah is asleep?"
He turns to look at her, not seeming the least bit surprised, and nods.
"She sleeps in your bed," he says, and stares at her, "The gaju and the lord will not be happy with this."
She smiles at his concern, "They can't disagree with something that didn't happen."
"Perhaps in another life you can love him freely," Gechutel says to her.
Mevek sighs at his words, "Yes." She says nothing more.
They watch until the sky is a light blue before they go inside to help Elenor-gaju, and to pack what little they will take with them for their departure.
Curiously, Mevek watches the white-haired, white-skinned man stand still by the lake.
He has come here alone to hunt the animal that is terrorising the people of a tribe down west. Gechutel is teaching them of the written tongue and how to better farm. Elenor-gaju and his daughter, already a hundred and sixty but she still enjoys how the girl sits by her feet and sleeps as she hums, painting, help the injured. She volunteered to take this task because her body has been screaming at her to kill these past few weeks. So far she had ignored it, or took down some small prey, but she knows that the animal the tribe speaks of will be the one that gives her the thrill she needs. The one that quenches the lust in her for blood, and for her love.
Yet, in the days she has spent in the thick rainforest, she has not seen the slightest sign of any animal matching the description of a giant clawed beast. Instead she sees a man with skin paler than that of the most reclusive of nobles.
He truly is strange, with the flowing yet armoured attire he has that does not fit into any human civilisation. It is grey and white and silver, and much too advanced for the humans to have made it, neither does it have the make of the nobles or other supernatural beings. Not even the fae, from whom she bartered several jugs of honeydew wine without being tricked.
She has met many of them, each as strange as can be, but stunning, and she wanted to stay with them for much longer than she knew she could. So she had kissed the queen on her cheek and left after getting what she came for.
Yet, they are not as confusing as this man. He is tall, similar in height to Mevek, and has a sword on his waist that he cannot tell the colour of. One moment he sees it the silver of steel, ordinary yet graceful, the next it is a glowing white that does not hurt his eyes but seems otherworldly. He would not be surprised if it was.
He makes for a beautiful person, the third eye on his forehead only making him seem a spirit; his long hair and robes passing him off as an ethereal figure on the edge of a clear and heavenly lake.
The rustling vegetation breaks him out of his thoughts, and she frowns as a large creature makes its way through, breaking branches as it goes. It is headed for the man, she can hear that clearly, but he has not noticed it yet.
She steps out of her cover, and towards him, when the animal rushes out of the foliage opposite from her. It has horns on its head, several actually, and faintly she notes that it is definitely not in the wildcat family like she had thought it was from the claw-like wounds on the injured. Only now does the man notice it, though he still does not see her for he has his back turned, but she can feel confusion curl inside her eyes, and the paralysing shock that numbs her legs right after that. It does not seem like he will move away from the animal charging at him, and she doesn't know when but she has already thrown her spear.
It pierces through the creature's head, and causes the enormous thing to fall short of where the man stands. He finally sees her when he turns, and he walks towards him, for the man still doesn't move.
Now that he is closer to him, he notices how the pink flesh of his eyes show. Though they only make him more beautiful, and that his lashes are long, providing a stunning contrast to the bright green of his three eyes. Hanging around him is a sweet honeyed scent, not like that of the wine, but of flowers.
"Thank you," the man says, his voice soft and slow, as if he mulls over every word that he utters. Mevek understands as he speaks that he cannot raise his voice. The scars on his throat are a testament to it.
"I could not let a human die in front of me," he says, for the man is no doubt one, then looks him over, grimacing, "but it doesn't seem as if my help was needed. You wouldn't have died, would you?"
He isn't sure why he says that, other than by the signs of torture that cradle the man like a mother, but he nods slightly in response and Mevek thinks that she's discovered something that she doesn't want to.
"No. It would have hurt, but I would not have died," he says, green eyes staring at her, "My name is Lily. My memory is bad, and I forget things easily, quickly, so I apologise if I repeat my questions."
Lily bows his head, as if he has committed some great sin, and Mevek already feels the parental urges in him lash out.
"It's fine, I am Mevek Agvain, a noble."
Strangely, his blood has subsided its lust in his company.
Lily watches him confused, his movements slow and voice perpetually humming, but there is a longing in his eyes. Mevek smiles at him and goes to tear his spear out of the animal that lays dead where it was slain. Rinsing the blood and gore off of her weapon, she slings the animal over her back and walks towards the tribe.
"Come with me Lily," she says, "I will guide you to where there are people."
She is some distance from him as he hesitates, but she hears his quite "Okay" and his steps following her, so she doesn't worry.
She talks to Lily about where he is from and who he is. He talks about how he is immortal because of how when he was but a babe, on another planet many millennia ago when humans there were in a similar state to how they are now on this earth, and where they did not have other sentient species on their level, a disease struck the children of his tribe. Him being one of them. For days the people suffered over their children, but then, the water in the small well by the edge of the village began to glow. There was nothing they could do for the children, so they hoped that it was a gift from some higher being to make them well again. Or if that was too much, from the creatures of legends that stole their children and took them for their own because even if they lost them, at least they wouldn't be in pain anymore.
It wasn't though. Instead when they fed the water to the children, they screamed and cried. Many died. Those were the ones who drank more. Some survived, for they only got a few drops of that burning liquid.
A few days after that well glowed, the cruel poison disappeared and all that was left was the ordinary state it had before.
All the ones who lived later grew with some things that were most definitely not natural. His features though, were apparent soon after he made it through the illness. Probably because he drank more than the others who made it into their later years, but less than what would kill him.
His skin had become pale, and his hair white. Luckily, his eyes remained the same green as that of his mother, even the third that grew on the centre of his forehead. Here Mevek noted the fond tone in his voice.
There were other things, such as how his wounds recovered in seconds regardless of how serious they were, or how his body seemed to know when it could heal even when he didn't. He did not heal in a manner that was noticeable to those who intended him harm or would use it for themselves. Of how his body would rapidly adapt, he can survive underwater and breathe there in a matter of seconds, but the changes would be excruciating. He mentions how if his body cannot defend against something due to the presence of a person who would have hurt him, he is instead forced to adapt in a way that allows him to live with it. Softly, he says how he lives with horrible pain every single moment of his life, and Mevek can't stop the tears that run from his eyes.
Easily the most obvious thing though, the one that none of his other tribesmen had, was his immortality. When he was in his late twenties he stopped aging. He cannot die.
"That," Lily says, "is the power of the Fountain of Youth."
Then he speaks of how his long years made him into a weapon. His suffering, torment, everything, bubbles under his skin, only prevented from leaking out by his control.
"It's hard," he says, showing Mevek the grey that is the world's hatred, "but it's worse when people talk about suffering. As if they know it, because, they don't. They think of minor inconveniences as pain. If only..."
His words lighten when he speaks of someone he knew. Of a man with curly red hair. He is the one who brought him to this world and saved him from floating out in space when the sun of his planetary system burnt out. Ever suffering, ever adapting. Lily talks of how he called himself Adam, the beloved son of God, as if it was a title and not the truth. That he had golden eyes, but how his most defining trait was the patch of blue on his face and his elegant demeanour that fooled everyone from his obsession with jokes.
Most of all though, Mevek listens to Lily whenever he pauses confused. She answers him when he asks who she is and why he is with her. Tells him of the tribe down west and smiles as he slowly stops repeating the questions after two days. He had told her of how he cannot remember things easily, but that once he does, he will remember it for as long as he lives.
"It seems pitiful," she remarks once when they sit around a fire with the creature's meat roasting on it. He does not answer and she does not ask for one. Lily eats, Mevek abstaining for fear that proper food may run out, and lays down beside her. She smiles softly as she holds him, stroking his hair and watching over him as he sleeps.
When they finally reach the tribe after two weeks, all that is left of the creature is its horns and some strips of meat that Mevek dried and salted. Those go to Lily who eats them like a child and a beloved snack. It makes her heart hurt to think that he has missed such little treats his entire life because of how he has lived in a limbo where he did not talk, nor did he remain quiet. These feelings make him cradle the heavy little orb in his stomach, and wonder if it is strange for her to care so deeply for this man so soon. Probably not she decides. Even if it is she does not care.
Three months they spend with the tribe. Partly because she teaches them how to hunt better and Elenor-gaju has more that they need to know of. Mostly since he wants to spend more time with Lily before they must leave for Lukedonia.
Still, when he is standing by the little tower that has been built to commemorate the dead with his companions, he feels the freezing numbness in his feet. He does not want to leave, to go. For Lily will once again be left alone. It is destined to be in his life regardless of everything around him, and he does not like it.
The pain must be obvious, because Gechutel puts a hand on his shoulder.
"You can travel outside of Lukedonia whenever you want Mevek. Trust in your fate and you'll meet him again."
He smiles at him.
"The only thing I'm worried about, Gechutel, is how to explain to the lord and the gaju about Elenor-gaju's child. Her hair is red, with the shade being like mine, and my father will not be happy."
"Ser Vaktel will kill me," Elenor-gaju whispers, a look of horror coming over his face.
Neither Gechutel or Mevek inform him that she was joking. Or that she has already sent letters that tell of Mariah and how she gets her red hair from a human. Instead they keep their amusement inside them, so that they can entertain themselves by his panicked murmuring.
Mevek doesn't enjoy the way the nobles look at him now. How they are wide-eyed at her. She knows she is taller, and fully matured, an adult, but that doesn't mean it is normal.
Although she has always been aware that the nobles have had some sort of strange desire for elegance, or whatever they called it, thrumming in their blood the way she has a thirst for death in hers, she had never cared for it. Now she finds it annoying. The Agvains never understood it as a group, though some individuals do, although their actions are not obsessive like that of the other clans and unaffiliated. Not for this at particular thing, at the very least.
She never had thought that good manners and a proper upbringing is what aroused people, but, it seems she was somewhat wrong.
It is not as if he doesn't like anything now. He has a good time with his clan, and with little Gentilus who is what would be a human teenager now. Gechutel and Elenor-gaju, as well as his daughter, are all welcome company. Very often he visits Mister Ran who is unaltered in attitude by his changes. Painting is a hobby that lets him forget everything but his hands. Talking to many others, however, as well as the lord and Ma'am Xuvunue has become slightly different.
He doesn't stop of course. Every Sunday he accompanies the Madam Noblesse as he did before. And he jokes with the lord whenever he is passing by. Like always he strikes up a conversation with any passing noble, but there is a tension. Still, she just ignores how they seem to have redder cheeks or how they develop a fidgeting habit. He averts his eyes to the signs for he has no interest in any but Elenor-gaju as long as the wizard noble lives. He pretends not to notice the signs of admiration and, other things, since he is too hesitant to refuse them without being sure of their feelings.
It really is uncomfortable.
Later, when they find out about how Mevek has a skill with weapons, and a closeness to death, only a few flinch back in fear when they see him. Even those whose bodies hold terror at his sight, at how when his hands slice off the life of a noble, his gentle smile remains, as if there is nothing wrong with what he is doing, still seem to adore him. And even the way her eyes widened with glee, the only part of her that showed how she truly felt, and blood splattered all over her, is seen as beautiful. It is strange, she thinks, that because her movements are smooth and graceful, that they cannot fear her. It is strange, she admits, that it only heightens their interest.
The ballroom is dark, but not crowded for how enormously large it is despite the number of nobles that are there. Calling for a party, the lord had it made mandatory, so, dressed up in clothes that aren't the usual black with gold lining, the nobles of Lukedonia had come.
In all honesty though, the only ones who really seem to be enjoying this are the Agvain clan, some of the gaju, if the way Loyard-gaju keeps on asking her auntie for a dance in every song that Elenor-gaju works his magic to play the instruments that he had created means anything, and a few other nobles who aren't as against socialising as their race seems to be. Mevek feels a smile tugging on his lips as he watches Ra-gaju, with his long white and yellow hair, in a high ponytail, being led in a dance by a young girl from the Ru clan with a scar on her chin and an older Drosia boy with some scary earrings along with other jewellery on him. Blerster-gaju and Miss Reim laugh, conversing, as they watch how the girl and boy blush around him. Mevek can feel the flushing red of love on his wrist and the blue respect for a gaju, but she can't tell which of the two has which emotion. Neither is she able to figure out why both are blushing if only one of them is in the deep straits with Ra-gaju. Then she feels three threads intertwined and bathed in a gentle green hue, and realises that it's probably because both of them are in those straits.
Most of the time she spends with Gechutel, talking to him about this or that as her eyes settle on Elenor-gaju and how he is busy with the music for the night. He can see the small smile on his face as he plays, and he grins at Mariah who stands by Mister Ran and Ser Lagus, letting her glance at her father happily.
Gentilus is busy with all that the lord has pushed onto her, but whenever she can, she comes to him, clutching onto his clothes with that blank expression. How she manages to look so nonchalant with everyone stepping on that long hair of hers makes Gechutel flinch, but Mevek just sighs and pats her head before putting an arm around her shoulder.
She's a cute kid, he thinks, despite how she's not really a kid but a proper adult now. She's a really cute kid, he decides.
The lord's sudden announcement is exactly that, sudden, where she demands Elenor-gaju to sing since he so enjoys that. Actually, she tells him to bless the night with his magic but he stares at her annoyed so she asks him to sing instead. It's the same thing really.
He plays one of the instruments with his own hands, while the others play their notes with his magic humming at them. It starts out beautiful, and then he begins to sing, which makes it exquisite.
Mevek can feel his words thrumming through her body, and her heart beats again from where it lay still. He sings, soft, yet with emotions so loud that not only can she feel them buzzing and wrapping themselves around her, but also how they glow in her head.
As she feels the way it touches her, she excuses herself and moves away, up to a small balcony where she can watch over what's going on without being scrutinised. She knows those words and what they mean, the way he has that forlorn tone but also a strong voice that doesn't waver. And when, for a brief moment that feels like eternity, their eyes meet and Elenor-gaju smiles at him, he understands.
He can't help the way he grins as tears run down his face, or how his eyes seem brighter than the moon. He ignores the quiet laughter that flows out of him, because, Elenor-gaju wrote a song for him, sang a song for their love, and though he is aware that this will be the last time he can feel like this. The last time he can be overjoyed because of him. He is happy.
When Elenor-gaju comes up to him after the song ends, and the nobles continue to keep their voices down below, he kisses him deeply. The way his arms are tight around him, or how they stumble for a moment before Elenor-gaju holds him up, are hidden from view. Mevek leans against him as they leave the party and move far away to a small lake by the outskirts where no noble comes, and they watch the reflection of the moon in those still waters. They watch the stars up above in the dark sky.
Deep in the night, times that never come to mind, he kisses Elenor-gaju deeply, and once again he is held close like the day the girl with red hair died.
He returns home in the morning, clothes neat, and sits in the living room, thinking of how the village or town, or whatever it can be called, around the manor and outside the rose garden, the place in which the Agvain nobles without sick children reside, and how empty it is. The young ones sleep, and he holds the ones who can't. Like this, with three tiny nobles in his arms, she waits and waits and waits, and only at afternoon does the clan return, tired from the party that the lord held. Her father smiles at her, remarking how she is lucky to have escaped since the lord only stopped it now. She smiles and agrees, though she mentions that she is sure Gentilus and Gechutel are not happy with her actions, nor Ma'am Xuvunue with whom he had spent an hour or so with. His father laughs and Mevek thinks about the touches that still linger on his skin. Of how he can feel the kisses upon his neck and body, the kisses upon his legs, and between them.
It was a good night.
When six hundred years have passed since Mariah was born, he comes to her.
Mevek's beloved comes to her in the depths of the Agvain garden when she is knelt flush against a bush of thorns and beautiful white roses. Strange is her clan's garden, with how their roses of whites, pinks and reds, and yellows, purples and oranges, stay in bloom the entire year. They do not close or wither off and die after they open up their petals, only increase in girth and height and flowers as the plants grow. Though even these things will become nothing more than fertilizer for the dirt if they do not feed them or keep pests away.
So it is there, where he pulls out the starting of a choking vine from beneath a bush where it was hidden well, when Elenor-gaju comes to him.
"Mevek," he calls in that beautiful voice of his, "The depths of rest call for me."
His hands freeze around the roots and stem in them, and he forces himself to face his love. It is hard because of how tired he looks and the longing that racks his body. Difficult, since Elenor-gaju is ransacked and destroyed by their separation. By how they are not allowed to be and the way they have avoided any touch deeper than a tug on a sleeve or a hug between mere friends. For the emptiness has filled him so greatly that there is little of him left but a ghost that wanders through Lukedonia and its land and sea and stone for a love that is lost to the cold of those around them.
So it's with a shaky breath that Mevek looks at him. A shaky breath with all that she feels for Elenor-gaju and the realisation that even though he knew this would happen soon, he is not prepared for it.
He wants to hold his hand under the moon and stars of the sky that is darker than the void again. By the springs near the Mergas clan's territory, where hot water gushes out and he likes to bathe on cold nights, she wants to show him the splendours of white-foamed waters that hold heat and weight compared to that of the sea. Wants him to stay with her through the talk of the gaju with the lord that is never interesting when she becomes the gaju of the Agvain clan. Even though she knows it isn't something the nobles would approve of, something that would make them disapprove, something that they wouldn't care for.
Always she thought that the opinions of the nobles wouldn't matter for she loved him. It is not as simple as that though. And she is aware of it. Aware of how his love is one who cannot live without the other nobles. Of how such a thing would be disastrous for him and ruin him entirely. It would dig deep into his core and tear it apart. Such a thing, he knows, isn't good, he can't allow it to happen.
Because even though Elenor-gaju is a ghost now. Even though his eyes are clouded and his speech faint. Even with how he is distant from the world. At least he smiles at Mevek and hums a little tune for him when he asks. At least he can hold his daughter close and praise her. Scold her when she is wrong, raise her like a parent should, and give her the love she needs. He still talks to Gechutel and spends time with him. Still participates in the meetings that the lord calls, still feels and thinks and lives in his death. Even when the nobles pity him, for they think he mourns his human love rather than the gaunt grave that they dug for him, he smiles at them.
That wouldn't happen if they found out. He wouldn't be a ghost, for even such creatures still need a soul or feelings or thoughts, and he would have none of that. There would be nothing left of him because it would tear him apart, into shreds, and he may have nothing of him left. Not even the slightest part would remain. And there would be naught which would rest in Blood Witch or to remember him by as time passed. When the nobles of now would all be gone and there would be none to talk of him, he would not be remembered. He would not exist
So it is for him that Mevek doesn't kiss him like she wants to in front of the other nobles. Doesn't hold him close even though her heart longs to and her blood, her body, her burning heat that flares and crackles in her body, lusts for him.
She wants to sit beside him, skin touching and hands clasped tight, like they did in that little village where his sister with her bright red hair told them that they would get their happy ending. Wants to sit on the grass, curled up by his side as Elenor-gaju strokes his hair and sings. Sings with that voice he loves because he hasn't heard a single song from him for over three centuries and his heart aches.
It's not fair, he thinks.
"Do not grieve," he says, smiling, "When I am gone do not hate them, do not hate yourself. Fall in love again Mevek, I beg this of you."
Elenor-gaju takes his hands, warming them, for even the nobles feel hot when he is freezing, kissing him softly under the shade of the trees and tall rose bushes. Kisses the tears from Mevek's eyes, tears that he can't stop, tears that are too much, too fast, for him to kiss away all of them. Tears that turn his silence into shuddering gasps and sobs, and, as the cold bursts into his hands, as ice grows on his face, they turn into soul shattering cries and wails.
He cannot feel the warmth that was just enveloping his hands and touching his face. Cannot feel the heat of the air by his face, or smell the worn clothes and books that have no place in this garden. Cannot see the black, or browns of every shade, that was just there as his tears blur everything out. Wet on his face and dropping to the ground the same way he does, his pain only makes him louder, more stricken with grief, and brings to where she is members of her clan.
But no matter how they try to console her, no matter how they try to reassure her, she only pushes them away when they dare to touch her, and continues to cry. They bring her father and her auntie next and she quiets as they come next to her, quiets and her clan feels a relief because they see her calm.
And she is. She is calm. Cool as can be with the ice cold fire burning in her veins and making her mind clear like a crystal. Clearer than it has ever been.
She thinks of how the fault lies with her clan, and the Elenors, for they are the ones who believed in that factless myth. Believed in the fate that tore her from her love. Caused Elenor-gaju to fall into a bottomless pit that took from him everything. Of how if it wasn't for the Agvains and the Elenors causing the other nobles to disapprove of any relationship between two from their clans, she could hold him, kiss him, love him unto days of golden morning glory and silver parades.
It is that which breaks everything that kept her in place. That which rids her of the chains and shackles that kept her quiet and sweet and not at all who she is. Not at all the person that his love pulled close to.
It is that, which makes him scream at his father and auntie. Scream and wail and tear at his hair. Tear out his right eye. He blames them for letting Elenor-gaju pass like this. Cries as he calls them horrible because if it wasn't for them he wouldn't have had to hide in alcoves and hidden paths and shadows just to talk to him alone for a moment. Wouldn't have had to need for him and want and lust for him in the way that made his heart shake and his body burn. Lets his words vibrate with his agony and sobs of how they had to pretend as if he loved a human woman, even though she was merely a sister to his love, instead of being able to feel cold skin against his. Not ever getting the chance to love him freely under these skies like he wanted to. Like he should have been able to.
"It's not fair," he says, finally, voice broken and quiet and falling into silence.
A bloody heap of healed skin is what he is left as. There are no wounds, nothing, to show how he has torn out his own hair, or how his flesh had been sliced and pulled open to the bone. His organs have returned to his body even though he still has one lung squeezed to bits all over his hands and intestines ripped around his arms and fallen on his lap. A terrifying sight she must be, covered in her own blood for once in her life. A terrifying sight her right eye must be, for she can only see a dim grey view with it, because it shows just how violent she was.
She doesn't care though. Doesn't care for how she looks, only for how he feels like he's in pieces. Doesn't in the slightest bit care, or even notice, how his clan has left for they could not stomach her actions, and how his father and auntie stare at her, horrified.
The next day, when he is alone in his room, Gechutel comes. It is his friend who comforts him, because there is no other that understands his grief. For it is not the grief of a mourning person, but that of one wronged, and crying for all who have been wronged.
He looks at her with pity, and she smiles. Only he of all who have visited her have given her that face. Have thought, that despite how strong she is, how lovely and dear and perfect, that she needs such a feeling. It is fitting. Of course it is his friend that kept his secret all this time and will keep his secrets for forevermore that knows he needs someone to think him weak and pathetic. To hug him the way he does.
He cries again on Gechutel's shoulder, but this time it isn't a storm that comes out of his throat. Not knowing what it is could be unpleasant, but not now when his fingers grip the smooth fabric of his shirt and his eyes burn for some reason or another. Not when she's starting to feel slightly better.
She doesn't know how long she spends being still like that. Only when she walks out of her room and bids Gechutel a nice night does she see that it is two nights after whence he came.
The following day is the official appointment of the next gaju in the Elenor clan and Mevek stands silent by a pillar where he is hidden from view. It is far from where the others stand, but he doesn't particularly care, all he can see is the bright red of her hair.
After the ceremony is over, a short thing with little finery, he and Gechutel move off to a secluded room. They talk about how things used to be, and how they will change. Of the hardships that the new gaju, she can't call her daughter Elenor-gaju no matter how she tries, for there is a lump in her throat that she can't speak around or swallow, will face.
A little too loud, she says, "If it wasn't for the fact that I shall be the next gaju of the Agvain, I would join Elenor-gaju in his sleep. Dear to me and my heart was he, and the blood daughter of he and his sister is as well."
"I can understand that," Gechutel says, voice easy to hear, "since he was my friend, but you loved him. It truly is a shame that another has once again fallen victim to that rumour of Agvains and Elenors. There is doubt whether it is even true."
They continue to talk on other topics, ignoring how steps had frozen outside the room at those words, and the way they hurried away. Neither do they admit to knowing why the new gaju opposes the law that keeps the two clans apart. All Mevek does is smile as Gechutel stands silently beside her, and laughs when it is finally abolished, with little Gentilus who is an adult now blushing softly, merely out of familial love, at her happiness.
She really does feel invigorated.
Sometimes whenever Mevek talks to his clan, his father and aunt, the atmosphere is tenser than it used to be. Even after decades have passed. It's fine though. She has forgiven her clan, though she often thinks that they don't deserve it, or that she'd rather forget than forgive. The same goes for the Elenors, except that they aren't aware of her feelings.
They've made up though. Somewhat. Despite everything, Mevek loves his father and auntie dearly. Loves them and still sleeps by his father's side when he feels scared, though nowadays that means lonely. Especially with how Gechutel has become more busy with his mother, Landegre-gaju, making him deal with more responsibilities. Gentilus is by his side often, but she too does many things, carrying out duties that the current lord would never do, would never care for. Would never see as important. So she isn't always there, and though he adores Ma'am Xuvunue, she makes him feel awkward with the way she drinks her tea while he abstains from it. He cannot stand the drink so he does not visit her except on Sundays or else he knows he will be forced to down that horrid drink. The only ones, out of all the flavours, that he actually likes, are the plain milk tea and the pink tea.
So all he's left with among the nobles who don't mind his social ways, for many are unable to withstand how he doesn't take his time, is Mister Ran, Ra-gaju, Mergas-gaju, Loyard-gaju, and his own clan. She does visit them often, for they treat her as they've always done, and comfort her. He's always been used to Mergas-gaju's blushing too, so it doesn't bother him. Yet he can't talk to them like he does with those he's closer too.
Mevek's been feeling his heart race whenever he is with Mister Ran though, when he is close to him and their skin touches or he feels the cold warmth of the strange noble spreading from his fingertips to his hands and arms and the rest of his body. It makes him feel guilty, because you can't call it long since Elenor-gaju has been gone from his sight.
Even now she can't seem to say his name, no matter how hard she tries, and it hurts how everyone seems to be able to do it except for her.
So because she still loves him. Loves that Elenor who she wasn't allowed to be with. She's been staying away from Mister Ran for a slight while.
That's why she can only resort to wandering Lukedonia alone when she can't have the attention from someone in her clan.
Like he does now.
His hair, short only compared to Gentilus', is drenched by the rain. He could dry it off and keep the storm from seeping into him the same way that his emotions do. Could keep it from freezing him inside out and finally see clearly again. He doesn't do that. Instead he goes to stand in that little spot of his in the rose garden.
It's his because of that incident that keeps any Agvain from wandering there. Mevek finds that whenever he walks aimlessly, no matter how far he is from here, his feet lead him to this patch of earth. Nobody comes here so she never gets disturbed, and, she supposes that that's probably a good thing.
Only her father and aunt ever come for her, Miss Kunzki and her husband used to but they passed two decades ago, and so did the last elders from her youth in the previous year. His aunt though, has locked herself up and away for the last month after another of her daughters, his cousin with that pretty hair and dark skin of the Loyard-gaju, went to rest, with no signs of coming out for a while. His father, too, is out in the human world, just recently recovering from how his own daughter had gone to sleep.
It hurts Mevek too. Shreds him up inside with a blunt knife, and eats away at him with some sort of acid, because this is the second of his sisters that he has watched fade away. Already he's had three siblings, and he knows his father won't try for anymore, knows that his father is lucky that she survived since she was his first child. Since for every living Agvain, there are three who do not get to live the life that they deserve. That they should have had.
It's not why she's here though. There's no particular reason really. So she stands there, feet unmoving from the lush grass and overgrown weeds, they don't get rid of those because they do no harm, only stranglers are killed, for days and days and days. And nobody comes to her. And she goes to nobody. Merely stays there doing nothing. Only being absolutely still as dawn and dusk go by, as birds chirp and insects make those sounds of theirs, as animals wander about her, some nuzzling into her. He moves slightly then, if only to pet them or stroke their scales if they are by his hand. Otherwise he just smiles, though it is small it is true and gentle and sweet, as a snake slithers over his foot or a rabbit huddles by him or some sparrows rest on her shoulders and head and hair.
It's with a squirrel nestled in the crook of her neck that she hears her father coming her way, with someone else, someone very human yet very not, following him. She raises her head and sees the man with a patch of blue on his eyelid and face against his skin, not light, but not dark like some mere play. Dark like the cold of moonless nights. Gold eyes don't glint or flash, swirling like molten metal, as his curly red hair bounces with his every step.
The more she notices, the quicker she realises, but keeps her face from revealing what she thinks. Quirking a brow or snorting would be too much of an answer.
Especially with how his father's face seems to glow with happiness and he's smiling like he does whenever he holds Mevek close. That lets him decide that he's going to do everything to make sure that nothing ever comes in between the two. For he notices that soft blush upon the man, and his tender glances at his father.
The way he seems to look at him like he is the whole world, and how his eyes seem to follow him around. With those light steps that perfectly keep up, the peace upon his figure, and those crosses resting on either side of his head.
Yes, Mevek thinks, his father has found a good man to love.
"Mevek, I wish to introduce you to this man," his father says, "He is–"
"I know," she cuts him off, "Adam is it not?"
She laughs softly at her father's stunned look and how the man nods, confused.
"I have heard of you from Lily," she says, half in explanation, half pondering to herself, "He called you a human prototype. The first of the humans, and the last, the only really, of them."
She tucks the hair in front of her right eye behind her ear, and mutters fully to herself.
"You are immortal and unlike us will not die at all. Not to mention that you have had a lot of children, though none by your own blood so far except for one daughter. Out of countless."
Facing them, she grins.
"I approve father. You have a good one. Not as great as my Elenor-gaju but–" she sighs, shaking her head "–not everybody has my great taste."
She sees how her father smiles, relief apparent, and the way Adam blinks. All she can think of is how he's oozing with a fatherly vibe and she already knows she's going to be fed well. Also, he has rough hands, and, she thinks amused, that's always a good thing.
She'll paint this.
Mevek thinks about how Mister Ran looks at her differently now as she walks deep inside the Tradio gardens. It only started two, maybe three years ago, definitely not something that a noble would consider long.
She certainly doesn't.
Because she knows that long is those two nights that she had spent with Elenor-gaju, or the kisses they shared in secret when they were hiding. Long is the grief that has made its home in her, and will never leave, since she will always regret how Elenor-gaju ended. Will always pain over the state of their love.
So no, the way that Mister Ran's eyes linger on her body, every part of it as if he adores it all, or how he seems more distracted these days despite still being perfect in his work, has not been happening for a long time. The fact that he seems to love her, well, it only ignites the fire coiled up in her core and makes her heart hammer. It only causes her to feel that heat in her body and the way it rages, threatening to burn up her body.
Faintly, she thinks, as she comes to stand in the middle of a small clearing where all of the sky is still blocked out and the only light is the soft blue glow of some of the strange plants the Tradio raise, a disaster is more likely to come just by making her fall in love than a union of an Agvain and an Elenor. For she loves deeply, greatly, and she's afraid that her fire will burst out of her and destroy all that is around her. Afraid that it will consume everything and so there are shackles around her form that limit her.
Honestly though, he doesn't care much for it, he wouldn't want to frighten anyone. And he thinks, breath hitching, eyes widening, he really has it bad for Mister Ran.
All he did was smile at her, eyes lighting up when Mevek arrived, but the fact that his hair is sprawled over his back instead of over his shoulder is making her blush. If it was anyone else they would probably be red and horribly put together, but even at times like this she is composed. There's only a slight pink under her eyes, and Mister Ran will simply assume that she's admiring the garden as always like some sort of ignorant idiot. In the end, he is a noble, and that means that he isn't too good with love.
"Good afternoon," she says, and stares at him as he gets up, dusting the dirt off of him.
She keeps her eyes on the markings on his face, on how that black, with its ever changing tint of blue or green or red, or some other pretty colour, runs down his neck and over his collarbones, before being hidden by his clothes. They are on his palms too, she can see them peeking out of his long sleeves, and a few times he's folded them up to do his work so she knows that they cover his arms in beautiful swirls like ink and dyes twirled on with a smooth brush, but not on the back of his hands. Not like they are everywhere else at least. They curl around his fingers and rest on his knuckles, his wrists have them too, but not the rest of his hands' back. They are blank, untouched, free from those patterns. It only makes him more striking though, if the way she stares at him and those hands of his is any indication.
Mister Ran smiles at her and replies, "It is a good one indeed. I know your answer already to this question, but I really must ask."
There is a teasing look to his face and, Mevek is reminded of the fae with their strangeness and words, and because he is fixated on those markings, he remembers seeing how many fae had all manner of bodies and symbols and strange marks upon them. And he thinks of how he is truly an idiot since he never saw how the Tradio clan are reminiscent of them till now. Never connected their magic and affinity with nature, their looks and markings that many of them hid out of shame, or the words that Mister Ran spoke, to those beings.
Despite how humans warned of the proper way to speak to them, and how not to fall for their tricks. Despite how he learnt to never tell any of them his name or trade with something he cared for or that if you can trick them with Ainsel you should. Despite how the fae are mysterious people who live long lives and who don't think like humans or have their morals or value the same things as them, or even other fae. Even with all those hints in his face, he really didn't realize the truth until now.
So when the man, one of the fair folk, in front of him stretches his hand out, and asks, "May I have your name?"
Like a fool, he gives it to him.
"Yes," he says, taking his hand with a smile on his lips, "It is Mevek Agvain."
Mister Ran's eyes widen briefly, out of shock and what seems like some sort of overload. As if he is learning of everything, and when he looks at Mevek with a knowing look and amused smirk, he supposes that it would be better to say that he learnt everything about him. Never did he think that giving his name would let that happen but it only seems right.
Mister Ran moves and holds his wrist instead of his hand, leading him. Mevek follows, trying not to shiver at the chill that runs over his entire body, caressing and touching and surrounding him. Laying a claim on him that won't vanish so easily.
He can feel how Mister Ran laughs at him for it, and the way his hand moves up from his wrist to his arm and the way it is louder than the silent laughter echoing in his mind. So focused is he on the cold touch that he doesn't notice how Ran-gaju has stopped and stumbles into him, barely noticing the surroundings.
There is some sort of pool with blessed water that has warm steam filling the air and making it misty. It's still easy enough to see, and he can tell that the only light in this place is from the dim glow of the water. There is not even any from the plants.
It is as he stumbles that he notices this, and when he falls backwards he is caught, but he can't stand properly for there is a grip upon his neck that makes it hard to breathe. Mister Ran holds him, a hand on his back, the other behind his head, and slowly guides him to some sort of plant or rock. It isn't flat, but has some steepness, though he still rests on it easily when he is gently put down onto it. His legs, his entire lower body in honesty, dangle over the edge of the strange structure, hard yet comfortable. A slightly sweet scent and its wisps of grey-green fill his nose.
Mevek finds it difficult to be calm, body stiff as he stares up. He can't see much, only the dark. Branches block the light of the bright blue sky, and he feels a slight panic in his heart. A slight nervousness that makes his hands tremble against the structure.
"Do not worry," Mister Ran says, leaning over him , "I will take care of you."
It doesn't do much to help him, and he is sure that Ran-gaju knows this. It is obvious from the way he frowns and his mouth tightens, concern lining his face.
Moving in closer, he whispers softly into his ear. "Relax Mevek Agvain."
His muscles loosen at those words, and his mind is hazy. This, he thinks, barely being able to, is what a fae can do with a name, but he can't find himself loathing it. Rather, he likes how Mister Ran leans over him, one hand heavy on his thigh and the other touching his stomach under the fabric of his dress. His legs are tight around him, because he is between them, and he can't help the bright blush as he is kissed.
Describing it is hard, because Mevek hasn't been kissed like this before. It's not rough or possessive, but he closes his eyes and has his arms around Mister Ran, pulling him close. As he gasps under him, breathless but still lost and struggling to keep his eyes closed and struggling to open them, he feels the heat inside him become unbearable, and the chill on his skin keeping it contained.
This, he thinks, will kill him in a different way then the two nights he spent with Elenor-gaju.
Learning that those markings really do cover Mister Ran's whole body, however, makes it a fair trade.
When Mevek learns of the lord and her decision to sleep, he is grieved.
It is true that he wasn't always okay with her company. Wasn't okay with her crush or how she never seemed to take care of Gentilus too well. Though that's more because he is an Agvain and it is in their nature to be as such.
So, Mevek cares for the lord and the gaju and the nobles who have decided to enter eternal sleep. Cares for them and will miss them. Will miss calling their names for his tongue has always been forthcoming with them, will miss their voices that could not speak or show their emotions the way their eyes could, will miss his auntie because of all who will pass he is closest to her. There is Loyard-gaju who he knows well for his auntie loves her, and Ra-gaju with whom he has drank milk with alone instead of the tea they downed unwillingly when visiting Ma'am Xuvunue. She'll feel strange not greeting Landegre-gaju every Saturday night when she drops Gechutel off at his home. Reim-gaju will stay, for she is loyal to the Madam Noblesse, rather than the lord.
Mevek is still glad though, even as she watches so many parts of her heart disappear, for Ran-gaju holds her hand in both of his. His tears drop on them, fast and cold, just like the rest of him. Freezing is the real description of it, and it hurts dreadfully, but as he holds her hand to his eyes, sobbing with his face down and hair tossed about in a mess so that she can't see him, she stays quiet. Listening to the way his body rejects the deaths of these people, she gives a fleeting smile to her father who nods his head at her. He knows what she means and he doesn't worry at her face devoid of anything that could twist it. Her face empty of anything that would mar it to tears.
Later, not long later but rather as something that is soon in coming, she takes him back to the Tradio manor under the white light of the sun and lays him to rest in his bed. He tells her, hands grasping tightly onto hers, that he won't leave her. Won't leave her be if he has the choice. She looks at his eyes, desperately pleading to her with that tired vibe, looks at the way the skin of his knuckles is tight and paler than should be, and sits intertwined with him. Until he falls asleep, an impressive feat for few nobles ever sleep, she is by his side, and she thinks that he is a pretty sight when sleeping, so she kisses him softly on his forehead before leaving.
Despite all the pain that stings her heart, Mevek is happy as she goes to the Elenor manor and sees how it looks more like a celestial star or a lace doll than some ghost obsessed noble's abode against the dark of the night. When she sits in the room that is hidden under a cupboard containing the names of all the animals in the world, she smiles softly. The room with no lights and curtains drawn, where there is only one chair there that seems tailored exactly to her comfort, in which sheets of white cover what she knows are instruments of all sorts that are set in the last position they were ever used in.
With Elenor-gaju's daughter, one of the only three alive who know of this room, for the third is Gechutel, sitting by her feet, she feels satisfaction tingling in her fingers as she strokes her hair. There is something else, several somethings, that lay heavy in her stomach. And she thinks that one of them is probably the fact that she is relieved her daughter, for if she is Elenor-gaju's she is hers, did not join the lord in her sleep.
Mevek is ecstatic, really, when she goes to Gechutel and he holds her shoulder with that gentle grip, telling her she will be okay. Or when Gentilus hugs her and says that she needs to take a nap with her eyebrows furrowed. She definitely feels joy, even her father knows that when she curls up in his arms, leaning in as close to him as she can. But she also has a tight chest and an aching mind. When her father holds her, silently, she can't control how the tears rush out of her, hot and burning and scalding. Cries into his clothes and sniffs with a fiery abandon that drives her thoughts wild. That lets her grieve for those who are gone eternally now. So with all her emotions leaving with the last of her tears, out of her body, her breathing calms.
Finally, with her father humming an old lullaby into her ears, she falls asleep.