[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

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji catches the smile, and without mirroring it, mirrors the sentiment. He takes a slow drink of his tea and assembles his memory of his walk with that other Claudius. "He had found steadfast companions and was known as the Warrior of Light." That title still comes near to snagging his face into a smile after all. "In a place called Ul'dah, he was accused of murder by poison." He meets Galahad's gaze there, well aware of the irony of that detail of the story.

[onthewillowsthere]

"He had not poisoned anyone," Galahad says, understanding that Lan Wangji would not have lingered on that detail unless it were meaningful. If there is a King Hamlet in this story, he still lives.

[lightbearinglord]

"Not this time. He had been framed." He hesitates, if not for long. He can't help but be glad of this part of the story, as much as Claudius seemed to regret how beloved he was. He suspects Galahad will feel the same. "His companions came to his defense and secured his freedom."

[onthewillowsthere]

He has companions, who would defend him. Not like Elsinore, where he was abandoned in the face of the king's displeasure, judged not worth risking a place at court. Galahad feels a soft warmth steal through him. He nods.

[lightbearinglord]

There it is. Lan Wangji sips his tea again, warm with that, too, and continues. "His band of warriors came apart in the aftermath, but he saved a sixteen-year-old boy, Alphinaud. They went to Ishgard. Claudius had been determined never to return, but Alphinaud needed protection. They sought shelter with Haurchefant, a knight who welcomed them." This is a warming thought, too, though he knows how little Claudius wanted to cross Ishgard's borders at all.

[onthewillowsthere]

Again, he thinks that if Claudius had to go back -- to Elsinore, to Ishgard -- at least this time there was someone waiting to watch over him. He wasn't alone. It fits into what Galahad could feel from the man he met: there was a confidence and forthrightness that his Claudius doesn't have. His Claudius is shy and fearful, someone who can only protect himself with words and poisons.

[lightbearinglord]

The way that Claudius described Haurchefant, with an exasperation that could mean nothing but powerful fondness, will be impossible to capture in his own words. Lan Wangji pauses, then tries. "Haurchefant was loud," he says. He hears the echo of Claudius saying the same, his eloquent emphases, and wishes he could convey that, but his own voice is as low and calm as it ever is. "He was proud to have Claudius and Alphinaud in his home."

[onthewillowsthere]

But Galahad understands. In the same way that Claudius likes to complain about Laertes' impulsive nature, or Sagramore's unwillingness to stop talking -- complaining is something he likes doing. He complains differently about someone he hates than someone he loves, and loud is a loving complaint. Galahad can hear the inflection of the word exactly.

And Haurchefant was proud to know Claudius and to protect him. Galahad holds that pride in his chest like a cloudy marble, solid and perfectly spherical, cool glass. He wants Claudius to have been treasured and wanted, to have been important to someone, long before he came here. It's what he wants for his Claudius too. It matters that there is a Claudius who had it.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji feels that understanding, instinct more than any evidence of his own eyes. "Any sympathy or communication with dragons was heresy in Ishgard." If he ever rolled his eyes, he might do so here. "Claudius was receiving visits from a dragon visible to no one else. The reincarnation of Midgardsormr, who fathered the first dragons on his world."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Was he afraid?" Of being found out, of being thought mad, of any danger -- although Galahad thinks Claudius would have denied fear until it no longer mattered.

[lightbearinglord]

"I believe he was." He didn't say it in so many words, but of course he would not. "Only Alphinaud had some idea, but he didn't know everything." Here, he feels some secondhand fondness for Alphinaud, another person he has never met and yet will continue to remember. "Alphinaud wanted to end the war with diplomacy. It had gone so long that no Ishgardian could recall its origin."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Claudius didn't want to use diplomacy?"

[lightbearinglord]

"The war had been going on so long that no one would think to. Alphinaud was an outsider."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods his understanding. "What happened next?"

[lightbearinglord]

"To end the war, they sought to discover its origin." Because this is the last of the tea, he is drinking it slowly, savoring it along with the story. It's as he warned Galahad; he can't tell this half as evocatively as Claudius did. But recounting it makes him fond of the man who told it to him anyway. "They contacted Lady Iceheart, the leader of a group of heretics who were on the side of the dragons."

[onthewillowsthere]

This, he thinks, his Claudius would have done immediately. Claudius, who so loves talking to and learning about people, who loves their stories -- he would have loved meeting a heretic lady of dragons. He tries to imagine what Claudius would think of a self who had had such adventures.

[lightbearinglord]

"Through Lady Iceheart, they discovered some of the truth. She could invoke the memories of a woman named Shiva, who was a saint to those heretics and a sinner to most Ishgardians. Before the war, she had loved, and lain with, a dragon called Hraesvelgr."

[onthewillowsthere]

"She had sex with a dragon?" He wants to be sure he understands, and euphemisms sometimes catch him up.

[lightbearinglord]

"Yes." If he had felt able to be so straightforward with his own teachers when he was younger, perhaps he would have been better off.

[onthewillowsthere]

A beat. "Claudius would admire that," he says.

[lightbearinglord]

"He would. He did." Lan Wangji does, too, truthfully.

[onthewillowsthere]

"What happened next?"

[lightbearinglord]

"They loved one another, but their lifespans were not matched. They couldn't remain together." He pauses, but not for long. "Shiva asked Hraesvelgr to consume her, so that they would never be parted."

[onthewillowsthere]

If he knew he would die before Claudius -- if Claudius were a creature of legends, ageless and powerful -- would he want to be consumed? When Galahad thinks about it like that, when he imagines all the molecules of flesh that make him, all the cells, becoming part of Claudius' body and his molecules and cells, uniting them in a way God would never understand or condone-- He understands. It feels of an impulse with his own desire to watch Claudius cut his body open. He imagines Claudius slitting the delicate skin of his wrists, so pale they're almost blue, and drinking the blood from him like a sacrament: Drink this, all of you. This is my blood that was shed for you and for many. Except that his blood would be for Claudius only, a consecrated drink from the cup of his body. He imagines Claudius with his lips and teeth stained red; he imagines Claudius tearing open his chest with both hands, precise as a surgeon in spite of the brute force, and devouring him from the heart.

He flushes. He nods, to show Lan Wangji he understands, and he can continue.

[lightbearinglord]

Galahad's abrupt flush is endearing. Lan Wangji understands it immediately. He understood the moment Claudius told him the outcome of that romance; he understood how easy it would be, if he thought it would keep Wei Ying with him forever when he would otherwise lose him, to sink his teeth in a little deeper, to bite down until flesh broke and Wei Ying was his in yet another of the many indelible ways that Wei Ying is his.

"Claudius and his companions journeyed with Lady Iceheart to meet Hraesvelgr," he says. "They learned more of the truth from him. They learned why the war had begun. The first king of Ishgard, Thordan, had been greedy. Aether, which is like qi, gathers in dragons' eyes, more and more as they age. The king and his men killed Hraesvelgr's sister so that they could eat her eyes."