Our Revelries, ii.

[Kala Leukos]

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Kala laughed quietly, enjoying his wonder vicariously.

"It can," Kaus said. "Some wings are better equipped for rain and sleet and snow than others. But when you come to visit us in Starfall..." there was only the briefest of pauses, "...we can annoint your feathers with certain oils that will make it slip away easier, keep you dry. We have learned a few things from ducks and alchemists." Kala laughed again at the incongruity of that statement. Kaus grinned, continued. "Flying in a light snowfall is nothing, though. Flying through a blizzard, well, I'd use magic to see my way through it. I'd keep you safe."

He turned his face into the fabric between him and Raithen's belly, perhaps a mite embarrassed. Kala only smiled. They were the both of them infatuated with him, but young as they were, they weren't idiots either.

"There are parts of the mountains so high or so far north that they are always covered in snow and ice." Her wrist turned under his touch, allowing him access. "You really must visit. Kalzasi is fine. A jewel of a northern city, and our modest home in the middle of nowhere. You should see how other Avialæ live. Not that there is anything wrong with how you live, but you might find a few ideas you might want to keep."

A part of her that was just like any other woman soon turning one and twenty years of age and considered him wanting to keep her, or Kaus, or both, but she let it go like she let go of any thought when she was meditating. It wouldn't do to form the sort of attachments that would hurt, not without time and familiarity, and it had already occurred to her that she would outlive nearly everyone she had ever known. She had plans for Kaus, but she was going to have to learn to be comfortable with the transience of reality.

"If your mother will let you," she amended with a quiet smile, reaching out to pinch his nose.

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[Raithen]

He laughed at the comparison of alchemist and ducks, but it was a fair one, really. The idea of the twins anointing him with oils made something warm move in his belly but he didn't have the introspection to understand what it was. When Kaus offered his protection Raithen accepted it, accepted that he would trust Kaus in storm or battle to watch his back as well as he would watch the the other winged man's in return. His mind told him that because they were both men of prowess and flight they would know how best to aid each other, instinctively. This was almost certainly not true, but Raithen was a creature who believed in his own impressions until they were proven wrong.

"As I will keep you safe from the sun and the snakes." He said, perhaps too earnestly. Hearing himself he too was a little embarrassed and laughed easily at himself for he had never been made to feel ashamed of embarrassment.

Lifting Kala's hand he kissed the wrist he had been petting, nuzzling his nose to it thoughtlessly before releasing it back to his chest.

"I should." He made it a statement, but then he sighed. "I want to."

Two seasons before he would have made it a promise but his duties were complicated now. His twined Gods seemed to approve of the Leukos twins, so maybe they would allow it, and his family, but neither blessing was a certainty. Pushing away the wistful longing that their invitations filled him with he turned a cheeky smile on Kala,

"I can see myself finding things in your homeland that I would want to keep."

He laughed at the tweaking he got in return and then nodded, "My mother, and others. But I will do all I can."

"Maybe then I will learn enough of our people to feel like one of them." Leaning and turning till he could look up and back to where Kala sat more directly he asked, "Tell me something of your Avialae? What's the culture like? In Starfall and Kalzasi."

It must be different in different places, but he just wanted to know about them.

[Kala Leukos]

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Raithen's declaration was pleasing to both twins, and while Kala continued the conversation with him, Kaus took his hand and pulled it to cup his cheek and chin. It was nice.

"We understand," Kala said with true empathy. "We all have our responsibilities." Party boy Raithen might be, he was still someone his family depended upon. Cupbearer to Aværys, it was said. Dux, it was known. "In any case, you have an open invitation to Kalzasi and Starfall, at least."

Kala considered his question.

"Well, your servi might have been scandalized by Ceran and Indric." She paused, but perhaps a bit of cultural exchange that linked to extant social faux pas would be good. First, she smiled to let him know nothing was amiss. "I can't speak for our Kathar cousins, but among the Synnekar Avialæ, allowing someone to groom our wings is considered quite intimate. Not necessarily sexual or romantic, but... I suppose akin to a wild beast showing you her soft underbelly. Our wings are sturdy, but a grounded Avialæ is a vulnerable Avialæ. Even with servants who have served our family for as long as we can remember... well, Kaus and I tend to each other's wings more than anyone else.

"Family, close friends, lovers, sure... also bondmates..."

Her voice trailed off as she considered him, considered the bond between him and his mother. She supposed the woman would know anything she wanted from the time they spent with Raithen. Well, so be it. They lived too circumscribed a life at the moment anyway, trying to keep her secrets safe, and they needed this release of tension. She smiled.

"As for Kalzasi... 'tis a great sprawling city. Parts of it dig into the underground as well, but many of those places are dangerous. The Warrens, the Midden. The Avialæ do what they can to cap these dangers. Parts of it climb up the side of the mountain, and floating islands hold palaces and such." She spent some time describing the place, trying to put herself even into her younger shoes when she first arrived. She also described Starfall, its fortress, its mountain people with their ancient ways.

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[Raithen]

Settling back against the palm trunk that supported his back Raithen listened, some of it was information that Kaus had given him, or touched on, but the parts about Kalzasi and Starfall were new.

"I think the servi in my mother's palace have had the ability to be scandalized removed as part of their training." It was a joke and he chuckled about it, but it was also quite possibly true. If they still had the ability to feel scandalized they had had least had the ability to react to it culled early in their service.

Servants had always groomed his wings, along with the rest of him, from before he had memories, but hearing how it was something special in the twins' culture made him feel... sort of violated. Of course, Avialae parents must do it for their children in the same way that all parents had to change swaddling but there must be a stage at which a child begins to pull away from that attention and it becomes something private.

When the explanations were finished he sat, idly stroking Kaus' face and hair, eyes far away slowly returning to the oasis.

"Whats a bond like? I asked Kaus last night," Here he smiled down at the man resting on his stomach, "But everyone must experience it in their own way? Or is it dictated to be the same?"

All his life he'd sought intensely close personal connections and had always been denied them, either actively by the object of his obsession or simply through circumstance. Sometimes it felt like he was incapable of forming even the kind of closeness that non-Avialae shared with close friends and lovers. He was close with his family, practically worshiped them and was not ashamed of it, but none of them felt the same way about him. It made sense, he was the least of them, he should look up and obey, but still, it left an emptiness in him that he'd all but stopped trying to fill.

[Kala Leukos]

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Sharing stories of Kalzasi and Starfall was pleasant. They tried to be gracious guests, but everything was so lavish—they were treated better here in some ways than they were anywhere in Karnor. Being able to share even stories of home to someone else's delight was gratifying.

The twins shared a glance at his last question, though. Kala, at least, had known it was coming, and so, on some level, Kaus had known too. But even knowing, one could hope otherwise. Neither of them wanted to be the one to tell him private things about his own life that might shift fundamental things under his feet. The volcano was the only thing that ought to affect tectonic changes in the Atraxian desert.

"Raithen..." Kala claimed his hand in hers, brought his fingertips up to her lips just to feel the warmth there. "With your consent, I could form the lightest of bonds with you so you can experience it, and then I can release it without harming you. It would open us up to each other a bit. We would be able to feel each other's surface emotions, exert some small influence upon each other. A drop of water in the sea compared to the core bond we were born with... We have to actively shut each other out of our minds if we want true privacy—such as we did last night." She smiled, and Kaus took one of her hands, though she held onto Raithen's as well. "Poets speak of soulmates. A core bond is as like to that as I can imagine. A light bond is, well, light. Would you like that?"

He wasn't a sembler, but she was, and she pushed a bit, allowing him to sense her sincerity and goodwill.

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[Raithen]

At the sound of his name he turned a his head to her, smile as bright as the sun it reflected. Mirroring her he brought her other hand to his own lips, kissing her fingertips.

"M'lady," He murmured, and if it was a chivalrous play, because she was not his lady, it was not insincere. When he heard the rest of what she said the affectionate teasing fell from his demeanor and he became, releasing her hand gently he became, for the first time, something like serious.

"What would I have to do?" It wasn't an eager demand, but a genuine question and a little weary.

Her good will in intention he did not doubt, but thinking about having such a thing, for so short a time and then losing it sent fear skittering through his aura like cracks laced through porcelain. What if it was what he'd been missing, what he'd fought to accept that he just wouldn't have, tried to convince himself that didn't exist?

The hand not held by Kala came away from Kaus so he could run it through his own hair, a subconscious gesture of self-soothing. His eyes moved between the twins, looking for information that he wouldn't find on their pretty faces but it was still comforting to see them.

"Can either of us break it if we do? What does losing it feel like?"

Perhaps it would be like the little emotional tug that came from leaving a particularly connected sexual encounter, something he was so used to he hardly felt it anymore. He wouldn't mind that, mists, even without having had sex with either yet he would feel more than that when they returned home. A though struck him,

"Can you have the same bond with more than one person? If all of the people involved are Avialae?"

It was a bit off topic, but only a little and it calmed his fear to think about something other than Kala's offer for a moment.

[Kala Leukos]

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"M'lord," she murmured with a quiet smile.

The twins held his hands, or kept in physical contact even when he began to preen at his hair. They held him and held space for him.

"You wouldn't have to do anything except let me in," she explained. It was difficult to explain something that felt rather ineffable. "I suppose it is a bit like Semblance, or perhaps Mesmer, connecting thoughts, emotions, using aether as the bridge. And the lightest of bonds, yes, either of us could break. If you break it, you might suffer a bit of a headache, truly nothing terrible. But if you let me release it, there won't be any backlash. Well," her smile was a touch tremulous, "you might miss me a bit even when I'm touching you. I learned how to make and release bonds without ill effect when I... when I was in Atoria."

She didn't know if he would believe her or think it a fairy tale. It didn't matter, though. She was telling the truth and the truth would be in the bond.

"Bondmates aren't often Avialæ," she said. "And I suppose theoretically you could have as many as you want, although you might soon begin to feel pulled into too many directions at the same time." She was currently aware of Kaus, Ceran, Indric, and Asallon, though Marda was too far away for their light bond to amount to much but a faint absence, like a missing tooth. "You might feel a bit of Kaus through me, but I can't be certain. The bond wouldn't be terribly deep."

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[Raithen]

It felt safe there, in their hands, in their care; in a way he'd never experienced before. He was safe when his mother was near, but no safer than when she was far away, she made him physically safe, politically safe, by existing. It was similar with Phocion; he rendered Raithen safe, not by accident but without effort simply by being who and what he was.

What Kala and Kaus were doing felt more personal. It felt like a betrayal of some sort to think that. What could be more personal than the protection of your family. Trying to compare the two to make sense of it he turned the way it felt to be with Cithera or his brother around in his head in contrast with how it felt to be with the Leukos twins and suddenly he saw the answer. The twins did it on purpose, for him, his family did what they did partly out of duty and partly incidentally. There was quite a good chance that neither of the people he considered himself closest to thought about him specifically at all, unless they had use for him or he was making a request.

Without any choice in the matter Raithen was quite sure he was about to start crying and decidedly didn't want to, not there with his guests and especially since he had no way of understanding why, even in his own head.

Casting about he grasped onto Kala's words, latching on to them as his eyes grew shiny, trying to force himself back out of his head where he belonged and it was safer.

The mention of going to Atoria helped, though he didn't disbelieve her. In his world impossible things were almost everyday. He served a god who was also his ancestor returned, lived with an ancient and powerful dragon, unknowably powerful magic was so much a part of his everyday life that imagining a place without it was what gave him trouble. Still...

"Atoria? That is a tale I must hear." His voice broke a little but he was able to clear his throat and smile and blink his eyes clear before any tears fell and then the emotion was passing. "Another day, perhaps. I meant more; is it always just two people in a bond? I'd like to try, I just wondered if there has ever been a bond that was three people all connected."

Where that line of thought had come from was rather obvious as he was touching them both intentionally.

[Kala Leukos]

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The Custodes Deorum and the potentates of Solunarium were not shy about their sembling, and so she was more forward about hers here than she was normally. Still and all, she didn't delve into the depths of his soul on a whim, and—at least when he was wearing only his skin—he wasn't wearing any protections. She supposed she could enact some espionage upon him, but she doubted so subtly that his mother wouldn't ken, and anyway, she had no desire to cause tensions between Kalzasi and Solunarium, herself and the Divine Twins. But she could sense the welter of his emotions. Perhaps that was the danger of enforcing emotional orthodoxy...

"Though you lost the Battle of the Oasis," she said with impressive gravitas, "I will yield unto you that story at a date of your choosing." She smiled, not pitying, but compassionate.

"I don't actually know about that," she said. "I was born core-bonded to Kaus. We have common bonds with Ceran and Indric, as well as with Asallon. Sometimes we spar and let down the barriers between us and it does almost seem as though our minds are one, but that is not a state we live in. The boys were bonded when we met them, and it has slowly deepened into a core bond. So, there are fewer barriers between Kaus and me, between Ceran and Indric, than there are between, say, Indric and me." She didn't go into the Coalescence yet. That wasn't common knowledge even among the Synnekar yet. "But if Kaus and I both formed a light bond with you than, yes... you could feel both of our emotions and... perhaps there might be more because some Kala would pass through Kaus to Raithen, and some Kaus through Kala to Raithen..." She paused, hoping she hadn't confused him or, worse, herself. She laughed slightly.

"Light bonds are tenuous. If you are more than a mile apart, you might be aware of its existence. You might have an idea in which direction your bonded was, but you wouldn't be able to feel them. We haven't quite tested that limit between us, though."

Kaus was quick to grouse, "I don't want to find out, really."

"Nor do I," she said, smiling fondly at her brother. Then to Raithen. They were more than a mile out from the city. Cithæra wouldn't feel them, but she wasn't truly worried. There was nothing she could garner of them through a light bond with Raithen that she couldn't pluck from their auras with her sembling.

"So, even if we kept the bond intact, you wouldn't feel us when we were gone home. But... you would as soon as you came to visit."

"Isn't she the most subtle of diplomats?" Kaus scoffed. Kala batted at his platinum head, and they laughed, they moved, not losing contact with Raithen, but finding new, comfortable ways to bookend him. Their hands slipped under his clothes, not reaching for his sex, but merely more of him.

"You are special, sweet dux," she said, the gravitas unfeigned then. "We would, of course, have been happy to meet an Avialæ abroad. But you..." Blue eyes that sparkled—the secret fire too far away to burn—peered into gray. "I am so very glad that you exist, and that our fates have crossed our paths and brought us here."

.

[Raithen]

The elder of the three gave a gracious nod when the victorious lady offered him her tale. Her lack of knowledge about one aspect of the native abilities of their race made him feel a little better about his almost total lacking in the same.

"Can you speak to each other, in your heads? My family has something like that. My mother can communicate with us. She has to be able to see us though, I think." He tried to remember a time when Cithera had used the ability when they weren't in the same room and couldn't, which didn't actually mean anything but he felt like she would have if she could have.

Glancing between them he asked, tone serious,

"Would Raithen pass from one of you to the other?" He couldn't have said why, but it felt important that he too should be shared in a way that was private to them. Having asked, he forgot almost immediately, partly because his mind had already decided on the answer and partly because the suggestion that they might remain bonded was on the offer.

"It wouldn't..." He made an inarticulate gesture between the three of them, "Pull you in too many directions?"

He was being petted and praised and he believed the twins when they did these things. He returned the touch, unable to help it, knowing that if they were lying, entrapping him, then he was trapped. Leaning over he kissed Kala's mouth with soft gravity,

"I want to try it." Then turning and doing the same to Kaus, "With both of you."

He didn't know what to do, but he knew they would tell him; lead him, and he would do as they asked with such open ease it might surprise.

His connection with Kaus, when it was made, was exactly as might be expected, but, when Kala opened him to her bond the whole of his being flashed briefly over her consciousness. The Unity that was her divinity reached out and brushed against the unity of the infant bond, just for a moment.

It was an instant, but she was a goddess, and an instant could sometimes last quite a long time for such a one. When it passed she didn't remember every second of his life, perhaps some part of her did but she didn't have the capacity to access that yet. What she did have was the shape of him, and more than that, a strong sense of what he where his strengths lay and his weaknesses; where he would fit in a society or a relationship that would best serve the connection and allow him to give the best of himself.

Unaware of this Raithen just stared at Kaus, feeling out the odd new set of senses that suddenly existed inside his head.

"Whoa..." He breathed, disoriented but not afraid, before turning slowly to look at Kala. Reaching out with his sense of her, like a blind man, feeling along it so, so gently, he forgot to breathe. Perhaps trying both at once had been a mistake because he kept switching between the twins, never getting very far in his exploration before getting distracted by the other and starting again.