Victima Reginæ

[Finn]

The divine presence wasn't entirely unexpected, but it still filled his mind, his veins, and his loins with a numinous rush. Whether it were imagined or true, he felt invigorated, as though his crown of light were blazing now, and that the scars of his recent mental injury were—if not gone—then banished for the nonce. He bowed to Aværys even as Aværys bowed to Eikæn. Finn wasn't arrogant, but he was more aware of his Ambition, his Hunger, and his Power. Whatever his earlier misgivings, he was now an Empyreal Lord, though he showed due respect in chains of command, whether within the Vigilia Argenti or the Solunarian court. Those were Varvara's chains, ergo holy.

"Whether it be for love or lash, I will learn to fist an it please Thee," he said, glib as any bard offering his jest to please the Lord. His smile, though, was faint. Once more, he was in the caldera of Kaladon being measured against an unknown counterweight.

"I lost my first thrall to the Dark Lord," he admitted. "We have refined tastes. But while I chose not to feed his Hunger, at least not yet, I would assuage it with mine own. Whither I be the instrument or næ, I Hunger for Vengeance upon Thalya Maledicta, though she be of Thy divine blood. She will not have what is mine." There were several poetic themes running through his mind of how he might lay her low and kill her, but he chose to be succinct.

"While Khyan was a happy accident, this one I courted. She is proud, but I have proven worthy to serve as a path to Power, a path to Thee. She will be my first Singer, and through me, they will all serve Thee. Soon I will wed my dragon prince, and soon I will travel more frequently from his lands. I will be the best known bard in all the lands, and my laurels will be Thine. I will kindle hearts into Thy faith and sway minds like chess pieces upon Thy board. I will seek worthy voices to echo Thine..."

He paused, uncomfortable for a moment. There was a Hunger he felt compelled to admit, although it was complicated. But he would not hide it from his God. He wasn't even certain he could. The golden glory sitting before him ever had his hand upon his brow and upon his heart. They were connected by golden chains even as Arvælyn and Phocion were connected to Varvara by hers.

"I Hunger for Thee, my God. As a soul hungers for a god, but also as a man hungers..." His waxen cheeks managed a faint flush despite his dire straits. "Though it would anger and hurt my dragon prince, I cannot hide it from Thee."

[Pharaoh]

His smirk neither quirked up nor faded at the bawdy jest, though golden eyes scanned the human up and down with a predatory bent.

“Not lost, næ. The Princeps Vacuum did leave thy subject under Our jurisdiction, e’en though he be subject withal to the Void.” Aværys clarified, mildly.

“Thalya’s origins are secondary to her Ambitions, which were dilatory to be roused. Long hath she reigned in stagnancy and, only under threat hath she displayed the righteous Hungers of her supposed Faith. We are watchful, but shall not intervene whilst two of Our devotees find their Ambitions at odds. If thou’rt fitter than she and thine aims prove potent enough to vanquish her, then We shall gain more power from thee than we lose for lack of her.”

Aværys crossed His ankles as they hung from the sickbed Finn had recently occupied. As he spoke of his bardic ambitions and his private desires, the Rex Regnum swung his legs to and fro, pendulous but somehow childlike as was the impish smirk he donned.

“Wouldst thou have Me visit thy chambers on thy nuptial night, to claim mine ancient right of Jus Prima Nocta?” Looking into His sultry eyes it was no wonder that tradition was known throughout the wide world by its Vastian nomenclature.

“Dost thou challenge Me to tread upon the whims and will of thy betrothed? Should I care to vex him o’er so small a trifle, when I might erase that part of him entire?” He pursed his lips,

“Wouldst thou beg that of Me for a wedding gift? To quell the fires of his jealousy that thou might bed whosoe’er thou wishest? Thou’rt young to be denied so many pleasures in sacrificial service to My Sister’s steward… Surely thy young loins lust for more than Me…”

[Finn]

"Lost his mortal shell, then," he amended quietly, then nodded as his vendetta against the Solar Sovereign was given what approval he needed to pursue it without doubting himself.

As for the rest, he knelt, took his God by the heel, reverently pushed cloth back, and pressed his lips to whatever golden skin was available. He looked up, reverent, powerful sure, but conflicted.

"I understand his feelings," he admitted, "as our symphonies are familiar to each other as the back of our hands. I do not share them. At least, my heart can share him while his cannot share me. Long ago we agreed we wouldn't be angry if some God or prince far above us took such rights, but that was before he was half-dragon and all-prince. I would beg Thee not to harm him e'en as I did in Thine erstwhile prison, neither his body nor his mind nor his heart.Though sworn to Thy sister, his Ambitions ought to please Thee. I would enthrall him for Thee, though he would respond with Thy sister's chains, surely."

The shadow of a smile crossed his serious face, a strange, light affection for his absent lover.

"I do not mention our agreement to challenge Thee. Though I would delight in Thine attentions, I seek nothing save that Thou knowest my heart and my ever-growing—" he paused for another quicksilver smile, "—sometimes rising adulation. Thou hast claimed my soul. I am Thine. While tempted to beg a change, I wouldn't have him changed from without. Perhaps, given years of fidelity, he will change from within. Thine is the only proscribed love I truly regret."

Finn released Aværys' foot, but did not rise. He bowed to few any longer, but this was his rightful place before the Rex Regum and on his knees was higher than most would be in the same presence.

There was mild regret that he had nipped any romance with Raithen in the bud, but he was content with friendship, if jealous of the affection he assumed the Avialæ enjoyed from their liege's hands. Even understanding Arvælyn's feelings where it came to Finn's heart, it made him feel as though his continued love was not enough, never enough. It was one thing to know a thing in his mind, yet another to feel it in his heart.

[Pharaoh]

Aværys arched a brow at the gesture, but relented to let his foot be drawn forth and kissed. Beneath his robes, only anklets adorned his legs, which jingled slightly at Finn's manipulation and He purred at the feel of Finn's lips.

Something in the words that flowed forth after tickled Him enough to chuckle.

"A compact born of Ambition, to be sure. Thine amatus wished to allow for the possibility that thee or he might advance thy lot by pleasing Magnati. There is pow'r to be mustered in the ability to say 'Aye' to an hungry force and to feed it at its whim..." He paused considering,

"He cannot be cross with Me, so if he grew wrathful t'would be thou who took the brunt. This is rare, I think... And I, who do answer his prayers, should know the truth of him. In past presumptions, you were but the innocent victim to a predatory claimant. Seeing thy face, I understand the assumption. Thou'rt angelic, after a fashion. A portrait of innocence that he would see undefiled. We do not see people as they are... least of all when we are young and full of fire." He tilted his head to one side as Finn let go of his heel, and drew it back to rest beside the other.

"I believe one should stride the path of least regret... An if thou wouldst fain wax intimate with Me more than thou wouldst regret the consequences if thine amatus should come to know, then I might be intrigued to oblige. To love Me thus is natural. Religion is a passing intimate thing and I am a personal God. There are many ways to worship Me..." He extended his hand down to Finn,

"How wouldst thou revere Me tonight?"

[Finn]

"I would bear his wroth for Thy pleasure," he assured the God. There were mortal things, and things divine. However, Aværys was personal enough a God and Arvælyn rarefied enough a man that these things overlapped.

Bold blue eyes dropped at the question, not for fear or shame, but for complicated answers to simple questions. He belonged at Aværys' feet, yet hungered to dominate Him, even if only in pleasure and play. At the same time, he would submit without question, with only ecstatic joy.

But his gaze fell back to the floor, remembered the desert fire burning under cool skin, the tinkle of gold against gold, the golden flesh rising up into tempting shadow. He had seen his God in all His unadorned splendor, but that did not detract from the mystery of the moment. His mouth began to water, a primal response to the primeval spirit reborn into this elven man.

Lystreia and the medici were frozen in time, but he realized he would say as much and do as much even if they were bearing conscious witness.

Finn looked up once more, lower lip rolling out from under his teeth.

"I would kiss Thee again, Imperator, and again, ever higher, until Thou badst me pause to pay more attention." It wasn't his best poetry, but polished enough to express a Hunger. He didn't know if this was, in some sense, an act of defiance against Arvælyn, whether admitting this to Aværys was seeking divine approbation for this Hunger. Their emblems complicated things to some extent. Arvælyn's chains circumscribed freedoms that he hardly mourned, and yet Ambition, Hunger, Power, they did not submit to Chains and Domination.

At least, what hadn't been an issue had become a spiritual dilemma as well.

Or he was just making excuses.

All he knew was that the Hunger for his God was not feigned.

[Pharaoh]

"For my pleasure?" Aværys smirked at that, "Is that thy primary concern? I came not hither in lust, but am ne'er far from its silken pull. 'Tis an hunger, after a fashion, and favoured of mine empyreal ilk..." He extended a hand to gingerly cup the curve of Finn's jaw. He gazed at his face at length, finally speaking again through a wistful sigh.

"O, what a piece of work is a man... When thy prolific, pernicious race was first pulled from purer stock, some were drawn farther than others. There is, I think, yet elfblood in thee... Our pull not wholly purged. But I have intimated as much in the course of less intimate encounters." He dragged his fingertips up Finn's cheek, to rest them at his lips.

"Be cautious with them thou dost serve i'th'Umbrium, if thou wouldst remain as thou art. The world doth bend to suit them... e'en I, by their will and whim, have evolved to suit them. Such a subtle thing, that..." He pressed his index finger into the valley of Finn's full lips.

"Kiss, then, if thou wouldst kiss. Aværys shalt not avert thee." He instructed, in a tone that straddled the line between cavalier and domineering. Aværys pursed lips that seemed unassailable for the moment. Perhaps He was a mountain to be scaled as Kaladon had been, or perhaps Finn was destined to remain debased at the base where he now knelt, regarding that golden summit from afar. Finn knew from experience that Aværys was not averse to testing mortals, and that He took amusement in so doing.

[Finn]

"I hunger for Your pleasure," he assured him heatedly, "and is not my hunger Thy pleasure?"

But he bit his tongue, and then his lip as his god caressed him and shared wisdom with him. That didn't quell his hunger, but it urged him to rein it in—to exert power over his hunger, which would be an idea he would have to meditate upon at a later time.

His eyes widened, then grew heavy-lidded at what felt like a compliment. Elf-blooded, He said, and he didn't know whether the warning about the platinum dragonflight was an answer to requests as yet unvoiced or was more common sense for their uncommon positions in the world. Aværys had admitted that the power of the Divine Twins was, in some ways, matched and countered by that of Zalkyriax and his brood. In order not to incur the platinum wrath for himself or his patron, and for many other reasons, he sought to be as useful to the Crownwyrm as he was to the Crown Prince he loved with all his heart.

In some ways, their upcoming union was prefigured by the compact between divine and draconic; an Empyreal Lord to wed a Dragon Prince. What power might that union unlock?

Given divine permission at last, he nibbled at Aværys' finger and then dropped down to do as he had said he would, kissing reverently from a kētóu, lips traveling slowly from golden foot to elegant arch to slender ankle and ever upward, ears perked for cues to his god's responses, his soul open to as much of the divine symphony as he could safely hold, his brow beginning to glow as if by his kisses he were devouring the grace of the Rex Regum.

His personal lord and savior.

[Pharaoh]

Aværys did not respond verbally to the seemingly rhetorical, theological query, but He did smirk at the rationalisation. Silence fell between them pursuant to that as Finn seemed to contemplate that which He had imparted. But soon came another form of worship.

Leaning back, He leaned his weight on the heels of his hands which were planted behind His back. His head hung behind Him, and he shut his golden eyes as Finn showed his ardent devotion. The Master of Majesty was famously difficult to interpret and His responses were as aloof as His divine reputation. He remained mostly still, but for how Finn's motion altered His positioning in some way. Aværys was as a hallowed relic to his own, austere Majesty; an object to be worshipped as He was objectified, at a distance, if not a physical one.

Finn would know from his experiences with Talon among other lofty entities, that a Divine Symphony was an enigmatic and perilous thing to broach. What the bard could glean was as aloof as His body language or, if not guarded, at least too alien to be discernable in any useful way.

After a time, he would lift His head to look down at wherever Finn was focused in that moment.

"Is this as thou hast fantasised... Playing the suckling supplicant? Or hast Our hungry herald heartier hankerings? Pray, bard, sing me the story of thy salacity."

[Finn]

To Finn, his god's skin tasted like fabled ambrosia. As open to divine music as it was safe to be, he didn't fret over being unable to know him as thoroughly as he knew Arvælyn; Aværys was a god, unknowable to a mortal, even one as exalted as Finn had become. One could grow intoxicated by this, and he was almost startled out of his worship by his god's own voice.

When the question settled inside him, he shook his head. It wasn't exactly what he had fantasized, no, though he enjoyed it. His mortal hungers and ambitions had been stoked by this one, and there was a seed of desire within him to see even his god sating his hungers, bowing to his ambition and power.

He imagined singing while he climaxed in his god. That was the song he wished to sing, even if the attempt humbled him before Aværys' greater power. His pupils dilated and he flushed hot and red from his hairline down to his chest.

After one last kiss to a golden knee, strong hands took both knees and spread them almost violently apart, and instead of kissing, he bit divine flesh, along the inside of Aværys' thigh. He watched the divine visage, ready to be struck, smote, or berated, wondering whether he would be punished or encouraged to blaspheme once more. It felt transgressive on a spiritual level as much as any other, stirring a strange sort of exhilaration deep in his belly.

Finn had never been terribly dominant or submissive when it came to sex. Early in their relationship, he had been almost entirely the active participant in his relationship with Arvælyn, although that had balanced out more since his draconic nature was invoked and brought to the forefront. With him, power plays felt like just that: play.

While he was still unsure whether Aværys had given him Hunger and Ambition along with Power or merely awakened what had slept within him, and while there was still an element of play here, he found that, while submission to the greater power would feel good, feel like his proper place in the scheme of things, he wanted to overturn that, to dominate the beautiful god, shackle him with his sister's chains, make him bow and beg and give.

And give.

And give.

[Pharaoh]

An ominous eclipse made the radiant light in Aværys’ eyes somehow darken despite their lustre. He shone no less brilliantly for how severe His gaze became as Finn felt a pressure drawing him back as if some unseen leash tugged at the Empyreal crown that rounded his brow.

"Dost dare hazard o’erperch thy station by such a lofty leap?" Everything seemed to darken around them, as He slid from the examining table to alight on the ground. His stature seemed to extend upward even as Finn was compelled downward onto the floor.

"There are holy hierarchies thou wouldst do well to mark, child, ere thou dost marry into the dynasty that erected the walls you would fain breach." The pressure rounding Finn’s head released abruptly, as Aværys turned away and stalked to one of the frozen figures to inspect their face as his expression softened to something milder.

"Rise. Disrobe and lay thee down across the table. I will answer thine ambitions with an education of sorts. In this one matter My sister is less subtle, but mark thee: A crown is but a collar higher set. Remember at whose pleasure thou dost serve and the rewards will exceed such fickle fancies as those thou didst hither entertain. Now then…" A smile curled.

"Spread thyself before Me that I might better confer Mine education." Aværys looked taller now and broader. More like the depictions one regarded in stone and stained glass when he was wearing the guise of the conqueror… when he’d been Aværys Invictus in sooth. He wasn’t quite as statuesque as an Avialæ, so perhaps His education was not meant to be a punitive one. Whatever the case, the stoic disregard was no longer present as he regarded Finn for the first time today clearly within his domain of Hunger.