Two Magicians and one Inquisitor (2)
Title: Two Magicians and one Inquisitor
Chapter 2: Meeting Magic
Fandom: Subeta (my pets)
Pairing: Ernst/Eduard (the Bear/Eduard)
Warnings: slash
Comment: Ernst and Eduard go seperate ways and change, as people do when they grow up, and after almost five years they finally meet again. I'd also like to add that Ernst's teacher is not based on Anita Blake; if there was any model for her at all it would be Raven from Rhiannon Lassiter's HEX trilogy (which I highly recommend).
Binx and Raja, two minions from subeta.
When Ernst had watched Eduard ride away with the bear guy all those years ago he had spend days and weeks just thinking how he'd see his brother again, how they'd meet and hug and tell each other what had happened and then everything would be like it always had been. Then, not quite a month after Eduard's departure, a womon about his mother's age had come and introduced herself as his new teacher. She had dark hair like himself, deep brown eyes, a light tan and with fifteen he was already as tall as her. She was polite and elequent and he hated her.
Then they took off in her cart (she didn't like riding) and she turned into a different person alltogether, shaking out her hair that was like wild cloud around her head and getting rid of what little make up there had been. She was rude and knew more curses than Ernst had ever heard in his life and he loved her.
During the next months he finally came to understand that he would not just meet Eduard again any time soon, and the far journeys his teacher liked to take were only part of that realization. The result was that he pictured their reunification more clearly; he made up hundreds of scenarios, one less likely than the other; sometimes they'd meet in a bar or tavern, late at night. They'd happen to sit at the same table or one would enter when the other was about to leave, but it didn't happen. He'd made up imaginary hats in the wild, deep in the forest, where for some reason they'd both seek shelter from a storm, but there were no hats. Or maybe they'd be hired to do magic (as he and his teacher sometimes were), and fate would have it that they'd both have the same assignment, on the same side or as opponents. In other, less happy, versions they'd get chased by the inquisition, meeting in a death cell mere hours before they were to die.
As the years passed he came to understand that none of his fantasies were realistic. By the time he was twenty, not quite five years in his teacher's care, he was getting incredibly restless. Most of the time he found her cool and even though he didn't always like what she had him do, he did it. They also argued, a lot. It was just how they were made, being at odds more often than they were not, and more than once an argument had ended with her promising him freedom and his own choices when he turned twenty-one.
But that was half a year away, as she had reminded him this morning, and for the time being he was hers to command, her responsibility and he'd damn well remember that. Right now he really hated her and her way to patronize him whenever he trie dto make a decision of his own. She was out there, fighting someone or something and the only reason for her keeping him away was half a year that seperated him from his age of consent.
It had been him who had tried to pursuade her not to travel into a region that was swarming with inquistion, where witch hunts were almost a daily occasion and where owning a cat could kill you. No, not all witches, or magicians for that matter, owned cats. Not even all of them had a familiar to begin with. His teacher hadn't, but he did: a black cat named Jack. However not even Jack's purring in his lap could calm him down as thunder rolled and lightning stroke and rain clashed down against the window and he really wished to know if she was alright.
„Ernst.“
He pretended not to hear her.
„Ernst, you are going to sit down right now.“
He tied his hair back, so the black streaks wouldn't hang into his eyes and didn't turn around.
„I am not going to repeat myself.“
He knew that tone, she was seriously pissed. Well, so was he. He hadn't expected the blow to his head though. „Fuck! What did you do that for?“, finally making eye contact with her and being oddly pleased that she had to look up to him.
„To help you think, maybe I didn't hit you on the head enough.“, her arms were crossed, her dark eyes practically blazing. Or make that literaly. „Sit down.“
And before he knew it, he sat, if not of his own will.
„It's dangerous, and you trying to interfere is insane.“, she said and not for this first time this evening, „You will not go there.“
And he replied, as he had before: „Oh yeah, I will.“
*
Eduard hadn't wished to be anywhere else but where he was for a long time now. Or at least it seemed like a long time to him. He still remembered being homesick and wanting to be with his family, but he had quickly learned to be content and not to want more than he could have. It wasn't the secret to happiness, but definitely to contentment. The bear, his teacher, was a scary guy on the outside, but kind on the inside, if a little rough at times. Most of the time, really.
He taught Eduard the joy in solitude and delight in reclusion. They'd spend months at a time without meeting another person and at some point he doubted he knew what a town was like, being used only to the wilderness of forests and mountains. Eduard liked to think that he had grown to be an honest man, not holding back his opinion because the bear encouraged him to always say what he thought, so in return he could tell him what he thought and knew. He liked discipline in his student and restrain and Eduard learned that emotional outbursts didn't get him anywhere. He could be as angry as he wanted and tell his teacher so, and as long as he'd be reasonable or at least calm he'd listen.
It had taken him less than one year to realize why his parents had not wanted him and his brother to grow up together. At home he had come to love his brother in a very un-brotherly way and he didn't doubt that it was the same for Ernst; it had been right to isolate them at that point. However, being as honest with himself as he generally was, he also knew that his feelings had not changed.
He remembered a day in his eighteenth winter, when he had lain next to his teacher in some remote hideout that was supposed to protect them from the cold and the snow (and was, for once, doing a decent job at it, he'd seen worse places) and had told him about how he felt for his brother and how that had triggered his being sent away. To his surprise his teacher had asked him, if he actually knew what it was like between men. Astonished and intrigued at the same time he had shook his head, his teacher feeling the movement more than he saw it, as it was dark and the clouds thick with snow held back the star light.
He did have a rough idea, but he hadn't exactly given it much thought. He encountered it with the same curiosity as he did magic and his teacher applied the same method he did then: learning by doing - after a detailed explanation. All his self-control and trained composure couldn't beat the fact that he was a healthy teenager with a sadly neglected sexuality. Being told, exactly, where he was about to be touched and in what way frightened him as much as it aroused him and the latter won out and then some. When the bear had the nerve to ask him wether he wanted to do this or not Eduard lost his patience, went ahead and kissed him.
It was his first kiss and a little clumsy on his part; his teacher's beard tickled a little, but that was okay, it felt good. He had not forgotten what had been explained to him and carefully explored the older man's body, unaware of the fact that he was easily old enough to be his father. Big hands were on him, petting and stroking and he didn't mind the heavy body on him one bit, the more so as it was cold outside the blanket that covered them both. Their kisses were quick and chaste in the beginning but Eduard had long since proven to be a fast learner and he readily applied this ability to their play of tongues and hands and bodies.
That night his teacher had him climax more than once and let himelf be touched in return, but that was weeks before they took the next step and it was Eduard, had to be him, to ask for more intimate actions. As they usually did they discussed everything in-depthly, being explicit without feeling embarrassed, a trait Eduard had inherided from his teacher long ago. Maybe the bear thought that this way he'd take Eduard's thoughts off his brother, have him not think of his sibling in this way, but if that was his intention he did not succeed.
Eduard heard the music and the laughter, the sound being carried on the wind up to his room, accompanied by the smell of burning straw. Dusk was less than an hour away and at that time the stakes would be lit and the joyous laughter would be replaced by screams and cries of whatever poor soul they had caught this time. His face didn't betray it, but he wished nothing more than to be as far away from this place as possible when it happened. He had heard this kind of screams one time too often, when they had been too late, when any help had come too late.
It was the last time, the bear had promised, for him to stay behind and wait. Eduard would rather have helped him on whatever mission he was on than to wait here for the execution to happen or not happen. But in truth he wouldn't have minded to simply not be near any stake in the first place. The whole idea of people burning to death scared him and he had admitted it, too. He felt Ted, his white cat, push against his legs and picked the little creature up, firmly closing the window with the other hand. It was a little early, but he'd leave anyway. He'd get their horses - everything else was savely packed away - and get to their rendezvous point, hoping that the bear would make it there and that others would be with him.
*
Okay, so maybe this whole thing was less fun than he had previously thought. It wasn't fun to know that should you fail, people would die. But pressure had never been Ernst's problem and while he made sure nobody realized it he was actually enjoying himself. He was out, there was action and best of all? He got to blow things up. Reminding himself every few minutes to keep his grave expression (which went well with his black hair) he ran along with his teacher and some huge guy that somehow looked familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on it. They didn't know him, having met him accidentally on the same mission.
*
Eduard stood next to his horse - not the cob he had left his parents' house on, of course - holding the reins of his teacher's horse, in his case the same giant stallion he had ridden when they had first met, watching Ted and some unknown black cat, apparently a female, tiptoe around each other. He wondered if it was a magician's cat and if that was why Ted felt drawn to her. Her fur was shorter than his, but then it was likely that she hadn't spent as much time in the colder nothern regions.
*
The choking stench of fire and smoke was everywhere and the air was hot and black; Ernst might have lost his orientation entirely, had it not been for the elementals guiding them. He didn't know who had conjured them and he had never seen ice elementals before, but he knew they were showing them the way, getting them out of the heat and the fire. Them, that was his teacher, the hairy giant and the three witches they had saved from the already burning stake, one of them actually being a witch.
„Eduard!“, he heard someone shout - the giant? They ran, coughing and breathing heavily, around a street corner and there he stood, the magician who had sent them his elementals, his hooded cloak hardly covereing his flashy white hair. He kept running, unable to stop, and was pulled onto a horse only moments later or so it seemed. And then they raced.
*
„I need to see him.“, Eduard told his teacher, his voice trembling as it rarely did. „As soon as possible. He saw me, too, I'm sure of it.“, he applied a healing ointment to the man's burned skin where he couldn't reach it, on his back mostly, his hands calm and controlled where his voice wasn't.
The man nodded, not seeing the point in denying him this. „If they are still nearby, we will try and contact them.“, he compromised. He had promised his friend, Eduard's father, to take care of his son until he was of age and that was still two years away, but he doubted that two more years would make a difference. „Just promise me, that should you meet him, you will not run off with him.“
They looked at each other and there was no misconception about what he was talking about. „I promise.“, Eduard simply said. His brother wasn't for him, not in that way, he'd probably grown to see and understand that as well. „Ted is with him right now, I think. It must have been his cat, I feel it now.“
~End chapter two
Chapter 2: Meeting Magic
Fandom: Subeta (my pets)
Pairing: Ernst/Eduard (the Bear/Eduard)
Warnings: slash
Comment: Ernst and Eduard go seperate ways and change, as people do when they grow up, and after almost five years they finally meet again. I'd also like to add that Ernst's teacher is not based on Anita Blake; if there was any model for her at all it would be Raven from Rhiannon Lassiter's HEX trilogy (which I highly recommend).
Binx and Raja, two minions from subeta.
When Ernst had watched Eduard ride away with the bear guy all those years ago he had spend days and weeks just thinking how he'd see his brother again, how they'd meet and hug and tell each other what had happened and then everything would be like it always had been. Then, not quite a month after Eduard's departure, a womon about his mother's age had come and introduced herself as his new teacher. She had dark hair like himself, deep brown eyes, a light tan and with fifteen he was already as tall as her. She was polite and elequent and he hated her.
Then they took off in her cart (she didn't like riding) and she turned into a different person alltogether, shaking out her hair that was like wild cloud around her head and getting rid of what little make up there had been. She was rude and knew more curses than Ernst had ever heard in his life and he loved her.
During the next months he finally came to understand that he would not just meet Eduard again any time soon, and the far journeys his teacher liked to take were only part of that realization. The result was that he pictured their reunification more clearly; he made up hundreds of scenarios, one less likely than the other; sometimes they'd meet in a bar or tavern, late at night. They'd happen to sit at the same table or one would enter when the other was about to leave, but it didn't happen. He'd made up imaginary hats in the wild, deep in the forest, where for some reason they'd both seek shelter from a storm, but there were no hats. Or maybe they'd be hired to do magic (as he and his teacher sometimes were), and fate would have it that they'd both have the same assignment, on the same side or as opponents. In other, less happy, versions they'd get chased by the inquisition, meeting in a death cell mere hours before they were to die.
As the years passed he came to understand that none of his fantasies were realistic. By the time he was twenty, not quite five years in his teacher's care, he was getting incredibly restless. Most of the time he found her cool and even though he didn't always like what she had him do, he did it. They also argued, a lot. It was just how they were made, being at odds more often than they were not, and more than once an argument had ended with her promising him freedom and his own choices when he turned twenty-one.
But that was half a year away, as she had reminded him this morning, and for the time being he was hers to command, her responsibility and he'd damn well remember that. Right now he really hated her and her way to patronize him whenever he trie dto make a decision of his own. She was out there, fighting someone or something and the only reason for her keeping him away was half a year that seperated him from his age of consent.
It had been him who had tried to pursuade her not to travel into a region that was swarming with inquistion, where witch hunts were almost a daily occasion and where owning a cat could kill you. No, not all witches, or magicians for that matter, owned cats. Not even all of them had a familiar to begin with. His teacher hadn't, but he did: a black cat named Jack. However not even Jack's purring in his lap could calm him down as thunder rolled and lightning stroke and rain clashed down against the window and he really wished to know if she was alright.
„Ernst.“
He pretended not to hear her.
„Ernst, you are going to sit down right now.“
He tied his hair back, so the black streaks wouldn't hang into his eyes and didn't turn around.
„I am not going to repeat myself.“
He knew that tone, she was seriously pissed. Well, so was he. He hadn't expected the blow to his head though. „Fuck! What did you do that for?“, finally making eye contact with her and being oddly pleased that she had to look up to him.
„To help you think, maybe I didn't hit you on the head enough.“, her arms were crossed, her dark eyes practically blazing. Or make that literaly. „Sit down.“
And before he knew it, he sat, if not of his own will.
„It's dangerous, and you trying to interfere is insane.“, she said and not for this first time this evening, „You will not go there.“
And he replied, as he had before: „Oh yeah, I will.“
*
Eduard hadn't wished to be anywhere else but where he was for a long time now. Or at least it seemed like a long time to him. He still remembered being homesick and wanting to be with his family, but he had quickly learned to be content and not to want more than he could have. It wasn't the secret to happiness, but definitely to contentment. The bear, his teacher, was a scary guy on the outside, but kind on the inside, if a little rough at times. Most of the time, really.
He taught Eduard the joy in solitude and delight in reclusion. They'd spend months at a time without meeting another person and at some point he doubted he knew what a town was like, being used only to the wilderness of forests and mountains. Eduard liked to think that he had grown to be an honest man, not holding back his opinion because the bear encouraged him to always say what he thought, so in return he could tell him what he thought and knew. He liked discipline in his student and restrain and Eduard learned that emotional outbursts didn't get him anywhere. He could be as angry as he wanted and tell his teacher so, and as long as he'd be reasonable or at least calm he'd listen.
It had taken him less than one year to realize why his parents had not wanted him and his brother to grow up together. At home he had come to love his brother in a very un-brotherly way and he didn't doubt that it was the same for Ernst; it had been right to isolate them at that point. However, being as honest with himself as he generally was, he also knew that his feelings had not changed.
He remembered a day in his eighteenth winter, when he had lain next to his teacher in some remote hideout that was supposed to protect them from the cold and the snow (and was, for once, doing a decent job at it, he'd seen worse places) and had told him about how he felt for his brother and how that had triggered his being sent away. To his surprise his teacher had asked him, if he actually knew what it was like between men. Astonished and intrigued at the same time he had shook his head, his teacher feeling the movement more than he saw it, as it was dark and the clouds thick with snow held back the star light.
He did have a rough idea, but he hadn't exactly given it much thought. He encountered it with the same curiosity as he did magic and his teacher applied the same method he did then: learning by doing - after a detailed explanation. All his self-control and trained composure couldn't beat the fact that he was a healthy teenager with a sadly neglected sexuality. Being told, exactly, where he was about to be touched and in what way frightened him as much as it aroused him and the latter won out and then some. When the bear had the nerve to ask him wether he wanted to do this or not Eduard lost his patience, went ahead and kissed him.
It was his first kiss and a little clumsy on his part; his teacher's beard tickled a little, but that was okay, it felt good. He had not forgotten what had been explained to him and carefully explored the older man's body, unaware of the fact that he was easily old enough to be his father. Big hands were on him, petting and stroking and he didn't mind the heavy body on him one bit, the more so as it was cold outside the blanket that covered them both. Their kisses were quick and chaste in the beginning but Eduard had long since proven to be a fast learner and he readily applied this ability to their play of tongues and hands and bodies.
That night his teacher had him climax more than once and let himelf be touched in return, but that was weeks before they took the next step and it was Eduard, had to be him, to ask for more intimate actions. As they usually did they discussed everything in-depthly, being explicit without feeling embarrassed, a trait Eduard had inherided from his teacher long ago. Maybe the bear thought that this way he'd take Eduard's thoughts off his brother, have him not think of his sibling in this way, but if that was his intention he did not succeed.
Eduard heard the music and the laughter, the sound being carried on the wind up to his room, accompanied by the smell of burning straw. Dusk was less than an hour away and at that time the stakes would be lit and the joyous laughter would be replaced by screams and cries of whatever poor soul they had caught this time. His face didn't betray it, but he wished nothing more than to be as far away from this place as possible when it happened. He had heard this kind of screams one time too often, when they had been too late, when any help had come too late.
It was the last time, the bear had promised, for him to stay behind and wait. Eduard would rather have helped him on whatever mission he was on than to wait here for the execution to happen or not happen. But in truth he wouldn't have minded to simply not be near any stake in the first place. The whole idea of people burning to death scared him and he had admitted it, too. He felt Ted, his white cat, push against his legs and picked the little creature up, firmly closing the window with the other hand. It was a little early, but he'd leave anyway. He'd get their horses - everything else was savely packed away - and get to their rendezvous point, hoping that the bear would make it there and that others would be with him.
*
Okay, so maybe this whole thing was less fun than he had previously thought. It wasn't fun to know that should you fail, people would die. But pressure had never been Ernst's problem and while he made sure nobody realized it he was actually enjoying himself. He was out, there was action and best of all? He got to blow things up. Reminding himself every few minutes to keep his grave expression (which went well with his black hair) he ran along with his teacher and some huge guy that somehow looked familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on it. They didn't know him, having met him accidentally on the same mission.
*
Eduard stood next to his horse - not the cob he had left his parents' house on, of course - holding the reins of his teacher's horse, in his case the same giant stallion he had ridden when they had first met, watching Ted and some unknown black cat, apparently a female, tiptoe around each other. He wondered if it was a magician's cat and if that was why Ted felt drawn to her. Her fur was shorter than his, but then it was likely that she hadn't spent as much time in the colder nothern regions.
*
The choking stench of fire and smoke was everywhere and the air was hot and black; Ernst might have lost his orientation entirely, had it not been for the elementals guiding them. He didn't know who had conjured them and he had never seen ice elementals before, but he knew they were showing them the way, getting them out of the heat and the fire. Them, that was his teacher, the hairy giant and the three witches they had saved from the already burning stake, one of them actually being a witch.
„Eduard!“, he heard someone shout - the giant? They ran, coughing and breathing heavily, around a street corner and there he stood, the magician who had sent them his elementals, his hooded cloak hardly covereing his flashy white hair. He kept running, unable to stop, and was pulled onto a horse only moments later or so it seemed. And then they raced.
*
„I need to see him.“, Eduard told his teacher, his voice trembling as it rarely did. „As soon as possible. He saw me, too, I'm sure of it.“, he applied a healing ointment to the man's burned skin where he couldn't reach it, on his back mostly, his hands calm and controlled where his voice wasn't.
The man nodded, not seeing the point in denying him this. „If they are still nearby, we will try and contact them.“, he compromised. He had promised his friend, Eduard's father, to take care of his son until he was of age and that was still two years away, but he doubted that two more years would make a difference. „Just promise me, that should you meet him, you will not run off with him.“
They looked at each other and there was no misconception about what he was talking about. „I promise.“, Eduard simply said. His brother wasn't for him, not in that way, he'd probably grown to see and understand that as well. „Ted is with him right now, I think. It must have been his cat, I feel it now.“
~End chapter two