War Between Four Walls - Part Two

[ilovetakahana]

Two

Erik looks up from his carving, and for a moment he has the urge to put his hands in his hair and attempt to pull. Frustration has never really sat well with him, though this is a frustration of a benign sort, nothing life-threatening. He’s also partly amused by himself, and in the end he thinks he may just be doing both too much and too little at the same time.

The thing in his hands is finally taking shape.

Of course, he has never worked so slowly before, or been so indecisive.

He’s had plenty of practice with carving wood, and he’s found out how to create a bird-shape that is both easy to carve and interesting. It’s one of his favorite things to make, and many of the children in the village have at least one of his carvings. Some of those carvings are even whistles, as he intends for this one to become.

Here are the details under his hands: the shape of the bird’s head, the fine slope leading down to its beak. The light scoring on its body that he intends for its wings. The knot on the bird’s breast, a pleasing spiral of dark wood and darker lines.

There is a particular way of shaping the bird and hollowing it out so that it will emit a pleasing note when used as a whistle; he’ll need to cut out a specific kind of reed to help produce the note he has in mind.

He has already made sure that he can get some of the blue paint that he will need. He’s not planning to paint the whole bird. He just wants to give it blue eyes.

Erik grunts in annoyance and amusement and he takes up one of his chisels, and he’s about to steel himself and get back to work when there is a loud shout of laughter outside and then Charles’s voice, sounding both happy and scandalized: “Really! Oh, don’t make fun; it is a very serious question, as serious as life and death, and I have to ask on my sister’s behalf, that is how it is correctly done....”

“And I’m laughing because there is really no need for you, or for them, to stand on ceremony. Truly, Charles, haven’t you been listening to Jean?”

When Erik opens the door, he’s greeted with an unlikely sight. Summers’s shoulders shaking with badly contained laughter, Charles laughing even as he bends down to gather another handful of snow to fling at him. White stuff already clinging to Summers’s fur-lined coat and gloves. Beyond them, clutching each other as much for warmth as for support, a happy red flush in their faces: Raven and Azzel.

It is not really surprising to find that those two have been quite inseparable since their unlikely reunion; Erik almost never sees one without the other, save for when Raven decides to cling to her brother’s side instead. And when that happens, Erik knows he only has to look for the nearest group of children to find Azzel - but if he’s not letting the children chase him around, if he’s not carrying one and then another on his shoulders, that means he’s playing at being Emma’s faithful shadow, once again.

Erik laughs to himself, not even knowing what the joke they’re sharing is, and he opens the door as wide as it will go. “Charles, you will have to help me make our visitors comfortable.”

“No need for that,” Summers says, and he squints around doubtfully before he locates the other chair and holds his still-gloved hands out to the blaze. “I am well right here, thank you for asking.”

“I wasn’t concerned about you,” Erik says, not quite under his breath, and he chuckles and Summers is soon joining in.

“Oh, how rude,” Charles laughs, and he’s shooing his sister and her companion onto his pallet before joining them, before letting Raven rest her head on his shoulder. “How could you treat each other so?”

“That is the advantage of having been friends for a long time.”

“Years,” Summers adds. “And we’re not just talking about the soldiering bits. It’s one thing to be friends - it’s another to be soldiers and friends.”

“I’m not saying that’s not true - but I think you’re both touched in the head,” Azzel says, an unrepentant grin on his face, and Raven chuckles playfully, and Erik watches her pinch his arm.

“And will you tell me what brings you all here,” Erik says after a moment, during which he gives up on his work for another night, as well as on his peace and quiet. He puts his tools away, places the little wooden bird back in its safe box.

The expressions on Charles and Raven’s faces go from amused to serious, and even Azzel straightens up abruptly from his slouch.

Erik raises an eyebrow at Summers. “A serious matter, is it? And here I thought you were merely sharing a joke. Explain.”

“The three of them have been looking for the village leaders.”

“On an ordinary day, that would be you and Jean,” Erik says.

“And you are the commander of the companies that are stationed here over the winter; every soldier staying here ultimately answers to you.”

“So?”

“These two,” and Summers motions to Azzel and Raven, “are among those soldiers. In fact, they are among our best soldiers, and they have only been with us for a brief time. Yes? They’re even wearing their ranks on their coats.”

“Which I’ve said is not necessary, not at this time of the year, but I concede the point,” Erik says, and he looks at how Raven and Azzel’s hands are clasped tightly together. “So. You two wish to speak to Jean and to Summers and to me. Knowing you, knowing about your story, I have a feeling I already know what the question is. So tell me, Charles. Why is it your duty to ask?”

Charles starts at the sound of his name, and there are faint red patches on his cheeks, but he smiles and explains anyway. “We have been talking to some of the other families here, and they kept saying that...well, they kept talking about their traditions, of how people would prepare to marry. Many of them said that family must ask for permission on behalf of family.”

Erik watches him as he puts his hand on the back of his head.

“This is not something I know anything about from before I came here,” Charles says, hurrying past the admission, “but I thought it was something we could do, once Raven and Azzel told me about their plans...well, I suppose this is the point where I ask.”

Charles clears his throat and gets to his feet. “On behalf of my sister and of her beloved, I wish to ask your permission for them to marry.”

Erik looks at Summers. “And what did you say?”

Summers merely raises an eyebrow. “Of course we said yes. Is there some objection that we’re not aware of?”

“Admittedly, no,” Erik says. “And so it will be natural for me to say yes, as well; as Summers has just pointed out, I have no objections, and I cannot think that anyone would be fool enough to stand in your way. Not unless you have found other...companions, and that is highly unlikely, because it seems that I cannot now see one of you without seeing the other close by.”

He smiles and nods and the answering smile that appears on Raven’s face transforms her - banishes the scars and the constant lines of vigilance, even if just for a moment - as does the laugh that finally escapes Azzel. He looks younger, suddenly, more relaxed. It is a joy that cannot be contained by the smiles on their faces: a blinding kind of joy, as familiar and welcome as a distant flare of warmth, as beautiful as seeing two souls meeting and saluting each other, as moving as watching two hearts recognizing each other and joining together.

“But if you will not mind me asking,” Erik says, a little more soberly, “I want to know something. Raven, Azzel, why do you wish to be married? You’ve met the other soldiers, and you know that some of them have formed their own arrangements. There are some people here in the village who have not said any formal vows toward their companions, and they face no censure for not having done so. We consider them and theirs as families in any case. As for you, why do you wish to take a step as irrevocable as this?”

As the two on the pallet confer, quiet whispers and Azzel holding Raven’s hand firmly and Raven gesturing with her free hand, Erik glances in Charles’s direction - and Charles is nodding thoughtfully. His hands are clasped behind his back. A familiar pose, one Erik sees almost every day. If something good could be said to have come out of Charles’s weary confinement in the tower, it would be this: he thinks about his decisions and takes a long time over them when he must.

Now, Erik thinks, a little ruefully, if only Charles would also learn to ask others for help when he can’t deal with the question by himself.

Waiting on the others to answer, Erik thinks about the time when he was asked the question. How silly he’d been then, how utterly full of unthinking bravado. What was the point in making such a declaration when he hadn’t even had an idea of what the commitment would mean? He’d been so young then. It had taken him years to learn to temper his impulses, taken him years before he could stop annoying himself and others.

Admittedly, a hard lesson to learn, but one that has stood him in good stead through the years.

Summers catches his eye: the other man is shrugging, the slightest lift of his shoulder.

Erik walks over to him and speaks as quietly as he can. “I think they do have an answer....”

“...But who knows what kind of answer they might believe in. Who knows if they’re even going to make sense to themselves.” Summers nods. “I know the feeling.”

“As well you should since I’m the one asking, again. Haven’t we done something like this before?”

Summers chuckles, a little rueful and a little embarrassed. “Yes, we have. Full of fire, weren’t we? And me wanting to protect Jean, telling her to stop fighting because I would fight her battles for her. What a fool I was.”

“That is the least of the words I would use. It’s a wonder she puts up with you at all, Summers.”

Summers laughs quietly, nods fervently. “I tell you true, Erik, I say that to myself every day.”

In the end Erik laughs back and puts his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “If you ever stop wondering, I’ll let her know - and if you survive that, I’ve no doubt she’ll send you to me for a second reminder.”

“Sir.”

Erik looks up from Summers’s grin.

It’s Raven who’s crossing the hut toward him. She stands proudly, and her eyes are clear as she addresses him and Summers. “The answer to your question is this. We wish to be married because we wish to forget about the matter.”

Erik nods thoughtfully. He thinks he knows what the rest of her answer will be. “And after? What happens when the ceremony is done?”

“Then we’ll have time to grow,” is the response from Azzel as he joins Raven. “To grow and to be together, and to learn how to be apart. We want to get married and dispense with the formality, and start building our lives together.”

“A formality.”

“I don’t want anyone else but Azzel,” Raven says, almost under her breath. “I think I’ve made that pretty clear.”

“And I only want Raven,” Azzel says.

Erik looks up when the next voice that he hears belongs to Charles: “I believe them, you know. They’ve already walked through fire and shadow and death for each other.”

“Does this have something to do with your dreams of the future?” Erik asks, genuinely curious. “Or are you just speaking about the battles, about the time in which they had been looking for each other?”

Charles laughs softly. “How well you know me already. The answers are yes and yes.”

Erik watches him walk over and join them, watches as Charles takes Raven’s and Azzel’s hands in each of his own - watches as Charles joins their hands in both of his. He is still looking down, but his voice is clear when he says, “I believe in them, that’s all.”

Raven smiles and suddenly she’s throwing her arms around her brother. “You’re actually going to let us do this.”

“For the hundredth time, dearest, or perhaps I have already lost count, I wonder why you keep asking me. Is there a reason why I should object? I’d have to be deaf and dumb and dead to stand in your way. Haven’t you impressed that on me often enough?

“And you, Azzel,” Charles says in a more serious tone. “You have confided in me, and I believe every word you’ve said. I know how much you love my sister. I’d be honored to know you even if I only knew you from Emma’s stories, or from Raven, at second hand.”

Erik smiles and nods when Charles detaches himself from his sister, holds Azzel’s head gently in his hands, and kisses him on his forehead. “If you do not mind having me for a brother,” Charles says, quietly.

“I would never mind - I really wish you were my brother,” Azzel says, and half-turns to put an arm around Raven’s shoulders, never taking his eyes off Charles.

“Well, you will be, soon enough, won’t you?”

Azzel throws his free arm around Charles’s shoulders with an exuberant whoop.

Summers coughs softly, and gets to his feet. “So, Erik.”

Erik smiles, finally, and he walks over and shakes Azzel’s hand, and Raven’s.

They step back, and they exchange looks, and then they salute him and Summers, fists over hearts.

Summers returns the salute easily and then asks, “When will you say your vows? Midwinter Night? That will give you just enough time to let everyone know about your plans.”

“We’ve thought about that, yes,” Raven laughs. “When was the last time there was a wedding here?”

“Do you know, I don’t rightly remember....”

Erik steps away as they begin to argue about the details, and he goes to sit down next to Charles, who is once again on his pallet, and who is now holding his pillow lightly in his arms. “Are you all right?”

Charles laughs and swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I don’t know,” he says, but he is smiling as he says it, and there is a light dancing in his usually grave blue eyes. “Erik? Is it all right if my feelings are all in a tangle?”

“Over what?” Erik asks.

He’s a little surprised when Charles leans into him, rests his head for a brief moment on his shoulder. Warmth all down Erik’s side before Charles pulls away. “On one hand, I never really had anyone else other than Raven - I am speaking, of course, of the time before meeting you. And on the other...I always knew that this was going to happen. I’d seen it, or the signs leading to it. Here.” Charles taps his temple with two fingers. “One good thing about the dreams at least. I’ve had time to...reconcile myself to the idea.

“And yet there is a part of me that fights against this, like a desperate animal. And I despise myself for it.” Charles looks up, now, and the light in his eyes is gone, and his eyebrows are pulling together in a frown. “I mustn’t think I’m losing her, because I’m not; I should be happy for her, because she has found him.”

Erik looks at Charles’s face. Sadness, annoyance, the sense of someone steeling himself to jump into an icy pond in winter’s heart.

He puts his hand on top of Charles’s head, and nods in sympathy and understanding. “So it’s that way, is it? Then I tell you that there are no differences between us.”

“You had family?”

“Other than my wife, you mean, or my parents? No. But Jean is as good as family to me,” Erik says, nodding thoughtfully as he looks across the room, to Raven perched atop the table and laughing and moving her hands in encouragement as Azzel and Summers engage in an animated conversation. “And, if nothing else, I was the only person Summers could ask for permission to marry her. Then and now, I have always found myself holding a higher rank than either of them.

“We all had to talk about it, in the end: the way we all saw each other, that Summers and Jean were still going to be my companions and my friends even after they had made their promises to each other. That they would continue to serve with me, no matter where the battles took us; that I could continue to rely on them for advice and good counsel.”

A tentative smile on Charles’s face. “That...must have been strange. And interesting. I wonder that I’ve never asked Jean about this before.”

“You’ll want to do that. And when you are done with the serious matters, have Jean tell you about all of the ridiculous things Summers - and, eventually, because he could not stand to be humiliated alone, myself - did. Difficult to get married when you’re on the run, you see, and even worse when you’re on the run because people are trying to kill you.”

In the end, Erik knows he’s got Charles back, because Charles is falling back onto his bed, laughing until the tears are falling from his eyes, laughing so hard that even the others are looking at him and wondering what’s going on. Charles’s voice, hiccupping with amusement over the snatches of words and fragmented sentences. “Impossible...that is a horrifying thought...please don’t tell me that she did and he did...make it stop, it hurts to laugh!”

Summers gets it first. “I know you’re attacking my character again, Erik, but please tell me I can still look people in the eyes when he’s done laughing.”

“What makes you think I told him anything?” Erik asks, finally letting his own grin show on his face. “I only told Charles to ask your wife about how the two of you got ready for your vows.”

“The problem with mages,” Azzel mutters, the corners of his mouth twitching in an almost-smile. “Overly vivid imaginations. Emma’s frightening and all sometimes - a girl that young, knowing all kinds of strange things - but Raven?”

“Yes?” Raven asks, looking like she wants to laugh at the world in general, and at her brother in particular.

“The way Charles laughs now, I wonder if maybe there’s something wrong with him, too.”

“Oh yes,” and Erik looks up when she touches his shoulder, lets him see how she is rolling her eyes. “There’s something wrong with him, all right.”

Something in her tone makes Erik raise an eyebrow at her, makes him think that she’s about to tell the rest of the joke.

And Charles masters himself and sits back up, and he narrows his eyes and points a mocking finger at her. “You just asked for permission to marry him, Raven, are you already trying to frighten Azzel?”

“How could she - ?” Azzel asks, sharply.

“Quiet,” Raven says. “Erik?”

He looks at her steadily. “Yes?”

“Charles is crazy...because of me. I’m afraid I’ve been quite the terrible influence on him. And now you are stuck with the job of putting him back together.”

“All true,” Charles says, mock-gravely, and then he gets to his feet and embraces his sister, and the two of them are laughing and crying on each other’s shoulders.

Erik smiles and nods at Summers. “A good start, don’t you think?”

Summers just laughs. “I hope you can still say that once you realize you’re performing the ceremony, at Midwinter Night, when there hasn’t been a wedding here for a very long time.”

Erik smiles, and shakes his head, and in his mind he’s already bracing himself.

Over the next weeks Erik watches as the hamlet begins to build the great bonfires that have become a tradition and a necessity for the deeps of winter’s darkness. The children’s games become even more boisterous and welcome to watch and listen to: they play around the piles of wood and tinder, always watching out for each other, always ready to heed the adults’ warnings if they step too close to a dangerous patch.

The adults, in turn, take turns looking after the children who prefer quieter pursuits. Erik’s doorstep becomes a favorite stop for people who want to spend the few hours of daylight reading or having a quiet conversation.

He’s playing a string game with Nathan and with one of the younger children, a girl named Julee, and she’s trying to figure out how to take the current web correctly from Erik’s hands when there’s a familiar flash of blue eyes - two pairs of them - in his peripheral vision, and Nathan calls a quiet greeting. “Hello, Emma - hello, Charles.”

Emma waves shyly, her hand startlingly pale against the black jacket that Erik recognizes as something that used to be Azzel’s. Hastily resewn to fit the little girl, he notices that the sleeves have had to be folded back several times so that Emma can have her hands free.

Erik smiles, a little, when he recognizes the black scarf and its crooked stitches. The cloth is wrapped several times around Charles’s neck, looped so that it’s almost covering his mouth.

“Hello,” Charles says, a little muffled, and Erik feels the pressure of his hand on his shoulder - a brief and welcome exchange of roles.

Erik thinks that he would encourage Charles to do that again and again, and not just to him. If only he knew how.

Charles steps into the house and comes back dragging one of the chairs, and as soon as he sits in it Emma clambers up into his lap and puts her arms around his neck. “How’s the game coming along?”

“I’m about to lose,” Erik says, gravely, and Julee giggles but doesn’t look up from her scrutiny of the string. “That is, if she figures this one out.”

“May I?” Charles asks. He radiates a peculiar kind of warmth as he leans closer, looks closely at Erik’s hands.

Erik hears him humming quietly under his breath, watches his fingers moving in small, self-contained arcs.

Finally, he says “Ha” - he sounds self-satisfied, and Erik looks up and Charles is whispering to Emma, who is giggling and sliding off his lap and digging through her pockets for another piece of string. “Do you think we can catch up to them? They’ve been playing for a while, as you can see from their hands.”

“We can try,” Emma says. “Here.” She ties her cord into a loop, offers Charles the first weave, and he smiles as he easily takes the cord off her hands.

“You’re easier to play with than Azzel,” Emma laughs. “He never has any patience for games like this.”

“It was something I passed the time with, when I was younger. I often played the game by myself, thinking up new weaves. Very rarely I was able to have a friend for a diversion like this. I might have asked Raven to play with me, but like your companion, she prefers other games.”

Erik feels his eyebrows rise toward his hairline; he knows Charles’s story, knows that when Charles talks about being a child he is really thinking about either the aunt who sent him into the mountains, or the tender ministrations of the tower, and that he counts the years running and hiding together with Raven as a different and happier time of his life.

He risks a look over his shoulder and Charles is looking back at him, and Erik has never seen a shakier smile or a more tentative one - but Charles is smiling, and it’s a genuine smile, and that could count for a minor victory. Let the past slumber a little longer where it should belong, let the distant memories recede ever farther.

A happy cry tears him back to the present - to Julee, who looks like she’s found her victory. Erik grins fondly at the fierce little frown on her face as she works her fingers through the lattice of his string and pulls at the loops. Her hands are shaking, but in the end she manages to wrestle the string into the next web, and she shows off her laced hands to the group with a laugh. “Erik! Does this mean I win?”

Erik laughs. “That was always as far as I got - yes, little one, you’ve won. Good work.”

Nathan is bending over to examine the intricately woven string and he shakes his head, ruffles Julee’s dark hair. “I concede,” he says, grinning brightly. “It will take me a long time to figure out how to take that off your hands correctly.”

“Thank you,” Julee says. She releases the string and it falls down in a gnarled loop once again - and she bounds over to the other game, and touches Emma’s shoulder. “What about you?”

Emma smiles at her, shows off the string wrapped around her splayed fingers. “Charles is also taking a long time to find his move.”

“Do you think he knows what he’s supposed to do?” Julee asks, giggling. “Or are all adults just bad at playing string games? If that’s the case, I never want to grow up.”

“Please do not distract me, because I am thinking very hard right now,” Charles says with a smile. “And please do not talk about me as if I were not present.”

“Waiting is boring,” Emma says.

“Boring!” Julee adds.

“Well then, if you keep treating me so badly, see if I will help you light bonfires at Midwinter Night. And I’ll hide all of the matches and all of the torches. You’ll all have to spend the coldest night of the year wrapped up, and shivering in the darkness. I wonder how you’ll like that, hm?” Charles pauses and sticks out his tongue at the two girls - and then he reaches up to brace Emma’s hands before he’s moving the string into a new weave, more complicated than the one she had been holding it in.

“I didn’t even know you could do something like that,” Nathan laughs. “Thanks for the lesson, Charles. I’m never going to play any games with you. I’ll stick with these girls, and maybe with Rachel, when she’s old enough. At least I know that I’ll have a chance at winning. And thank you for the show; but I should go and check on her.”

“I will come by to see her later,” Charles says, smiling. “Tell Jean to expect me.”

“All right. Erik,” Nathan says, respectfully, and he puts his hands in his pockets and wanders off in the direction of Summers’s house.

“You are a demon, Charles,” Emma declares, and Erik snorts as his attention is pulled back to the game on his doorstep, watching as her eyebrows pull together into a straight line, as she pouts in concentration. “Is there even a next move? Or have you just made this one up to torment me?”

“That is what you get for teasing me,” Charles counters, and he holds out the intricate loops invitingly. “Come now, weren’t you just saying you were very good at this?”

It’s Emma’s turn to bite her lip. “Quiet.”

The silence drags on for a few more minutes, and then: “Oh! I see it!” Julee suddenly says, and tugs on Emma’s sleeve. “Do you need help?”

“...Yes,” Emma finally says, but not before she blushes a deep crimson.

Erik grins as Julee whispers frantically into the other girl’s ear, as Emma suddenly breaks out into a wide smile and reaches for the string.

“Oh, no!” Charles says, and the exaggerated expression of chagrin on his face finally sets off Erik’s laugh, and he’s soon joined by the two girls. “You’ve found me out!”

“You’re very good at this, Julee,” Erik says.

“It feels like I never have to think about it,” she says, and giggles as Emma drops her string and puts it back in her pocket.

“It’s good exercise for the mind, isn’t it?” Charles says, nodding in agreement. He holds out his hands to her and smiles widely when Julee springs into his lap and cuddles close, bumps the top of her head underneath his chin.

Erik smiles and gets to his feet and steps back into the house, but not before he looks over his shoulder; Charles presses a kiss to the top of Julee’s head before setting her back on her feet.

He’s halfway through setting out the dinner things when there’s a soft rustle, and Emma is coming in to warm her hands at the fire. “Hello,” Erik says. “Were you planning to join us?”

Emma is quiet for a long moment, and then, instead of answering the question, she asks one of her own. “Do you know what I see when you look at him, Erik? It’s as if every time you look at him you always wear the same expression on your face.”

Erik blinks and thinks about it, and wants to hear what she thinks. “And what expression would that be?”

“Not soft,” she says promptly. “Kind. Like you want to walk beside him and sometimes behind him, but not in front of him, because you think you might lose him if you can’t see him.”

There are a thousand words on the tip of Erik’s tongue as he thinks about his response, but in the end he simply nods in agreement. “Is that all?”

“No.”

He puts a jar of dried fruit and nuts on the table. “Help yourself.”

“Thank you,” Emma says, and she nibbles her way daintily through her handful of food before continuing. “You look at him like you’d look at a star, like he was something good and far away, something you’d like to reach for and keep nearby. Something you’d use, because you would need it to light your path, and at the same time something you’d protect, because you think of it as something precious.

“And that confuses me, because Charles sometimes talks to me about you, and he makes wishes about you, but I thought you had already reached an understanding?”

Erik half-falls into the other chair and tries to keep his voice calm. “I wonder how much he has really told you, and how much you have deduced from his words...I’m not surprised he confides in you, little one. I think that I would understand the connection between the two of you, better than most in this place. And I’d surely be a fool if I were to tell either of you to stop. I suppose I’m wondering how much you truly understand, for you may be a mage, and you may know of the future, but you are also very young.”

“My one failing,” Emma says, and Erik looks up sharply, but instead of looking solemn she’s giggling, her free hand over her mouth. “The two of you have been nothing but kind towards me when it comes to talking about what I do, what I know, and my age all at once.”

“Are we, now,” and Erik allows himself to unbend long enough to share in her mirth, to tease her back. “Do you find us overbearing and offensive?”

“Not at all. I’m just glad I can talk to him, and sometimes to you. You seem to understand things more easily, or perhaps it comes out of the experiences that the two of you have had. And you never flinch away from my words.”

Erik looks at Emma when she goes to stand next to him, looks at the smile on her face that is equal parts kind and fond and understanding, and he offers her his rough and callused hand and she takes it in both of hers. After a moment he gives in to the impulse and he brushes a fond kiss against the top of her head - and he laughs softly when she returns the gesture and kisses his cheek.

“Erik? Emma? ...Oh, sorry. I am not interrupting your conversation?” Charles suddenly asks.

Erik looks up and he is standing in the doorway, playing with the ends of his black scarf, and the distant sunset is a faint glow over his shoulder. It throws most of his face into shadow, except for his eyes, nearly glowing now with darker shades of blue; and for his smile, tender where he is looking at the two of them at the table. “Come in, Charles, before it gets colder out there,” Erik says.

“But I promised I would go and visit with Rachel for a few minutes - do you mind waiting? Though of course you probably ought to go ahead and eat....”

“He’ll wait,” Emma pipes up.

Erik looks away, but not quickly enough to hide his smile.

“And I’ll keep him company while you’re gone.”

“That is very kind of you, Emma,” and now Charles is also laughing quietly. “Erik?”

“Go,” he says, “we’ll wait until you get back.”

“Thank you,” and Erik watches as Charles spins smartly around and walks away, and the door swings shut on him.

Erik blinks, and Emma is once again smiling at him. “See?” she says, and she points at him and touches the tip of his nose gently. “You must look in a mirror some time. That look on your face that stays for a long time, your eyes following him almost everywhere - you cannot possibly think he doesn’t know.”

“He does,” and Erik surprises himself with his own honesty. “Truth be told, and you seem to be asking me for all of the true things, what with all of your questions, I think he’s always known.”

“And yet?”

“And yet I do not want to hurry,” Erik says, and he turns away and looks at the fire. “I am content to wait for him, pulled as he is in so many directions right now, pulled toward his sister as he is at this time.”

He thinks back to Charles and to his little confession, on the night Azzel and Raven asked for permission to be married. A smile full of both sadness and self-awareness, a voice full of chagrin and honesty.

“What about Raven?” Emma seems to consider it for a moment, and Erik watches her worry at her sleeves.

“Remember, little one, that Raven and Charles have not been reunited long, that they have not been free and together for many a year, and that now they are standing on the edge of a different kind of separation, one in which they must both acknowledge that they cannot cling merely to each other,” Erik says.

“And yet she is not going away. I don’t understand.”

Erik smiles. “I do not expect you to, and that is because you still do not know many things about people and their relationships. This is a kind of understanding that will only come in time, when you learn about others, when you learn how to be with others.” He thinks, and says, “Perhaps it will help if I gave you an analogy?”

“Please.”

“When Charles found you, you were clinging to Azzel as though there were no one else in the world you could trust.”

“Yes.”

“And now that you are here, now that you are relatively safe in this place, you still seek him out because you consider him someone dear to you. Even now, when the other children call you to join them in their games, when Charles and Eliszabeth and Jean are giving you lessons in helping you manage your ability, it is Azzel you trust with the news of your day, and not your friends or your instructors.”

“Of course.”

“And right now you only need to call Azzel and he will likely find you and speak with you, will stay with you and keep you company if he is not otherwise occupied, and that does not happen often in winter.”

“Yes.”

“Well, perhaps after Midwinter Night you will find that he will begin to say he cannot be with you, because he must be with his wife. He will not be leaving this place unless we do, unless we must be heading out on the march; he will stay here, and you will see him every day, but he will not always be able to respond to you if you call to him, because another has already claimed his attention.”

There is a long moment of silence.

And then Emma says, quietly, “Oh. It’s...it’s like that?”

Erik thinks she may never look as young as she does now, in this moment of realization. There is a certain kind of pain in her eyes, the pain of a child facing separation.

“And Raven is Charles’s sister,” Emma says, tracing out the line of thought with her words and with her hands, “and, and. It’s different, isn’t it? Oh, Erik. It hurts me to think of Azzel going away even though he’s really not leaving, and I am only realizing it now, and Charles...oh, no. Charles has been feeling worse, hasn’t he? Is that the reason why he speaks so gravely sometimes? Is it because of his sister?”

“That is the greater part of it,” Erik says as carefully as he can. He has been helping Charles keep his nightmares secret for a while now, though in the past days the dreams have not beset the other man as frequently. It takes an effort to wrench away from the dark images, to stay on the topic, because this is something he will not share with anyone else. Not unless Charles gives him permission - and Erik believes he may never even ask for it, not with the pain that the images bring to the two of them.

He continues: “And he believes he must smile and assist Raven every step of the way, since that is what family members do.”

“How terrible,” Emma finally says, and she bows her head and suddenly she is crying, quiet little hiccupping sobs. She swipes at her face with the backs of her hands.

“Did you really think, knowing about this, that I would trouble Charles further, little one?” Erik asks, and offers her his sleeve to wipe her tears with. “He knows I am here to support him. He knows he can turn to me. Perhaps he thinks I, too, may leave him. I will do nothing of the sort, you may be sure of that. I intend to stay here, where he can see me and where I can see him - you see, I listen to you - and perhaps by staying with him I can convince him that I have absolutely no intentions of leaving him. Not unless our situations change, not unless that change is forced upon us. And even then I would fight that change.”

Emma’s eyes are wide, and Erik is struck by a sudden thought. “Will you permit me to ask about the future?”

“That depends on your question, even though I understand why you are asking now - you will either ask about Charles or you will ask about the plans for your war on the tower,” Emma says. “I will help you as best as I can, but you know how limited my answers must be.”

“I know that all too well. It was all for the best that you avoided answering me, after all, on that first night when we found you and Azzel.”

“Perhaps,” Emma says. “Ask your question, please.”

Erik thinks about Midwinter Night and its festivities - and more importantly, he thinks about what will come in the days after. Thinks about his plans: dreams of soldiers on the march, swords and shields and among them men and women with blue eyes, attacking a tower wreathed in pain and shadow.

It seems that everyone he knows is running away from that place, everyone he’s ever held important, every one of them carrying some kind of scar or affliction from it. It makes him redouble his resolve. It makes him want to see that cursed place torn down. It makes him want to burn it down, to render stone from stone, and in the end salt the ground where it stood.

It will be an inadequate revenge for how the others were wronged, but it could be a start, though ultimately unsatisfying. Tearing the tower down cannot bring back the dead.

“Emma. How long do I have, how long must we wait, until the storm comes?”

She closes her eyes and breathes, softly, her face turned up to him.

Erik waits, patiently.

“Erik,” she says, and opens her eyes, unearthly blue and nearly luminous. Her voice is high and piercing. “The storm is almost here. Already the winds blow toward you. Sharpen your blades. Sing your song. The storm is almost here.”

He knows what happens next, after she makes dream-pronouncements like this, and he takes Emma’s hands in both of his, holds her steady, as the trance leaves her shaking like a leaf on a breeze. “Do you need to sit down?”

“Yes, thank you,” she says.

Erik makes tea and pushes the cup in her direction, waits for her to take up the cup and warm her hands on it.

“I can understand just about everything I’ve said,” Emma says, gulping down the tea, “except for the part about the song.”

“I don’t sing, except among friends,” Erik says simply, and for a moment his thoughts betray him, and he thinks of the bird whistle intended for Charles - a gift that he has still not yet finished, leaving him wondering what is holding him back. “We will all just have to find out about that together.”

When the door opens and admits Charles with a fine dusting of snow in his hair, Emma calls his name suddenly, her face creasing in lines of concern. Erik watches her fly out of her chair, watches her fuss and look after Charles, watches her bring him food and the rest of her tea and in the end say a hurried goodbye.

“Are you sure you won’t need any help getting back to Azzel?” Charles asks, eyes wide with surprise. “The snow is falling fast.”

“I’ll be fine,” Emma says. And she turns her back on Charles and starts walking back toward Erik.

She says his name, and he nods and suddenly she’s standing right next to him, she’s tugging on his sleeves and he leans down to her level.

He’s very surprised when she reaches up and puts her arms around his neck.

On the other hand, he’s not surprised when she turns her head and whispers, very softly, “Tell him again, so he won’t forget. That’s what you want, yes?”

Erik smiles and puts his hand on her head, presses down gently. “Thank you. I will do so.”

Emma waves goodbye, and closes the door silently behind her.

Erik sits down at Charles’s feet. Pretends not to notice the startled look thrown his way. Says, “I’m here. As always.”

When Charles’s hand touches his shoulder, he shifts toward him, and he hesitates for only a moment before he places his own hand atop Charles’s.

“Erik,” Charles says, and then there is silence.

To Part Three