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Aegis of Albion
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Re: Kin-Slayer
Confronted Memories:
Eialai could do nothing as he watched Kayle empty his stomach into the bucket, cold sweat breaking out all over his body. He watched his lover heave and sob, not knowing what to do. He took the wet cloth from the back of Kayle’s neck, wringing it out in the bowl of cool water and soaking it, placing it back on his neck and rub his bare back.
He wasn’t getting any better. He hated to admit it, but he hated to realize even more that his lover was wasting away before his very eyes. Gaunt and pale, his lean fighter’s body was unhealthily thin and the muscles weakened. Many nights Eialai had had to carry him to bed, Kayle too exhausted to move.
The nausea subsided after a bit, Kayle leaning back against Eialai and panting. He said nothing, wrapping an arm around his sickly form and brushed the sweat soaked dirty blond locks from Kayle’s brow. He kissed the top of his head and leaned them both back against the headboard of their bed, pulling the covers over them as Kayle’s violent shivering started.
“I’m sorry,” he said, teeth chattering and leaning deeper into the dark man’s embrace.
“Shut up. Don’t you say that. It’s my fault and you know it, if I-”Eialai faltered, continuing after a moment. “If I hadn’t left-”
“Can we stop this and both take the blame?”
Eialai smiled. “You started it.”
They sat there in silence, looking out the window at the snow that had begun to fall on Snowspire Village. After a while, Eialai spoke with his voice full of emotion.
“I’m sorry, Kayle,” he said, brushing his sick lover’s hair back. Kayle sighed, turning his head to look up into his violet eyes with his piercing green ones.
“Eialai, stop-”
“Please let me say this. I’m sorry I left without seeing you. I’m sorry I left you alone to fight this, without anyone to help you. I’m sorry for the pain and trouble I caused you cause of the ****ty choices I made.”
He stopped, hating this emotion welling up in him. “I’m s-sorry I hurt you…I never meant to-”
“I already forgave you for that-for everything,” Kayle said tightly, turning back to look out the window. Eialai cleared his throat, trying to dispel the tightness clamping his throat. Kayle coughed suddenly, a hacking fit making him double over in pain. Eialai could do nothing but offer the comfort he knew didn’t help, lacing his fingers with his.
“****!” Kayle screamed between hacks, gripping Eialai’s hands tightly. He grew red in the face, spit dribbling from his mouth. The coughing subsided soon, just like the vomiting. Kayle wrenched himself out of Eialai’s embrace and out of bed, stumbling to the floor banging his knees. Eialai reached out to him, only to have his comfort smacked away.
“Don’t touch me, dammit!” He could see the disgust on Kayle’s face, not at him but directed at himself. He was disgusted with his own body, his sickness. Kayle panted, back hunched as he fought off another coughing fit.
“I can’t do this anymore! I don’t want to die like this! I used to be a HERO! I don’t want to die at the hand of this disease!”
“You still are a Hero, Kayle,” Eialai said, sitting on the edge of the bed. Kayle laughed bitterly.
“No, I’m not! A Hero doesn’t have his life ended by sickness, doesn’t let himself waste away to nothing! A Hero doesn’t have his privileges with the Guild get taken away without a fight so he can spend the remainder of his dying days with his fag lover in the Wastes!”
Kayle froze. He cursed and spun around, meeting the stone-faced Eialai. He rose up on his knees and held Eialai’s face in his hands. His face was stricken with panic, his green eyes searching his face.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Eialai, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it, I should have never said that! Please, I’m sorry! Oh gods, I’m sorry!”
Eialai nodded, leaning in and giving him a soft kiss. He couldn’t say the words didn’t hurt. They had been together since their training at the Guild, they knew each other in and out. Like with all those you love, they knew how to hurt each other worst, intentionally or otherwise. It was one of the risks of being with someone, but the happiness it gave was worth it all.
Kayle held the kiss longer, hands on Eialai’s neck and shaking, but not from the cold or sickness. They broke the kiss and pressed their foreheads together, Eialai placing his hands on his lover’s hips.
“I can still find someone, I can try find a healer-” Eialai began, but Kayle cut him off.
“Stop. Just stop. We both know you’re not going to find anything. You’ve spent everything looking for a healer or cure. You moved us to Snowspire and gave me a little more time while you consulted the Oracle and spoke with Scythe. There is no hope for this, Eialai.”
“I can do more, I know I can. I can search the Necropolis! There has to be something-”
“Eialai, please stop. There isn’t anything you can do.” He smiled, laughing softly. “It’s not like we haven’t tried everything. Hells, we were desperate enough to go the Temple of Avo and see what they said.”
They both laughed, Eialai nuzzled the side of his nose.
“I was pretty desperate,” he said, “They hate me, especially Lionious…”
Kayle was silent for a moment, finally speaking slowly.
“I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Eialai’s heart dropped. “Are you giving up?”
Kayle shook his head slowly. “No…at least, I don’t think so. I don’t know! But I know I don’t want to die confined to bed.”
Eialai closed his eyes, leaning his head on Kayle’s shoulder. “What do you want to do then?”
“I want to die…like I planned to when I joined the Guild. I want to die fighting, I want to find my death at some monster or blade…not this sickness.”
Tears rose in his eyes, but he refused to shed them. “So-um-when?”
“I don’t have even a month, we both know that. I can feel my body dying even now. I-I want to do it tomorrow. I want to leave in the morning.”
“Do you want me to help you?”
Kayle shook his head. “I need to do this last thing myself. I don’t want you there, Eialai, I don’t want you to see it. Please…let me do this.”
Eialai worked the muscles on his throat, trying to wet his mouth. Words were so hard right now.
“Okay,” he finally managed. “Do-do what you need to. I won’t come, won’t stop you. If you need this death, this way. Go take it. But…”
He grabbed Kayle’s chin, tilting it up and staring him deep in the eyes. “Don’t make it an easy death. You’ve never been one for the easy way.”
“Promise.”
“Eialai.”
He woke with a start, tears in his eyes. Laying on the steps of the Chief’s hut, the sun broke the early morning sky, casting a glow over him. He was muddied and soaked; after storming out of the house he had trekked around the village before settling on the steps for sleep. Out of mushrooms to keep him awake and his dream suppressants misplaced, his sleep had been restless.
Trying to be subtle but unsuccessful, he wiped the tears conjured from his dream away, looking up at the bare-chested Druid before him. For the first time, he found himself admiring Drystaen’s well toned form. Drystaen shifted uncomfortably under his searching gaze
“Eialai?”
“Hmm?”
“The boy-”
“James,” he said, looking up into his eyes. “His name is James.”
Drystaen was silent for a moment. “James is in the clear, for now. He’s resting upstairs, if you want to see him.”
The Druid turned to go back in, but Eialai grabbed his pant’s leg. Drystaen stumbled a bit, looking down at Eialai in confusion.
“What-”
“You lied to me,” he said dangerously. “You told me you didn’t know where she was. You said you didn’t know her. You lied to me. You’ve already broken my trust, towing the line here, aren’t you?”
Drystaen’s breathing increased. “So what? What would you’ve done if I told where she was? I saw what you were like after the last time, I saw the bloodlust and hate! Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have-”
He was up in whirl of darkness, pinning the Druid against the side of the house. There was a maddening light in his violet eyes, one that terrified Drystaen.
“You have no idea what she did to me! You only saw what you wanted to see!” His voice quavered with barely constrained emotion. “She broke me! She made me face everything in my life, every insecurity and hurt and pain I ever suffered! She broke me to free me! You’ll never understand what she did to me! You’ll never know what she is! You look up to that witch-***** as a mentor, as some saintly User of the White Will, but you refuse to see her as she really is; a MONSTER!”
Eialai’s hand shifted on Drystaen’s shoulders, an unusual look coming across his face. Thumbs placed in…peculiar ways, a stroking way on his arms, Eialai’s breathing oddly laboured. Drystaen remained still for a moment, some strange feeling keeping him hypnotically still with a need for the Kin-slayer’s touch to…He shook his head and threw off Eialai’s arms, moving to the door of the hut. He looked at the Kin-slayer oddly.
“What did you do to that boy?”
Eialai took a step forward, stopping when he sensed Drystaen drawing on his Will. Eialai held up his hands.
“What are you talking about? I saved him.”
“Is that what you are calling it?”
Eialai frowned. “What happened to James, Drystaen?”
Drystaen looked as though he was going to say something else, but stopped. “Nothing. Forget it, like you really care.”
An iron hand grabbed Drystaen’s wrist as he turned to go inside. “I don’t like secrets, Druid. You are going to take me to her, and you will take care of that boy. Before this day is over, I’m going to know everything. That is a promise.”
He let the Druid go, who quickly went inside. Sitting back down on the steps, he stared into the rising sun, losing himself in thought…
That was the last night they spent together. Wrapped in Eialai’s arms, Kayle didn’t have another fit or attack for the rest of the night. They didn’t make love, not in the physical way, Kayle’s body unable to handle the exhilaration. Instead they spoke to each other, comforting one another with caresses and kisses, finally falling into an unwilling sleep neither wanted.
In the morning Eialai woke to an empty bed; Kayle gone and his sword gone from the weapons cabinet. He spent the next few agonizing hours in his house alone, waiting. Scythe came later that afternoon; guards had found Kayle’s body around the Necropolis entrance, sword in hand and three dead Balverines at his feet.
“He died the warrior’s death,” Scythe said, his voice filled with pride and sadness.
Eialai broke down in the dead man’s arms, comforted by the only Hero who truly understood him. They soon left to collect the body, Scythe commanded no one to touch it. It was Eialai alone to bring his lover and friend back to Snowspire. Cradling his lifeless body in his arms, he brought him back to the Village. They laid him out in the Circle of the Oracle, where they prepared him for the next life. As Eialai watched them clean his body and dress it in the white robes of a warrior, Eialai felt a part of himself close off to protect himself from the pain.
And he knew; he died a little that day.
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