fraldarius ( which is to say : the duchy proper as the far east coast of faerghus ) is approximately five and half days of travel by horse drawn carriage from fhridiad ———— a fact committed to memory in the early days of his youth and tucked within his heart, meant to never be forgotten. never to be forgotten, so well embedded into his mind that try as he may he can never rid himself of that slip of information.
information gleaned and gathered in the carriage with his father with his mother with his brother in varying configurations thereof. on that velvet bench that he had perched himself on the edge of, frenetic and overwhelmed and overwhelming as he peeked out of the windows far too frequently in vain hope of seeing the outskirts of the capital proper. and how he had chipped away at the patience of his beloved brother and his adored mother and his ephemeral father and how he had whined and whinged and pouted with each of their stops !! insisting that they hardly need to rest nor stretch nor allow the horses to eat, after all. ( and at the tender age of eight when he had finally learned how to ride a horse independently he had boldly requested to take a horse from the carriage so that he could rush and run and fly all that distance and all that way on his own, lighter by far without the weight of the carriage and this crowd and their luggage / and his mother had sighed and patted his head and denied him. and denied him. and denied him. )
fraldarius ( which is to say : well, you know this part already, don’t you? ) is approximately two almost three days of travel by horseback with a light pack and the size of his body alone from fhridiad ———— a fact committed to memory mere hours ago when he had ridden from his childhood home and standing over the rotting remains of those he loved / those he loves, an echo of that childhood yearning to fly to his side. to dimitri’s side.
is this yearning? no. it can’t be. not by far. yearning carries the connotation and ideation of something soft and gentle and lavender-tinted / rose-tinted. of something utterly saccharine, the mere thought thereof like sugar bursting across the tongue. something fragile. something a breath away from mourning.
no. no. nothing quiet so delicate as yearning. there is something far too sharp and far too hard and far too vivid ————
but it’s ( … ) something. he’s not quite so idiotic not to acknowledge as much.
in their mutual glances and in their lingering near each other and in their glancing touches steadily becoming more frequent and HOW STRANGE IT IS TO RELEARN EACH OTHER WHOLLY ANEW / NOT AT ALL AS THEY WERE BEFORE / IN THIS PLACE THAT THEY KNOW SO WELL / sitting in the king’s quarters within these haunted halls that aren’t haunted at all but carry with them the imprints of memory and this room and this place and this man and they are lifetimes removed. lives removed. each buried so very long ago but here they sit, alive still. breathing still. close ———— growing close. the fragmented process of relearning one another, truly.
time has stretched and their conversation ( begun as felix was shaking the vestiges of the dead from his shoulders where they had clung, so wanting, even after he had truly all but flown away from that place and that time and that weeping well of sorrow / but is there any way to leave it, truly, when it lives within you? ) winds itself steadily and unerringly to talk of military and politics and useless drivel for which he had reached into the ashen and dusty recesses of his mind and brought that knowledge to light once more / not nearly so forgotten as he preferred to pretend. HE IS NOT THE DUKE OF FRALDARIUS but that is what the people call him and is that what matters, in the end?
silence reigns and embers remain of the fire that smolders and glows and casts its light still on his face and his body and the fall of his light hair and ———— there is a half empty glass of wine sits at the small table beside and neither are quite softened nor loosened by alcohol nor warmth nor their company / but as close to, perhaps. lingering nearby COMPLACENCY with their knees nearly brushing and is this intimacy?
don’t call it that. don’t call it that.
he watches the embers and / dimitri watches him and / he watches the fucking savior king in his periphery and / the beast king gazes at him so steadily and it’s ( … ) something.
there’s a shift in his periphery and, as if in response, there’s a tightening of his skin and a shuddering of his bones and a shift of something / into place ———— or out of place? somewhere. some—when. something. he knows. he knows. he fucking knows.
there are few who know the king of faerghus even half so well as felix hugo fraldarius, after all. even now. even so far removed. even after the boy was eaten by the beast. even after the monster lived alone in that shell. even after the man and the monster live as one, now. there is the instinctive knowledge of a person : everlasting.
❝ ———— felix, ❞ name spoken like a prayer / but neither of them are holy men / but neither of them are devout men. and his head turns automatically to meet his eye and the scar tissue of what remains of the other ( patch discarded beside the glass that is a twin to his own, half-drunk as well, mirror images ) and it occurs to him, disjointed, that they should restart the fire / lest they wish to give into the coming of winter and the promise of snow on the wind and the chilling of the air and the hardening of the ground.
their knees bump as dimitri draws closer, ❝ what? ❞ irritable and irritated and far more irate than he had been through the whole of their conversation and the conversation before that and the conversation before that and something hovers so perilously on a blade’s edge : rotting. and he, too, finds himself ON EDGE, in return.
a hand brushes against his jaw so gentle and light and testing and testing and testing and he moves from it / a denial / mouth twitching / looking into that eye that gaze that face that he once knew so well. that he knows so well, now. older and scarred and not quite the same : shadowed and changed by time and terror and tragedy after tragedy after tragedy. felix finds himself wary and weary and worn / from this and life and the aches of battle and the weight of grief and the whole of it and the whole of dimitri and the whole of them.
is there a them? ————— well : isn’t that what this something is?
dimitri looks at him and therein lies something intent and intense and practically exasperated, the lift of his brows and the slight tilt of his head and the faint downturn of his lips. ❝ felix, ❞ spoken so tenderly / tender like a bruise / and oh, how it smarts. ❝ i wouldn’t normally dare to presume, but you must know. surely you must know ——— you know me better than any other. as i know you. ❞ that touch, again. along his jaw. gentle but not quite so light and. and.
that’s the crux of it, after all. there is no one who knows dimitri so well as he. there is no one who knows felix so well as dimitri. they know. they know. they know ( … ) of this something that lingers between them / a creeping rot.
but it’s not rot at all, is it?
and he draws nearer and felix thinks of that time he had tried to count all of dimitri’s eyelashes and had laughed helplessly partway through and never truly got his answer and their noses nearly touch. ❝ it’s selfish of me, but i tire of this dance we do around one another, ❞ dimitri speaks once more and it’s ————
❝ shut up, ❞ a mere whisper of words / not quite fragmented and not quite whole and dimitri’s hands are warm. they’re warm. they’re warm against the frostbitten expanse of his skin and the frigid expanse of his chest and there’s his heart and there’s the damn king on high and there’s something. their noses brush.
when they kiss there’s the curve of where neck meets shoulder along his calloused palm and a hand at the back of his neck and it’s ———— a revelation. and his bones : unraveling beneath dimitri’s touch / as dimitri begins to come apart beneath his own.
@hlycrwn // don’t make me say it , don’t make me say it , don’t make me say that i lo [ don’t make me say it ] you. —— touch ( after a small rejection )
