#HE CALLS HIM TALÍ

[fantasyarcanum]

A desperate ache lanced through Seregil as he looked down into those dark blue eyes.

“I can’t tell you, talí, because I’d only have to lie,” he said, suddenly dejected.

[…]

Alec got up to go without a word. But he paused in the doorway, looking back at Seregil still sitting by the fire. “What does talí mean? Is it Aurënfaie?”

“Talí?” A ghost of the old grin tugged at one corner of Seregil’s mouth. “Yes, it’s an Aurënfaie term of endearment, rather old-fashioned, like beloved. Where’d you pick that up?”

“I thought—” Alec regarded him quizzically, then shook his head. “I don’t know, at one of the salons, probably. Sleep well, Seregil.”

Seregil calling Alec beloved in his mother tongue without even realizing it was the reason for my collapse

[adamarks]

[melissentee]

"I can't tell you, talí, because I'd only have to lie," he said, suddenly dejected. [...] "What does talí mean? Is it Aurenfaie?" "Talí?" A ghost of the old grin tugged at one corner of Seregil's mouth. "Yes, it's an Aurenfaie term of endearment, rather old-fashioned, like beloved. Where'd you pick that up?" "I thought-" Alec regarded him quizzically, then shook his head.

Stalking Darkness by Lynn Flewelling

I just love that moment where Seregil calls Alec talí without noticing. It is just too funny.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

say that you’ll hold me forever

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In his more introspective moments, Alec would think that the reason night running came so easily to him, the reason he’d slipped into it like a pair of well broken in boots when it was so different from the simple life he’d been leading before, was because it was so like archery. When you got right down to it, both were about breathing steadily, keeping your eyes open, having patience and knowing when to let go. All things that had been his lifeblood since he could walk.

And because both came so easily to Alec, when something was amiss it was like having something stuck in his teeth. If the arrow he was using had warped or was made out of balance, he could sense it in a moment. If his string wasn’t oiled, he knew as soon as he drew it back. If a breeze no harder than a breath were blowing between him and his target, it may as well have been a gale for as much as it made the act feel impossible.

And if something was wrong with a night running job, Alec knew it. And tonight’s particular job felt like he was trying to shoot without an arrow.

It had seemed fine that morning, when he and Seregil had been taking breakfast in the living room at the Stag and Otter; Alec ruffling the ears of one of Ruthea’s last litter on his knee and his lover shuffling through their latest stack of messages for a cat of a very different kind while they ate.

There were a lot of them, some written on fine vellum, some scrawled hastily on notes that had since become crumpled as they’d passed from hand to hand to reach the elusive, far famed and entirely fictional burglar for hire known as the Rhíminee Cat. As Seregil was fond of saying, the nobles did all sorts of silly things in the spring and it was as fine a late spring morning as anyone had ever known. The window was open to a warm breeze and honey gold shafts of early sunlight, the bells of some temple were chiming in the distance and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen.

Alec barely looked up when Seregil cursed from across the table, he only hummed, “Did it again, hm?”

“It’s these damned nobles,” Seregil scowled, holding two notes and looking between them in exasperation, “They’re too used to getting their own way, it makes them such demanding customers. They want everything done this very night or immediately or bloody yesterday! No regard for a man’s schedule...”

“It’s not the nobles, love, it's the fact that you have no organisation system so you keep double booking yourself,” Alec said patiently, using the distraction to snag the last bit of bacon from Seregil’s plate to feed to the kitten on his lap.

“Well,” Seregil huffed, “Still. It’s inconvenient.”

“We’ll just split up tonight,” Alec shrugged as his little friend stole away with her prize, “You go and get Duke Amon’s ring back from whoever won it off him and I’ll take whichever job you thought was tomorrow but is actually tonight.”

Seregil folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, “I’m not that poorly organised…”

“This is the fourth time it’s happened this spring and let’s not forget the time you didn’t keep a close enough track on things and nearly placed a risque miniature of Baron Carmine in Lady Raya’s bedside table rather than the ring you were supposed to put there?”

Seregil was quiet for a long time, his mouth set in a pout until he grunted, “Fair.”

“So tell me about my job tonight,” Alec grinned, reaching over to play with one of the many curls of dark hair that stuck out from Seregil’s head after a night of tossing and turning. He knew that would chase away his lover’s chagrin.

Seregil hummed and inclined his head towards the warmth of Alec’s fingers, “So some twitterpated noble has got it into his head that he’s going to propose to his beau and that it absolutely, positively must happen tonight. He’s got some ridiculous grand gesture planned in his head, having the ring delivered to them silently in the dead of night so it’s there when they wake up. Surprised he’s not having a dove slip it onto their hand personally…”

Alec chuckled, “Perhaps it was short notice. It would take rather a long time to train a dove.”

Seregil smirked, “Anyway, the problem is he’s gone and left it in his apartments in the business end of the city by the docks, he’s a wealthy merchant of some degree, and he can’t go get it himself without arousing suspicion. So our job is to slip into his place, slip back out again and deliver it to his intended.”

“Too lazy more like,” Alec wrinkled his nose, “Fine, where is this girl who I’m hoping has more sense than her soon to be betrothed?”

Seregil shrugged, “Message only says that the address to deliver it to will be written on a label attached to the box. Probably didn’t want that kind of information floating around the city on a note being handed around some more disreputable characters.”

Alec snorted, “Bet you a gold sester her parents don’t know about this match. Why else be so secretive?”

Seregil raised his eyebrows and simpered exaggeratedly, “Perhaps it’s a heartbreaking tale of true love overcoming societal disapproval?”

“Or some fool making too much of a few friendly glances and thinking himself some heroic knight saving a girl who isn’t even interested,” Alec tugged on his lock of Seregil’s hair gently.

His lover shrugged, shaking him off and sitting back with his tea cup held in his hands, “Whatever it is, talí, he’s paying handsomely. Would you mind?”

“Sounds like the easiest job I’ve done in months. I’ll make sure supper’s on the table for when you get back.”

But that had been this morning and now Alec was perched on top of a very high wall surrounding the lavish building and he was having doubts.

Not about his route into the noble’s apartments, that was clear as day. The building itself was called an inn but it was as far removed from the alehouses and winesinks that could also boast that title as a carriage horse was from a mule. It was more like a miniature manor house, each one of it’s floors a luxury suite meant for the lesser nobles who had made their fortunes on the backs of the sailors and tradesmen that worked on the wharves the inn overlooked. This was the place they’d occupy on the nights of the working week, when business held their attention, but most would also have a place not unlike Wheel Street for their leisure time, where they kept their wives and children.

Alec could see precisely how he would vault from the wall he now crouched on, land on the lip of the roof, follow it a little ways around the shadowed inn and slip into the window of his mark, safely untouched by any lamplight from the main street. It couldn’t have been simpler. But still, uncertainty sat in his stomach like he’d eaten a heavy meal.

He hesitated, trying to summon the clarity of mind that usually accompanied his night running or at least a concrete reason why things felt so plainly wrong but he received no answer except a gentle lifting of the wind that stirred the hood he’d pulled up tight around his head and carefully tucked his braid into.

If I don’t move quickly, what’s going to be giving me doubts will be a bluecoat’s quarrel in my chest he thought with irritation at himself. He abandoned his misgivings on top of the wall and sprightly hopped up onto the roof, his well muffled slippers barely making a whisper as he landed and began the slow, careful walk along the slates.

As he crept along in the shadows, he had to take a moment to appreciate the beauty of such a clear night. Rhíminee never looked more beautiful than when it was observed from the top of some high place Alec wasn’t meant to be, when it was nestled in the purple shadows of twilight, all glittering lamps in winding streets and a hundred yellow eyes blinking as people set candles into their windows, either to go to bed or to welcome new patrons in the brothels and gambling houses of the Street of Lights. The palace and the Orëska House were like looming candles, their towers still a deep orange with the last of the setting sun, their expansive floors the deep purple of true night. There was a sense of the city settling down, heaving some kind of silent sigh as another day ended and a whole new Rhíminee awoke.

And somewhere in it’s shadowed depths, Seregil was about his own business, chasing down a family heirloom some arrogant lord had wagered on a hand at the Dragon.

“Luck in the shadows, talí,” Alec whispered to the twilight, feeling the tug of the bond they shared as the thought travelled along it’s thread to his love.

The latch on the window was tricky though he expected nothing less at such a fine establishment with so many wealthy clients. There was a lot to protect within its whitewashed walls, after all. Still, between his clever fingers and the pick he kept in his braid, it was barely a few minutes before Alec had it open and most of that was looking down for watchmen or dogs in the yard below.

The room was dark, the noble of course off with the love he hoped to make his wife. Alec wondered if he was nervous, holding her tight as she slept, both anxious for the dawn to arrive and rather afraid of it at the same time. He could only imagine how it must feel, to ask someone to share their entire life with you, to hand them a piece of your heart in the shape of a simple loop of metal and gemstone, without something as sure as a talímenios bond.

It made him a little jealous, if he was honest.

He dismissed the thought quickly, seeing no sense in wanting things he couldn’t have. The window opened, he swung himself inside, landing on the rich woven carpet so no one below would hear him. As soon as he righted himself, the feeling came back as strong as it had been outside, the sensation that something was amiss.

There was just a string sense of the place being...unlived in. Sure the trappings of a young, overly wealthy man were spread around the room- fine coats in a number of rich fabrics hung by the door, the walls lined with books and the fine art on the walls, the plush looking furniture and tasteful hangings- but it was as if a layer of dust hung over it all. Alec knew how to read the traces a person left in their home, how to track their daily routines in which chairs had the deepest depressions and which books were always slightly out of alignment based on how they sat on the shelf. And this place held none of that. It was as if the place were deliberately posed, like the set for some elaborate play, but never intended to be lived in.

Alec’s hand twitched for the knife concealed in his boot. He knew a trap when he saw one.

He made no movement for the window or any other escape route. He could handle himself, whatever was about to appear from whatever shadowy corner of this place, but Seregil would scold himself for weeks even with no way of knowing that of both of those notes in his hand, of all the hundreds of summons they received, this would be the one that turned out dangerous. Alec was already dreading the look on his face when he brought the news back to him.

He moved far more carefully now, stepping into the place, heading for the desk where he’d been told the ring box was kept. His feet didn’t catch a single creaking floorboard, no figure moved from any direction. All was silent.

Frowning, he double and even triple checked the locks on the drawers. No poisoned needles, no dart ready to spring, no trap to close around his fingers. It was just an ordinary piece of furniture with a painfully average lock he had open within seconds. And that only made his suspicions deepen.

Seregil had said nothing about who’d sent them the summons, there was no way to tell if this was some secret enemy after them in particular, someone who had a grudge against the shadowy Rhíminee Cat or if this was one piece of a much more elaborate game. All there was to do was find the ring box, see where it needed delivering and wait for the tension to resolve itself. Some hands you just needed to play, even if you knew they were rigged.

First drawer, empty. Second drawer, nothing but a few clumps of dust. The hair’s on the back of  Alec’s neck stood to attention, why weren’t there any ledgers or papers, nothing so much as a pen to prove that a living, breathing man actually worked at this desk?

The box was in the third drawer along, a long, oblong shaped wooden box with a metal clasp. Far too big for a ring box, Alec thought. This must be the crux of the trap, the spring wound tight and ready to pounce. He steadied his breathing and felt cautiously for any hidden blade, catch or wax plugged holes. Were they being used as assassins here? Was he supposed to deliver death to this poor woman’s bedside table?

All his search discovered was the promised label, fastened around the clasp. Frowning, Alec checked the paper for any poison dusting one last time before turning it over to read it. He didn’t think he’d be delivering this box tonight, not until he’d had Seregil and maybe even Thero check it over or it could mean death for whoever’s name was inscribed upon it-

Alec’s throat tightened. The name on the label was his own. Not even the name Rhíminee knew him by, his true name.

Alec í Amasa.

No address, just the name. And at a glance, Alec knew the hand that had written it.

Even when he’d been certain this whole affair was a trap, his heart had stayed beating it’s usual steady rhythm in his chest, his breathing had been silent and shallow. But now his heart was pounding in his chest and it was such an effort to keep his hands from shaking as he pulled back his hood and carefully opened the box.

There was a ring, a simple band of polished coppery coloured metal. Nothing flashy, nothing that would draw attention; a ring that could be worn on any number of night running jobs and never attract notice but he would always know it was there. But the ring had been threaded around the shaft of an arrow. Not an ordinary arrow, at a glance he knew this wasn’t made for shooting. This was beautifully carved, expertly wrought in polished wood so the shaft had been transformed into a gorgeous scene of an otter and a stag curling around one another as they raced in flight, surrounded by cunningly made flowers that he recognised in an instant. The exact same kind had grown around the cottage where he and Seregil had spent that winter together. The more he looked, the more he saw depths in the design; there were fingerling dragons as small as his littlest knuckle chasing each other around the span of it, there was a mountain range carved into it that reminded him so strongly of his earliest home, there were symbols inscribed all the way along in a clever pattern that spoke of a hundred places and a hundred adventures.

The arrow told a story. It told their story.

And burned into the base of it was a question, composed of two words. Marry me?

Alec didn’t jump when he heard the footsteps behind him and he didn’t turn immediately. First he tried to wipe the tears from his eyes but it was no good, new ones sprang to replace them. It helped that, when he finally did face his lover, Seregil had damp cheeks too. And that familiar, crooked smile he loved so much.

“I...I know it won’t mean anything, not legally,” he was standing in the doorway, dressed in the simple evening clothes Alec had left him in last, looking uncharacteristically nervous, “But...I don’t care. I want it for us, we’re the only ones who need to know. I was thinking...maybe a small ceremony at Watermead, just our friends, some rings, a few words...but I want to be able to call you my husband, Alec. Even if it’s just between us, even if I just get to look at you and think it then...it would be something.”

Alec exhaled, voice soft though it carried over the small space between them, “Seregil, it would be everything.”

Seregil laughed, more tears catching the dusk light outside the window, opening his arms. Alec needed no more invitation than that, flying into his embrace, holding him so tight he couldn’t ever imagine letting go. Whether they were crying or laughing or both, neither could really say, as they sank to the carpet still clasped together.

“You sneaky bastard!” Alec finally managed to get out, grinning against Seregil’s shoulder, “How do I keep falling for this?”

“Ah, talí, but I’m so glad you do,” Seregil murmured back, drawing away enough to kiss him.

The kiss would have lasted until they had no more breath to give, if there wasn’t something Seregil wanted to do even more. The arrow was held fast in Alec’s hand so he slipped the ring off the shaft and placed it gently on his lover’s finger, first kissing the spot where it would lie for the rest of their lives. Now Alec could see there was a twin of it on his own finger.

“I told you about when I was young, yes?” Seregil murmured, stroking his thumb across Alec’s knuckles, “How I would sit in my bedroom back in Aurënen and imagine the person who would be my talímenios, how I would dream of you before I even knew your face...even then, I couldn’t know how it would feel to love you so much. How much you would make me want to be a better man, how every morning simply waking up and seeing you sleeping next to me would make me feel so damn lucky. I didn’t know, Alec í Amasa, how happy I would be with you.”

Alec just shook his head, tears sparkling like diamonds of the most precious sort as they fell to their clasped hands, he didn’t have his lover’s skill with words. He just leaned in and kissed him again, murmuring every time they stopped for air, “I love you, I love you, I love you…”

But those were the only words Seregil needed to hear.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

Fic: Bad Dreams

A/N: I think Alec probably had a lot going on under the surface after book two, and not just the lingering effects of all he went through before the battle.

Disclaimer: The characters and settings in this story are from Lynn Flewelling’s Nightrunner series and do not belong to me.

Alec threw himself out of a nightmare, flinging back the cloak he'd been using as a blanket, and clenching his teeth to hold in a cry even as tears spilled down his cheeks. He choked, lungs straining, and opened his mouth to suck in greedy lungfuls of air. Hunched over and shaking, he swallowed convulsively between ragged breaths. It was pitch black in the cave he and Seregil had bedded down in the night before, their small fire having long since burned away to ashes. Through his panic, he couldn't even sense Seregil next to him, and so relief made his heart lurch painfully in his chest as he heard a quiet groan and the shifting of cloth.

“Alec?”

“Have to piss,” he croaked. Shaking so badly that he nearly fell while scrambling to his feet, he hurried for the mouth of the cave. The horses paid little attention to him as he passed, but he ran his hands along both Windrunner and Cynril, needing any small reassurance that everything was as it had been when he had fallen asleep.

Outside, he shivered in the pre-dawn chill and breathed deeply, forcing calm upon his body, if not his mind. The dream remained cruelly clear, and it took an effort to stop his tears. He was cold, colder than he should have been, and he wished that he hadn't left his boots and cloak behind in his haste.

Soft noises came from within the cave behind him. Footsteps against stone, Seregil's quiet murmuring to the horses—deliberate, warning noises so that he wouldn't be spooked by his friend's appearance at his side. Alec glanced at Seregil out of the corner of his eye, comparing the gaunt, reserved figure with the bright and talkative man who had enticed him away from the only home he had known. He looked away quickly, hugging himself against the chill, against the doubts that surged up within him threatening a fresh round of tears.

“Bad dreams?” Seregil murmured. He watched Alec nod, and let the silence draw out a bit longer before prompting: “Someone once told me that telling a nightmare is the quickest way to make it pass.” The barest hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he offered Alec's own advice back to him.

Did he really want to talk about it? Alec scrubbed away the traces of tears, delaying. To talk about it—to put the fear behind his nightmare into words—could make it true. It was Seregil who had told him that words—that ideas—had power.

Seregil, formerly the one out of the pair of them who could not seem to abide silence, waited him out.

“I was back at Watermead,” Alec admitted, shamed by the roughness in his voice. He cleared his throat and went on, picking his way as carefully as if he was creeping into an occupied house. “It was the morning you tried to leave. I rode out after you, but I couldn't catch up.”

The road stretched out between them, carrying Seregil further and further away until Alec wasn't even able to see him, only sense that he was just out of sight and in some terrible danger alone. Seregil hadn't glanced back even once, hadn't responded to Alec's shouts. He'd only kept riding—resignedly, inexorably—toward the doom awaiting him.

“Patch threw me, and I....”

The horse had balked beneath him, tossing like a ship upon stormy seas, and he'd been thrown forward, tumbling head over heels straight into a reeking bear cage. Jeering faces of Plenimaran marines had loomed up outside the bars, mocking him as he'd shouted and thrown himself against the sides of his prison, desperate to escape and find Seregil.

“The dream changed. I was back in the cage.”

He wasn't aware of how tightly his nails were digging into his upper arms until Seregil sidled just close enough for his cloak to brush the back of Alec's hand. His warmth bled thinly off of him. Alec forced his tense muscles to ease, but otherwise remained still where he stood. The next part had been the worst.

The marines had caught Seregil. They dragged him into the circle of firelight, and Alec watched as he hung limp in their grasp, unhurt, but not fighting. He looked up, dark hair falling across his face, and Alec had seen the emptiness in his eyes and known that he'd given up. Alec screamed and shouted at him, called for him, reached out to him, but none of it reached Seregil, nothing rekindled the spark that had gone out in him.

Seregil let himself be tied to the cage. He hung still as Vargûl Ashnazai came up behind him, taunting them both with vindictive glee. Alec was forced to watch, helpless, as the necromancer ran Seregil through. Face contorted with pain, still Seregil didn't resist. Even as Vargûl pulled back his head to bare his throat for the killing stroke, there was still that horrible blankness in his eyes—no fear, no anger, not even a hint of recognition that Alec was fighting so hard to reach him. Only a sadness as deep and vast as the ocean, and quiet resignation.

“They caught you. And killed you.” He stared hard at the ground, fighting back tears again. The dream had felt too real, and its power still pulled at his heart. “You didn't fight back,” he managed, throat tight.

“Talí....” Seregil sighed and stepped closer, enveloping Alec in his cloak as he pulled him into a hug. “It was only a trick,” he whispered, stroking Alec's hair. “I'm right here with you.”

“I know that!” Alec shoved back, frustrated, wounded by his own doubts. “I know it was a trick! I know they never touched you! That wasn't the worst of it! You gave up, talí! You let them—! You were going to...!” He broke off, furiously wiping away a spill of hot tears.

Seregil remained a step back, studying him bemusedly. “Why is that the part that bothers you so?” he asked eventually.

“Because...! Because....”

He could hardly bring himself to voice the fear that had been sitting in the back of his mind ever since he had brought Seregil back to Watermead. They hadn't stayed with Micum and his family. It was only the two of them now. What if...? What if....

“What if I'm not enough?”

Alec hugged himself, hating the weakness in his voice, in the question, and fearing Seregil's response. Something had died in Seregil the day he'd been forced to kill Nysander, and Alec had watched the fire in him guttering until all that was left were a few glowing coals of affection. Then had come that horrible morning when he'd tried to rake ashes over even that tiny bit of light, and now the two of them were on their own; no other friends to turn to in a pinch, nothing to keep Seregil from giving up again and disappearing from Alec's life just as easily as he'd entered. Alec was still so young, still inexperienced, still ignorant of so many things, and now he'd taken sole responsibility for Seregil. How could he possibly be enough to overcome that lost look that still haunted his friend's gaze? This wasn't like the time he'd fought to drag his sickening friend across unknown lands and the Inner Sea. Back then, Seregil had been fighting for his life. Over the past few months, however, Alec had only seen him dwindling within himself. He'd been letting go.

Alec didn't know how to fight that.

“Talí...is that why you're always so careful to sleep between me and the exit wherever we end up bedding down for the night?” The faint amusement in his voice stirred Alec's anger and left his cheeks burning. He hadn't realized that Seregil had noticed. “You don't trust me?”

“I do, but—”

“Alec, talí.” Seregil hugged him again, wrapping his strong arms tight around Alec's back. He nuzzled Alec's neck, burying his nose in thick hair. “We're both wise enough to know better than to try to live only for one person, I think.”

Tears stung Alec's eyes again. He let them wash fresh trails down his cheeks as he hugged Seregil back, clutching him fiercely as if he could hold onto him by strength alone.

Seregil wasn't finished, however. “I can't promise you that things will ever be as they were. I rather suspect that's impossible.” He pulled back, just enough to cradle Alec's head and kiss his damp cheeks. “What I can promise is that I won't leave you, not like that. I need to find my way again and it's going to take some time.” Summoning up a smile, he rested his forehead against Alec's. “Do you feel up to being my guide again? I have a feeling that it's going to be a long journey, and perhaps none too pleasant. There are a great many evils staining my soul.”

“That's not true!”

Alec glared at him, daring Seregil to contradict his conviction, but Seregil only smiled sadly, and the look in his eyes spoke of more secrets. It was a look that seemed to say 'If only you knew,' and Alec rejected it. He buried his face in the crook of Seregil's neck, holding him for all he was worth.

“Nothing you've done has been guided by evil thoughts, talí. I won't believe it of you.”

He'd seen pride and even arrogance in Seregil through their time together, anger and ruthlessness, but he had never seen cruelty, never seen evil in any aspect of his friend's nature. Whatever ghosts of the past still haunted him, whatever else he had done that he hadn't seen fit to share, Alec knew in his bones that no evil could have motivated it.

Seregil shifted, pressing his lips to Alec's hair. “Thank you, talí. I'll be relying on your strength from now on.”

“As if you hadn't been before,” Alec said, grasping for some semblance of lightheartedness.

“I know.” The words were spoken warmly, and Alec clung to that as Seregil stroked his hair. “You've taken on so many burdens for my sake. It seems I may have become one of them.”

“Now you're just feeling sorry for yourself.”

Pushing away, he stopped as an impulse took hold of him, and leaned in to press his lips to Seregil's. They'd done little more than exchange a few, brief kisses since leaving Watermead, but every time, it left Alec both embarrassed and wanting more. He stepped back, blushing and not meeting his friend's eyes, but Seregil caught his hand and lifted it to place a kiss on the backs of his fingers.

“Take what the Lightbearer sends and be thankful.”

When Alec looked up and met Seregil's gaze and the gratitude apparent there, he was relieved beyond measure to see the tiny spark kindled in his gray eyes.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

that storm will break

Seregil is in a wonderful mood on a fine winter morning but Alec is still worried. 

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It felt like so long since a day had been this perfect.

The inn below their home was closed for the day, leaving them fending for themselves for lunch. Which, given how long they’d taken to get out of bed, had turned into breakfast. The day outside was bitterly cold and hard with frost but inside, everything was bathed in buttery lamplight and the fires roared. It was exactly where Alec wanted to be during a bitter Rhíminee winter day.

And, even better, Seregil was in a fine, high mood. Alec had woken up with his talí’s lips pressing lightly against his own, his hands pulling him close and the sound of his low laughter. It had been so long, he’d almost forgotten how much he loved that sound. They’d tumbled together until the sun would have been high in the sky, could it have made it past the slate grey clouds, the smiles never leaving their faces.

Though Alec watched him carefully, Seregil was still grinning and joking, in his oversized sleep shirt and very little else. Apparently seized with some cheerful energy, he flitted around the kitchen while his talímenios cooked, sitting on the counter and swinging his legs one moment and slipping behind him to squeeze his hips the next, swiping eggs from his hands when he wasn’t looking and kissing the back of his neck. Alec laughed and joked along with him as if it were any normal day, while his eyes stayed as alert for any change as they’d been for signs of prey in the woods.

Eventually, he nudged him aside with his hip, smiling, “Unless you want me to burn myself on this pan, quit being a nuisance and go do something useful like slice up some bread. Even you can’t burn the kitchen down doing that.”

“That sounds like a challenge, my love,” Seregil grinned back, stealing one last kiss to his cheek before moving off to do as he was asked, if only because he was as hungry as Alec was and eager to get breakfast on the table.

As he set to carving thick slices off the loaf they’d bought yesterday, ready for the bacon currently crisping in the pan, Alec stole him another glance. He knew his lover being so bright and cheerful shouldn’t have made him suspicious but he couldn’t help it. Any sudden change in Seregil’s behaviour usually meant he was hiding some hurt that he wasn’t ready to share or had made some plan he knew his talí wouldn’t like.

But in the last few days, his hurt had been plain to see.

“We’re in good spirits today?” Alec ventured, keeping his tone light.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Seregil stopped singing the bawdy little ditty he’d been halfway through to answer him, “No jobs for Lord Seregil, the Rhíminee Cat or the Watchers. The whole place entirely to ourselves. Nothing to do but hide from the weather in the arms of my sweet Alec and ravage him in several of my favourite ways.”

Alec knew his cheeks were colouring, he didn’t need to glance at his reflection, “Of course. It’s just good to see, love.”

Seregil made a non committal noise and launched back into his song right from where he’d left off, doing a sprightly little two step in place as he did. Alec shook his head gently and turned back to their breakfast. Perhaps this was just how his love dealt with things like this. After all, this was new to both of them.

As soon as his tavern song ended, on a clever little turn of phrase involving a male body part and a trout, Seregil picked up into another, a sea shanty this time that Alec could remember him picking up from some sailors. Then a bright reel from a country dance, then something in Aurënfaie he must have known since he was a child, then an almost sickeningly sweet love ballad, putting on a humorous falsetto to properly sing as a damsel in distress. As he toasted bread and buttered it, piling up far more than they’d really need, Seregil ran through a repertoire that would have made any performer on the Street of Lights envious.

By the time he was setting the full plates down on the table, Alec had tears of laughter in his eyes and had forgotten any worry he’d ever had.

“Come on, now,” he rapped his talímenios lightly on the elbow with his spoon, “Your performance can continue after you’ve actually got some food into you.”

Seregil stuck his tongue out at him, though he kept singing as he carried his plate of toast to join the rest of the fine breakfast gathering on their dining table, plucking another song out of his head from the many he kept there.

“I gave my love a cherry

That had no stone.

I gave my love a chicken

That had no bone.

I told my love a story

That had no end.

I gave my love a baby

With no crying…”

Alec smiled, putting their dented tin tea service together on a tray. He remembered that song too, one of Seregil’s favourites. He liked the riddle aspect of it and the lilting melody, the playful joke of it all that unravelled over the course of a few simple verses. It was one he’d often hum without thinking as he worked.

He looked over at Seregil, still swaying lightly on the balls of his bare feet and singing as he swept up an old, chipped vase they kept on the counter and started filling it with flowers he plucked from the bush outside the window. Maybe Alec had been wrong to worry about him so much.

“How can there be a cherry

That has no stone?

And how can there be a chicken

That has no bone?

And how can there be a story

That has no end?

And how can there be a baby

With no-”

Alec had his back to Seregil so he didn’t see it happen but he jumped a mile as the vase shattered on the tile. When he whirled around, Seregil was standing in the middle of the kitchen, face tight and hands shaking delicately, still shaped in the air to hold the flowers that had tumbled to the floor and now lay in a spreading pool of water around his feet.

And Alec didn’t need to ask why.

The song was one of Seregil’s favourites. He’d sung it so many times, enough that Alec had learned the words simply by absorbing them, even though that particular lullaby had never made it up north. Seregil had sung it as he’d worked on locks, he’d hummed it as he’d dressed in the morning, he’d whistled it as he read, sprawled on the sofa. But no matter where he was or what he was doing, when he’d reached that part in the song, he had stopped. For the last twenty five years, he’d never finished the song.

Because the last verse belonged to their daughter.

At that point, whether it was from the next room over or from the other side of the garden where she was drawing back her bow or the opposite chair in the library, Adzri would take up the tune in her high, sweet voice. She’d answer the riddles, she’d twist the words into their clever little patterns, she’d answer her father’s questions. She was the love in the song, their song that they’d always sung together.

But their daughter wouldn’t be able to answer from halfway across the ocean.

“Oh Seregil…” Alec moved to hold him, carefully stepping around broken crockery.

“She’s been gone for weeks and I still...I still just expected her to join in…” his talí whispered faintly, eyes fixed on nothing.

Alec folded him into his arms and, for a terrifying moment he thought he’d be greeted by only the still, emotionless mask Seregil had been wearing since their daughter set sail, the careful nothingness that had been worse than any grief. But then finally he felt the slighter man mould to his embrace, returning it fiercely as he started to sob.

Alec knew his agony, of course, he was Adzri’s father too. As her fine ship had pulled away from Rhíminee into a fresh dawn, it had felt as if half of his heart were being pulled away with it. The daughter he’d loved and protected since before she was even born, the perfect answer to his prophecy, going off into the big wide world to conquer it as he’d always known she would.

They’d dreaded it since the day she’d proven to have every ounce of her father’s wanderlust and bravery, since she’d eagerly climbed trees to the topmost branches to see the world laid out before her, since she’d begged just one more story of their travels every bedtime, since she’d explored every inch of the vast city she called home. They’d known even such as Rhíminee couldn’t hold their Adzri for long. It was why they’d bought her the ship she was currently off exploring who knew where in, presenting it to her on the day she’d come of age. It was why they’d gathered maps and books on far off places for the last year. It was why they hadn’t been surprised when she’d come to them and asked their leave to take her little ship and it’s little crew and go see a new shore.

Though it didn’t make saying goodbye any easier. Particularly for Seregil, to whom Adzri had been a shadow since the day she was born.

“She won’t be gone forever,” Alec murmured, stroking Seregil’s hair, “And she promised to write to us, whenever she could.”

“I know,” Seregil’s voice caught miserably, “I know, I know it’s what’s best for her, I know it’s what she’s always wanted so why...why am I being such a fool about it all?”

“Talí…” Alec groaned, drawing back so he could hold Seregil’s sodden face in his hands and look him in the eye, “You’re not being a fool. You’re being a father.”

Seregil sniffed and sighed deeply, “I miss her.”

“So do I,” Alec returned softly, “And that’s alright. It’s really our job when you think about it. To miss our girl and worry about her terribly and wish she’d never even laid eyes on the damned ocean, all while being so happy for her.”

Seregil managed a laugh, if a wet one, his old crooked smile coming back, “I suppose it is...by the Four, the world isn’t ready for her, is it?”

Alec chuckled, wiping tear tracks from his lover’s face with a gentle thumb, “It was never going to be.”

“And she has one of the most promising magical students in a generation as her field wizard, after all. What could harm her?”

Seregil’s grin gew at that, in rueful acknowledgement. Alec didn’t think Thero was ever going to forgive them for the bond between their daughters and all it had gotten his girl into, the least of which was this tour around the neighbouring countries. At that, Thero had at least been grateful she’d get some further education out of it.

“Don’t ever let Adzri hear you say that,” Seregil smiled, leaning into Alec’s hand, “She’d go in a huff all over being perfectly capable of defending herself with her bow and sword.”

“Ah well, no one can pout quite like our little girl,” Alec raised an eyebrow, “Apart from her father, of course.”

Seregil pulled a face, grey eyes dropping to the poor flowers on the floor, “I have been...unhelpful since she left. I’m sorry, I...I know you don’t like it when I keep what’s in my heart to myself. I should have grown out of it by now.”

“Only because I want it to be less of a burden when you share it with me,” Alec murmured, leaning in and kissing his cheek, still tasting a little salt, “But you do, in your own time, and I can live with that.”

“I do adore you, talí…”

“And I adore you.”

Some of his old mischief returned to Seregil’s eyes as they found his lover’s again, the arms around him less a drowning man clinging to some anchor and now more purposeful, a hand slipping down to cup his ass, “You do make having an empty nest more bearable.”

Alec smirked, tapping his chest in admonishment, though inside he was heaving a long, hard won sigh of relief to see his talí’s more genuine smile, “Our breakfast is getting cold.”

“Fine, a refuel then,” Seregil hummed, showing him just a shade of that famous pout as he gave his backside a last squeeze and moved away to the table.

Alec joined him with a roll of his eyes, taking the seat beside him even though there were other options. And yes, the one empty chair across from them was a sad sight, but it was a bearable ache now.

“And who knows,” Seregil hummed, picking up his knife and fork as Alec took a deep drink of tea that he’d been gasping for since he’d woken up, “Maybe we could start looking at making our empty nest a little less empty?”

The way Seregil cackled as Alec choked on his tea and spluttered it across the entire table told him that his talímenios was back to his old self, for real.

And that their days would never be the same. But they could still be perfect.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

“shh, shh. you were having a nightmare.” + Alec/Seregil <3

Boop Boop I feel like shit so I wrote this, turns into smut at the end

----

He has seen blood before, more than any faie his age should have. But he has seen it, his own and others, staining hands, clothes and blades, its smell familiar to him by now.

But this blood burns.

It feels as though it's his own heart’s blood as it runs down his fisted fingers, in the gaps between them and down his wrists, the pain is so unbearable. The way it seems to scorch his skin, the sickening, too fast throb of agony inside him, the tension in his throat as he screams endlessly, it could be his own life blood leaking out in a slow, implacable stream.

And by Aura, he wishes it was.

But he is whole, though he knows he shouldn’t be, he tried damn hard to change that. Whole but not unbroken. His mind still frantically searches for ways out he knows are hopeless, he can see with his own eyes where the arrows have struck and how deep they’ve sunk, he knows the sharp, cruel slave catchers’ points that are buried deep in the flesh and will shred everything in their path if removed. He knows there is no hope but still his mind searches, only to drive the agony deeper.

Because there is nothing to be done but cling on as if that will do anything to keep a soul in its place, scream and hurt and watch as his love dies in his arms.

And to think the whole time it was meant to be me…

“Seregil?”

Aura, why couldn’t it have been me…

“Seregil? Shh, love, shh, it’s all well, it's just a dream…”

Alec…

“Seregil!”

His eyes snapped open but he wasn’t seeing, his hands moving when he hadn’t asked them to. Old screams were caught in his throat, old tears on his cheeks and his heart was hammering so hard he felt he might vomit. All he saw was that Palmarian plain and Alec’s blood staining it’s grass.

But then a firm hand grabbed his flailing wrist, like taking the collar of a panicking dog and bringing it to heel. And suddenly there was soft skin underneath his fingertips, fine, down like hair and a steady, regular heartbeat that called out to his own.

“Shh,” Alec murmured, his voice gentle and his face an inch from Seregil’s, “Shh, you were having a nightmare. Just a nightmare, nothing more.”

The room they always slept in at Watermead solidified around him, the darkness became the comforting and cosy variety of a candlelit night. It was a feather stuffed mattress underneath him and soft cotton blankets over his legs, the rest of him bare and covered in drying sweat. He smelled treated oak and fresh hay and beeswax, family and home baked into the air.

And Alec was holding his hand, pressing it to his own chest, letting his talímenios feel his heartbeat. His nightshirt was rucked up around their entwined fingers, his hair tousled with sleep though his eyes were wide and awake, full of concern.

“It’s all well,” he murmured, voice raspy, “I’m here and I’m safe. Remember?”

Seregil drew in a shaky breath and nodded, voice trembling as he tried to explain himself, “It just...it only felt so real, I…”

But Alec was already shaking his head over his protestations, seeing nothing that needed forgiveness or explanation. He just pulled him closer, cradling the back of his head, letting the tremors run through him until the tears dried up. After a moment, Seregil found himself clinging to him like his life depended on it, never taking his hand from his chest, needing to feel that steady rhythm.

And then he remembered what day it was.

“Has it gone midnight?” he murmured into Alec’s shoulder.

“I think so,” he heard the smile in his talímenios’ voice and realised he was thinking along the same lines.

“Well,” his voice was still reedy around the edges but the terror of the dream was fading and he was beginning to feel like himself again, his usual crooked smile regrowing,  “Happy wedding day, talí.”

Alec laughed gently, still keeping his voice low so as not to wake the sleeping house around them, though it may be too little too late after last night. And every night before, of the weeks they’d been staying here. Being betrothed had seemed to sparked some fire between Seregil’s legs that Alec was more than happy to indulge.

In just a few hours the sun would come up, warming the fields around the humble country manor house, illuminating the clearing that had been set up for their ceremony, the flower arch that Illia had been working on for the last few days under which Valerius would call them husbands in a patchwork quilt of Dlanan wedding custom and Aurenfaie marriage rites; the hay bales that would serve as seats for their few guests, arranged in neat rows by her brothers under Illia’s strict command and the space cleared for a dance afterwards. It would certainly be a lot less lavish than any party thrown in their Wheel Street house and it would count for nothing under Skalan law but it would mean everything to them.

And as nervous as he was, those few hours still felt like far too long to wait for Alec.

“Maybe we should have slept apart for a night,” Seregil chuckled, though his joking tone was threadbare.

“We’re hardly a traditional couple, talí,” Alec pointed out, leaning back against the pillows so Seregil could rest against his chest, “I can’t believe it would make much difference. And we’d bang heads in the middle of the hallway as we snuck into each other’s beds.”

Seregil gave a thin laugh, “But I wouldn’t have woken you up with the same bad dream I’ve had a hundred times.”

“Well then,” Alec combed his fingers through Seregil’s hair, teasing the knots from it, “I’m glad we’re together so I could be here for you.”

Seregil felt the tears threaten again but they were fresher this time, cleaner. He was glad to see them, glad that he could shed them in front of his talímenios with none of his old shame or need to appear stronger than he was.

“Make love to me?” he asked softly, kissing Alec’s chest where his tears had fallen.

“One last time before you’re stuck with me forever and the passion dies?” Alec teased, grinning as he rose to obey, rolling Seregil onto his back.

“Naturally,” Seregil grinned, letting his legs fall open, “You are only marrying me for my money, after all.”

Alec smirked at their old joke, fuelled by the rumours running through the Noble Quarter at the sight of the ring on Alec’s finger where a blushing bride would wear hers, “And because of the baby.”

“Ah, right. The dark spawn I planted in you with forbidden Aurënen magics. I forgot.”

“Odd thing to forget. What kind of sorcerous father are you?”

And then they were just laughing, kissing each other as their bodies moved to their familiar positions, fitting together like pieces in an exceptionally clever puzzle box, Seregil’s legs falling open and Alec’s hips moving to fill the gap, Seregil’s arms snaking around Alec’s shoulders.

There was still slack in his muscles from the night before, a looseness that meant Alec needed to only wet his fingers slightly from the bottle on the nightstand, a few quick thrusts and he judged his talímenios ready.

Seregil moaned as he moved into him, staying achingly slow so he’d feel every inch of the stretch. Then it was a teasily prim kiss to his forehead before Alec began to roll his hips, making certain to hit that sweet spot inside him at the apex of every thrust. Seregil rewarded him with trembles and sighs, soft, sweet cries that only drove Alec on, kindling that need inside him.

It was the small details that took root in his mind, as things grew more frantic and wild. How Seregil’s dark hair spread across the white of the pillow, looking almost black. How his pupils inched wider and wider, more blown out with lust until he seemed almost otherworldly in his beauty.  How his mouth grew more slack, the tension in the muscles of his neck, how his fingers scrabbled at the sheets when he struck those nerves inside him.

It was over all too soon, the sudden release cascading through him, hips jerking, filling Seregil with his heat. That sensation was enough to push Seregil over that same precipice, his cry of Alec’s name high and strangled as he painted his stomach.

Alec sighed, contentedly, sitting back, muscles going slack as the tension left. He smiled down at Seregil with a mix of smugness and tenderness.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“I will when you come here,” Seregil panted, pulling him close, kissing at him with a tired messiness that only made Alec giggle.

“Here, I’ve got you,” he grinned, returning to more or less the positions they’d occupied before they made love. He wasn’t intending to sleep again.

Seregil couldn’t have felt further from the terror of his nightmare. That pain was past and couldn’t hurt him here, anything that wanted to claim his talímenios now wouldn’t find it half so easy, be it human, faie or god. He’d put it into his vows if he had to.

Before he slipped back into a much more restful sleep, Seregil kissed Alec’s skin where his heartbeat was now pounding a much stronger beat, lying so he could feel it against his cheek.

It was it’s gentle, constant rhythm that brought him sweeter dreams.