#make ourself all wrong at twitching just because we refuse to let go

[voiceofthesilly]

If me thoughts were more coherent id type up a thing about how if it weren't for our specific circumstances stubborn would often doom us but alas

[kewltie]

“Do you think His Holiness had forgotten about us by now?” Tanel asks, brows furrowing in concern. “It has been over a week since he had last called upon the Fyre.” He bites down on his lower lip worriedly. “The Furie can’t keep ignoring His Majesty, right? Maybe the Fyre shouldn’t have to pick a fight with the Furie in the first place if he knows he can’t win. Nobody can out stubborn His Holiness.” 

Ein frowns at him. “I see your mouth moving but I don’t see any work being done,” she snaps. “This room won’t clean itself.” 

Tanel huffs. “There’s only two of us here, not counting on His Majesty, how are we supposed to clean this debilitating manor all by ourself anyway? Couldn’t His Majesty pick somewhere better to sulk in?” 

Ein’s left eye twitch. “You brat--!” she starts, reaching toward Tanel but he quickly dodges her grabby hands and makes a dash for the door. 

“Yea, okay, I’m going to clean now. In the other room, preferably,” he declares over his shoulder with a wave as he disappears completely beyond the entertaining chamber. 

“Boys,” she mutters under breath in an aggrieved sigh. For a moment she does not let herself think of the other young man trapped within this manor, but at least his impose exile isn’t a punishment. Refusing to go back to Imperial Quarters or his own palace after his fight with the Furie, the Fyre had set up their new home in an abandoned manor just outside of the Inner Core of Lavaein.

It’s not the first time a consort of a Furie have left the Inner Core to live outside, but it was never at their own volition. It’s either from them having fallen out of favor or a rebuke of their misdeed, but their new Fyre had walked out on the Furie and had not looked back since.

Even a simple marital spat between spouses is elevated to new heights when it’s their Fyre and Furie, the god-king and his consort. 

The Furie’s rules are absolute and he rules absolutely; he won’t bend, not to his subjects, not his friends or family, not to even the gods themselves, and certainly he won’t be cowed by his own husband either. The Fyre’s rebellion is written off as a childish tantrum by many and the whispers in the Inner Core all say the same thing, “it’s hopeless, the Furie won’t be moved.”

This isn’t a battle that the Fyre can hope to win out of sheer will, but even as the day turns into another night and still no words from the Furie, His Majesty remains staunch in his self-impose exile. Ein knows the new Fyre is quiet and unassuming upon first glance, but hidden behind that brittle smile is iron steel that can bear the full weight of their empire if only they let him.  

By the eleventh day of the Fyre’s seclusion, a caravan of Imperial Guard and servants lug several large wooden chests into the courtyard of their manor as every members of their household gather out in front. “His Holiness requests the presence of the Fyre in the Imperial Quarters,” the head steward beseeches. 

Several hands unlock and opens to the five chest to reveal a plethora of glittering jewelries in one, silk and high end fabrics in another, and artifacts of high values and important from various states across Kurenai in the last three. They are treasures beyond compare and they beckon the Fyre to come closer and be move the Furie’s magnanimous gesture. 

The Fyre takes one look at them with uninterested eyes and quickly turns away. “Send it all back,” he says dismissively before walking back into his room to the disbelief of everyone in the courtyard. 

After Ein kicks effectively kick everyone else out, Tanel walks up to her and whines, “Why didn’t the Fyre accept His Holiness’ apology gifts already?! He finally got the Furie’s attention, doesn’t that count for something?”

Ein flicks his forehead. “Not even,” she scolds. Tanel didn’t see the hope that had lit in the Fyre’s eyes for a moment before it quickly squashed out by the disappointment in the so called ‘gifts’. This isn’t what the Fyre wanted at all.

The Furie is the Master of Fate, King of Kings, Lord of the Hallows, and the Anointed One, yet in the matters of the heart is he is like a babe in the wilds.  

On the twelve days, another caravan arrives at the footstep of their door but this time they bring several chests full of books from the Imperial Library. Books are forbidden from leaving the grounds of the Inner Core yet by the order of His Holiness the books are brought here, anyway.

The shallow gifts earlier had failed to gain the Fyre’s interest, but the books are another story.

Ein and everyone else holds their breath as the Fyre walks toward the open chest with a speculative look. “Leave those here,” the Fyre finally says, hands carefully combing over the cover of a large tome, “but you all may go.”

It’s another dismissal. Another failure as the Fyre remains in willful exile.

On the thirteen days, the caravan comes again but there’s no chest this time; a single edict. Ein and Tanel quickly fall on their knees, ready to receive the Furie’s proclamation but His Majesty steps forward and rips the scroll carrying the official words of the Furie from the steward’s hand. “Before he is my king, he is my husband,” the Fyre snaps, green eyes alight with the fire of defiance. “If he wants to say something, say it to my face.”

He takes the scroll with him as he storms back into his room in a huff, leaving them all horrified by his bold act. To reject an edict sent by the Furie is an act of treason, but their Fyre doesn’t seem to even have a drop of care.

“Are we going to be executed?!” Tanel whispers worriedly in her right ear.

She glares at him. “Be quiet.”

After coming out of his shock stupor, the steward quickly composes himself once more and not saying another word to either of them, he hurriedly rush out of the manor with the caravan.

In the next following days after the Fyre’s bold move, there were no more caravans or visitors to their manor. Anxiety reigns in their household with each passing day that they haven’t heard from the Furie. Even His Majesty’s carefully crafted mask of aloof indifference is starting crack under the weight of the disquiet. The Fyre’s rebellion may have pushed His Holiness too far and lost him altogether.

“His Majesty had offended the Furie, now we’ll never leave this place,” Tanel laments over dinner with the two of them as the Fyre went to bed early in a sour mood. Ein had caught him sitting by the window while his book was opened on his lap but his eyes drifted toward the east, beyond the walls of Inner Core where His Holiness reside in. Not even his beloved book could hold his interest for long, not when his longing was near palpable. “I didn’t think there exist anyone as stubborn as His Holiness. It’s like fire on fire.”

Unlike the last few times Tanel’s remarks had earned him her ire and rebuke, this time she couldn’t even argue.

On a boring and unexpected nineteen days since the Fyre had ran away, the doors of their manor is once again grace by visitors. This time there’s no caravan of soldiers and servants, no chests with elaborate gifts, and no steward to bring the personal words of the Furie to their doors because this time the Furie has personally come himself. It’s just him and his personal attendance.

Ein and Tanel quickly drop to the ground with their head pressed against it. “Your humble servant greets His Holiness,” they say. “May the sun rise upon your brilliance and the moon shines on your grace.”

“Rise,” the Furie grunts out, and they get back to their feet just in time to see the Furie stepping pass them without another word to meet the other person who had been quietly watching them.

“My lord,” the Fyre says, dry and humorless. Face carefully neutral, but his shoulders are tense and his hands are fisted at his side, like he’s gearing up for another battle.

The Furie takes a cautious step forward toward him, looking as though he has never felt more unsure than right at this moment. In the glaring lights of the day and in front of the one he had wronged, the Furie is but another young man just like the rest; human, fallible, and hesitant.  

Seeing it all in action, it’s like witnessing two unstoppable objecting colliding. A collision is bound to happen, but nobody knows if the fallout is irreparable.

“The Imperial Quarters,” the Furie coughs into his hand as though to clear his throat as his eyes flit elsewhere for a second, “has been annoyingly quiet without your constant yammering so come back already.” He extents his right hand toward the Fyre and waits.

It’s not an outright apology nor a concession either, but it’s close enough. For the Furie to willingly come here to retrieve the Fyre himself that in itself is a bold statement. As proud and ornery as their Furie this was the equivalent of him lowering his head to ask for the Fyre back.

Ein’s heart is set alight with hope and warmth. They’re young and still new at this whole relationship thing that most take years and years to master, but they’re learning. Clumsily and full of mistakes, they reach toward each other because this bond is may not be their choice but in this way they choose each other.

Something in the Fyre’s break, the frigid cool indifference melting away to a slow creeping smile on his face. “You could have just said you miss me, my lord,” he teases, his voice thick with a merriment that Ein hasn’t heard in so many days.

“Don’t push it,” the Furie says tartly beside him. “I’m not coming here to pick you up if you run out on me again.”

The Fyre snorts in disbelief and even to Ein’s own ears that had sounded like a lie, but for now they’ll let him have it. After all sometimes marriage is about compromise, they both will soon learn.