145 » foot outside the window when we pay rent

[ironwind]

[For a long time now, the forces of the Abyss have been instructed to attack and kill Dainsleif on sight. It isn't surprising, even if Dainsleif is every bit as Khaenri'ahn as the other cursed, twisted leaders of the Abyss: relations between their current prince and their former captain simply soured to the point that Aether decided Dainsleif was better off dead than allowed to suffer until such time as the curse of Celestia was purged from their souls at last. So they were ordered. So they were told.

(And really — really, there isn't any logic in it. Really, the reason Aether had initially taken up the mantle of defying the gods to restore Khaenri'ah to its former glory was because of Dain to begin with. Because he wanted Dain to smile at him again; because he wanted them to be able to travel together again; because he'd lost something the same way Dain had, that day the skies came crashing down. Because he couldn't stand the thought of ever seeing Dain like that again, on his knees, almost in penitence to the cruel gods, crushed with the weight of what he'd done.)

Still, other than the order to kill him on sight, Dainsleif was never made a target of the Abyss's forces. Until, without warning, new orders came from their prince on high: Call off all other operations. I want our armies to take Dainsleif alive.

Aether is bathing in his quarters when the Abyss Mage comes to report that they've captured Dain, as ordered. It wasn't easy, of course. Dain was never going to make it easy. But they have ways of subjugating him, now that they've run experiments on that device they discovered in the Chasm. Even Dainsleif can't escape the curse of Khaenri'ah, and Aether planned to use that to his advantage.

The losses are as follows: two contingents of their soldiers, a lesser dragon, thirteen homunculi. But even so, the operation was a success. The Twilight Sword has been collared and chained, Your Highness, and awaits your judgment in the dungeons.

Interesting, Aether says in response. And then, in a tone that is almost distracted but could never possibly be for how ruthless the Abyss knows him to be: Good. You are dismissed.

The Abyss, predictably, is a dark place, with little in the way of natural life, but Aether's "palace" boasts what few luxuries their forces can manage. The lifeless branches of petrified trees decorate the cold stone walls, as if in imitation of floral arrangements; rugs of tattered silk line the halls. Defying gravity, streams of water run upward along the walls in violation of the laws of Celestia. For five hundred years, this has been his home. And for five hundred more —

Aether's footsteps take him to Dainsleif's cell, where he stops and simply stares at his prisoner with eyes of cold amber.]

...Dain.

[Aether's voice is soft and quiet, perhaps even unexpectedly so. He lifts one hand, and the magicked bars dissolve; as he steps through them, they re-form behind him. He isn't bothered. He doesn't mind being in the cage of the beast so long as he still holds its leash.]

I never thought I'd see you like this again.

Comments

[ironwind]

I know. But you look so wonderful with them on.

[There's some humor in this, a bitter kind: as seemingly empty-headed and affectionately mad as Aether is currently acting, they both know full well that only cold-hearted determination underlines the Abyss Prince's actions at the end of every day, and the speed with which Aether has just declined Dainsleif's request belies his true motives. His veneer of sweetness, the soft golden glow about him that Dainsleif once knew and cherished — it, like everything else, has been tainted by the Abyss, where the survivors of Khaenri'ah rock their tortured souls back and forth, mumbling incoherently about fate and the cruelty of the gods.

Aether wonders if Dainsleif hates him now. He can't imagine that he doesn't; he's hated Dainsleif, too. For not understanding; for not forgiving him his wild dream, his impossible ambition to make everything right. Because all of this, in the end, has been meant to make things right; all of this has been for Dainsleif. Even in the torturous mess of hating him, Aether seeks his forgiveness for sins that no one save the gods in Celestia have the power to forgive.

Nevertheless. With effervescent, false tenderness, Aether leads Dainsleif to the edge of the tub, where a decorative set of stairs provides a makeshift stool of sorts. He makes Dainsleif sit down, the better to address their height difference — then he sets about removing the former guardsman's clothing. It's not an easy thing to manage; Dainsleif's old uniform was largely ceremonial and not meant to be easily worn or removed. Still, Aether's patient. He knows where to find the hidden hooks and zippers, how to undo the belts holding his vest together at the back, what the lovely, pale column of Dainsleif's throat looks like once it's been bared to the elements.]

Would you like me to remove them?

[It's coercion, he knows, but he doesn't mind. Coercion will get him everything he wants in the end.]

Tell me that you love me. If you tell me that you love me, then I'll take them off.

[notedly]

[ The uniform had always been a point of pride--or at least he had thought so. A symbol of what he fought for, what he protected, what he represented, and all others who wore their similarly found pride in their work, at least until the end. He had known brave men, brave women, brave people who had been sacrificed for a dream they had thought was their own, too, for things that had never been and never should have been. And in some ways, it had been a mockery to continue wearing it: to walk silently through the fields and cities of Teyvat, looking at what had changed and what had remained the same. A symbol of the past that would not die, could not die, unable to be forgotten as much as it may have wished to be. The uniform had been an armor against question, a brand to cast himself off from everyone else, and it had covered the shape of his slender body without giving hint to what malice and anger and exhaustion lay underneath.

As Aether leads him to the edge of the tub, forces him to sit at the decorative stairs, he knows that, even more than the uniform, Aether will strip him of so many of those things. Hatred, retribution, desire, pain: as slim fingers work at the outer layer of his uniform, he finds the act of being laid bare akin to the way a chef might fillet a fish. It's important to leave just enough skin; it's important to do away with the bones and organs with precision and care. Aether gets him undressed from the waist up, the fabric loose around his shoulders, and his breath, flexed through pale skin, shows only calm disregard. ]

Is that the price?

[ Turning, his gaze lands on the bathroom wall--but his throat, bared now to Aether's gaze, works once, twice, almost like he's holding something back. Perhaps it's some of that anger, or disappointment, or maybe it's that he hasn't thought to say words like that in quite some time.

With another soft sigh, he brings his hands up, lays them out, shackled, against his thighs. ]

I love you. [ It isn't like it's a lie: his voice has its usual pallor, like a ripe fruit that's been left out in the sun for too long, dry and absent. ] And I'm tired, of loving you.