My Path Serpentine

[Arvælyn]

Arvælyn scoffed, incredulously.

"You think she does what is in my best interests, now? That's the turnabout of the century. She is not your better in the Craft of Mesmer, so pray tell me what sorcery mother wielded this morning to instill such confidence?" He could recall frequent and fervent warnings from Finn about the motivations of his family... his mother in particular.

"I suppose I should be happy, but being kept out of the conspiracy is wont to make one suspicious." He sighed, "At any rate, it's a strange thing. I was never conscious of the desire before, but once you proposed it made me want the world to know. I want the realm to celebrate... to gather as they did for Thalya's jubilee."

"That ended poorly, mind."

"You know what I mean. I'm proud that I landed such a beautiful, talented boy. I just want to-..."

"Stake your claim." Cithæra stated, firmly, glancing sidelong to Finn. Arvælyn tensed at the characterisation, but couldn't have refuted it if they were speaking Draconic. And both of them knew him too well to deceive them on this matter, even in their current Common.

"I suppose."

"Well, there are other... simpler and less costly ways of achieving this. Of course, we could gather the realm. Send forth compulsory invitations to the four corners of Atraxia. Some will be gleeful at the chance of seeing the spectacle of the dragons in attendance, others can be coerced toward awe by means of Mesmer, but in the end they won't be celebrating for the reasons you covet. They cannot. They don't know you.

"But if you want to fortify some sort of understanding... to take vows that are truly binding, there are magical means of doing so. We could draw up an arcane covenant or you could both learn and speak your vows to each other in Draconic. Perhaps Finn might prefer to have the ceremony up North... away from all the pomp and circumstance. Perhaps he just wants to celebrate your love with people who know him and care about him, rather than throngs of Vastians who couldn't even pronounce his monosyllabic name."

Arry furrowed his brow and looked to Finn for further guidance.

"Is that what you want?"

[Finn]

"I knew she was hiding things," he said. "I'm certain she still is, but we know now that your parentage was one of them and for good reason. Thalya had to send her secret her to Auris; Cithæra and Zalkyriax to Karnor. I have been more skeptical of all things Solunarian since we arrived, your family included. But I haven't known the love a parent feels for a child, nor the fear that politics would consume him ere he had taken his first breath. I have tried to understand your family, your nation, your gods... I cannot claim to understand any of them perfectly, but that is why my opinions are changing.

"The only constant is you. I love you more now than I did when I chucked everything to cross the world chasing a story with you. If we were in Kalzasi, we would buy that house and have a party at the theater... Here... I don't know. In the moment when I asked, it felt important for me to tell you what I wanted. Translating it into Solunarian terms... I don't know. I don't need a binding contract... I..." He laughed. "I could have Deus Aværys witness your oath to me, and you could have Domina Varvara chain me to you for all time, and wouldn't that upset the realm?" But he shook his head. Chaos was not his goal.

"I suppose I already have what I want. I have you and your heart. But I think your people also need to understand...?" Here he glanced at Cithæra. She knew the realm better than the both of them combined.

"And I need you to rein in your jealousy. I don't fault you for feeling your emotions, but if I am your conscience... you cannot take that out on people who don't deserve it. I understand that you need strict monogamy, and I have given that to you since that night on the roof. I rein in my wandering thoughts, but if you have a right to your jealousy, then I have a right to those. Your brother has become a good friend of mine, one of the few I have in Solunarium. I made the effort to get to know him because he was the one member of your family who made me feel at home. But I am not trying to bed him, nor is he disrespecting your... claim upon me. If you don't trust others, I need you to trust me."

He paused. "And there will be more who admire me. My invisible crown will see to that whether I wish it or not. You will just have to accept that as Aværys' will. When it bothers you, I want you to tell me. I will try to ease your burdens.

"I want things to be simple, but that cannot be. So I want you to be my husband, and we can work through whatever that brings. Together."

[Arvælyn]

Cithæra sat back, smiling faintly as her future son-in-law played her defender. Perhaps it wasn't a wholly flattering portrayal of her motivations, but it was a cogent and an earned one. She couldn't have asked for more, and everyone present would have seen through an attempt at deception.

She glanced down, actually surprised at her response to Finn's words. 'To cross the world chasing a story'... It touched her that someone could feel this way for someone she'd brought into being. She couldn't take credit for raising him, but she was half of the recipe that formed him, and of all the things she planned for her Phædryn... all the emotions she wanted him to elicit: Awe, dread, devotion, reverence... she hadn't really considered love. Not this sort. It hadn't been part of the plan, and yet she found it a welcome variable.

"Wherever you decide to host your wedding, your Solunarian loved ones will be there. I expect the guest list will be quite esteemed with the fully vested heir to the Father of All Platinum Dragons and... you're both on favourable terms with multiple members of Ransera's Pantheon, so... The invitations are yours to render, of course, but worthy of consideration."

"I don't know what I'd want. I know I want to be married to you, but I've never really envisioned a wedding. I've tried since you asked me, but... I'm not sure what feels right. I never grew up imagining myself as the marrying kind..." His jaw tensed as Finn mentioned his jealousy.

"I haven't taken it out on people who don't deserve it. I've taken it out on subjects of Lex Agni." He replied, archly. "When I can feel your Symphony entwining with another as I felt when you initiated Raithen, you cannot expect me to be pleased or to be rational. But I was not rash. I did not act. I did not crush his throat nor rend his mind whilst he was vulnerable. I left, and I came here to seek the counsel of the mother. My mind knows you've a right to your feelings and that it is your actions that should matter, but when I can feel your feelings for other people..." He snorted, and a puff of smoke escaped his nostrils. "My actions, or lack thereof, should be taken into account as well. I did not harm you nor Raithen. I buried my concerns beneath Varvara's shroud and turned to my family and my Faith for an outlet." He sighed, no smoke this time.

"I don't care when people admire you. In fact, I like it! I've always enjoyed being envied. It's when you admire other people... just a tinge too much. That is where I bristle. During that initiation you were not alone in your thoughts. You understand that, don't you? That's not the same thing as a crush or a fantasy, that was an holy communion. A Rune initiation? And you..." He sucked in through his teeth, and his eyes shot up halfway to a roll as he shook his head. The fire behind his eyes looked to be churning faster as he turned them downward to steady himself and push down on that bilious feelings that felt poised to rise.

Cithæra leaned forward to refill Arvælyn's wine cup.

[Finn]

His family. Lyra. While he supposed Arvælyn might invite Aurin, he couldn't invite Torin. Talon and Aoren. Aværys and Varvara. Hilana. Æros and Khyan. Arvælyn's family. Vrædyn. Perhaps there weren't so many people in Kalzasi who missed him. He frowned slightly at that. But he listened to Arvælyn and his side. He always did. Of course, he knew all this; they knew each other almost as well as they knew themselves.

"I willingly sacrifice other lovers," he said slowly. "For you. But there will always be parts of us that the other can't share completely, even if we nearly lose ourselves mingling our symphonies. Prince Vrædyn, Raithen, and I are the only current chosen of Aværys. There will be a bond there. Deus... He desires me. It is reciprocated, but if he puts me in a corner, remember what I was willing to sacrifice over the fires of Mount Kaladon. Khyan swore fealty to me with God as my witness. There will be others. My Empyreal Lord demands it. I would not ask you to swear fealty to me, so there is another holy communion that I cannot share with you. This will be a difficult path, Arry... but I choose to walk it with you if you will have me. If you cannot... I... we can stop. You can bury yourself under the Domina's shroud.

"I think they have both offered that as a solution. Deus Aværys has two natives here; he would like it if I were to sing his songs elsewhere, bringing more into the fold. But I have told him I want to remain here with you. I don't know what to say or to do to help you with this."

The jealousy felt familiar; he had tasted it. He just didn't know it leaping forth from his own heart. It was not a native emotion for him. Or else, his jealousies were flashfire or mere candle flickers compared to the dragonsbreath he earned without meaning to.

[Arvælyn]

"Raithen is His cupbearer, not his Emblem-bearer." Arvælyn was quick to distinguish, "And I've never sensed anything that troubled me with with you and Vrædyn..." Although the Princeps Pontifex was one of few people who matched him in Mesmer and might have shirked the assessment of his Symphony. He shook off the worry over that possibility. What he didn't know, didn't hurt. That was the rub- He knew too much and he couldn't just turn his Craft off completely.

He grimaced slightly at Finn's assertion that Aværys himself coveted his amatus.

"That is..." He clenched his teeth and looked to his mother, before his gaze returned to meet Finn's. "That is beyond my right to grudge you. He is my better. His desires supersede mine, and if He takes vantages upon you..." Arry snarled slightly, and glanced down. Would the Deus Imperator claim some ancient right of ius primæ noctis upon their wedding eve? "That is something I would have to pray upon, but by the Faith it is aught I would be expected to brook." He shook his head.

"Whatever the case, we will endure whatever comes. I did not wish to voice my concerns. I was handling them on my own. Mater forced my hand in that." He said with a sharp glance to her, as he took up his cup and sipped the wine she'd poured him.

"When things are more settled in Solunarium I will be able to travel abroad again. You needn't curb your ambitions on my account, when they might be shared. Aværys and Varvara left the desert to spread Their Word, and so might we. Our Marks are complementary. I'll grand that we cannot share everything, but I would warrant our ambitions, grandiose as they are, should be amongst what we do."

[Finn]

For his part, Finn didn't truly know what being Aværys' cupbearer meant other than keeping his cup full with wine. He assumed that Raithen attended Aværys when he needed physical attending, and considering how his last conference with his God and his brother-in-grace, Prince Vrædyn, he assumed clothing was optional. The Deus Imperator of Solunarium hadn't made them concubines or bridal mystics, but he didn't suppose it was outside the realm of possibility.

He reached out for Arvælyn's hand.

"I don't want you to handle anything on your own, Arry," he said. "Especially if it's me or something related to me. I can't promise I'll always react well to it, but I would rather momentary upset and then we handle it together than... anyone being miserable." The bard smiled at the thought of traveling together again. Like a pendulum swinging, Arvælyn had gone so extreme in his shift toward being a proper Solunarian that he was now a dragon prince. Finn wanted to see what happened when he was taken out of all of this, granted space and time for—if not anonymity—less of being the eye of the political storm.

The human glanced at Cithæra, then back to her son.

"If you need someone else's counsel, then I can't begrudge you that, but I hope it will only be a preamble... a chance to order your thoughts... before you come to me with them."

His rolled his shoulders, momentarily frustrated, but it was only because he couldn't use both hands to hold his amatus. Finn believed in the potential between them, but circumstances here had made everything more potentially disastrous. This was what Arvælyn wanted, however, and even Finn was getting accustomed to the comforts of affluence.

[Arvælyn]

Arvælyn turned his hand palm up when Finn reached for it, offering a little squeeze when the bard’s fingers clenched his.

“I appreciate that, I’m just… afraid. When wrath comes upon me it reigns. I have a dragon’s fire, but not the forbearance of some ancient thing. I worry that I’ll say or do something irreconcilable if I let you into that part of me. I have always had this fell impulse… even before my metamorphosis, when something angered me I wanted to burn it to ash. Now that I actually can in the moment I conceive of the notion, it takes a special sort of care to resist the urge.

“But… I suppose you need to know all of me to love me truly. Even my capacity for destruction, the which you diminish at the best of times… and rouse at the worst.”

Cithæra slid her chair out from under her desk and rose. She had orchestrated this cathartic congress, but her role had since become superfluous. Making her excuses, she slipped out of her offices.

“I would like to speak more on the future we might engender, but… Why don’t you portal us back to the palace? This feels too formal, now…” Arvælyn suggested. Even if the matters on their plate were professional as well as personal, their very first plans had been concocted in bars and bedrooms. They may not have been as grandiose as the schemes they now broached, but they’d felt epic at the time. From the stage at the Velvet Cabaret to the world stage in just a few years… Arvælyn could scarcely believe how far they’d already come. If he hadn’t scared Finn off thus far, then maybe the bard could truly brook his more volcanic impulses.

[Finn]

The bard wanted to respond, but then Cithæra was saying her farewells. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who felt bad evicting her from her own office, so he smiled and nodded and he snapped his fingers for dramatic effect. A spark appeared, white light that began to oscillate more visibly as it grew eventually into a round portal. The bottom sliced into the floor, but would leave no damage behind. On the other side was their sitting room, which he was convinced was bigger than their old, luxurious by previous standards home. The portal was big enough for them to walk through side by side.

He squeezed Arvælyn's hand as they walked through and he let the magic reverse itself with a final, tiny pop of displaced air.

Finally, "I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of your wrath or your destructiveness. You won't harm me, but I don't want you harming others on my behalf. I suppose the execution of your religious duties is a better outlet than some..." He sighed, still not entirely on board with human (or any sentient race) sacrifice. "If you say something in the heat of your wrath, I will know 'tis the wrath speaking, and anyway... if we can't have fights, then how shall we have makeup sex?"

Finn's lips quirked, but he wasn't sure lightening the mood would work. Perhaps it needed to stay heavy for a while.

"You know, you really should have let me be the dragon and you be the prince. Then we would be more balanced." He grinned at the impossibility of it all. They had already joked about how much dragon seed had been planted him already, but so far, no scales, no fangs, nothing. They would keep trying, he knew. In fact, he was pleased that the transformation had balanced their relationship in certain ways, even if it had taken some getting used to when suddenly his comely elf had wanted to rut like dragons.

"Are you going to need my help?" he asked suddenly. "When you do get married, I mean. And need to make an heir. I know you were a courtesan and can play a role, but..." He looked quizzically at his amatus genuinely curious.

[Arvælyn]

Arvælyn smiled at the tile as he stepped from stone to rug, crossing the threshold from Cithæra's office to their own residence. His lips pursed the smile away as Finn replied. It was not out of disapproval, but rather because he was pondering what was said and felt in the moment. He did mark what was omitted, but would not speak in answer to it. That would have felt like a presumptuous intrusion, as Finn had clearly kept his critiques on Solunarian sacrifice mum for his own reasons.

"Heh..." His smile did return at the levity, and his hand even slid down to pinch at Finn's bottom. Perhaps a prelude to the make up sex to which the bard was alluding.

"You are still my fire and my wings, even if you are yet a human..." He was unwittingly paraphrasing a saying he'd picked up from his father. It didn't occur to him to wonder at the origins of the phrase, it just came easily to his tongue in the moment.

He shrugged,

"I think I would prefer your help, whether or not I need it... I don't really want to have that experience without you present. It would feel like a betrayal, even if you aren't oriented to think that way yourself... I'll be interested to see what is expected of me on that front. I know you assume I'll be wed to an elf, but it's not outside the realm of possibility that I'll be wed to a dragon. There are others abroad of here who owe fealty to the Zalkyrians." Not that he'd put it past a Solunarian court to wed him to an aunt, but he'd have preferred a different pairing.

"Whoever it is, I just hope they're less than a century old. Some thousand year old dragon would be impossibly intimidating in the council chambers let alone the bedroom..." He noted, wrinkling his nose at the notion.

[Finn]

"And here I thought I was the poet," he said, slightly flushed at the compliment, but grinning with approval all the same. The pinch urged him closer to his amatus, and he began undressing his dragon prince.

"Perhaps it would be better with a dragon," he opined thoughtfully. "Even if you are half-dragon, you have only recently come into that side of yourself. A young dragon lass might be a friend as well as a wife, and help you bridge that gap between your... selves. And her youth would likely make it easier for you to communicate, to be partners." To his mind, Arvælyn's princess would have to be a partner to him, but that didn't preclude their own partnership. "But whatever the case, I will do my utmost to make it as easy for the both of you as possible. I mean, inasmuch as I have any power over that."

Finn hoisted Arvælyn up so he had little choice but to wrap his legs around Finn's hips. While he enjoyed the wildness that had blossomed in Arvælyn, he found that while he didn't mind being prey, it also made him more the predator than he used to be. He enjoyed taming his dragon, if only for a moment.

And so the curtain closed for the audience before they played a little game of Dragon Rider of Antiris...

fin.