middaeg | Sad Song, Warm Occasion [Closed]

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Sad Song, Warm Occasion [Closed]

Who: L and Myr
When: Before quests
Where: L's cottage
What: Soft talks after they got matching magical tattoos
Warnings: Soft stuff, maybe sad stuff

[There's something bittersweet about two people mutually deciding that pursuing any sort of romance would be ill-advised and unhealthy, and then opting to get matching tattoos. They serve a practical purpose, of course, as well as a symbolic one; prior to a dangerous mission, a spell to address one of L's particular blind spots isn't exactly unwise, and if it's a way to amplify the boons L receives by merit of being Bonded to a faun, all the better.

With limited options on a sparse and bony frame, L had chosen for the design to cap his shoulder: two bees and a honeycomb nestled against a bunch of plum blossoms. It'll take some time before he's used to seeing himself with it; he's certainly never worn anything so ornate or colorful. Any warmer and his skin would look grey against the hues, but the design's palette was well-chosen, soft, and harmonious.

Even if they weren't, he reasons, it's rare for him to expose much skin at all even when the weather is warm. Only a hypothetical lover would be in a position to see it, and such occasions aren't exactly routine for the withdrawn detective.

As they approach the cottage, L glances over his tattooed (and currently covered) right shoulder, back at his companion, who is still clad in mourning black since Everett's departure.

Typically, Myr jingles softly even when he's standing still. L's accustomed to the ambient sound of charms clinking against each other, but Myr's removed his antlers, as well.]

I hope you'll stay for tea.

[The words are more frequent in L's vocabulary since the dream with the True Fae. He knows that there's a line between a demand (stay so we can be together) and silent pining (go, so I can imagine that we are), and "I hope" seems to strike the gentlest balance. It's permission and reassurance, laying the decision in the lap of one who can be trusted with it.]

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[L used to be much better at this, than he is now. The trembling panic of a prey creature, desperate for support and grounding and shelter; he's felt it, of course, but he's no kind of shelter.

Typically, he is the storm.]

Myr...

[L expected Myr to hold his hand, not to grasp it as though it's the only viable way to escape a precarious dangle above death many feet below. It's shocking, and humbling as well; he's permitted, in these moments, to see just how much his Bonded needs a lifeline.

He leans over. Fitting; it's a lean-to attempt the kind of shelter Myr needs, shoddy and poorly made and unfinished, however earnest the effort. Half-embracing and half-draping across Myr's shoulders, he offers the act he's forgotten how to perform without too much thought. Now it's fraught; now he's worried it will communicate the kind of desiring wish he's tried very hard to simply put from his mind, where it can do the least damage.

Not knowing the boundaries of himself or others as well as he should, he's started to err on the side of just not reaching, not wanting, not asking. Taken to the extreme, he believes everything that gives him pleasure or benefits him is selfish and disgusting parasitism. It's not about him, and his energy should not be connected to what does not concern him, but were their places reversed, Everett would be a shelter, now, brewing the tea with one hand and saying the right things, supporting his bonded Faun with a muscular arm.

Sorry, sorry... as if he'd sent Everett away himself, though he knows he didn't, that it's not true, that no amount of wistful envy could have prompted it.

He nuzzles his face against Myr's neck as his arms clasp loosely around his shoulders. He likes Myr's scent; does that make him a thief, for this level of contact? He decides that, since the motive was not ulterior, it's probably forgivable.]

Edited 2021-04-13 21:33 (UTC)

[Whether or not L trusts his own expertise, the promise of shelter he offers is enough. Whether or not he believes himself comfortable or comforting, Myr takes comfort in him, and knows him steady in this. Now Myr can let go of his precarious hold on himself, and fall into that soundless dry sobbing that's threatened to overwhelm him every day since Everett left.

Now he has the cover to grieve, and does, both what he has lost and what he may yet lose; what has been difficult about today, and this month, and all the months preceding it that have led them to this point. He is no stranger to loss: He knows this hurt will heal and be transformed in its own due time, but until then it will demand to be felt, and strike from ambush, and no matter his pretensions there is not a thing either of them can do to prevent it.

But L can be close to him, and L can hold him, and that is balm enough.

Eventually the storm subsides; eventually, Myr finds words again, to offer in a quiet, husking voice:]

I don't need you to be him. I need you to be here.

[L had been his friend nearly from the start, too. A challenging friend, a difficult friend, but a friend all the same, and the one who reminded him of parts of home that had gone missing long before Myr did. That initial affection had only deepened over time; what he had given to L had been a natural outflowing from it.

He shifts in his Witch's arms enough to bring a hand to the side of L's face, holding him gently there.]

I need you.

[Not only for the sake of what L could provide--comfort, magic, intellectual challenge, quiet presence and sometimes-quiet dreams--but for what he could give L. For all that his beloved Witch drew out of him and asked of him, for every way they've grown, and grown together.

It hurts to know that they've grown apart, too; to feel the tickling intimations of L's fear of taking too much when Myr knows only delight that someone could and did enjoy the sheer physicality of his presence as he did theirs. As much as he offers words he offers that, too: Though muddled now with strong grief, he is glad to be touched and held and comforted, whoever's need precipitates it.

He tips his head back further to rest against L's, letting himself dissolve into the touch and how it strengthens their Bond, letting his edges grow fuzzy and blur into his Witch's.

I gave you myself when we Bonded. That hasn't changed.]

[This process, something ancient and sacred, is not one L's been a part of much in his life. Usually he's witnessed it from afar, others engaging in their rituals and ceremonies and tears. The rites have passed him like a parade on television; even those events that were close to him (relatively speaking) felt distant and unreal, because regardless, until he was the one in the body bag, the next day certainly involved solving cases, and that simply wasn't negotiable.

The world seems to stop for this, because Myr's world has stopped. His Bonded is correct, in that the things they do come around to affect the other, whether they are subjectively good or bad. So L ceases his jittery motion, and his quick-footed restless desperation to keep himself occupied at all times still. He lets himself breathe, slacken, putting all the tension into the rail-thin arms that hold Myr firmly enough.

His own breath catches in his chest at Myr's touch. The bones in his face are fine, and the skin is soft and smooth, not because he's particularly diligent about shaving, but because he's actually never needed to.

In answer to Myr's need, he wishes he could be more, and aches to be. He holds tighter, nearly to the limit of his strength, and the contours of his jagged, bony body can't be comfortable digging against his faun's warm back.]

I'm here. I'm staying. It's OK...

[He speaks quickly and softly, almost in a whisper, nodding firmly as if he's trying to give the words more impact and weight. Those are things that L lacks, for all that he desires and adores the same physical grounding that Myr finds value in. In the dreams they share, he's often slightly transparent, as if to reflect that he might as well be a ghost in the presence of caber tossers or new lovers, or old friends who could have been lovers, if things had gone differently.]

Whether or not you think so, you have all of me.

[Such as it is. He knows it could and should be more.]

Your... I'm going to get your tea. I'll be right back?

All right, [Myr says, but does not immediately let go; he keeps his head pressed against his Witch's a moment longer for the comfort of it. This, he can feel now, is his. They are each other's, and that feels more stable than it heretofore had in sorrow's aftermath.

Startling what a good cry and a few minutes of being held by someone who loved him could do.

He finally releases L on that thought, though it's with obvious reluctance, and sits up a little straighter to rub at his face and check the lay of his blindfold. There are really no positive sides to his blindness, but not getting hopelessly congested and snotty after moments like that isn't terrible.]

[L extracts himself from the embrace carefully, so as not to cause a shock too sudden. He considers, as his lips brush past Myr's cheekbone, planting a kiss there; it seems too forward and bold. He squeezes his Bonded's hand, instead, reassuring him before he moves to fetch the whistling kettle, the tea leaves, the cups.

He can read them, now, a bit. It's less invasive than asking to creep through someone's skull, anyway.]

You know...

[He moves quickly, so as to return faster with the hot drinks.]

There's a whole branch of divination devoted to this. The way the tea leaves fall after you've finished drinking. I'm told that I have a talent for it.

[He has a talent for a lot of things; it's probably not surprising, especially given that divination is his specialty.]

[And perhaps Myr feels the absence of that kiss-that-might-have been, from the fluffing of the fur along his neck, the nearly imperceptible shiver as L pulls away.

There's a conversation they need to have about what Myr meant when he'd said he was worried for L's boundaries, and where Myr's own are drawn, but perhaps that's not for today.

His ears perk visibly as L starts in with you know; that's a reliable indicator of something new, and fascinating, that his Witch has learned.]

Truly? I'd heard them mention it in passing, once, but hadn't thought much of it. What's the principle behind it?

[Certain students of Entropy, and others of Spirit, did have some talent in reading the disordered events of the Fade, but no one could be really sure of which worldline actually carried the future in it. Presumably it worked through other methods on Talam.

He holds out his hand for his cup, knowing from habit and Bond about where L will wish to offer it. Once he's got it, he adds--with a first hint of a smile,] Intend to do a reading for us once we're done?

[L's always learning, always collecting, always processing. His body is limited in so many ways; it's fitting and strange and a blessing that his mind is not. There's beauty there, and worlds within worlds, and lots of soothing scenarios to loop and replay when reality is too harsh for even drugs to take the edge off.]

I've heard it described as a perfect union of chaos and control. The tea leaves and dregs fall as they will, but... only yours could fall that way, as you chose to drink your tea at a given point in time. There are so many small things that can influence it... and the relationship between small choices and what evades any kind of conscious thought is fascinating to me. If it's alright, I would like to practice.

[Myr tucks his tea cup toward himself with one hand, extending the other across the table in silent invitation: Would L sit somewhere they can hold hands as they drink?

His ears are trained on his Witch the whole time; his ravenous curiosity has been drawn to the fore, as L well knew it would be.]

More than alright--I'd love to have you try. [He cocks his head to one side as he considers the matter through an experimentalist's lens.] Will you be reading the past, the present, or the future? And how're we to know it worked?

[L pauses; the impulse has become one he's better at suppressing because he's convinced it's the right or appropriate thing to do, but the suggestion is strong enough through the Bond, and Myr's desire clear and sincere enough, that he actually does move his chair closer, to the point where their hands can comfortably overlap either over or under the table.]

The past is easiest because it's the most stable, and the easiest to confirm. The present stops being accurate practically the moment you've read it... and the future is vague. Difficult... by far the most open to interpretation, because nothing is set until it's actually happened.

If you want to know whether or not it worked... the past is certainly the option to go with.

Edited 2021-04-14 05:45 (UTC)

[Warm tea in one hand and his Bonded's touch in the other as they converse over magic--it is as good a moment as Myr could wish for a distraction.

He takes a careful sip of his cup as L explains, cautious of the temperature. Close to drinkable, it turns out--so their experiment might begin as soon as he's ready to down it.

Though bolting through it would be a waste of perfectly good tea.]

Sensible. Now--and forgive me for this, because you know I trust you, but for the sake of the experiment--what order ought we to do this in to ensure you've really read my past, rather than aligned your prediction with my retelling, or told me something vague but plausible enough I'd reinterpret my own memories to match?

[He gives L's fingers a fond squeeze as he says all this, clearly eager to hear what his Witch comes up with.]

[With the hand not holding Myr's, L nudges something hard and cold toward him. An ice cube, easy to procure for him due to his elemental specialty. He rarely has to wait for hot coffee or tea to cool too long, and neither do his companions.]

The less I know, generally, the better... but the shape that's formed will be influenced by your state of mind. If you're thinking of a specific person or event, or place, it'll probably have something to do with those; if it's just a general vague emotion, or a question, something related will sift to the surface. When people want their leaves read, it's often because they're hoping to find an answer to a specific question, or a truth they didn't know they were looking for, so... enjoy your tea, however you'd like to. Talk as much or as little as you please.

[He picks up the offered ice cube with a look that turns from puzzlement to pleasure, and promptly dunks it in his tea.]

Hm-m. Still seems parlous vague to me, amatus. [But he is teasing, coming as he does from an academic tradition of magic that prides itself on quantifying itself and its outputs by rigorous standards.] How do we know we didn't just influence it with the ice cube?

[It's a straw protest, given his next act is take a contented sip of his now-cool-enough tea. Thinking of something to think of--something that isn't the gaping wound in his chest--is...surprisingly difficult. There is certainly a question he wants an answer to, desperately, but it's likely beyond the reach of divination.

What else was there? He's certainly putting his hopes in this conversation to ease matters between him and his Witch (he takes another sip of tea); was that enough of a "question" to be amenable to this odd scrying process?]

...This is a little harder than I thought, you know. Coming up with a question I'd like an answer to, that isn't simply frivolous.

[Which might be a way of saying he's uncertain how much trust to put in such a process. Did he dare rest hopes on it?]

They're tea leaves; some degree of vagueness is inherent, I'm afraid, but luckily, your witch overanalyzes absolutely everything.

[A fault, posed in a self-aware way with fake bravado as if this is actually a tremendous boon to both of them. In some fairness to the detective, his life has swept him in directions where even his faults have been useful or sometimes vital. It has a tendency to all fall apart around other people; it has a tendency to rip at him in small or large ways when he really wants it not to.

At least Myr knows more or less what to expect of him, by this point, if not to the extent that Watari had simply taken all of his behavior in unflappable stride. L's sure he prefers Myr's method and the gentle ways he communicates belief for the man's growth and personal improvement. It's not simple acceptance that a destructive and vicious monster will never manage to become a family pet, much less a functioning member of human society.]

Also... please don't interpret "influence" as a spoiling agent. You can also add sugar or cream or even alcohol to the tea, and if that's what you wished for at that point in time, for any reason, it only makes the result more authentic. So would changing your mind after taking the first sip... whether or not drinking the tea is a positive experience, a good diviner can still find some kind of accurate answer in the leaves.

[It's probably growing clearer why this branch of divination appeals to L so much. A mundane and simple starting point, and an endlessly complex process that only rewards one who pores over events and motives in microscopic detail.

He sips his own, after adding his customary ridiculous amount of sugar. Uniquely when he's with Myr, he does this with honey and not small white cubes.]

Any question, or no question. Regardless... I'm not here to judge frivolity.

Edited 2021-04-14 16:08 (UTC)

Luckily, [Myr echoes, his smile widening,] my Witch and his Faun both have that tendency. [One far more than the other, true, but Myr at least understands and shares that desire to pursue an idea, a concept, an outcome to its absolute last detail. It is one of the ways they had meshed from the beginning; taking hours to talk with L over some subject that's painless for both of them is still a treasured activity.

Though so many topics they could speak of seem to have grown thorns lately...

Yet it did little to dampen Myr's dedication to his Witch. Whatever L seemed to think of his own nature and whatever painful ramifications of those beliefs manifested in the detective's behavior, the Faun believes--he knows--with diamond intensity that there is more to L. There is always room for growth.

Which, itself, seemed fittingly analogous to tea-leaf reading per L's description: Subject to a vast world of influences, apparently chaotic, and ultimately unique to individual undergoing it. Myr's visibly chewing over this explanation, giving his tea cup an absent swirl as he does. Yes, this is a divination method with enough intricacies to keep L fascinated; they'll have to do more with it in the future.]

It's a little early for alcohol yet, [ignoring the fact he has been experimenting with more, and earlier, drinking to ease his own troubles of late,] but I take your point. All my training rejects the notion you could get results from a process like that--or at least show how you'd gotten them, but...

[He essays a thoughtful little hum, takes another drink.] The theory behind it is that even our least actions have meaning to them, and grow out of the ongoing story of our lives, whether or not we will them in the moment. There's something lovely in that, [to a man who thinks in stories.

It doesn't give him any more guidance on what to hold in mind, as he finishes his tea, but conceiving of it thusly does remove his anxiety that he should be keeping something in mind. Rather, let the dregs fall where they may.

He gives L's captive hand a squeeze with his own, sets down the empty cup, and nudges it in his Witch's direction.]

In that case, let's see what you come up with.

Too early? That is wholly subjective...

[He wouldn't say no, or judge if he knew Myr's habits lately. He's reckless in his own self-medication, after all, often careless. Maybe that's rubbed off on Myr; perhaps his Bonded's own sorrow has swollen to the point where it's not necessary.]

My training insists otherwise. No two crime scenes are alike. They're riddled with the unique choices and errors of individuals who don't always behave logically, under panic or pressure. People do strange things with no reason at all, and... even stranger things, when they've convinced themselves they have one. Seconds speak louder than years, sometimes... the least actions.

[A pause]

And it is lovely.

[He agrees easily as he reaches for the empty cup, turning it, keeping it on the table so he can continue to hold Myr's hand.]

I see dead flowers. Chlorophyll... crisp leaves. Someone is restoring them; the pride swells, and glows. You worked really hard on this.

[It is, in part, knowing that L wouldn't judge him that's kept Myr so rigidly quiet about it. He is ashamed of his own lack of control, yes, but also that he's not setting a better example, and that L would not take him to task for it when he truly, honestly...needs someone to.

He's not so self-sufficient as he'd like when he's this frayed around the edges.]

Ah, [comes a breath of recognition. It took no real cleverness to understand why L had become a diviner in the first place, given his avocation; but this is nevertheless a welcome pearl of insight into Myr's Witch.] So you were a diviner all along--and you'd told me magic didn't exist in your world.

[Or not as such as Myr knew it. It's teasing, on one level; and true on another.

He leaves that line of thought as L takes up the cup, ears angled intently to catch every word of this divining. It...sounds innocuous, almost; something someone could almost invent from knowing him only as a Faun and having heard a word or two about Creation magic. But dead flowers, restored, that he'd been very proud of...

Not a trivial memory L's picked up on, then, but a precious one, if it is what Myr thinks it is. He shivers; there's a frisson of intense, excited curiosity through the Bond as his fingers tighten on L's.]

I did. I hadn't known I could. [Until he had, which is how it went for most mages. His awakening had simply been gentler than most.]

[L's accustomed to darkness and misery. So much, perhaps, that he is bewildered when someone suggests being pulled out of it. Kira's arrival had been some form of that, a declaration that the world would change and grow brighter; L had pushed back, because the world was the world, along with the darkness and misery; they would always remain, always exist, always sweep and claim and conquer every mortal, all their games.

He's brilliant at challenges... and poor, at the kinds that demand better from those who have met him at his own sunken level.]

Of sorts... every world needs finders, and problem-solvers. The methods might differ, and the means and names, but... it's all the same thing, when it comes down to it.

[And L, with a genius that came closest to magic for any human in his world, draws immense comfort from stability. The same thing, paradoxically, soothes him, even as outside his repetitive mundane routines, his boredom has an appetite all its own.

He glances up, dark eyes ignited and elated, at the hint that he's onto something.]

You became a mage later, so... was it was the first time you'd practiced magic? I'm seeing a bee...

[No real surprise, there. Bees are inextricably woven into the person Myr is, the things he cares about.

His eyes close, and when he speaks, it doesn't quite sound like the careful, probing questions a cold-reader might ask.]

Stamen-nurtured, reaped, collected,
Left to rot, then resurrected.
The pistil withered, disconnected,
Delivered gifts henceforth rejected.

Edited 2021-04-15 05:07 (UTC)

I was a mage, from that moment. Anyone who has magic, is--whether or not she uses it.

[Thus every human on Talam was a mage, from a Thedosian perspective; and all of then a potential danger, from a southerner's perspective. It hasn't ceased to be a wonder to Myr, for all his time in Aefenglom--a wonder admixed with a little terror, which terror had cause to reawaken after the nightmare of the previous month.

Some part of him would always wonder if there wasn't anywhere in this whole world a city that dealt sanely with its mages and kept the whole human populace locked away in a great Circle until they proved responsible with their birthright. It had, after all, happened to him and so had that instinctive imprimatur of normalcy that accrued to childhood experiences. Even if it later turned out they were not normal at all...

His head jerks up as L's tone shifts; there's a change in his face, like he'd widen his eyes to stare at his Witch. Prophecy delivered in verse has a unmistakable charge to it--it grabs his attention, demands he fit the stave to the context of his past. Knowing the subject matter as intimately as Myr does, it takes less than seconds for him to understand.

He hadn't told L this. Hadn't, in fact, shared much about his parents at all beyond a passing comment or two. To have it come out this way, discovered rather than offered, and by deliberate (albeit undirected) action rather than a dream's caprice, is-- He doesn't know what it is, but it settles strangely in his chest.

His tail bristles against the back of his chair.]

She wasn't often happy. [Said in a soft, small voice, as a child who'd learned too early to be quiet for a loved one's sake.] I thought to cheer her up.

[L is human, and as the previous month's nightmare had seemed to confirm more than his associates already knew, all too glad to pursue what he found interesting even if it was dangerous, damaging, sure to bring ruin on his head. When he was practicing magic among the true fae, a part of him likes to think that the same concerns occurred to him as to Myr; intellectually, he does acknowledge the troubling correlation between such recklessness and the natural laws requiring pacts between witches and monsters just to maintain some kind of balance without catastrophe. In practice, the rush had obliterated all such concern.

These words, heard for the first time by both of them, are his own, but melted through a prism that is less cantrip or cast, and more an ongoing state drifting in and out of sharper focus. Diviners may deepen or dull it, of course, but never really turn it off. As the Dreamers prove, even sleep is hardly a rest.

There are some this suits, however, and L is undeniably one of them. He's always existed on a slightly shifted plane from the rest of his world, and Divination is a study that seems to reward a particular type of mind, burdened in some ways and unclouded in others. While the softly intoned words make sense to him, there are cryptic pieces, words he chose without being entirely certain why. Given the way the tea leaves fell, though, they were the only ones that fit, as there's only one way to put any particular jigsaw puzzle together.

He blinks free of those locked pieces when Myr instantly recognizes and responds to them. The ebb and flow of this process is recognizing and forming pictures, and then more fluid discussion and interpretation, as well as whatever the tea's drinker might add to clarify or question.]

You weren't successful...

[He squeezes Myr's hand a little more tightly.]

It was one more reason to keep you at arm's length. You were seen, but... for thorns, rather than petals.

Edited 2021-04-15 17:34 (UTC)

[Myr had not failed to notice L's joy among the true Fae, but dreams...operated under a different moral calculus. The Faun himself had been more free with his own magic in his nightly sojourns in the Fade, without worry for who might be fearful or disapproving of his displays. Though any mage who cared for his own soul--to say nothing of the safety of those around him--contested with demons in deadly earnest, there had always been an element of play in Myr's dreams. There had always been a fierce joy in being the uncontested hero of his own story.

It wasn't only his own unspoken duty to give L space, nor his fight with the true Fae, that had kept him away from that part of the dream.

There were some things he still felt he could succeed at, when it came to making others happy.]

No. I never was.

[His mother had not been a happy woman, in the short years he'd lived with her. Too ill, too preoccupied, too...unsuited, as they all were, to life in the alienage. Myr lifts his free hand to run through his hair, before resting his forehead in his palm, elbow propped on the table. His fur's still on end, his side of the Bond still roiling like stirred tea.

Had he not seen L's own mother a year ago in dreams, he might not say more, unprompted. But L knew what it was to love someone he could not please, and labor under despite from the one who'd given him birth.]

She closed me behind the only door in our house and sent for the Templars. That same day--and I was too busy crying over the flowers to try running.

[She'd struck them from his hands in dawning horror when he'd shown her his new talent. Didn't have time to gather up the fallen petals before she'd shoved him in the bedroom, alone and sobbing from a broken heart.]

Have I been wrong to blame her? [Everything she believed named him a demon asleep. Everything she was had seemed too frail for motherhood, for the weight of a child's trusting hand in her own. Could that be held against her?

He hasn't had an answer in all his years of asking.]

[Myr can't see L's guarded, pale face, or the anxious gloss this topic puts over his dark eyes. The reasons for it are precisely the reasons the man is in a position to empathize, somewhat, and so the effect through the Bond is a mixed and strange one, both safely distant and painfully close to home. Emotion can be allocated between the two as needed, to make this approachable; L's already good at it.]

No.

[The answer comes sharply, quickly. Too quickly for any kind of teacup consultation, in truth; it's all L's own immediate and reflexive answer.]

The world of a child is limited; the authority of a parent is absolute. Whatever the parent's struggles... the child's will be greater.

[Immediately, or at some future point. Now he does look at the cup, because in his own case, only one absolute authority had existed in his tiny, cramped world. The control she'd lacked had been the closest thing to it and the result had been a chaotic hell that they'd inhabited together, miserably.

Counterclockwise; quarter turn.]

Your father was powerless to stop your removal. Your people collectively answered to a higher authority?

[More absolute, even, than a parent's to a child?]

[Something in the texture of their Bond (misery shared is misery halved) makes Myr unfold from his hunched posture and rest his free hand over their twined fingers. L would well know what a child might blame a parent for; L had lived in that nightmare unrelieved for years. His reflex in this instance carries the weight of that experience, makes the words trustworthy.

Makes them painful, too, and moves the Faun to rub a thumb over his Witch's knuckles.]

I suppose, [he says, still quietly,] it would have been easier to judge if she'd done it to anyone but me.

[Easy to say someone else was innocent. Harder to say that he (they) had not, somehow, disappointed the one he most wanted to love him.]

The Chantry, and the Templar Order beneath her. [A low sigh.] "A mage is fire made flesh and a demon asleep." We couldn't be left in our homes, untrained; we'd be a risk to everyone if we became possessed, or even used our magic recklessly.

[L watches Myr's hand, the way it covers and shelters them both. Something shared; something lost and gained, alike. Their experiences aren't dissimilar, and it's the rare circumstance where the elven mage and the human detective can be said to truly and naturally empathize with one another. To call it effortless would be a stretch, of course, because this is a difficult subject to stare at too long, a difficult matter, when both of them had doubtless borrowed tears from the rest of their lives to spend on those early and painful years.]

Doubtless.

[His voice rasps in a throat slightly dry when he answers. He sets aside Myr's teacup for a moment to reach for his own, sipping it, then changing their places once more.

Quarter turn.]

That wasn't the way you saw it, then. Was it truly so, or just what you were told? To make it seem as though there was a reason for you to leave your home?

Edited 2021-04-18 02:19 (UTC)

No. [It wasn't the way he saw it.] But I was a child, and I'd watched my cousin carried off by them two years before--kicking and screaming so much they had to stuff in him a sack to get him out of there.

[One corner of Myr's mouth quirks up at the reminiscence; the whole episode had been awful, but also so characteristically Vandelin that he has to smile, even if sadly.

He's silent a moment before answering the actual question, a fingerling of awareness slipping through their Bond: He'd have answered this differently two years ago.]

Both, I think. It's what most of them truly believed--and I did, too, after a time. [The Chantry and the Circle had the rearing of him, and he had accepted much of their reasoning on a mage's place in the world.] Though I always disagreed with strictness of it, and the notion that we were cursed and always dangerous, rather than gifted and in need of guidance. But mages, especially untrained ones, can be a great danger to those around them and need--a stricter ethos, than anyone without magic.

I... [A sigh. This is a tender, uncomfortable thing to talk about, but it distracts from the other tender, painful things they could be talking about.] I've come to believe, [some on the strength of their association, and what being raised in isolation had done to L, to Mello, to Eli,] that the particular form of the Circles wasn't necessary. That we didn't need to be taken from our families or forbidden contact; there could have been a better compromise than the one the Chantry settled on.

[L makes a small, attentive sound to indicate that he's listening; he wants to add something to the Bonds complicated tapestry, and Myr can't see his wide eyes, the way his lips part softly, the tilt of his head.

It's ironic, that Myr not being able to see him probably allows him to inhabit his own body and expressions more authentically. He can step outside of that eerie uncanny valley only for his blind Bonded.]

Anyone gifted, and bored enough, is quite dangerous. In any world, you know...

[Something else he doesn't need the teacup for, to know.]

It was worth the trouble to train you. If someone was profiting from your labors, separating you from your family and forbidding contact would have only benefitted them by making you more reliant.

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