Fic: Focus (Illidan, Kael, past Illidan/Tyrande; PG)
Title: Focus
Fandom: Warcraft
Characters: Illidan and Kael; reference to past unrequited Illidan/Tyrande
Rating: PG
Dedication: Happy Christmas rabidmiacid!
Summary: When you've had nothing new to sense for millennia, it's easy to get distracted.
It was easy to get wrapped up in the anger of having been imprisoned for so long; easy to stay self-involved. After all, with only his own thoughts for company - and rats, and spiders, and any other creature content to live in the dark - he'd stopped considering the world around him. When you knew every inch of your prison, knew its taste and feel like it were your own skin, observation became a useless skill.
He was learning, again, making small movements towards discovering the feel of the world as he stepped through it again. Learning how the bite of chill wind felt against his skill, how rain felt - by Elune, learning how fresh water felt - and the cadence of differing voices.
Some might have considered Vashj's harsh sibilance uncomfortable on the ears, considered the flecks of saliva produced by her speech distasteful, but to one who had known only the creep and crawl of lesser creatures for millennia it was a balm; it rendered the softer, deeper tones of their accompanying elf prince an unearthly sort of beautiful in comparison.
He'd forgotten so many textures in his time in the prison; had tried to hold onto memories but the feel of wood was impossible to capture in thought - the grit and grain of something living, so easily smoothed but so rough in nature. He was too easily distracted like this; moments where he relearnt how dew-wet grass felt against his legs, how ice slipped and cracked and slid beneath heavy hooves, how the warm skin of another's hand felt on his arm.
He pressed his palm against where Kael had grabbed him, unthinking after slipping on the ice in boots that weren't as appropriate for the weather as the elven prince might have thought. The warmth of another's skin brought back other memories, bittersweet with hindsight, memories of games with his brother and Tyrande, wrestling and play-fighting before the passing years and changes in the world took their toll.
Remembering Tyrande's thoughtful last kiss before she tore all of them apart by choosing.
There had been a moment after that accidental brush of skin where both Kael and he had been silent, but with a deliberate weight to that silence; he was not so lost after millennia to have forgotten what a moment like that meant.
It was a complication he could have lived without, but that did not mean it was a complication he could not enjoy.
He had Vashj for an uncomplicated loyalty, built on mutual desire for revenge and power.
Now he had Kael's loyalty through a different means; a mixture of dependence and an uneasy trust, and something different brewing beneath the surface if he allowed the meaning of that earlier silence to make itself fully known.
The blood elves would be interesting company for the next few months.
The End
Fandom: Warcraft
Characters: Illidan and Kael; reference to past unrequited Illidan/Tyrande
Rating: PG
Dedication: Happy Christmas rabidmiacid!
Summary: When you've had nothing new to sense for millennia, it's easy to get distracted.
It was easy to get wrapped up in the anger of having been imprisoned for so long; easy to stay self-involved. After all, with only his own thoughts for company - and rats, and spiders, and any other creature content to live in the dark - he'd stopped considering the world around him. When you knew every inch of your prison, knew its taste and feel like it were your own skin, observation became a useless skill.
He was learning, again, making small movements towards discovering the feel of the world as he stepped through it again. Learning how the bite of chill wind felt against his skill, how rain felt - by Elune, learning how fresh water felt - and the cadence of differing voices.
Some might have considered Vashj's harsh sibilance uncomfortable on the ears, considered the flecks of saliva produced by her speech distasteful, but to one who had known only the creep and crawl of lesser creatures for millennia it was a balm; it rendered the softer, deeper tones of their accompanying elf prince an unearthly sort of beautiful in comparison.
He'd forgotten so many textures in his time in the prison; had tried to hold onto memories but the feel of wood was impossible to capture in thought - the grit and grain of something living, so easily smoothed but so rough in nature. He was too easily distracted like this; moments where he relearnt how dew-wet grass felt against his legs, how ice slipped and cracked and slid beneath heavy hooves, how the warm skin of another's hand felt on his arm.
He pressed his palm against where Kael had grabbed him, unthinking after slipping on the ice in boots that weren't as appropriate for the weather as the elven prince might have thought. The warmth of another's skin brought back other memories, bittersweet with hindsight, memories of games with his brother and Tyrande, wrestling and play-fighting before the passing years and changes in the world took their toll.
Remembering Tyrande's thoughtful last kiss before she tore all of them apart by choosing.
There had been a moment after that accidental brush of skin where both Kael and he had been silent, but with a deliberate weight to that silence; he was not so lost after millennia to have forgotten what a moment like that meant.
It was a complication he could have lived without, but that did not mean it was a complication he could not enjoy.
He had Vashj for an uncomplicated loyalty, built on mutual desire for revenge and power.
Now he had Kael's loyalty through a different means; a mixture of dependence and an uneasy trust, and something different brewing beneath the surface if he allowed the meaning of that earlier silence to make itself fully known.
The blood elves would be interesting company for the next few months.
The End