ostro_goth | RP post: In Tuscany with Charlie

RP post: In Tuscany with Charlie

[[From here.]]

There are a few things here that were not invented in Teja's time, and unknown in his parents' house; but apart from electricity and glass windows, this place is timeless. There is a large kitchen with an old fireplace; there is a fountain outside, and trees lining a drive towards the road.

After Demeter has opened the door for them, and Teja and Charlie have stepped through, Teja starts looking around, and exploring the place she has prepared for them.

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Charlie, insofar as he can really tell, is hearing it in English. The magic tends to give him some words in Latin and it's....odd. "She met you while you were alive?"

There's an amount of curiosity there, to know what Teja was like, and why he was grieving, for whom...but he can stifle that for the moment. At least until Teja brings it up first, if he does. "Did the city have a name, when you came here?"

"The town of Vinci was not there yet," Teja says. "Florentia, the City, lay over there, and still does. These lands between Florentia and Luca held many places like this; they were good lands and, indeed, still are."

Pause.

"And indeed, she met me when I was alive; I did not know that it was her, then, naturally, and thought no more of the young woman who had spoken to me in the ruins of my parents' home. There were many that I spoke to, on my travels through these lands. I was never long in one place."

Charlie listens to that, and is quiet for a minute, before leaning up and giving him a soft kiss on the cheek. "I wonder what you were like, then." He still holds onto Teja's hand, comfortably close enough to brush his hip while they walk.

"I suspect very different than you are now."

"Very dark, and not to be touched," Teja says. "Not to be consoled by anything. I knew only grief, and dire duty."

Pause.

"My parents had been killed when I was ten, our home destroyed, in a conspiracy between the bishop of Florentia, and our envious neighbour, Theodahad of the Amalungs, relative to the king, who wanted my father's lands. I was raised by the same priests that had slain my father, driven my mother to death, until my father's old friend, Hildebrand, weapons-master to the king, found me in Rome and rescued me. When King Witichis, during the wars, elected after Theodahad had been found a traitor, wanted to restore the lands to me, I would have none of it. What for? There was nothing left but ruins and sad memory."

"That's....hard to live through." Charlie can't say anything about his parents, as they're still alive; he's never lived with anyone else, for any length of time either. "Your life was much harder than mine. But in a sense I'm glad you don't have to worry over it anymore. In another I wonder if you'd be any different, if you were alive now."

He just kept walking, brushing his hair back as a breeze kicked it up. "You never wanted to rebuild anything here?"

"My life held much hardship, pain, and darkness," Teja says. "You have never seen me at my worst; I had already been much lightened-up by those I had met in Milliways, when you came there."

Pause.

"No; I knew that there would be no future to build here, and only a few years of desperate war left until my people were swept off these lands forever; so I rather spent my rare spare time at my harp, or at my anvil."

"Hearing you speak like that makes me very sad, sometimes. Knowing that you felt that way." He tightened his hand around Teja's, pressing a kiss to his shoulderblade. "I'm glad you're the way you are now. Even though we're very different..."

He sighed quietly, leaning his head against his lover's arm.

Teja half-turns, and pulls him into his arms.

"We love each other, truly, deeply," he says, "and one of the things we have come here for is to learn more of each other. My past, my life, is almost all darkness! Almost -- there are lighter moments to speak of, also, with those that I cared for, in life. But I rarely knew contentment like that I have with the cats in the forge, or with a friend by the fireplace, while I was alive."

Pause.

"I loved a girl, once, briefly: - then she died; I had friends that I loved dearly, in a way, also. But I have never, while I was alive, known the fulfilment of true love-making, or the happiness of true, deep love not overshadowed by dire suffering and fearsome dangers. I am glad I am as I am now, also!"

Charlie smiled, though he momentarily tensed up at being pulled forward when he didn't expect it. "I never really loved anyone, before you. I suppose that gives you an advantage, but...I'm finding it doesn't matter to me."

He leaned up to kiss him gently, brushing his fingertips over his neck. "Whenever you speak about your life, I have this urge to show you that not everything has to be dark. But sometimes i don't think you believe me."

"I look into your face and know that you love me," Teja says, "and then I know that not all must be dark!"

Pause.

"Perhaps, one day, envious fate will take you from me, as it seems to have taken both Tonio and Asher; but I will know that I have had this moment, and that there is light in life, and happiness; there is love, friendship, music, and cats."

"It won't. I don't believe in fate," he says, resting his head against Teja's chest, able to hear his heartbeat. "I don't want to be taken away from you, by anything."

He paused, letting his arms wrap around Teja's waist. "I do love you, very deeply."

"I have lost those that I loved, so often," Teja says. "I do not quite trust the future enough to swear to you, in the fullness of happy conviction, that I will allow nothing to tear you from my side! But while your door brings you still to where I am, and no cruel happenstance rips you away, that long is my heart yours, and I return your love with all my soul!"

His arms go around Charlie's shoulder; he pulls him close, and kisses him, ardently.

Charlie just smiles, very happily, at Teja's words. "I don't know how you manage to say things so well." He kisses back equally loving, nearly laughing. "I love you with everything I have to give you. All my heart, my lovely Teja."

"All I am, my beloved Charlie," Teja whispers back.

Pause, while he looks up, around, Charlie still held close to him, in his arms. "I stand here, upon what briefly used to be my father's land, millennia ago, and hold my beloved in my arms, and in my heart! The world has gone on without me; but I have gone on without my world, also,and in an impossible little place beyond time and reality, I have carved out a place that is all mine, and a happiness that my old world may never cloud with its disapproval!"

It's not clear if he says this to Charlie, to himself, to the land, or to the memory of those that he once walked with.

"I have brought my beloved home," he then adds, in something of a hoarse whisper.

"The man that I love with all of myself...it makes me feel so light, as if my heart was made of air." He hugged Teja close, pressing his cheek against his shoulder.

"I love you so much, and I can't say it well enough." He kissed him almost feverishly, not wanting to let go. "Just let me hold onto you," he says quietly. "Please."

Teja holds him, saying nothing. It is a deeply emotional, entirely unexpected moment.

Some vehicle drives by, on the road that the row of plane trees leads to; those inside might see the lovers, far away, on the shoulder of the hill, or they might not.

It does not matter.

That's the same thing Charlie's thinking, as he hears the engine.

They can look, or not; he wouldn't care. "I love you. It's not the kind of love I'm used to, but...I want it. I want you, in more ways than I could say."

"I want you, also, in many ways," Teja says. "I want you to stay by my side, I want to sit with you in peace by the hearth-fire, years from hence, a small but comfortable clan of cats all around us."

He touches his nose to Charlie's, then lightly kisses him again.

Charlie smiles, and makes a small, contented sound in his throat. "That would be more than I could ask for. But I'd love that, to be beside you for that long."

He kisses him back, deepening it so he can press against him tightly and feel the heat against his front. "I love you..."

"I love you, my Charlie, so very, very much," Teja says.

And then, he says nothing any more, for quite some time, as his lips and tongue are busy with more important things.-

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RP post: In Tuscany with Charlie

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