Burn Faster [Aurin]

[Arvælyn]

"Burn Faster"

The 62nd of Searing
121st Year of the Age of Steel
Continued from "Print Lead & Paint it Gold"

"It's not a trick, it's..." Arry's reflexive response was to counter that mischaracterisation. Now, more than ever, Arry understood the breadth of the ability and to hear it reduced to a mere parlour trick struck him as somehow insulting. To Arry, it was something intensely intimate, now, and inextricably linked to Finn. He'd never explored anyone more thoroughly, after all. But, after that initial knee jerk reaction, Arry recognised what was more important- That Aurin had invited him to use the ability, at all. The last time he'd slipped into Aurin's symphony, it had been paradigm-shifting in the worst way. They'd had bigger fights, but nothing had ever shifted their relationship as much as that unfortunate interaction. To Arry's mind, they'd never really come back from it.

"Really, or are you being flip?" The half-elf furrowed his brow, and studied Aurin's face- surprised to find that, once more, he was in earnest.

"Very well." He conceded softly. He didn't even acknowledge the drink that was placed down in front of him, instead focusing entirely on Aurin's eyes. They may as well have been alone in all the world. He turned his wrist upward in his lap, and the rune hummed with energy as he extended his feelers to explore Aurin's energy.

A pang of guilt flashed in the back of his mind, wondering whether this was some sort of betrayal of Finn. It hadn't been defined as such, certainly, and so he was able to rationalise the worry away- or at least bury it for the time being to focus on Aurin's emotions, rather than his own.

[Aurin]

Fuck around and find out, he almost said, but it would have sounded flip and he was trying to prove that he was in earnest, so he swallowed it down and just nodded shortly. He felt a tingle under his bicep as he engaged one of his own tricks. It was one thing to let Arry in, but it was quite another to let him use magic on him without at least Seeing what was going on. He saw tendrils of what was Arry reach out to touch him, and he could feel it in a way, at least through his rune, which translated things into the normal five senses, or at least his mind tried to do that. They looked tentative as though Arry's soul was afraid that he would rage at him at a moment's notice, which he supposed he did deserve. He still didn't want anyone, let alone someone he cared about using magical tricks upon him, especially without his knowledge or permission, but he could have handled it better, taken a moment instead of just reacting.

If he needed proof that he had misstepped, then it was this latent fear he had planted in his ward, like a beaten dog cringes even when someone reaches out to pet them.

But rather than let guilt and darker things rise up, he tried to focus on his feelings for Arry, thinking perhaps that would make it easier on the lad. He didn't really know how it worked, though perhaps they really ought to share some details about their tricks so the other was better informed about what was out there and how it all worked.

There was that first sharp shock of admiration back in Antiris, recognition of someone who could very well be like him, and the strange lunch in the taproom that solidified things enough that he reached out from behind his walls to offer a hand in earnest. The regret when he didn't show. The surprise when he did show up in Kalzasi a year or so later, and then the strange development of almost paternal feelings that grew into bristling affection and then into something deeper that his mind refused to put a name to but his heart accepted as truth. It was a part of him now; Arry was a part of him now. He couldn't see that going away.

And still, there was the admiration, which had been a spark of intuition at first, but now he knew Arry as well as anyone did. For a moment, his mind dwelled on the sexual attraction and the fulfillment he had felt when filling Arry—at least after it had given over from being educative—but he tried to quell those wants because they wouldn't be welcome now he had a proper beau. Arry wanted his picture-perfect life, after all. But Aurin had admired the lad with the gall to pick pockets, the wit to weasel out of trouble, but most of all, the wisdom to accept an outstretched hand. He knew now that he himself had been offered ways out of the life he had hated for so long, but had never been willing to take a chance on someone else. Arry had. Now Arry would tread the boards of the Golden Peacock Theater, then make love to his pretty bard, and life would be caviar and champagne as he wanted. And Aurin would always be there to support that.

The server had gone. Finally, his eyes dropped to the fine tablecloth. He could feel Arry's trick surrounding him, but he reached for his drink. He didn't like being vulnerable, especially in public, but Arry deserved to know.

[Arvælyn]

Having been afforded permission, a rare and unexpected opportunity, Arry was very gentle at first. His tendrils made a tender advance, slowly and cautiously as they wove amidst Aurin's melodies. He hummed quietly to himself, unconscious of the fact that he was doing so, as his aetheric exploration extended further and he began to receive emotional information from the other symphony- doing his best to silence his own to pianissimo, as not to influence or overpower as he tended to fumble into doing.

The nostalgia felt wistful, once he was able to hear it through the quick stings of guilt and the consistent hum of reluctance. Without being able to see what Aurin was envisioning, he still received a sensation of first impressions and suspected that the human was thinking on their first meeting. There was a bit of common ground there, between Arry's own feelings and Aurin's at that fateful encounter. But it was still very different. Arry had begun to learn from Finn that different people could feel the same basic emotion in very different ways. Aurin felt more alien to him than Finn had, in a way. Perhaps because he was more experienced, or more cynical- which tended to obscure or mute the potency of an emotion.

Within his own symphony, a new motif was descanting relief from the aetheric hangover he'd been experiencing earlier. The colour was returning to his cheeks and his tendrils grew bolder and extended farther. That was when he found what Aurin had let him inside to express, and both of their symphonies seemed to hold at a fermata- The chord was beautifully layered- a complex blend of consonance and dissonance that was euphoric even where the notes seemed to clash. Perhaps more so for that conflict.

Arry gasped at the sensation, but allowed their energies to linger intermingling for a long moment. The fermata elapsed, and the symphony sung on- of the present and the future, and of loyalty that felt to Arry like sacrifice.

"Oh." He said, as he sat back taking in a deep breath as he began to slowly, gingerly withdraw his exploratory incursion into Aurin's soul.

"Well." He let out a long, sigh- wincing at their connection was severed when the last tendril peeled itself away from the comforting Saviour's Symphony in which it had been enveloped. "You should have just said so." He cracked a smile and reached for his cocktail with a hand that now seemed to quiver when he held it aloft. He held the stem of the glass for a moment, waiting until his hand was steady, before lifting the coupe to his lips for a salty sip of the spirit.

[Aurin]

"Probably," he mumbled, suddenly exhausted. He couldn't help but feel violated in a sense even though he had invited the trick. A surreptitious glance up showed him that the exchange, if that was what it was, had brought the golden glow back to his young friend, which made it all worthwhile even if he felt drained. His smile was wan. Of course, he should have said something, or no, perhaps he ought to have been more of an ass, the better to toughen Arry up and wean him from Aurin's aid. There was a certainty in the bedrock of his image of himself that told him in no uncertain terms that everything he touched would turn to shit and everyone he cared for was better off without him.

Sometimes, he could quell the voices, do what he had to do to build things, and take care of those rare few who mattered to him.

Sometimes, he could not.

"So," he said, and then left it there for a while. He took another gulp of his drink and would surely be needing another quite soon. It was confusing to exist in the wake of sharing like that. Aurin felt as though he should tell Arry he was beautiful because he was one of the most beautiful people he had ever met. He felt as though they should forget dinner, go back to his place, and fuck because his mind had trouble parsing the intimacy. But he knew Arry had his minstrel now and that it wouldn't be welcome, or would just hurt him more in the end.

So.

"Just ask next time?" His voice was quiet. "I mean, if you doubt. Or I suppose you don't have to ask if I'm in your audience. Perhaps it'll shore up your confidence to know you always have a fan listening."

[Arvælyn]

"So." Arry replied by echoing Aurin's placeholder and lifting his briny drink back to his lips for a heftier sip. The silence hung over them like the moons on a cloudless night, until Aurin followed up with a recommendation.

"It never occurred to me..." He frowned, "And I'm not sure I would have known what to ask, or..." Or whether it mattered, he thought, as he trailed off letting that thought go unspoken. He swallowed it down with another gulp of his quickly dwindling cocktail.

"I knew that you cared about me. I just... Didn't know precisely how. Now I've felt how you feel." And it made him sad, but he didn't say so. He sighed and leaned across the table slightly, quietly singing as not to be heard over the surrounding chatter of guests and clatter of silverware against dishes.

"If we were perfect strangers,
I'd find my way with ease.
I'd know the path before me,
the forest from the trees..." He hung onto the final word a tad longer than the melody called for. Another fermata, but this one was a cadence followed by silence as he slowly sat back.

"Well." He glanced down, "In any case, thank you for sharing that with me. I hope the sensation wasn't too unpleasant..." But, of course, Arry knew precisely how unpleasant it had been, because he'd been exploring Aurin's emotions as he was feeling them- Including those emotions impacted by the Mesmer effect itself or, as Aurin would call it, his 'trick'.

"Do you..." He paused, realising the exchange had been one way, "...did you want to feel my symphony? I can project my feelings, if you like, but I imagine you already have the gist considering I'm not the strong, silent type like you."

[Aurin]

Aurin probably should have known the song, but while he had a decent ear for talent, he didn't recall specific pieces of art quite so well as Arry and others did. A philistine, he had been called. And yet, he would be managing the finances of a rather august artistic institution. Though finances would be his focus, he knew that the people pulling the purse strings had more artistic clout than most acknowledged. Of course, he was going to spend most of that getting Arry in the door and then go back to bookkeeping until he had accrued more.

But if he didn't remember the song, he could understand the lyrics.

"I did it for," he said with the faintest hesitation, "you." He meant us, but he knew the word was loaded and he didn't want to be accused of sabotaging Arry's burgeoning love affair. That certainly wasn't his intention, but he didn't have Arry's knack for reading a person's emotions. He could only rely on his five senses and his intuition.

He considered the offer, then rubbed his chin.

"I don't know," he said finally. "I think I would just convince myself you were trying to make me feel better." Finishing his drink, he caught a passing server's attention to ask for another, eying Arry's drink to see if he was ready for another. Who knew alcohol would drive away his not-hangover?

A part of him wanted the reassurance or even the knowledge that somehow Arry understood his dumbassed way of trying to make things better for him, but he didn't know if he would believe it, which wasn't Arry's fault. There was the spectre of when he had tried to manipulate him into feeling better in the middle of a fight, which he knew intellectually might have been more well-intentioned reflex than anything else, but there were parts of him that were raw nerves pulled taught like fiddle strings, just waiting for Arry to draw his bow across them and make them sing.

[Arvælyn]

"I know you did." Arry replied promptly, firmly and reassuringly. "There were motifs of sacrifice in your Symphony. Rather prominent, really..." He bit his lip,

"Fair enough. I have more control when I'm listening than when I'm projecting, anyway." He admitted, "Sometimes when I'm projecting emotions, they influence things more than I intend. That is to say, sometimes when I'm just seeking to share my Symphony I end up manipulating the Symphonies of others." It sounded like a point of embarrassment and regret for the young half-elf, judging from his slight grimace and downcast eyes. He nodded, without looking up, at the tacit offer of another cocktail. With another on the way, he took a more substantial sip of the one before him.

"It is a strange thing to be inextricably bound to another person. It's-..." He paused for a beat, "But no. No, it isn't a strange thing. It's the most normal thing in the world, isn't it? It's nowt but..." He took another gulp of his spirit, and sighed,

"Family." The word might have been Synnskrit for how alien it sounded on his tongue, just then. Of all the designations he'd attributed to Aurin over the years- Saviour, lover, employer, teacher... had he ever thought of him as family? Perhaps not explicitly- Not in those terms, but that was only because those terms were unfamiliar. Now that he was sitting across the table truly thinking on the winding path of their concourse, it seemed as plain as day.

"You're my fucking family." He blurted out the realisation aloud in a manner unusually indelicate for Arry when he sat in a fine dining establishment, but the revelation was potent enough to pierce his sense of decorum. "...Did you realise that before I did? Am I an idiot?"

[Aurin]

"All right, all right, don't get—" but even though this was the gentlest response that came to mind, he cut it off. He looked around a bit, looking like a fish out of water, then steeled himself to meet Arry's golden gaze. It had seemed so alien once and now they were the eyes he knew best. He swallowed a few times, unnecessarily. He was just grateful another drink was en route and that he didn't have to make any more decisions about his food.

His jaw clenched. He took a deep breath.

"M'sorry. This is fraught for me." Each short sentence came around a clenched knot in his throat. "Yes," tore out of him. "Please."

His eyes shot to Arry's once more. It was the closest to begging he could bring himself, but as much as he thought Arry would be better off climbing his back to achieve his place in the theater and then cut him off, the part of him that wasn't the role he had created for himself needed Arry to keep him around, to know him, to be a witness to his life—as much as he could share, as much as the half-elf could suss out on his own, with or without his heart-trick.

He didn't want to think about Galeas and Ava. He didn't want to think about Cathena City, the Republic of Cathena, or many of the places he had been on his long walk to Kalzasi. Things might claw their way out of history to come for him, but he was doing what he could to set up the people he cared about and maintain enough distance that they wouldn't be harmed when the past came back to haunt him.

"Oh, thanks the Gods," he said more fervently than Arry had ever heard him say when he saw their next round of drinks arriving. The server assured him that the meal would be quick on their heels, and Aurin nodded, drinking already, and then thanked the man.

[Arvælyn]

"I know, luv, I know..." Arry offered consolingly, extending his hand slightly across the table, but pausing it midway rather than reaching all the way to touch Aurin.

"We already are." He affirmed with a wan smile, "Have been for a long time, I just... didn't know what to call it, because it had been so long. And because the family I was born with weren't so... familial." He sniggered grimly and used the other hand to down the remnants of his first drink.

His Rune was still warm from having just used it, and Aurin's emotion was potent enough to made the tendrils prickle up. Arry had the presence of mind to stay them from advancing and latching onto Aurin's symphony, but they were at attention, as if aware of the momentous nature of this exchange.

Arry had been seeking, without realising it, a way to define his relationship to Aurin. Family just felt right. They hadn't been born connected, but they hadn't become friends in a normal way either. Circumstance had thrown them together, and they'd made something of it. They cared for one another, loved one another, and actively sought out ways to further entwine their lives and advance one another's stations. It may not have been what either of them knew of family, but Arry knew it was what family was supposed to be.

The half-elf chuckled at Aurin's enthusiasm for his latest libation.

"Is sharing your feelings really as traumatic as all that?" He shook his head in amusement as he reached for the new glass, and lifted it.

"Whatever the case- Here's to family. The kind you choose, not the kind you're born with."

[Aurin]

"It is," he said, terse, but more relaxed, "but worth it, I think. For you." His face looked like it wanted to smirk; some men just had faces made for smirking. But he just smiled something quiet and simple for once, and raised his glass before taking a more sedate sip. "To Arry, my family."

"I guess it will always be complicated. Family isn't a happy word for either of us, but maybe we can work on that together. And... I am envious of your minstrel from time to time, but they are feelings, sometimes echoes of feelings. They go away when I think rationally about them. I am glad you have him, and I am sorry that Torin upsets you. I don't know how to explain how I know he could never replace you." He chuckled. "Maybe I ought to have been born into an Avialae family. They take multiple partners as a matter of course." But he sobered. "I still want you... like that, but I know you're more of a one-man guy, and I respect that. I don't know if you picked that up when you..." He made a gesture. "You know. But whatever... I won't act on it, but it will likely always be on the table should you want it. For whatever reason."

He shrugged. He was just trying to be forthcoming and honest, not belabor facts Arry might already know or not want to discuss. But while the seal had been broken on vulnerable admissions, he was trying to air as much as he could before his mind and his mouth snapped shut out of decades of habit.

And then the meal arrived, which gave them another conversational fermata to let things settle, to let thoughts arise as they responded internally to everything that was being said.