[closed post -- training]

[onthewillowsthere]

The day after Evil Twin Magnus leaves, Galahad shows up for his training with Lan Wangji exactly as he always does (although later in the day, because Lan Wangji asked him to wait until afternoon to meet) -- if Lan Wangji were going solely on his appearance, he'd see absolutely nothing out of order. He throws himself into the sword forms with his usual focus. But he's gripping the hilt of his sword too tightly, and his movements are tense; he's never graceful, but today he's almost clumsy, and each failure or misstep only seems to pull him tighter, like an overwound watch.

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

He tries to imagine what Claudius meant, and what he imagines is the great stone sculptures some graveyards have, the sepulchers cut into reliefs of saints and angels. He imagines those vast impassive figures come to life to destroy Claudius and his companions.

[lightbearinglord]

"Alphinaud healed Claudius' wounds again and again," he says, a little more slowly. "He kept them fighting." As with their own Claudius, the alternate Claudius had been animated, expressive, charming -- and the dullness of his voice as he reached this part of the tale was striking because of it. "It was when they thought themselves safe that one of the knights attacked from above, with a lance that could halt healing aether. Haurchefant shielded Claudius, and did not stop even when his shield broke."

[onthewillowsthere]

"He died," Galahad says. He doesn't often anticipate the way stories go, but he feels a strange dread now about this one.

[lightbearinglord]

"Yes," Lan Wangji agrees, quietly. "He died protecting Claudius."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Is he grieving?" By this he means: is he allowing himself to grieve? Is he admitting how hard a blow this is, and that he was loved enough for Haurchefant to die for him?

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji understands his meaning. He considers, recalling Claudius' dryly casual description of Haurchefant as if he could make the loss sting less by pretending he had never mattered in the first place, the tears in his eyes, the smile that seemed to take him by surprise when Lan Wangji spoke the truth that seemed so clear to him: He loved you. "Less than he should," he says. "But there is still time. I think that it helped him to tell me."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Good." He pauses. "Do you think he will? Does he take care of himself?" Is there someone who takes care of him? Galahad thinks about the tall, pale, beautiful man he kissed, and although the only Claudius he wants to marry and live with forever is the one he has, he does for a moment wish that he could have gone with the other Claudius, to be certain that someone was caring for him. That someone would be able to remind him that his feelings matter.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji's teacup is empty now, and as usual, the leaves at the bottom reveal nothing without his mother's practiced eye. He sets it lightly down. "I think he will." He wants to be honest with Galahad -- always, if possible, but especially about Claudius, whose happiness and safety feel sometimes like a delicate treasure they must pass back and forth between the two of them. So he takes a moment to phrase this carefully and truthfully. "He still has journeys to make, but he is not alone on them. I think that he was only a visitor because he doesn't need to be here. Your betrothed, my brother -- he does. He needs us."

[onthewillowsthere]

That Claudius doesn't need to be here, but theirs does. Galahad's does. He nods. His heart feels too full of hot coals, slow-burning and trembling, distorting his body around it the way heat distorts the air: it aches for his Claudius, his beloved, his betrothed, who needs to be here.

[lightbearinglord]

He can almost feel it, the ember-hot love radiating from Galahad, because he recognizes it, that feeling as cutting as a blade. It's a love so powerful that when Lan Wangji first felt something like it, when he looked at Wei Wuxian and wanted to rearrange every part of himself to make a space for him, he mistook it for an impulse of cruelty, something to be eradicated. He is glad for it, relieved that Claudius will have this, that he needn't suffer through death and loss just to find such an encompassing love. He has suffered enough. "He told me about Gertrude, too," he says after a moment. "Because his brother still lives, I asked after her. He said she is as safe as she can be."

[onthewillowsthere]

As quickly, his heart cools and falls, as he remembers that this Claudius, for all his freedom, still has to consider the brutality of King Hamlet and how it touches the people he loves. Galahad thinks of Gertrude, whose portrait he still has in one of his past sketchbooks -- sometimes he takes it out to remember her face. She was kind to him, on a day when he was little but dazed and hurt. As safe as she can be isn't reassuring, but he does understand it speaks to something beyond his control.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji watches Galahad's serious face, which he is coming to understand, slowly and steadily. "Claudius will be well," he says. "Both of them."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods a little nod.

Then he's quiet, for a long moment, before he says, "The story wasn't finished."

[lightbearinglord]

"After we reached Haurchefant's death, I did not push him for more," Lan Wangji admits. It seemed enough to have heard that small but important story in its completeness. "I know that the war has ended and that Ishgard's gates are open."

[onthewillowsthere]

"You said there was a young man in his care."

[lightbearinglord]

"Alphinaud." He feels a little secondhand warmth thinking of Alphinaud, too. "He is sixteen and from a place called Sharlayan. Claudius was afraid for him, and I believe he saw himself in him."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Tell me about him."

[lightbearinglord]

"Claudius told me that he had been playing political games he could not possibly win." The side of his mouth twitches with an eloquent little combination of exasperation and fondness, with his assumption that Galahad will follow the throughline from this information to Claudius seeing himself in Alphinaud. "He also told me that, because Alphinaud had always been an outsider, he understood the necessity of finding common ground and understanding. On their journey to meet Hraesvelgr, he became interested in ruins and their architecture."

[onthewillowsthere]

They are the same. Galahad does realize that, and it makes Alphinaud matter to him, despite the fact that he'll never meet him. He is a younger version of Claudius, and Claudius is trying to protect him, to make things better for Alphinaud than they were for Claudius, to be a loving guide.

"Claudius encouraged it."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn," Lan Wangji says, some lingering affection in that one-syllable agreement. "He is proud." Proud even of little things, things that might not merit acknowledgement from a less sentimental man. "Alphinaud also took up less lofty pursuits. He cooked for them at their camp."

[onthewillowsthere]

He doesn't ask whether Alphinaud does it well or not, because that doesn't really matter. What makes Claudius happy is Alphinaud coming into his own, becoming someone who can decide what he wants to do or try.

[lightbearinglord]

After a moment of thought, he says, "It is good for him, I think. To care for a young person who reminds him of himself." It makes it clearer that he himself deserved to be treated better when he was young, that it is not merely the fate of every child to be abused and disdained.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods, because that's more or less what he had already discerned. He's still happy to hear it.

[lightbearinglord]

"For me to hear every story he had, he would have had to stay for months." Another tiny pause, and then Lan Wangji says, "And I did not want to keep him from you." They both know the nature of how time works in this place, so it is entirely possible that he is teasing Galahad, just a very little bit.

[onthewillowsthere]

Although he understands the joke (probably), Galahad's thoughts immediately flash to Claudius lifting him effortlessly onto the counter in the laboratory, Claudius sinking into the kiss so yieldingly, Claudius inviting him to wield him and everything that came after that -- and he flushes spectacularly.

"Thank you."