paradisa | sixty-sixth labyrinth

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felix harrowgate

sixty-sixth labyrinth

[It's morning, and Felix is in the process of dressing for the day. He stands by the vanity mirror as he buttons up his waistcoat, thinking about how up and down he'd been for the last month. How little it had taken to knock him off balance. And as he's wondering this, he very suddenly starts to sing to himself.]

♪Call me a joker, call me a fool
Right at this moment I'm totally cool
Clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife
I feel like I'm in the prime of my life
Sometimes it feels like I'm going too fast
I don't know how long this feeling will last
Maybe it's only tonight♪

♪Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes♪

[He turns away from the mirror then and looks at Ashura as he continues]

♪Sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm shot
Sometimes I don't know how much more I've got
Maybe I'm headed over the hill
Maybe I've set myself up for the kill
Tell me how much do you think you can take
Until the heart in you is starting to break?
Sometimes it feels like it will♪

♪Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes♪

[He starts pacing a bit as the song grows more impassioned and almost frantic]

♪Out of the darkness, into the light
Leaving the scene of the crime
Either I'm wrong or I'm perfectly right every time
Sometimes I lie awake, night after night
Coming apart at the seams
Eager to please, ready to fight
WHY DO I GO TO EXTREMES?!♪

[In the space where there would have been a piano solo there's an explosion of noise and crashing as he starts knocking this over, throwing books and clothes and other things all over the room]

♪And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes♪

♪No I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low
There ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes♪

[He's half in tears by the time it stop and then he just stands there in shock before placing a hand over his face]

...I am so sorry...

[It's not even clear who he's apologizing to and for what, even. He's not the best singer, certainly, but not the worst. Or maybe that it felt like he meant nearly every one of those words and there was nothing he could do about it. He's not even sure himself. Like usual.]

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[He lightly gripped Ashura's wrist with his other hand]

Maybe because I've hid it too well.

Or maybe because there is no monster, and merely the faults of a mortal man.

_{[ He let him grip, did not move away from it. He reached up with his free hand and turned the other's face to his, golden eyes looking into the bi-colored ones, calm and sure in their conviction. ]}

[Felix's conviction to the contrary is just as strong]

There's so much I haven't told you.

So tell me then, Felix. Tell me and let me decide, but I still believe you cast yourself in too deep and to critical a light.

[He broke the gaze and pressed a palm against his forehead] I don't know how.

Pick one then, and tell me. First one that comes to mind. Don't think about it. Thinking about it means you won't tell me about.

_{[ He reached up, taking the hand away from his forehead, threading their fingers. ]}

Felix... tell me.

[There was so many little things he'd done, but the only thing he can think of is the worst one. He'd gone to Mark with this while Ashura was gone, and maybe it's the guilt of keeping that from his lover that does it, so he finds himself blurting it out rather suddenly]

I magically enslaved my brother!

_{[There is a long, long pause at that, Ashura merely staring at the other man with a sort of taken aback look. But then, who would know what to say right after a statement like that? His hands dropped from Felix's, searching his face for a lie, but found none.

And perhaps that made it all the more shocking... more terrible. ]}

But... why? Mildmay he... what in the name of all the gods would make you do something like that?!

_{[ He was trying to keep calm, but it was clear the knowledge had shaken him. But then, wouldn't it shake anyone? ]}

[The shock was darkly gratifying, in a way he'd almost forgotten. He stood up from the bed and slammed the journal closed before he said any more, pressing his palms down into the cover as he searched for a way to explain it, though little of it would redeem him in the telling.]

Because he asked me to.

Why would he ask you to? What person asks for slavery?

_{[ He remained standing, watching him, warring between immediate rage and the need to understand what was going on.

He bored his eyes into Felix from where he sat, demanding answer. ]}

[There was a lot of context missing here, though the part that would help the most was the part he was unwilling to tell. Mildmay's past as a thief and assassin was not his to divulge, no matter what. He hoped it would not matter.

He let's out something of an aggrieved sigh, but he's put this on himself, and has no one else to blame.]

The spell is called the obligation d‘âme, the binding-by-forms. It's one of several permanent bindings that existed and were in prominent use in Mélusine before the original Cabal seized power and founded our school nearly two hundred years ago. So much so that it was written into our laws. It makes the annemer subject of the spell like property to the wizard who casts it on them, able to command them to do anything the caster desires, in exchange for protection. And that is what he wanted from me.

We'd...we'd been traveling back to the city from Troia when he asked me. He said it was either that, or he would end up dead...and I couldn't say no. Powers know whether that was the right decision. Perhaps I could have gotten away with that - remained a fool rather than a monster. But no, I had to go a step further and use it against him.

Felix... Felix there had to have been another way. Please tell me you know that enslaving him is wrong, even if he was fool enough to ask for it!

... And tell me you know releasing him of it here is the right thing to do, if it is on him.

_{[ He gave him a deep and hard look here. He was not one for grand speeches, he knew Felix would shy from a lecture, but he had to say something against it, had to know that Felix knew it was wrong and that having it on Mildmay was simply... a perversion.

The mere idea Felix could enslave anyone, willing or not, rocked him a bit. He had never thought of the other using magic so...

He clenched his fists. ]}

How did you use it against him Felix? Tell me that.

_{[ Because he had to know the depths to which the man he loved had sunk. ]}

Ashura...I didn't simply smile and agree. I tried to give him other options, but nothing satisfied him. Nothing I said made a difference. I told him it was wrong...and grossly heretical to my doctrine. I know exactly what being subject to that spell is like but the binding-by-form is irrevocable, and we both knew it when we did it. It's on him and there's nothing I can do.

[He paced, aggravated and body humming with the desire to run from all this. To quit the conversation before he made it even worse. But Ashura was unlikely to forgive that - though he couldn't say for sure he would take his next words kindly]

There were smalls things at first. Go here. Don't go there. Stay here...

But that changed after I succeeded in mending the Virtu. The accolades were pouring in, but in that stack of missives was a note from my former master. Malkar. [He pushes past the twist of anxiety that name causes]

He'd taken up, by all appearances, with a rather infamous blood-witch from the city by the name of Vey Coruscant, in order to assassinate the Lord Protector. And she wanted to duel me. More or less blackmail for not divulging the back that, in the process of fixing the damage, I had to dispel one of the Virtu's foundation spells, which had been necromantic in nature, but do to so was technically necromancy itself. And it was a technicality, one I might have gotten away with, but I needed to foster better will with the court and I wanted, of all things in the world, to see Malkar powerless. And I was not the only one. Mavortian von Heber, who had been dogging me for months and without whom I might not have been able to fix the Virtu, was after him to. And he came up with an idea. I could not get rid of Vey, but Mildmay could.

So I ordered my brother to kill her. And he did, because he had no choice, but in so doing walked straight into Malkar's hands. And just...believe me when I say he was a true monster. I have a very good idea of what he went through at his hands, even if he could never speak about it afterwards. Not after we rescued him, nor even years later.

And that might have been the end of it. My one detestable crime that he forgave, just like he forgives everything else I do to him. I promised I would never do it again, but I couldn't keep even that. When Gideon was killed...and he told me who had done it...I was tried to make him do it again. And for perhaps the first time ever he openly fought me. Fought the bond, which is even more remarkable. And he told me no. So I punished him myself...and that story you do know...

_{[ He was tense on the bed, trying to listen, to rationalize it, because he knew Felix was not bad at the core, just misguided. He told himself that, but listening to it all made him want to wretch, hate how it highlighted how petty and selfish Felix could truly be. Not that Ashura was perfect, but... still.. No one liked to hear these things of the ones they loved, much less from said person's mouth.

He looked over at Felix, watching him, and slowly he stood, going to the wardrobe and opening it to look for one of his robes, grabbing it at random - yellow touched with white and black.

Even now, on his finger, glittered the ring Felix had given him.]}

Do you want me to yell at you Felix? Do you want me to hit you or tell you how awful you are?

Shouldn't you? Don't you want to? Isn't that what I deserve?

[He gestured, almost violently, angry except for the striken look in his eyes.]

_{[ He looked at Felix, almost sighing, perhaps in disappointment. Perhaps Felix wanted to be punished, and Ashura thought he should be. But another part of him thought Felix punished himself as much as anyone else.

He smoothed the silk of his robe, his hair still unbound. ]}

Is this... binding on Mildmay now?

_{[ He gave Felix a hard look, daring the man to lie to him. ]}

[As if he would, given how far into this he was already]

Yes, of course. Why, did you want a demonstration?

No, of course not.

_{{ His glare suggested that if Felix tried to be snappy again, he would indeed find himself slapped. ]}

Remove it. If he cannot live free of it in your world, let him live free of it here.

Ashura, you're not hearing me. I can't. It's binding. There's no way to remove that I know of or was taught. Maybe, if he was a wizard, there would be a way to dismantle it from the inside, but he isn't.

_{[ He stiffened at that, hating it, the bile rising in his throat again. To put something like that on his own brother, even with the circumstances...]}

Then never use it here. Never. It is not necessary so you are to leave it be.

_{[ His words are hard and cold, a King giving his judgement. Gods have mercy on your soul. ]}

[He bristled at the order, a visible prick of defiance in his eyes. He hadn't planned to again. Not after the last time, and it both scathes and hurts deeply that Ashura would assume the worst of him, despite the fact that he expected the worst from himself. Ashura had always been his champion. The one finding the good in him when he lost sight of it]

Do you think I want to? I don't. I never did. That's what I've been worried about, since the second I felt him arrive.

_{[ Felix had admitted to using it to punish Mildmay. Felix felt himself a monster, and Ashura wanted to champion him, to feel the best of him. He knew he was a good man, but he knew the darkness that lay there, as it did in all men.

He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, torn in so many directions as the iron in Felix's words hit him. He should know better. To order Felix...

Well, it was like attempting to herd a cat, at best of times.

He sincerely thought about throwing Felix's words back at him, reminding him of his admission, but it would not solve this. He marched towards him and reached out, taking his jaw - not harshly, but not tenderly either. ]}

Felix. Look at me. Swear it to me this... this binding... it cannot hurt Mildmay or you.

_{[ Swear he would not use it to harm Mildmay or anyone else, least of all himself. He knew of Felix's desire for punishment.

And that brought a whole other set of worries, if he could command Mildmay to do anything he wished. Would Felix fall into such a place, to make Mildmay do that, when presumably no one else would? ]}

[He stiffens as he's grabbed, the defiance fading back under a touch of fear. Being handled like that is a reminder of someone he never wanted to connect to his lover, but it does the trick in getting an answer out of him]

I can't! The binding can be used any number of ways but it's purpose was originally to protect. I can't order him to kill himself, but that's not the only way I could hurt him. He's compelled to protect me, but I don't know what it would do if I asked him to harm me. And magically speaking we are the same person. Even the Curia wasn't sure what would happen. That is why I merited exile rather than death.

_{[ Ashura removed his hand from his chin, swallowing that information and not sure what to say or do with it. Felix had been insane for agreeing, but he had seen how the other reacted when Mildmay appeared and he knew, deep down, Felix cared for Mildmay, and he could not imagine Felix agreeing lightly to this thing. He knew Felix could be petty, but he was not, he truly believe, inherently wicked or cruel. That he had not become so after everything... was a miracle.

He licked his lips, fingers moving to gently touching his cheek. He was still angry with him... and scared. More scared than angry now.

The king sighed and dropped his hand, going to the small stool before the vanity, its items still knocked about the floor. He sat heavily, fingering a displaced brush. ]}

What if something happens, Felix? What if it does something to you or him? You know so little about it, and yet it is in place and... Gods, what if the Castle can do something with it?

_{[ The ramifications of any number of scenarios flittered through his mind, wicked little wasp stings that made him wince. ]}

What if indeed. But there is no guarantee, either from it, or me. But I promise I will try. For him.

[Not for Ashura, the hard edge to his voice seems to imply. He lost the right to that the second he demanded. And in many cases, his brother would always merit his preference. Lovers was one thing. Brothers another, even if he was terrible at being one]

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