RP and Story blog for Maerenath and Gwyllynir (Maer Venator and Gwyll Venator of Arcadia server The Secret World, and Maerenath Sunthorne of Orwen (Calpheon 2) of Black Desert Online)
He wasn't drunk. Not exactly. But Gwyll had definitely had a little bit to drink. He felt he needed it after the last few days of zombies and fog... and Jadias. It wasn't that he didn't like his boss. He did. The man was good looking, clever, funny and somehow had almost managed to make him feel like a whole town full of zombies and slimy sea monsters was merely a task they could get through and not the damned apocalypse.
But Jadias was a lot of trouble. He couldn't really complain. The pay was decent and came with food and a place to stay and a phone and enough other little luxuries that it almost made him feel he had a life again. And perhaps the early morning texts demanding coffee and breakfast would only have been an inconvenience if it hadn't been for the allure of the man.
Gwyll couldn't deny he was attracted to him. And sitting beside a bathtub full of his naked body to read him the paper and trying not to stare or react was one of the most difficult things he'd ever done. It was driving him insane. He wished sometimes he could tell him.
Taking another long gulp of the beer he tugged out his phone. It was a damned nice smart phone, nicer even than the ones he'd had before. Though these days when he thumbed open his messages there was only one name in the list, one long conversation that was a list of demands and his agreeements.
~You make my job so damned hard sometimes.~ He typed into the box, then sat there, staring at the words and the blinking cursor and the list of requests above it. Even thinking about the sound of Jadias' voice and the heat and the steam and the way his skin shone with the water made him swallow, keenly aware that his job wasn't the only thing the man made hard.
He took another gulp of the beer, unable to help chuckling as the idea occurred to him. ~You make everything so damned hard sometimes.~ He altered the words, but no matter how tempting it might be he had no intention of actually sending the message. Still he could pretend for a minute he was going to be bold enough to say what he might actually have wanted. And if he hadn't cared about the job or what Jadias thought of him quite so much...
Moments later he'd attached a picture to the message. The phone took good pictures, and while he couldn't actually have said it was artistic or remotely appropriate he thought it got the point across. He wasn't actually going to send Jadias a picture of his pants pushed low on his hips and his fingers curled loosely around the base of his hard cock. But for just a moment he stared at the message and imagined he had that kind of nerve.
Turnabout was fair play wasn't it? It wasn't as though he didn't sit beside the man's bath tub almost every morning and get tantalized by glimpses of naked skin. Still, Jadias had never made any sort of untoward advance on him no matter how much he might almost have wished he would.
Sighing he shoved himself back up to his feet, and yanked the waistband of his pants up, not realizing how the sudden movement would set him off balance. He stumbled against the side of the bed he'd been leaning against and the phone slipped from his fingers. He snatched hastily for it, surprised and pleased as he actually managed to catch it.
The pleasure vanished within seconds as the phone made the small sound that told him he'd sent a message. "Oh fuck..."
"I need you to do something for me." The voice was low against the back of his ear, lips so close Gwyll thought he could feel the faintest brushing of them along with the warm tickle of breath. He could feel the heat of Jadias against his shoulders, warm along his spine and his own breath hitched as those lips brushed his ear again, this time the press too decided to be anything but deliberate. "Will you?"
A hand came to rest against the side of his hip, warm lips found his neck, trailed their way in small kisses along his racing pulse. "Anything..." Gwyll breathed, and meant it, a low groan catching embarrassingly in his throat as Jadias' hand strayed further forward, hot fingertips trailing the waistband of pants that were suddenly far too tight.
"Good." The man's voice was velvet in his ears and Gwyll swallowed, head tipping back toward the sound of it. His breathing was ragged in his own ears, Jadias' hands were always hot, they almost burned against his skin and god he wanted them on him. "I need you to..."
He jerked awake, blinking blearily up at the ceiling as he tried to decide just what it was that had woken him, just when his dreams had turned from fire to another kind of burning. He swallowed, one hand straying under the blankets toward his roused flesh. He thought of Jadias' voice, the way he smiled and he could not quite resist letting his fingers curl around himself and stroke.
What would it be like to kiss him? To make his mouth stop teasing him with those smiles and the sound of his damn voice and just lean down and kiss him? His fingers shifted and his breath hitched with the movement. What would it be like to do more than kiss him, to feel those almost too warm hands on his own naked skin, to trail his own mouth in hungry kisses over Jadias' skin? He arched up under his own hand, biting down on his lower lip to stifle the sound that wanted to escape. And then the phone beeped again and he realized what he was doing.
Tugging his hand away, he made no attempt whatsoever to stifle the frustrated groan that escaped him. "Fuck." Gwyll wasn't sure just when he'd started fantasizing about his boss, he only knew it needed to stop. He couldn't afford to lose this job. There weren't many places that were going to hire him now, degree or no degree. Especially not if he got himself fired for offering his employer unwanted sexual advances.
And no matter how Jadias might make his heart race sometime with smiles that seemed intimate or light touches and teasing words he had no real reason to think his attention would be anything but awkward and unwanted. Jadias was a damned attractive man. Gwyll thought he'd at least have noticed it even if he'd been straight. As it was he found himself constantly caught off guard by the man and his own reactions to him.
There were times he'd almost have sworn Jadias was flirting with him. There were things he said, the way his lips curved up in teasing little smirks that made heat flutter in the pit of Gwyll's stomach. But it hadn't taken him much longer than their first meeting to realize Jadias was a little like that with everybody. It was just how he was, a good looking man who was heartbreakingly charming on top of it. It didn't have a damn thing to do with him no matter how Gwyll might be coming to wish it did.
His hand slid a little south on his stomach again and he groaned. He was hot and aching under the thin fabric of his boxers. This was the third morning in a row his dreams had slid from fire to Jadias and left him to wake up uncomfortably hard. He was so tempted just to close his eyes and let his thoughts go where they would while he stroked himself off. Maybe it would clear his head enough he'd stop seeing flirtation everywhere.
The phone beeped again and finally he rolled over, thumbed it open and flushed guiltily as Jadias' name flashed up on the screen. He had three texts and Gwyll swallowed down a sick, shameful sort of feeling as he opened them.
-Are you awake?-
-I want my bath ready in forty five minutes. And a mocha.-
-Oh and bring the paper. You can read to me while I soak.-
He needed this job. It came with good pay and a place to stay, and even if he hadn't realized 'Personal Assistant' meant he was going to be asked to run baths for the man and sometimes cook, well the truth was that he liked the job. And he liked Jadias, confusing and frustrating as he could be.
But most of all he was not going to prove his father right. He was not going to get fired because he was gay and gay men couldn't be professional. He'd gotten the job despite it, and he was not going to let his own desires fuck it up. Maybe his father could toss him aside over it, but he would not give Jadias a reason to.
-I'm awake.- He texted back and this time stopped himself before he asked if Jadias wanted him to wash his back too. He was half afraid of what the answer would be, and more than that afraid of what he might think of it himself. He set the phone back on the nightstand and exhaled a single long frustrated breath. "Fuck." Then he made himself get up and went to take the third cold shower he'd had in as many days.
@fateandmyth because Jadias
He dreamt of fire. Of weight pressing him down and flames licking over his skin and catching in his hair. And he screamed because it should have been agony. It was agony, it was terror to watch his skin blacken and flake and fall away. He screamed and trees screamed with him, even the ground seeming to toss in agony or perhaps that was only his own crisped muscles yanking taut.
He wasn't afraid. He should have been, when the smoke made it impossible to keep screaming. When he was falling away into nothing but the ash and he knew it was the most unspeakable agony. But he looked up with eyes that should no longer have been able to see and found another pair or eyes in the fire, another presence in the flames that destroyed him.
Ashes rise.
He was not afraid when he looked into eyes made of fire, and he closed his own and there was nothing.
When he opened them it was dark, streetlamps shining only dimly into the dark alley he'd hidden himself in. He slept fitfully, it was noisy and it was not safe to sleep in the streets. He was never certain he was alone. And he was not.
There was a man crouched beside him, pale in the dim lights of the street, shining like marble and shrouded in something dark. Long waves of dark hair, and a cloak of something shimmering black. The man's head tilted, eyes shining crimson in pools of darkness as they met his.
He should have been afraid. There was something dangerous in the curve of the smile that shaped itself on sculpted lips. But he did not even flinch when slender fingers reached out to cup his cheek and trace their way along his jaw. He could not tear his eyes from the man's impossibly beautiful face or the blood crimson of his eyes, not even when those fingers tightened with surprising strength on his jaw and force his lips apart.
"Come home." The man whispered as something small and hard as wood was set on his tongue, tasting faintly of earth and ashes. He swallowed, and felt it slip over his throat, not quite choking. Something changed.
Fingers drifted over his cheek again tingling, almost gentle and he could almost hear something in the way those eyes looked into his. But the man said nothing else, only stood, tall in the dim light and drifted back into the shadows until he was gone.
Seeds grow.
He jerked upright staring around him with wide eyes, but the park was empty at this hour and there was no fire, and no tall man who smelled of blood and earth. Only the ring of mushrooms he had fallen asleep in. Something had changed. But Gwyll could not have said why he thought so. It was only the same dream he had been having for weeks.
@fateandmyth for mention
The darkness of night brought with it the cool touch of moonlight to his ashen skin. The shadowed mist had always clung heavily to him, darkening moon white skin with the grey shadow, twisting along leathery wings until the bat like shape dwindled into mist themselves. Ink black hair hung loose and wild down his bare back, silver charms on delicate silver chains were woven along and through the beautiful tresses creating an illusion of stars that shimmered and chimed when he moved. Even in these pretty trinkets laid the war that had torn him apart, perhaps the reason he had never untangled them from his hair. Delicate leaves, silver and adorned with sparkling gems, amber, emerald, ruby, all the hues a leaf could be found in were littered in his hair, each one placed with affectionate care by Fianynlas’ gentle fingers. Fingers he had once loved the feeling of in his hair, smoothing through the strands, untangling the soft curls with a care that even now sent a chill down his spine to remember it. Lips had always come to his shoulder, leaving heat scalded into his skin with every kiss that led Fian to the nape of his neck. It never failed to end with laughter spilling from him, turning to take the handsome Prince into his arms and fall back into their bed of leaves and silk.
Melanthios shook his head, a slender boned hand rising to touch the tips of long fingers to his temple. Such memories hurt his head. He rose from the crouch he had been in, the shadow mist swirling out around him, drifting across the floor of the small flat he kept in the heart of London’s Darkside. A small girl sat on the floor near his feet, her laugh chiming with candor as she pawed at the shadows curling out towards her. It was a game to them, cat and mouse with the shadow being the mouse, the girl was always the cat. It amused Melanthios, a game he was quite content to play with her for as long as she wanted. She was a lovely little thing, umber skinned and the tight curl of her black hair braided back from her face in cornrows. It had been her amber eyes that had drawn him to her a handful of months ago, like the gem in the leaf charms in his hair.
What little girl could resist a faery?
“Are you hungry?” Melanthios spoke with a quiet calm, the charm always lingering in his dulcet tones. Long fingers plucked a fruit from the dish on the table nearby, the crisp red skin of the apple was smooth under his hold. He ran his thumb over the apple, chasing moisture that had clung to the fruit away. It wasn’t unusual that his Shadows wept these days, often releasing tensions he could no longer manage himself. He returned to the girl’s side, crouching back down to offer her the apple with a soft smile. He earned one from her in return, the small sound of assent reaching his ears before he relinquished the fruit to her. Every bit of food and drink there he had brought from the fae realm, the nature of it infused with the magics of his kind, of Fianynlas’ Courts. It was moderately ironic that the only tree that had survived the fire had been an apple tree. Melanthios had read much of the human’s history, of their books of religion for the humour it brought him. The story of the apple and the snake lingered with him now as he watched the girl bite through the crisp red skin. He was the snake, wasn’t he?
He was almost sorry he had to kill her mother. Almost. The woman had been in his way, the child the only thing he wanted in the end. Shifting forwards, he curled his arms around the girl as she ate the apple, pulling her in against his bare chest to cradle her close. His palm smoothed over her braided hair, blackened eyes moving over her pretty features and the way her nose wrinkled as she took bites from the apple. She liked him, he could tell, her free hand moving to tangle in a lock of his inky hair. For that reason alone, he didn’t think she knew he had left her mother lifeless on the cement of their driveway all those months ago. Her essence had fueled him for awhile, and perhaps something of her was still with him, a reason the child took to him so well. So many questions and the answer of which he didn’t really care. Someday he’d have to give her up but not yet. For now, the girl gave him reason to remain, for being.
Straightening with her in his arms, he turned towards the bed. His voice rose sweet with a lullaby, filling the small flat with a melody he was once sung by his mother. Born of fae parents was somewhat rare in recent times, and likely why Melanthios had earned both his gift and curse of his unusual beauty. His mother had been a Lady of the meadows, his father one of the sky Lords of the Sun Prince’s Courts and he had been born at midnight beneath the full Eye of the Raven Prince. The bare sliver of the moon had been bled into his skin, the night had woven itself into his eyes and hair and the shadows had followed him like a cloak of midnight in his wake ever since. He had become a much beloved darling of the Light Court, well known and liked, doted on even by most of the denizens all through his youth. It had been no surprise to anyone when his coming of age had brought the Raven Prince to his side. His mother had often told him the stories of his birth, of how the Prince had blessed him with the beauty of the moon and the shadows to protect him. Melanthios had never any reason to doubt it and the honour of becoming the Raven’s companion was not one he passed up. How could he?
There had been love and he was young.
The mattress wasn’t new. It dipped beneath his slender weight, the child held in his arms laid down on the feather filled matt at his side. He took the apple core from her, no break in his song coming and he watched as her lids lowered and fluttered sleepily. It was a small gift that had come over the years, his ability to sing those around him into doing the things he wanted from them; sleep, fight, desire. He had been absolutely delighted the first time he had seen a moving picture, the animation of a story called Sleeping Beauty. Fianynlas had come with him, the Prince of the Forest reluctant until he saw the forest in the film. They had both been laughing by the time it ended. The depiction of fae in the film humourous but it tickled them in a way that left them delighted instead of offended. It had driven Melanthios out into the European countryside, into the forests there where he lifted his voice in true song for the first time. Fianynlas had affectionately called him Princess ever since, deeply amused when his lover had managed to seduce a wide following of forest animals and birds with his sweet melodic voice into traipsing through the woodlands with them.
Melanthios laid his head down on the pillow, his palm lightly moving over the girl’s hair and back, luring her towards slumber even if he himself didn’t dare close his eyes to rest. The shadows thickened around them though, blotted out the light in the room and what filtered through the half open blinds from the city lights outside. A siren sounded in the distance, marking the speeding way of a fire truck through the streets until it faded beyond his hearing. It was what he dreamed of the few times he had allowed himself to sleep. Of fire and screaming, of flames exploding as wood shattered beneath the force of it driven up through tree roots into the shuddering trunks and the rain of embers and cinders all around him. His breath caught in his throat, the mere thoughts enough to cause another stab of hurt in his chest that the girl’s presence couldn’t quite blot out.
He had never meant for them to die. Not Gwyllynir and Maerenath, none of Fianynlas’ Courts; they weren’t supposed to have died. He had carefully laid out the wards on the ground, arched them into the air around the handful of trees he had intended to ignite. The fire was supposed to be no more than a smack to Fianynlas’s face, the denial of himself to them all. Melanthios was the only of them the fire was supposed to have consumed. He had never counted on the trees absorbing the phoenix feather’s fire, of it crackling through roots and ground, to escape his wards through a path he hadn’t considered.
A groan escaped his lips, the fae rolling to his side to curl himself around the mortal girl protectively, those misty batlike wings folding over them both as a blanket. His song had ended as those memories had pushed up into his mind, but the child was already sound asleep. It left him able to murmur to the black of the night, “Forgive me, Maerenath. Gwyllynir.” He had killed the twins, his best friends, and had dragged Fianynlas down into the grave with them all as well for all he knew. Only he had survived, hadn’t he? Because of Maerenath and Gwyllynir.
They had pulled him from the flames when his own limbs refused to work. When he had stood there frozen with shock and watched every damn tree as it exploded, had felt the cinders burning into his skin which he hadn’t bothered to brush off, just left them where they landed. His world turned to ember and ashes before his very eyes, surviving it was the last thing on his mind. Maerenath’s hands had closed around his biceps, had lifted him from the ground despite his cried denials to leave him there and with Gwyllynir’s help to clear a path, they had carried him from Fianynlas’ forest. A tree had sparked and fractured violently as they had approached the gate, the heavy trunk collapsing on top of Gwyllynir who had pushed Maerenath forwards out of the way. Maerenath had carried Melanthios’ through the gate into the human world and safety, had told him to stay there and wait for him. Melanthios had grabbed for his hand, begged him through tears that stung his newly burnt face not to go back in. He had watched helplessly as his best friend shifted into the form of a wolf, the hand in his becoming a paw to which Melanthios’ had clung harder. Maerenath could not leave his brother behind though and Melanthios knew it. Gwyllynir’s screams echoed through the gate as Maerenath had passed back through it, fur slipping through his clawing hands.
Melanthios couldn’t stay. The sounds of the trees and the Court dying screamed forever in his heart and head, a sound he could only block out for little bits at a time throughout the day. When the night descended and the city went to sleep beneath the Raven’s watchful Eye, he was left with the cold dark silence. He lived it all again then, the heat and the dying and the loss of everything he had ever held dear to him. His friends, his lovers; neither Court would have him now and perhaps he should find pleasure in being his own entity, owing nothing to anyone. Not his heart, not his pretty face, half burnt, half beautiful, as hauntingly lovely as he has always been.
The two twisted together over the months. He had killed, had drained the woman of her life and soul and taken it in for his own use. It blackened his blood until it dripped from beneath the blades he drew over his skin when the night’s silence grew to be too much. The scars never lingered on his pale skin, smooth once more by the next night as the shadows only lurched out to claim another life, to feed it back to him. All he had to do was wander the alleys of the world, his shadows thickened and curled out, vicious and hungry for him, trying their damnedest to keep him alive, keep him whole. They couldn’t fill the hollowness in his chest, that ache that throbbed in his veins and stirred the darkness around him into a hungrier mass. They bled from him now, the shadows, like a living ink imbued by his needs and loss. It fed, he grew stronger, the ink grew stronger. There were creatures that followed him now, creatures that bled his inky blood, tainted more to add to his filthy network. He could hear them in his head, their voices in his shadows and sometimes when he looked into his cloak of mist he thought he could see their faces.
“There’s a little poison in me. I can taste your skin in my teeth, your blood on my tongue.”
———————–
Music
For mentions: @knightsandshadows ; @lordsofthehunt
Gwyllynir always knew where to find him, even when he had taken to four legs and run deep into the Forest to the places the rest of the Court rarely came. Perhaps especially then. There were times Maerenath wasn't sure whether to find it exasperating or to be grateful for it, this time he was inclined toward the former. He didn't look up as his brother slipped into the small glade, didn't let his crimson ears so much as flicker toward the antlered fae's light footfalls. Instead he kept his eyes resolutely trained on the space between the two trees in front of him, hoping that maybe this time Gwyllynir would take the hint and walk away.
"I know what you're doing."
This time Maerenath couldn't keep his ears from turning toward his brother's voice, perking slightly in a question he would have been hard pressed to voice with a wolf's fanged mouth.
Gwyllynir didn't answer that unspoken question, only settled himself on the tree root beside him and reached out to take a fistful of the snowy fur on his neck.
Maerenath exhaled a soft groan, but let his brother's hand guide his head to rest against one leather clad knee, his eyes closing under the gentle caresses to his ears that followed. It was soothing, despite his irritation. Relaxing the way his twin's presence always was, but it didn't really fix a thing. It couldn't.
For several moments they lingered in silence Gwyllynir's fingers smoothing gently over his ears, rubbing, tugging gently as though it helped him think. But in the end it was he who broke the peace again. "This has to stop, Maer. You know that."
Maerenath sighed, a heavy sound that seemed to find its way all the way from the forest floor beneath his belly to slip painfully over his lips, and they were lips. The ears Gwyllynir toyed with melted down into crimson hair as he resumed his fae shape, but his brother's gentle fingers never stopped, only changed their motion, combing through the blood red strands. "What has to stop?" He asked stubbornly, even though they both already knew.
"You breaking your heart over what you can never have. You know it, Maer."
"I don't..."
"You do. You know exactly what I mean. And maybe only I see it now, but if you keep it up he will notice, and Fianynlas will notice and..." Gwyllynir didn't finish. He didn't need to.
"He's..." He trailed off. There were so many things he felt but he had never been good at finding words. Melanthios wasn't happy. But clever as Gwyllynir was with his feelings he didn't think his twin had noticed that. He didn't think anybody else had noticed. But it wasn't just that. It wasn't even just that Melanthios was beautiful and smelled like night and that despite himself he wanted him desperately. It was the way Melanthios smiled when he did smile, they way they talked, the way he looked when he forgot Maerenath was even there.
"He's not yours to love."
"I know. But I can't seem to help it. It hurts..."
"I know what it is to see something and hurt for wanting it." Gwyllynir's fingers paused in his hair, his eyes going distant in a way that left Maerenath wondering just what pain of his brother's he had missed. "But you have to let it go."
"I know." he admitted softly, turning his cheek to hide his face against his brother's knee. "But I don't know how." Maerenath knew those who had not known them as long as Fianynlas all assumed Gwyllynir was the eldest. He understood how they made the mistake. Gwyllynir was the one who smiled and spoke and made friends of everyone in the Court. He was the one who had all the answers. Except to this.
Gwyllynir's fingers smoothed through his hair, combing it until every last strand fell into place, trailing his fingertips along his nape in a way that was almost numbingly relaxing and yet woke tingles in him all at once. "The only thing I know..." Gwyllynir said, his voice almost startling after the length of the silence, despite how quietly he had spoken. "Is to take joy in what you have."
Maerenath looked up, not really surprised to find Gwyllynir bending in toward him. "What do I have?" He demanded.
His brother's antlered brow pressed gently against his for a moment. "You have me." Gwyllynir said gently. "We always have each other when we have nothing else."
He nodded and leaned up, pressing his lips demandingly hard against the familiar welcome of Gwyllynir's, as though he could lose the ache inside him with their touch. His twin's fingers tightened in his hair and he kissed back with an eagerness that almost surprised Maerenath, as though he too had some desperate hunger he was trying to ease.
***
Something smelled like burning. Maerenath stepped back from the tree, the apple slipping unpicked from his fingers and drew in another breath, sure that brief hint of bitter smoke had been a trick of his mind. Apples, leaves, rich dark soil, moss, but no, there it was again, that sharp tang across the tapestry of scents that colored his view of the Forest. Something was wrong. He couldn't have said exactly what it was that made him so sure that faint hint of a smell was truly a danger, but he was running before he had time to consider it.
It was not hard to find Gwyllynir. He was just where he had left him, in one the glades around the great heart tree, laughing with the crowd under the twining branches. His flight slowed there at the edge, one hand lifting to touch the nearest branch as he drew in another deep breath. Surely he was mistaken. But no, the bitter smell of the smoke was an even stronger flavor to the forest's scent now and as he watched one of the other Pack brothers looked up from the leather he was smoothing over his lap, as though he too had caught the hint of it.
One of the wolves stood, letting out a sharp warning bark, and from all around the heart tree he heard it answered. Gwyllynir's eyes turned to his, wide and questioning and Maerenath took in another breath, turning as he did to see if he could pinpoint the direction of the scent. And there in the distance light sparked and flared.
He froze for a moment, watching that faint glow grow brighter. There was a sound now, like a distant wind and behind him the glade had fallen silent, laughter and voices dying out until nothing remained to compete with that far off sound but the soft whisper of the heart tree's leaves and the gurgle of the stream. Fire.
And now he could hear other sounds amid that whooshing roar, cracks of small explosions, and screams as wood and wet leaves went up. The light had become a blaze in seconds, spreading through the distant trees and growing nearer. For a moment they were all frozen by it. A fire in the Forest was impossible. But the smell of it was even clearer now than the sound.
Maerenath wasn't sure which of those behind them cried out first. But within moments the fae were scattering, and silence had become a chaos of yelling and running. Gwyllynir's hand suddenly tightened on his arm and he startled, not sure when his brother had come up beside him.
"We have to find a Gate and get out. We have to find Fianynlas..." Gwyllynir whispered, as though the fire might hear him if he spoke too loudly.
Maerenath swallowed, nodding and started toward the nearest gate. It was burning... everything was burning. He was no longer even sure all of the screams were trees. They had to run, they had to get everybody out and then maybe they could figure out what had happened. He stopped in his tracks suddenly, so quickly that he felt Gwyllynir collide with the back of his shoulder. But his own eyes were trailing frantically over the scattering crowd around the heart tree, looking for one specific fae.
"Maer, what... we have to go..." There was fear roughening his twin's voice now. "We'll burn."
"We have to find Melanthios." He snapped, turning back toward the flames. He couldn't even have said why he thought so, why he felt suddenly so certain that the shadow fae was in danger, somewhere in that inferno. But as soon as he had said the words Maerenath was certain. He knew it as surely as breathing. Melanthios had been different this last week. He couldn't put into words how only that it was as strange and wrong as this fire. There had been a taint in his scent like an open wound. "Now. We have to find him now!" He grabbed at Gwyllynir's arm, felt his brother wince under the force of his grip.
"Where?"
He took another deep breath, trying to find something of familiarity in air now full of the scent of smoke and burning. He wasn't sure how he knew. Perhaps he caught the edge of scent somehow, though he could not say he was certain of anything at all but the stinging that began in his eyes and that Melanthios was somewhere out there. That he was toward the flames rather than away from them. His grip shifted from Gwyllynir's arm to his hand and he started to run.
***
It was an inferno. There was magic in that fire, he could smell it there as thick as the smoke that blurred his eyes and choked his breath. But now he could smell Melanthios too. This close the scent of him was strong and more clear than the smoke. He was beautiful even now. Even standing there staring up at flame-crowned trees, seemingly unaware of the embers stinging his own skin and the flames that had caught in his shirt. Maerenath had never seen anyone look so lovely. Or so utterly lost.
It seared pain into his heart and he released his hold on his twin, rushing forward to catch the shadow fae by the arms, smothering flames with his palms as he shook him. "Melanthios! We have to get out. We have to run!"
There was fire all around them. The air too hot to breathe, and Maerenath still couldn't understand how. How could the Forest burn? What sort of magic could burn Fianynlas' trees like this? But then another jerk of his arms finally brought Melanthios' eyes from staring into the flames back to his and when he saw the look in them Maerenath knew. Whatever had started that fire the pain in the shadow fae's eyes was feeding it.
"Maer, It's all going up... we have to go..." Gwyllynir's voice was hoarse with fear and smoke at his shoulder.
He only nodded, staring into the fathomless pain in Melanthios' eyes. "We have to run." He told the shadow fae again.
"Leave me!" Melanthios screamed the words in his face like a wounded beast. "Leave me here!"
"Maer..." He could feel Gwyllynir shifting at his back, like a stag ready to bolt.
"I know." He snapped, then jerked himself at the sound as one of the great trees crashed burning to the forest floor. "We have to go." He told Melanthios again, but this time he didn't wait for the answer that was screamed back at him, only scooped the shadow fae up into his arms and turn tear-filled eyes around them. Everywhere was burning.
"The old gate."
He spared his brother a single curt not before turning toward the place the blaze was thinnest and beginning to run. He could hardly see, the smoke turned his lungs inside out and blurred his eyes. He had known these Forest trails as long as they had been but he could not see where to place his feet over the body of the fae in his arms. But Gwyllynir was just behind him, hands coming out now and again to steer his shoulders or warn him silently of obstacles.
The forest was screaming and roaring and burning all around them, but the old gate was there just ahead and there was enough magic left in it that when he reached out he saw it spark and flare and tear wide a portal into the mortal realm. It didn't matter to him at the moment where it went, so long as it was out of the fire.
Almost there. He latched his blurring eyes onto the shimmer of the portal, drew in a deep breath of air that burned, and tightened his grip on Melanthios for a last burst of speed. Gwyllynir's fingers fell from their light touch on his shoulder for a moment, but it didn't matter, he could still hear his twin's steps just behind him.
His ears were full of the sounds of the forest's death throes, the dull crackling roar of the fire, wood creaking and screaming as it burned, the distant thunder of a falling trunk. He could smell the magic of the gate, so close now it almost overpowered the scent of smoke and burning. He didn't try to speak, only tightened his grip on the fae in his arms and stepped forward.
There was a voiceless scream just behind him in the roar of the flames, a warning, creaking sort of pop that made his blood run cold. Maerenath started to turn, but Gwyllynir's hands hit him hard in the back, sending him stumbling forward in an attempt to keep from falling down atop Melanthios. There was a crashing rumble like thunder behind him and a suddenly his back was agony, searing in the dozen places the flying embers had caught. Gwyllynir screamed.
He turned, only steps from the gate, as much because he had suddenly lost the steadying rythym of Gwyllynir's feet as for that scream. The antlered fae was pinned half beneath a burning trunk, one hand oustretched toward him and face frantic. His own movements stopped for just a moment, arms tightening on Melanthios as he met Gwyllynir's emerald eyes. His first instinct was to set the shadow fae down and run to try and help.
But the pain in Melanthios's eyes had been just as deep as that he saw in his brother's now. All around them was inferno and Melanthios had wanted to stay. He was frozen for a breath, all too aware of the crackling scream of the flames and Gywllynir's cries. He only had two hands, or four paws, one body and two people he loved more than anything in either world. It wasn't a choice. How could he choose between his heart and his blood? But he had to do something.
Tearing his eyes from his brother he turned back to the gate, stumbled through the portal and into air that was so blessedly clear that drawing it in hurt him. He could still hear the fire behind him, the sound distorted by the gate, sounding far more distant than the mere steps he'd carried them from it.
He set Melanthios hastily down. "Wait here for me." He rasped. "Wait, right here."
"Don't go. Please don't go."
He hadn't expected the words, or the tears he saw trailing from the shadow fae's dark eyes down over the raw, burned skin of one cheek. Maerenath's heart twisted in his chest with fresh agony. Behind him he could still hear Gwyllynir screaming. And he could feel it somehow, a twisting pain deep inside of him, as though part of his soul was burning with him. "I'll be back. But you stay here. Stay safe, Mel, please."
The shadow fae's fingers closed on his, gripping, almost bruising pleading just as loudly as his words and the sight of his tears. But Gwyllynir. For a moment Maerenath stared into those tear-filled eyes, his heart aching with a thousand might-have-beens. He held Melanthios' gaze and pulled his wolf-shape down around him, finding the strength he needed in that familiar form.
He had no words to answer or explain as he pulled back again, tearing his paw from Melanthios' grip, all he could offer was one low affectionate whine before he turned back through the gate and into the fire.
***
It was hotter than it had been when he left, Maerenath couldn't see through the heat that stung his eyes and his nose was just as blinded by the smoke. But he could feel Gwyllynir, a fading light in his heart that drove him frantically through a maze of burning that seemed to have grown in the mere moments since he left it.
It shouldn't have been so far. But Gwyllynir was a guttering ember in his heart, tearing with it some part of him he didn't have a name for. It hurt and he howled once, plunging toward that spark as it dimmed and went out inside him.
Gwyllynir was gone. There was nothing of him left in the fingers he nudged with his nose or in skin that smelled like burning even more strongly than the smoke that surrounded him. All that he could smell that was Gwyllynir was in the acorn-like seed that had fallen singed from that limp hand.
The wolf took it carefully in his teeth, holding it as tenderly as a cub's paw as he turned to weave his way back through the fire toward the faltering shimmer of the gate. Something was missing when he found his way back through it. Something as important as the precious burden in his jaws. He whined, uncertain whether to chase that scent or the other one first.
Fianynlas. The wolf wasn't sure what the name meant, but it was important and it was that scent he turned toward in the end. It did not take him long to find the tall fae, a cloaked figure shivering in a glade just outside a place that reeked of mortals.
There was something wrong in his scent. Something like fire and sickness and pain. The hand that reached out to him was shaking and the wolf hesitated a moment before setting his small and precious burden into those quivering fingers. The fae was pale, skin tinted grey, and here and there he could see light crackling and sparking under the skin, as though inside of him the tall fae burned too.
"Oh no, Gwyll..." The fae moaned as his fingers closed over the seed and there was such agony in his voice that Maerenath flinched. And those words, he did not understand them but a part of him had wanted to say them too so he answered them with a single low howl of his own.
The tall fae slumped until they were of a height and the wolf stretched out his nose, to scent him again. It was the right smell even under the scent of pain and sickness. And the seed's smell mingled with it in the hand that now lifted to a cheek that crackled as though flames burned under the unbroken skin. That mingling of smells was right too.
But the wolf couldn't settle. He couldn't seem to find it in himself to curl up beside the tall fae and lick at the tiny burns that peppered his own legs and back and sides. Something was still wrong. Something was missing. He had lost something just outside the gate, something at least as precious as that tiny seed and the fae who held it.
He touched his nose once again to the tall fae's hand then started to turn, back toward where he had lost the scent. "No, Maerenath, please don't leave me..." He had never heard that voice sound so desperate and in pain. His ears shifted back, paws moving uneasily against the ground. But that other scent was lost. This was as it should be now and that was not.
Whining low, the wolf swiped his tongue once over the back of the tall fae's hand and then turned to lope back the way he had come. He had lost something. Something terribly important he did not know how to explain. And nothing could ever be right until he found it again.
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