After allowing Dmitri time to speak, Faolan feels - unsettled. He knows he ought to either reject the words as falsehoods or accept them, relish them, be joyful in what's been said to him.
But he feels so cold, as though he walked a middle road between two extremes, and rather than drawing him into warmth, Dmitri simply joined him.
There's quietude, yes, and promise of peace, and there's gentleness, and those are all very fine things. But there's no fire. Dmitri is persistent, but Faolan thinks of the fury around him as he marched toward Visento and crafted a blade made from words. Where's that fervor? Why was Visento worth Dmitri's fire, but not Faolan?
He talks of wanting.
He thinks, whatever Dmitri wants from him, it isn't what Faolan is.
(He doesn't talk of incineration, of passage through flames together, because that's what Faolan wants. That's what he's always wanted: everything, even if it combusts. Even if the conflagration is destructive.) (Maybe that's what kept getting him in trouble. Maybe it didn't exist.) (Maybe he's not worth it.)
(He's not worth living for; why would he be worth burning for?)
After a moment of indecision, he draws Dmitri away, towards the ruins of the temple where they won't be heard. When he's certain they're distant enough to count it as privacy, he speaks. "I haven't been clear with you. Maybe I was wrong to allow a month to prove anything to me. I thought -"
He sighs, bowing his head briefly before pressing on, "I've had enough, don't you understand that? I've burned so brightly for so long, for so many who gave only dim light in return. I can't now. All these things you want from me -"
"You want a tender, quiet place in my heart? I'm not tender, Dima. I am tired. I am used up to emptiness. I decided to take the ruins of myself away from the people who discarded me; you're asking me to change my mind so you can claim the ashes.
"Do you know what I see in you right now?"
There's a note of pain in his voice, a distant cry for more, but it's weak. "I see a man who would rather die on a stranger's sword than live for me. Someone who takes his fire and stops a monster in its tracks with words alone, but tells me he wants this broken rot of myself -"
With a huff, he shrugs imploringly.
"I don't - want that. I don't want to be tenderly, quietly loved, Dima. You want to trade heart for heart. Do you want the coldness I am now, or the truth of it, when it burns, when I'm joyful and alive? And why - why - must I be the one to settle for what others offer? Why must I make the sacrifices and take the risks? Why must I burn and lose everything over and over, and be met only with cold?"
He knows he's bleeding poison from some wound that Dima didn't inflict alone (only prodded), but he sets his jaw and though his vision blurs wet, he goes on, "Do you know what I want? I want you to risk everything for me. Live for me. Breathe for me. Give up everything you have and follow me across the world. Stand at my side and claim me as your own in front of everyone who knows the name you gave up just to have me.
"Tell me I'm worth all of that - because that's what I would have done. That's what I would have given if I found a heart that burned as bright as mine."
He falters, then softly - tiredly - says, "I may not be worth any of it, but I won't take less anymore."
<.>
He hears, feels his own pulse pounding in his ears, and feels the fall of Faolan’s every word. (He’s approached this all wrong. He’s been too cautious, calculated using all of the wrong quantities.) (He sees that, now. He needn’t keep following this path— And isn’t that freeing, in a way all its own?)
Liviana’s fluttered to a nearby column, not out of earshot (she'd never be out of Dmitri's knowing, regardless), but far enough for some semblance of privacy. And Dima’s eyes are fixed on Faolan, a mingling of regret and hopefulness, of gratitude and red-sparked wanting. When Dmitri speaks, there’s little caution in his voice now. Yes, he jars upon his words from time to time, but there’s no loss of assuredness as he continues; no loss of ardor. He only speaks; lets himself speak more freely, with less guarding.
“Of course I want your fire.
“Faolan— You are flame in human form; a divinity, peerless elision of devastative potential and living soul. I should think—
“No. I ought to have said what I’ve known: That to desire you is to want your fury, your wildness, just as well as what is tender in you.”
A cant of his head, an emendatory hum. “If I have been mistaken in estimation of some tenderness, I beg your forgiveness. But I believe you can be both: The brilliant ferocity of a wildfire, and the sustaining glow of burning light.
“Do you think, Fae, that I could long for anyone or anything that would remain veiled in hush, or lacking fangs, lacking hazard?
“When we met, I watched as you bloomed fire in your hand, ready for attack, and I could fathom nothing else beside you.
“Today, when you snapped a bastard’s neck, I watched heart-stammered, hungry. You sang your sword to burning, and I felt the scramble all around us fade. I saw only you— So often, I see only you, and feel no need for any other image, any other world.
“When I say I see you in firelight, my Faolan, I mean I know you share its heart. “I mean I want you in your fervor; that I will adore you, require you when you roar combustive, as well as when your burn tends subtler, wraps soft around our hands.
“I won’t ask you to forgive my negligence in speaking only of what’s gentle. I have—“ There’s a sharp exhale, a sign of Dmitri’s frustration with himself, and he shakes his head. “I know you’ve endured viciousness, endured daggered words beyond reason.
“I feared that I might wound you.
“I am accustomed to my furies, to the damage I can wreck with words. With expression of my vehemence. I know how to speak with beings like Visento; creatures I set myself opposed to; those I mean to lacerate and render ruined.
“I don’t know the languages of love. Or I’ve had no cause to turn my words toward anything apart from damage and manipulation.
“And I can be overwhelming. In my full force, I can be vicious, demanding. A work of violence and terror.
“I believed— I ought to have asked. I ought to have trusted what I saw in you, but I wanted to take care with you, to take care of you. And I believed that with anything ungentle, I might ward you off.
“There is little in existence that scares me, Faolan, but to think that you might vanish, or that I might drive you away— It terrifies me.
“What I meant to say earlier, is that I don’t want to lose you. I can’t withstand the thought.
“I want you with me always; I want to be beside you always. I’d like to take you to Morovskgorod— If you can stand to reenter the city, with your hand in my own, your step always at my side. If you cannot, then the whole place can damn itself. There is far more to the world than Morovsk. There is— I believe there is all the world beside you, wherever we might go.”
There’s a small hum, a thought, and Dima shakes his head slightly. (Realizes as he does that his hand's found its way to Faolan's chest, settling, pressing, remaining.) “Some other time, perhaps, I’ll show you what rot means to me. It isn’t an ending, Faolan; it isn’t hopeless. What waits beneath rot is combustive. Is beautiful, when coaxed to show itself; when permitted once again to be.
“I tell you this now, so you might know that when I speak of rot, I speak as well of resurrection.
“And you, my Fae—
“There is so much life in you. So much wrath, waiting only for its call.
“There are worlds in you, cries in you I long to see.
“Sear me, Faolan; I welcome the agony, and will rejoice upon it.
“Walk with me, hand-in-hand, step for step wherever we may go. Know my voice in every corner of the world; let me hear your own, forever at my ear.
“Let all who pass by witness us, and know that I adore you. Let them know I’d tear their throats for you, gladly, in an instant.
“Let me stand with you in flame, and give you fuel for burning.
no subject
But he feels so cold, as though he walked a middle road between two extremes, and rather than drawing him into warmth, Dmitri simply joined him.
There's quietude, yes, and promise of peace, and there's gentleness, and those are all very fine things. But there's no fire. Dmitri is persistent, but Faolan thinks of the fury around him as he marched toward Visento and crafted a blade made from words. Where's that fervor? Why was Visento worth Dmitri's fire, but not Faolan?
He talks of wanting.
He thinks, whatever Dmitri wants from him, it isn't what Faolan is.
(He doesn't talk of incineration, of passage through flames together, because that's what Faolan wants. That's what he's always wanted: everything, even if it combusts. Even if the conflagration is destructive.) (Maybe that's what kept getting him in trouble. Maybe it didn't exist.) (Maybe he's not worth it.)
(He's not worth living for; why would he be worth burning for?)
After a moment of indecision, he draws Dmitri away, towards the ruins of the temple where they won't be heard. When he's certain they're distant enough to count it as privacy, he speaks. "I haven't been clear with you. Maybe I was wrong to allow a month to prove anything to me. I thought -"
He sighs, bowing his head briefly before pressing on, "I've had enough, don't you understand that? I've burned so brightly for so long, for so many who gave only dim light in return. I can't now. All these things you want from me -"
"You want a tender, quiet place in my heart? I'm not tender, Dima. I am tired. I am used up to emptiness. I decided to take the ruins of myself away from the people who discarded me; you're asking me to change my mind so you can claim the ashes.
"Do you know what I see in you right now?"
There's a note of pain in his voice, a distant cry for more, but it's weak. "I see a man who would rather die on a stranger's sword than live for me. Someone who takes his fire and stops a monster in its tracks with words alone, but tells me he wants this broken rot of myself -"
With a huff, he shrugs imploringly.
"I don't - want that. I don't want to be tenderly, quietly loved, Dima. You want to trade heart for heart. Do you want the coldness I am now, or the truth of it, when it burns, when I'm joyful and alive? And why - why - must I be the one to settle for what others offer? Why must I make the sacrifices and take the risks? Why must I burn and lose everything over and over, and be met only with cold?"
He knows he's bleeding poison from some wound that Dima didn't inflict alone (only prodded), but he sets his jaw and though his vision blurs wet, he goes on, "Do you know what I want? I want you to risk everything for me. Live for me. Breathe for me. Give up everything you have and follow me across the world. Stand at my side and claim me as your own in front of everyone who knows the name you gave up just to have me.
"Tell me I'm worth all of that - because that's what I would have done. That's what I would have given if I found a heart that burned as bright as mine."
He falters, then softly - tiredly - says, "I may not be worth any of it, but I won't take less anymore."
<.>
He hears, feels his own pulse pounding in his ears, and feels the fall of Faolan’s every word. (He’s approached this all wrong. He’s been too cautious, calculated using all of the wrong quantities.) (He sees that, now. He needn’t keep following this path— And isn’t that freeing, in a way all its own?)
Liviana’s fluttered to a nearby column, not out of earshot (she'd never be out of Dmitri's knowing, regardless), but far enough for some semblance of privacy. And Dima’s eyes are fixed on Faolan, a mingling of regret and hopefulness, of gratitude and red-sparked wanting. When Dmitri speaks, there’s little caution in his voice now. Yes, he jars upon his words from time to time, but there’s no loss of assuredness as he continues; no loss of ardor. He only speaks; lets himself speak more freely, with less guarding.
“Of course I want your fire.
“Faolan— You are flame in human form; a divinity, peerless elision of devastative potential and living soul. I should think—
“No. I ought to have said what I’ve known: That to desire you is to want your fury, your wildness, just as well as what is tender in you.”
A cant of his head, an emendatory hum. “If I have been mistaken in estimation of some tenderness, I beg your forgiveness. But I believe you can be both: The brilliant ferocity of a wildfire, and the sustaining glow of burning light.
“Do you think, Fae, that I could long for anyone or anything that would remain veiled in hush, or lacking fangs, lacking hazard?
“When we met, I watched as you bloomed fire in your hand, ready for attack, and I could fathom nothing else beside you.
“Today, when you snapped a bastard’s neck, I watched heart-stammered, hungry. You sang your sword to burning, and I felt the scramble all around us fade. I saw only you— So often, I see only you, and feel no need for any other image, any other world.
“When I say I see you in firelight, my Faolan, I mean I know you share its heart. “I mean I want you in your fervor; that I will adore you, require you when you roar combustive, as well as when your burn tends subtler, wraps soft around our hands.
“I won’t ask you to forgive my negligence in speaking only of what’s gentle. I have—“ There’s a sharp exhale, a sign of Dmitri’s frustration with himself, and he shakes his head. “I know you’ve endured viciousness, endured daggered words beyond reason.
“I feared that I might wound you.
“I am accustomed to my furies, to the damage I can wreck with words. With expression of my vehemence. I know how to speak with beings like Visento; creatures I set myself opposed to; those I mean to lacerate and render ruined.
“I don’t know the languages of love. Or I’ve had no cause to turn my words toward anything apart from damage and manipulation.
“And I can be overwhelming. In my full force, I can be vicious, demanding. A work of violence and terror.
“I believed— I ought to have asked. I ought to have trusted what I saw in you, but I wanted to take care with you, to take care of you. And I believed that with anything ungentle, I might ward you off.
“There is little in existence that scares me, Faolan, but to think that you might vanish, or that I might drive you away— It terrifies me.
“What I meant to say earlier, is that I don’t want to lose you. I can’t withstand the thought.
“I want you with me always; I want to be beside you always. I’d like to take you to Morovskgorod— If you can stand to reenter the city, with your hand in my own, your step always at my side. If you cannot, then the whole place can damn itself. There is far more to the world than Morovsk. There is— I believe there is all the world beside you, wherever we might go.”
There’s a small hum, a thought, and Dima shakes his head slightly. (Realizes as he does that his hand's found its way to Faolan's chest, settling, pressing, remaining.) “Some other time, perhaps, I’ll show you what rot means to me. It isn’t an ending, Faolan; it isn’t hopeless. What waits beneath rot is combustive. Is beautiful, when coaxed to show itself; when permitted once again to be.
“I tell you this now, so you might know that when I speak of rot, I speak as well of resurrection.
“And you, my Fae—
“There is so much life in you. So much wrath, waiting only for its call.
“There are worlds in you, cries in you I long to see.
“Sear me, Faolan; I welcome the agony, and will rejoice upon it.
“Walk with me, hand-in-hand, step for step wherever we may go. Know my voice in every corner of the world; let me hear your own, forever at my ear.
“Let all who pass by witness us, and know that I adore you. Let them know I’d tear their throats for you, gladly, in an instant.
“Let me stand with you in flame, and give you fuel for burning.
“Let me be yours.”
<.>