The Man of Your Dreams [Arvælyn]

[Aurin]

An eyebrow rose again at the mention of a princess in Auris. He would have to investigate; his network of spies was mostly in Karnor, but if politics were shifting once more toward a global monster, he would have to expand. Having Arry in Solunarium would be a good thing, in that sense, though it tore parts of him asunder. His agent in Tertium would be prepared to help Arry or even Finn if either of them were spotted on the coast, but he couldn't get into Solunarium without some doing, so they were on their own in the capital.

"Shut the fuck up," he said angrily. "Nobody is too good for you. You're either good for each other or you're not, but I won't hear you talking shit about yourself. I don't care if you're a prince or a pauper... You're you—." But he stopped, and there was silence. He hadn't addressed the apology, but while his eyes ran hungrily over the tease of flesh Arry had offered, his avatar's skin grew clothes of a sudden and he stood up.

Aurin didn't want to break the golden boy up from his minstrel. He just wanted...

"Anyway, you'll receive my letter eventually. It would probably be best to continue corresponding so whomever reads your mail thinks they know the entirety of what passes between us. If you aren't able to reach back across whatever this link is, I'll check in regularly. I'll have your pay from Portions for Foxes sent to my agent in Tertium to hold in trust for you, so you will have funds nearer by if you need them. If you reach out to him, you can have them transferred to Solunarium and have them even closer."

He shrugged. Liquid assets were a thing he could help with even from far away. He didn't like not having Arry near enough to keep an eye on. This revelation of their bond would help, but perhaps the distance would also help him not making some asinine mistake and ruin whatever remained between them. Peak Aurin was usually lit by burning bridges.

[Arvælyn]

Arvælyn blinked, startled at both the content and the vehemence of Aurin’s response to his self-deprecation. His self doubt certainly wasn’t a novel element in their relationship, but it seemed distance had changed things for Aurin indeed. Even when the human stopped himself from saying more, Arry was momentarily speechless.

He winced at the suddenness of the avatar’s motion as he withdrew. He lowered his eyes to the bed and clenched his teeth. Aurin was not the only one concerned with wrecking things between them.

“I cannot brook your ire… Please do not make me choose?” His golden eyes darted up, pleading and pitiful. Had he been employing his “trick”, if such was even possible via this medium, he would not have wondered at whether sex was a requirement for closeness to remain between them. But such as things were in the mundane sense, Arry was historically not the best at reading the beloved humans of his life.

“I don’t want to push you away. I want to be close with you, I want…” His eyes journeyed over Aurin’s form, or the projection thereof at any rate.

“They say that sacrifice is important here. It is… Virtuous. I’m trying to be better.” His neck tensed, and his hands fell to rest on his kneeling lap.

“There’s no reason for you to pay me if I’m not doing anything for you.” And judging from this exchange, he clearly wasn’t doing enough to satisfy his saviour.

“I have enough money of my own that I can leave. That’s really all I need…” If things grew so dire with his family that they cut him off from their abundant resources, he knew that Solunarium would no longer be safe for him. Or rather it would be less safe that it already was.

“But thank you. I am not ungrateful.”

[Aurin]

"I'm not asking you to choose," he finally said, more of a growl than anything. He wished he could change his tone, change his face from the thundercloud it had become, but it was a bit more difficult when he was upset. "I never have and I never would."

He understood Arry's words; they just didn't make sense to his heart—not that he often admitted he had one. Trying to pretend he didn't desire Arry had somehow been easier when he was right there in front of him. When Arry was beyond his reach, beyond his desire, somehow that was worse. Aurin tried to calm himself down.

"I'm sorry. I should just be happy I can see you while you're gone..." In any case, Arry would choose Finn. Aurin had offered him the path to the stage, the path to his past; Finn had walked down the path with him. And good for them.

"I paid you because you worked for me. And if you feed me information from Solunarium, you'll still be working for me... but even if you stop, it's just money. I want to take care of you. Just let me... do this. I need to feel like I'm helping you. I need to be useful." I need to matter.

He managed to relax a bit. "Beware Solunarian virtue; it's a harsh thing."

The sister-fucker godling might give Arry the glory he sought, but he might be the one that made Arry choose. He was a more jealous lover than Aurin, than even Arry. And anyone following the brother-fucker godling would see control as a virtue. Aurin might have done well in Solunarium had he been an elf. But Kalzasi was home now, for better or for worse.

He wondered idly what the desert godlings would make him sacrifice to have Arry again.

[Arvælyn]

Arry lowered his eyes, a light sigh of relief escaping his lips when Aurin clarified in passing plain terms that he wasn't stating an ultimatum. At least one saviour wasn't demanding sacrifice.

"I... know that I should know that." He acknowledged, with no small amount of shame tinging his countenance. Loss and abandonment loomed so starkly... ever in the back of his mind. He'd lost much and been abandoned. As he began to learn more about his parent culture and about the gravity of his bloodline, he wondered whether his strong reactions to those worries wasn't more deeply ingrained.... Whether it was part of his physiology, not just his psychology. He was the scion of a race of refugees, abandoned by their homeland and cast into the strange South. Guests of Vastium who overstayed their welcome, losing their freedom in so doing. Even when they'd risen from bondage to rule in glory, they eventually lost the avenging gods that uplifted them. Sometimes he wondered whether the whole culture wasn't just like he'd been in Kalzasi- Playacting majesty they didn't altogether comprehend.

"You have a right to your feelings..." Arry offered, lifting his gaze from his lap. He shifted off of his knees, now that he was no longer supplicating, letting his weight rest on his hip, knees bent with his legs turned left.

"Of... of course, Aurin." He offered a playful smirk, "I've not flown so high above the slums that I'll decline coin that's been offered twice." His smile waned at the warning.

"This is my culture, Aurin. It always has been whether or not I knew it. Their virtue... Our virtue may be harsh, but I understand it. Softer virtues are muddy to my mind... Always have been. Something just out of my grasp, like trying to close my fingers around fog. But here, it's a tangible thing. Solid as steel." He cracked a grim smile,

"You would loathe it here, I think." He was constantly afraid that Finn would grow to. Aurin would hate it for different reasons, though. "But I still hope you'll visit me someday. In the flesh."

[Aurin]

Aurin nodded. At least if Arry had plenty of funds at his disposal, he might feel more empowered to cut and run with his minstrel should things go south—or more southerly than they already were. He tried to get a feel for this new trick—or trick within a trick—and decided he would have to see if it worked with anyone else. Talon had marked him with Negation, and while his mark hadn't involved cutting, it was possible he could reach back and connect with the missing prince. Wouldn't that be something?

And, of course, the trick within a trick he had learned from the Myshalarai ought to produce something akin to what was happening here, though this felt different. At least, it seemed that it was the resonance between their shared Rune that allowed him to cast directly to this place. But he didn't let his mind wander too far; he was paying keen attention to his ward. Perhaps some of the strange feelings he felt here were due to the coven as well; by their standards, Arry would be his apprentice, yet another element to their relationship.

"If that is how you feel," he said, somewhat begrudingly, "then that is how you feel." Arry had said as much to him, though he didn't believe that Arry's blood tied him to this culture any more than he wished it to. The sib-fuckers were jealous gods, he knew, and perhaps, if he was of their bloodline, they would have plans for Arry, and want him tied to Solunarium.

"I'll come," he promised. "When you need me." Aurin realized that he would, even if it was into certain danger. He would even fight the gods for Arry—this was why love was stupid. "And Solunarian won't like me. I've only got vices." He smirked, ever keen to play the bad man. It allowed him to get through life with greater ease.

[Arvælyn]

“It is.” Arry replied, somewhat firmly. They may not have been the warmest and it may have taken them entirely too long to assume their responsibilities to him, but they were his family. Having lost his entire world years earlier in Ruslan, it was strange to find himself now with a larger family than he’d ever had growing up. He may not have trusted them, but he felt in a way protective of them. They were his, and they were of this realm in a potent way.

He smiled, nodding in approval at Aurin’s promise to visit when he was required.

“Oh, they love vices here. You’d be very popular in some ways, I just think you’re too free a spirit to brook the limits that would be imposed on you as a… Foreigner.” They both knew he meant ‘human’, but it was easier to defend his culture without highlighting its racism as well as its xenophobia. To be fair, the elves did come first, but having suffered at the hands of human bigots who misliked the cut of his ears, he hated to see anyone being painted with a broad brush that way. If he was truly to have some lofty fate in service of Solunarium, he would work hard to wean them of at least some of that. Perhaps guide them to being more elitist in the Kalzasern fashion, at least. That was a softer sort of bias, and not so plainly observable. But it was hard to hide anything under a desert sun, he supposed.

“But I definitely think you’d appreciate the aesthetics of the place. My entire family is your exact type. I haven’t properly met most of them, there are a lot, but those I’ve seen have all been quite striking.”

[Aurin]

"I'm not the sort of man you introduce to your mother," he said with a smirk. "I don't know that I'll meet your family. I'll be there to see you." And, most likely, to see if he couldn't set up a few more contacts. If the isolationist queendom was looking outward, he wanted to know more about it. He hadn't been able to anticipate the assassination of the Shokaze or the abduction of the Shinsei and his husband, but perhaps he would have been able to had he reached out more firmly to the covens earlier. But hindsight was more perfect as a matter of course.

"Wouldn't want to impugn your good name with my filthy foreignness..."

An eyebrow rose at the implications. He wondered if Arry thought he was throwing him a bone, or if he was picking a fight. Either way, he chose not to rise to the bait or even perceived bait. Then he smirked.

"Eh, when you've tasted the cream of the crop, accept no substitutes." He brought his fingertips together and kissed them, then gave his hand a little shake like Arry was the best thing on the menu.

"Anyway, I don't know how taxing this new... trick of mine is, so I should probably return to my own body. Is there anything you want to say before I go? Do you want to set a time for another conversation? And hey," apropos of nothing—perhaps, "don't forget that you're my family. So that makes me a princeling, too."

Suddenly his avatar's clothes became fine, ornate, and a crown appeared jauntily cocked upon his head. He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for farewells, harassment, or other.

[Arvælyn]

"No." Arry sniggered and sighed, "You're certainly not." It was not lost on the golden boy that he'd made quite a stark pivot in choosing Finn, after his only intimate relationship of note had been his time with Aurin. They were very different entities. Aurin was sharp, where Finn was tender. Finn was placating, where Aurin was confrontational. Aurin was the bad boy you lust after, Finn was the sweet boy you settled down with. Only Arry did lust after his sweet boy and loving Aurin that way had ended up hurting more often than not by the end. It didn't make the decision easy, but it made it feel right. Perhaps even righteous, now that his mind was prone to thinking in the grander terms of Solunarium.

"That's not what I'm saying..." Arry rolled his eyes, "I was talking about why you wouldn't like it. I told you I want you to visit, but I was just saying to warn you, if your spies already haven't, that it's hard out here for a human. My 'good name' doesn't come into it. My current name is only a loaner as it stands..." He sighed, exasperated with that fact.

He allowed his hand to be kissed, though his lips tightened at the comment.

"But you did accept substitutes, didn't you, Aurin?" And Torin was more curdle than cream, in Arvælyn's book. He withdrew his hand, clasping it with its counterpart over his lap. "And here we are." He sat back and considered.

"Yes... I'd like to speak again. At least once a month, if we're too busy for more than that. This time and day are typically good for me..." And then Aurin was in royal drag, and Arry donned an expression that broadly broadcast: We are not amused.

"Well, Your Highness, I'm glad you popped in and granted me an audience." He softened into a light laugh, "Truly. It's been good to see you." Now it was his turn to jest, "Though, family or not, I shall be looking into wards against peeping princelings, now that I know you have this trick within your trick."

[Aurin]

Behind the mask of his avatar, his face fell. He didn't understand why Arry had to take a perfectly good compliment and bring Torin into it when clearly... But he had to let it go. He didn't know if Arry could hear his music clearly from a continent and a sea apart, but he didn't want him to know he had scored a point. No matter how he tried to explain it—or at what volume—Arry saw Torin as some form of competition. He hadn't edged Arry out of Aurin's heart or his bed; to his mind, that had been Arry's choice. And the only time Aurin had ever been a one-man guy was when he was only interested in his own survival; meanwhile, Arry had been a courtesan. Aurin had clearly been comparing Arry favorably to his royal cousins, but...

He had to let it go. It had been so good to see Arry, he didn't want it to end on a sour note. Perhaps someday they would be able to open the wound, cleanse it, and excise what was rotten so they could heal into something entirely good. Today would not be that day.

"Ward all you like, little thief," he scoffed, his edges starting to blur and unravel in strange fractals. "I will always find you."

It was meant as a promise even if it sounded like something a stalker might say. With Arry sitting, looking up at him, he couldn't help remember the look in those golden eyes when they had first looked up from a mouthful of him. Perhaps that had been a mistake, but he wasn't sure he would have done it any other way if given the option to go back and change things.

As his form was dissolving, he was bolder. It was easier to say when one didn't have to hear the reply: I love you...

[Arvælyn]

Arvælyn noted the shift in Aurin's expression when he struck with his inevitable dig. It reminded him of the time he'd plied his Craft and been caught out. He'd feared losing Aurin, then... having crossed a bridge too far. But they'd endured much more since, and Aurin still stuck around. And based on some of today's confessions, it seemed Arry still had his hooks in him. Masterful though he was in his Craft, Arry missed quite a bit when it came to matters pertaining to his own worth. Deep as he could read into the Symphonies of others, he struggled to comprehend their feelings for him personally. It always felt like a mistake or a trick.

He smiled at the nostalgic designation: 'little thief'. He still thought fondly of those days when they'd first met. Perhaps too much so. It felt like a weird sort of fairy tale to one who hadn't grown up with the traditional ones. Another world and another life. He wasn't old now, least of all for one of elven stock, but his mid-teens had been another life altogether. He'd been innocent, after a fashion, even if he markedly wasn't- A little thief, after all.

Arry was sad to see the avatar fade, and lifted a hand from his lap to reach for him just as he became translucent. Then he was transparent. Then he was gone, with such opaque words echoing in elven ears as he vanished completely. The words hung in the air longer than the image.

He shook his head, and sighed ponderously.

"You too..." He fell backward onto the plush comforts of the bed, stretching his arms to either side and shutting his eyes. "...my saviour."