#benat

He always fell into a little trance as he braided Kemen’s hair. It hadn’t been cut since they were boys, and Benat had been braiding his hair ever since then.

It was probably during one of these sessions that Benat realized he was in love with Kemen.

Now they sat in front of the hearth in the great hall, watching the last flames lick soot into the fireplace stone. Everyone else in the castle had long gone to bed, and even the servants were yawning and making their way to chambers.

Kemen yawned. “Almost lost myself staring at the embers.”

“You can doze off, I don’t need you to be awake to braid your hair.”

“You need me upright, at least!”

“Here, lean back against me.” He pulled Kemen’s head back till his weight rested against Benat. “See?”

“It’s tempting,” Kemen laughed, “But I should stay up with you. Not fair, you’re doing me a favor.”

“Keeps all that hair out of my face when we’re in bed,” Benat teased.

“Does that mean you’re sleeping in my bed tonight?”

“It does.”

It sure as hell was me!

Those are my fantasy boys Benat and Kemen. Basically, the encouragement of @biasfuzzball​ and @stonelions has single handedly kept me writing about those two, so I’m glad to hear someone else likes them! Maybe eventually I will tell their whole story in little jumpy bits...

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It was the last camp, and Benat knew it.

“Tomorrow,” he heard the men shout around the fire, “Werevel in the halls of the Revenant himself, or we toast a valiant death in theOther World!”

Tankards rapt together, and the fire burned higher as themen threw on more fuel. For his part, Benat could not see it that way. Only hisarmy—the last army that would ever be raised for a generation, in the land ofhis forefathers—stood between the Revenant and the March West. If they all werekilled tomorrow, and the Revenant was not, whatever ‘Other World’ there waswould be glutted with the bodies of innocents and children.

No peace of an afterlife could ever rest his soul from theknowledge that the Dread King of Nine Souls had wreaked the sort of sufferingupon the world as he had on Benat’s own people. He wished more than anythingthat there would be no afterlife when he closed his eyes in death tomorrow.

So he hid his scornful face in the flickering shadowsoutside the firelight, far from where his station should be as Prince andGeneral. He did not sing when the bawdy old battle hymns began. He barelylooked up when he felt Kemen’s warm hand on his shoulder.

“You have the look of a man who just made a very darkprayer, Beloved,” the tall man said into Benat’s ear to be heard over theriotous singing.

Eutych, the soon-Prince at Agonost, stood uncomfortable in the golden practice armor his Fathers had made for him. It made him feel slow in the face of the furious onslaught the weapons masters had caught him in down on the practice floor.

A man to his right, Eutych dropped the tip of his spear, drove it into the floor, used the spring to knock the swordsman back.

A man behind, three heads shorter than the willow-tall prince. He swung around and caught the man’s legs out from under him. The tip of his spear glinted and whistled against the air.

To feel so slow when he had finally begun to feel his life rush about him. Hardly seemed fair.

“You will have to learn some techniques I cannot teach you,” Kemen had said, back at the Bretevair. Eutych was dressed in functional, common Bretevi armor then. Eutych had left his royal blood on that practice floor, and he’d been glad to spill it for the lessons he received. He left only droplets of sweat on the stones, now. “When you have another set of arms, I imagine much of what I’ve taught you will be obsolete!”

Another pair of arms.

Weapons master came leaping in, had seen Eutych moving slowly.

Had finally decided to attack like a soldier and not a nurse-maid for the soon-Prince.

Eutych passed his spear from one hand—

--to the hand that would be there. The other pair of arms. After the coronation.

Or so it felt.

He twisted like he had seen Benat twist, when Kemen and he had decided to spar while the soon-Prince rested against a wall.

The armor could not constrain him. He moved like Benat, the small warrior prince, had moved.

His spear-pint caught the weapons master, center of mass, stopped him in the air and dropped him with gasp.

Eutych pivoted up, the way Kemen lept to his feet when Benat gave the smallest bit of ground. The way he leapt after the smaller swordsman. All while Eutych rested and watched and learned.

Oh man it is March, shoot, well de Facto Love February can’t pass withiout writing about Benat and Kemen.

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“You’re still up,” Kemen’s deep voice came from the curtain to Benat’s tent. The shorter man did not look up from the battle plans sprawled out over the bed. They were simplistic approximations of the plans in the war tent: no more than the field of battle, nothing for a spy to see (though the High Commander’s tent was nearly as securely guarded as the war tent itself). Kemen knew his husband’s memory was more than sufficient to see the forces on the field with no assistance.

“So are you.”

“So am I.”

Kemen stood there, lance still in hand—for no one walked through the camp without their weapons, lest the Bereft appear—and waited. Benat finally looked up, dirty brow crumpled into a scowl. When he saw Kemen standing still at the entrance to their tent, his face softened.

“I’m sorry,” he let his shoulders sag, “I meant to have… to have the bed ready by the time you returned from the patrol.”

“Leave the maps,” Kemen laughed, somehow, and rested his spear against the post. “We can sleep on the floor.”

“No, it’s just my own overthinking, as usual.”

“As usual.”

“…I wonder what you saw on your patrol that got you in such a jovial mood?” Benat asked, crossing his arms and eyeing his lover with suspicion.

“When will you believe me, lover,” Kemen put his hands, lightly, on Benat’s shoulders, “That I am naturally optimistic. And nothing makes me more hopeful than a victory.” He kissed Benat, and his lips tasted like his ration of mutton.

“At least we’re fighting people again,” Benat grumbled against his lips, “Aganost has many allies… but they are human, at least. After weeks engaged with the Bereft…”

“Don’t even say their name, High Commander,” Kemen was smiling, weary in the lamp light. “Think of them is not even permitted this close to sleep.”

A lie, obviously. Sleep was a precious commodity in a wawr camp where a few of the remaining company had survived the first campaign with the Bereft, who could imagine their wriggling shapes in every shadow at night. The short-swords both men wore, the scabbards that clattered together and got in the way when Kemen moved to hold Benat, were sign enough of that.

“…if He sends them here again,” Benat whispered, eyes open and bloodshot, even though Kemen had pulled him into the folds of his robe. “We’ll lose Neighim. We’ll lost these men. They’re too green.”

“You let me worry about training the new troops. You make sure my teaching doesn’t go to waste.”

Benat looked up at his husbands face, the bloody patch in his beard still scabbing over, the grime of the march on him. The deep lines at the corners of his eyes. Laugh lines.

“You are everything… I wish I could be,” he whispered after a moment.