He felt so small and fragile in his arms like that. His gasps as sweet as a nightingale song to him. Rhin leaned his head down and nuzzled Yirel’s hair, breathing in his scent. “Mmm… You did very well, Darling.” Gently and slowly he removed his fingers, though Quaice still trembled as he was left empty. For a few still moments he lay like that, spent and limp.
But then he came back to himself.
Yirel ducked his head further down, before pulling away. Rhin let him this time, and watched as he got to his feet, stepped away and cleaned his hand off with a linen taken from the desk drawer. Once Yirel’s hand was clean, Rhin made a motion for the cloth as well, and he handed it over with a frown, then stood nearby the chair and pulled his clothes back into place. Rhin took his time cleaning himself, mostly because he was amused at watching Quaice flinch every time his shirt or shoulder strap brushed over his nipple.
“I can tell I’m going to enjoy our arrangement very much, Quaice. But for now-” he sighed as he stood and finished setting his clothing to rights. “-I have other matters to attend to. Unfortunately.” He cast Yirel another suggestive look, and had the pleasure of seeing him blush and bristle. Chuckling softly he strode over and crowded Yirel against the desk, leaning over him and bracing his arms to either side. Yirel leaned back and looked up at him; meek in body language but his eyes held all the fires of the third hell aimed directly at him. “You have three days before my next ball, Darling. It’s going to be a grand event, and I want Societies most coveted jewel on my arm.” Rhindov smirked and flicked his eyes over Yirel once more. “Wear the jade watersilk. And purchase what you think necessary to shine the brightest there. Have the bills sent to me and I’ll take care of them.” He waited, looking down at Yirel until he broke their gaze.
“Yes Sir.”
“Good.” He pushed away from the desk and gave Yirel a pat on the cheek before leaving. Part of him wanted to stay longer. Tease Yirel some more, and finish the breakfast he’d left on the table. But he really did have to go. Silence followed him down the hall and out into the midmorning light, where his carriage still waited for him.
The driver nodded to him as he opened the door to climb into the cab. “Where to next Sir?”
“On to the Redbrooke Estate.”
“Right away Sir.”
~
Yirel watched Rhindov saunter away and hated him for every mocking step he took. He clutched the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning white with the force of his grip as he seethed. The worst part? He wasn’t that angry with Cavish. Most of his wrath was directed inwards.
Once again, he’d become some other creature that had liked being ordered about and commanded, used like a- a bed slave, not even worthy of the respect of a guilded whore! Oh blessed ancestors… He took in a deep breath and held it until his chest ached, let the air leave him in a rush and did it again. And again. And again. For several minutes until the hot prickle of tears had faded behind his eyes.
What even was he?
A disgusting disappointment of a son. Weak. The result of poor blood from her-
Yirel growled to himself and pushed away from the desk. His fathers words haunted him though. The never ending cycle of vitriol that had flowed from the patriarch of the family had burned themselves into Yirel’s memory and soul, and times like this called that voice out.
He touched the rune next to the door to end the spell, and left without looking back at the office. He ignored the dining room as well and instead took refuge in his rooms. The latch had barely clicked into place before he was crumpling to the floor and sobbing. His mind was a storm of conflicting emotions, and the confusion over it all only made it worse. With the memory of his fathers’ cruelty echoing in his mind, he was lost to the madness of it all.
He wasn’t sure for how long he stayed there. There had been a hesitant knock sometime in the first five minutes, but Yirel had declined to acknowledge it and he’d been left alone since. Eventually he dragged himself back into his bed and collapsed in it, weakening sniffling now that most of the tears had run out. His face was red and blotchy, swollen and dripping nose, bloodshot eyes… He looked as awful as he felt.
And for better or worse, the storm in his mind had calmed enough that he could think again. Of course, the subject of his mental wanderings were still the same but now he was too emotionally exhausted to do more than look at things with an analytic view.
It was almost like watching shadows slip past on a blank wall.
There was the memory of his father standing in the doorway of the nursery, scowling at him because he was inside playing with toy soldiers instead of outside chasing down the other children playing the game themselves.
Oh, the time he’d been unable to ride the spirited stallion that he’d been gifted for his sixteenth summer, and had been bucked and thrown so much that he’d broken his left wrist and two ribs. Father had hated that, and railed against the spirits for sending him such a weak son.
. . .
Being discovered with his first lover, and summarily chastised for bending for someone of lower rank than he. For bending at all.
He’d tried so hard after that to make Yirel into a different person; the person that Yirel could only assume his father had been before he’d married. And all his attempts had failed. Yirel took more after his mother than not, and no amount of physical exertion would change his delicate frame. Nore would any harsh treatment or conditioning make his words as sharp as his fathers, as commanding.
Most of those nights ended with his father uttering something along the lines of ‘I’ll make you into a real man if it kills me.’
Yirel couldn’t help the snort that followed that thought. His father was dead, and here he was even less of a man than the bastard had feared.
It had just been a way to snub his nose at the old man. He was seventeen, and the Trickster’s Day festivities were in full riot. What better way to flaunt his dismissal of his fathers wishes than to wear a skirt? He was far from the only man to take to the streets in a hurriedly borrowed dress from a sister, cousin or maid. But it had been… Different for him.
Even as imperfect as it had been, it was enough to make him feel something. He’d felt… Happy. Not for the treat of angering his father, though that was a part of it. It was more that, for the first time he could remember, he’d let go of the expectations of who he was supposed to be and was just himself without thought. It would have been easy to chalk it up to being part of a celebration and the energy of the evening.
But he’d stay awake at night thinking of how it had felt, to dance and twirl through the streets. His mind would stray in the middle of lessons to wonder what a dress made for him would feel like. What a silken dress would feel like, instead of cotton. The want to do it again; to go into public dressed as a woman became almost an obsession, until he couldn’t just keep it an idea anymore.
So he had gone to the maid that had lent him the dress in the first place. And after a few minutes of awkwardness and dancing around the subject, to where she thought he was there to sleep with her -of all things!- they reached an understanding. They were of similar enough size, and she was just a few months away from her eighteenth birthday; a perfect reason for her to want a new dress and be able to afford one. So Yirel had given her the coin in exchange for the ability to wear it as well, at least once. He needed to know. Had what he felt been the excitement of a festival, or something more?
When he was finally able to wear it, it had been half a year later, and the house was empty save for himself and a few servants. The maid who’s dress he’d bought was off to apprentice at a calligraphers office and she’d left the dress to him with a promise that she wouldn’t tell. He’d danced in his room, looking at himself in the mirror and knowing without a doubt that this was something that he needed.
And how it was unfair that he couldn’t have it. Not really. He didn’t want to change his name and become Lady Quiace, Heir to the Line. He was still himself. He just liked the way dresses made him feel. And there was no place for that in Halo. You were one or the other, with no overlap or grey area between. No place for a young man that wanted to dance in dresses.
Yirel sat up in bed and pushed himself back against the headboard. His head hurt, and his eyes felt full of sand...
With a start he realised Spring was standing next to the bed with a handkerchief, instead of at its docking station. Grinning, he took the lined cloth and blew his nose. “Thank you Sprig.” He sighed. “Sit down so I can work on you some more. Obviously my attempts are working, if slowly.”
The automaton sat down next to him, its porcelain face staring blankly ahead as Yirel busied himself with removing the back of its head to access the rune matrix. He didn’t want to think anymore, and maybe focusing on advancing the spellwork for Sprig would distract him. That was the hope anyways. Yirel reached out and began touching the runes, opening himself to the buzz of magic, and directing his own small flow to join the rippling patterns already present and empower them. The blue glow lulled him for a time, as did the tedious nature of the work.
But eventually his mind grew bored and started to drift again, back to the things he’d been trying to distract himself from.
Like Cavish, and his effect on him.
He scowled at the runes, seeing Rhindov instead. Damn that man. Why did he have to taunt Yirel like he did? Wasn’t it enough they both knew that Yirel had no choice but to go along with his demands? No. He had to go and put rules in place, and direct him like he was a mindless construct ,like Sprig, made for his pleasure. His fingers trembled and he stopped his work, pulling away from the call of magic that was just a memory of a tune to him.
He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t just some frail thing to be ordered around and dismissed. Yes, he was more effeminate than his father would have liked, but he was not some wilting hothouse flower either. And damnit, He was not the only one playing an illicit game here! He may be wearing the dresses, but now Rhin was encouraging it and hiding it all at once. Did that not make him just as liable to the taboo?
“He thinks he’s so much better than me, well damnit he’s not! I’ll play by the rules he set out because, what choice do I have? But I am going to find a way to make him realise I’m not just a toy to amuse himself with for as long as he likes.” Yirel nodded to himself and put the back of Sprigs’ head back on. “He said he’d foot the bill for gowns and whatever else, and that he wants Darling to be the brightest jewel? Then let’s make sure we take him at his word.”
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