[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]

"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."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad frowns. After entangling Hraesvelgr and Claudius so inextricably in his feelings, the betrayal cuts deeper; of course the dragons can't forgive the Ishgardians for this violence.

[lightbearinglord]

It's still a gruesome betrayal, an unpleasant thought to hold in one's mind. "It was covered up." Naturally. "Ishgard was founded on that act and the lie that kept it secret." Lan Wangji's tea is nearly gone, and he frowns down at the clumping leaves. "Haurchefant's commander, Ser Aymeric, spoke with the Archbishop. He intended to turn him to the truth, but it resulted in Aymeric's imprisonment."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Did Haurchefant go to Claudius then?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Haurchefant had already agreed to follow Claudius wherever he chose to lead." Retelling this to Galahad, as pale an imitation of the original story as it is, has the same effect Lan Wangji felt while first listening to it; Haurchefant feels something close to alive again for as long as his part in the story continues. "Claudius enlisted a group of dissidents led by a woman known as the Mongrel. Her name was Hilda. When Claudius defended her against the unkindness of a knight, she agreed to help, too."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad is certain that Claudius tried to obfuscate the fact of defending Hilda with flowery words and self-deprecating dryness -- that however he explained the story of gathering his dissidents, he will have tried to make himself seem all but incidental. He listens attentively, without comment.

[lightbearinglord]

"Hilda's rebels would create distractions, enough to clear the way for Claudius, Alphinaud, and Haurchefant." He is slightly reluctant to continue, knowing Haurchefant's fate, but there is only one way through a story that has already happened. "They would fight to face the Archbishop, creating a final distraction that would enable Aymeric to break free." A little pause. "When they reached their target, the Archbishop was escaping with his knights covering him. They had borrowed the same power of communal belief that lent Lady Iceheart her power to turn into creatures known as primals. Claudius compared them to walking statues."

[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."