Legend of Ransera

Aurin enjoyed writing bank drafts with money that wasn't his own. He sat in his office signing them; smaller drafts only required his own signature, while more substantial drafts required three. At this point, Lord Choi and Master Hansom had given him carte blanche to sign their names to such things if it saved them time. Of course, he still brought them things to sign. That way, when they failed to even skim them, they wouldn't know which documents they had signed and which documents they hadn't. They couldn't tell his forgery apart from their own signatures, and so they couldn't exactly claim his were counterfeited. Nor would they admit to such an egregious abuse of protocol.

Nor was he trying to defraud the theater. It afforded him too many benefits, and lent Portions for Foxes legitimacy as well.

"Hello, boy," he greeted when he activated his pendant. "Mm. Mhm." Aurin did listen while he worked, and it afforded him no small pleasure to listen to his wunderkind unleash a torrent of creativity. When Torin paused for breath, Aurin finally responded to the his idea.

"Sure, kid. Inverting an aura. I know that trick. I'm guessing Siv and your little lady would know better than me, though. Mists, even Jacq probably understands it better than I do. But I can vault over as soon as I finish a spot of work here. If you want to discuss further or..." His stomach growled. He glanced at the glitter of city lights in the darkness beyond the panes of glass. "Oh, it's later than I thought. Is there food left? Do you want to..." his voice dropped huskily, "...prototype?"

Aurin had been unfamiliar with the technical word until he had met Torin, and now it was an ongoing joke. The fox-faced man could make any word sound filthy, even prototype.

The impresario of the Golden Peacock Theater was quick to finish his accounts payable, and then he left by way of his door to make sure his secretary went home rather than burn the midnight oil as he was wont to do. Sometimes Aurin stuck his wick into the fellow, and he seemed to be developing an attachment. That was problematic; Aurin liked his people loyal, but not obsessive. In any case, while walking through a door without eyes upon him, he vaulted to Torin's bedroom and fucked him proper. Once that was done, he could eat and think more clearly.

"Right," he said after Torin responded to his blank inversion. "I don't use this one often. Anyone with the trick can tell I'm hiding something. It's better to wear a generic sort of thing, seem simple and safe. People want to put you in a box, so you give them an easy one and they don't question it - most of the time."

Aurin tended to camouflage as Torin later spelled out: Darus had a glamour, but also a false aura. The fox-faced man's disguises were complete, but there were high-security places with high-powered mages who could still sometimes see through them. It was frustrating. He didn't see himself getting any stronger, but there were still people stronger than him. He hated it.

It seemed as though Torin's fix would be expensive, but they never spoke of price. The runesmith's business made him richer than most, and so his prototypes didn't set him back seriously.

"Jacq teaches the kids inversions, but for others, who aren't Semblers, it'd be keen. I was thinking also... for your creations that you invert, if there isn't a way you could fashion a sort of... keyhole? So those people you trust can know the... sembling... key? And not have to break our brains against the inversion to see your work?"

Aurin nodded along. He was listening, attentive even, but the afterglow was still warm around his edges. He was surfeited with food and affection, and Torin's home was one of the places he felt safest, most at home. Safety was an illusion and the idea of home might be fragile, but he felt it and it was enough. His own sembling caught a lot of nuance and a lot of things implied or left unsaid, so he often came up with what seemed like intuitive leaps and great insight when really he was just paying attention.

Eventually, he stopped Torin's stream of consciousness by reaching out to him. His callused hand was gentle enough along his jawline, but firm when his fingers tangled in his hair. There might have been an instant of what could be termed pain, more of a tease to his primed senses than any real punishment. The ginger just wanted to get his attention.

"You are worthy of a signature," he said slowly with complete certitude. "You are already thinking about it. Let it happen. I get to enjoy you while you live; there will be others who will enjoy your works long after we are gone. Your signature might let them know a bit more about your genius. Give them that gift of yourself even as they enjoy the fruits of your labors."

With a smirk, his serious face disappeared and he pinched Torin's cheek like he was a wee lad. But when he continued, he wasn't in jest.

"Now stand up straight and tall. Widen your stance a bit. Good. Shoulders back. Head high. Hands on your hips. Now look me in the eye and say, I am Torin Kilvin. I am a masterful runeforger, and Aurin is proud to own me."

He waited, admiring Torin's face and form limned in ruddy fire- and flickering candlelight. There might have been a sheen upon his eyes.

If there was something Aurin was certain of when it came to Torin, it was that he would obey. He might struggle. He might hesitate. In the end, though, he would do his best to do right by his red-headed lover, to attempt in good faith to comply with the letter and the spirit of the elder man's demands. For Aurin, it was easier to have Torin say things out loud like this than say them himself, though he had told him before that he was proud of him. Now, he wanted Torin to walk through the room armored in that pride. He wanted people to look at Torin and see the young Lord of Stardew Valley, the brilliant creator of magical wonders, the beautiful wunderkind, already so accomplished at an age where Aurin had been fleeing from city to city, doing whatever it took to get by, to get clean, to run away from his past and who he was.

There was a quicksilver flash of an approving smile before the smirk returned.

"Say, Aurin loves me."

And as soon as Torin complied, he opened his aura up more fully than he normally did even for his young lover, and he meditated upon his feelings. Torin said the words; Aurin showed him the Truth.

There were parts that were complicated, and parts that were simple as rain.

"Say, I make Aurin happy. Say, I make Aurin feel safe—loved." His voice was unaccountably roughened. But each time Torin complied, what passed between their souls as if they had no impermable barriers was the Truth of the words.

There was also the pain. When it became too much, he quietly, slowly, and regretfully inverted his aura such that even Torin with all his strength as a Sembler could only feel the shapes of those emotional truths, like huge shapes moving under the ice in a wintry lake.

'Aurin loves me,' Torin declared. He said it so Aurin didn't have to. The words made the smith react so dramatically, while Aurin's face showed only the flicker of a pleased smile. 'I make Aurin happy. I make Aurin feel safe—loved.' He parroted the words verbatim, obedient to Aurin's will, but he was both runeforger and runeforge, taking those words that were lines from the man who was no playwright, and he declared them and made them real. They were true in Aurin's heart, as he shared, and they were true in Torin's mouth. Torin needed to know them as much as Aurin did, and Torin appreciated when Aurin cracked open his heart and let him in. He didn't judge the mire or the muck, didn't see them any differently from the glitz and the glamours. They were good for each other.

His eyes shone, and when he saw Torin's hand twitching toward him, Aurin snapped his fingers and then held out his hand for Torin to take, to nuzzle, or whatever he might do. The fox-faced man just wanted him close, closer, closest.

"I know," he acknowledged, voice rough around the edges as he beckoned him. "C'mere..."

There were no more words then. Instead, there was a knot in his throat. The dark shapes swimming under the ice seemed almost more likely to show on his face now. His poker face was failing, but he had already gambled on Torin and beaten the house. Now what they needed was touch and animal closeness, the things that spoke to primal places within them, assuring them that all was well, all was right.

It was growing later, and he supposed he could gather himself to speak more of sembling and anti-sembling, but he rather hoped they could just pull the curtains, climb into bed, and let all of creation dial down into that warm room, that warm bed, the warm circles of their arms around each other.