#tinfoiltemplar

Finnegan always anticipated outliving Victor, even in their early days and in the later ones when he was sure this was the man he wanted to marry. This was the lot of an elf: to outlive all you loved except the green, damp earth. One day, Finnegan supposed he would eventually return to the earth - and return and return again and in those returned lifetimes, love again. He would remember fragmented portraits of Victor, here a smile, there a laugh, sometimes a sharp word, and often an adoring gaze. He would be warm and familiar and distant, nothing the new elf Finnegan would one day be could mourn, only be glad he’d once had him. Such was the lot of every elf who had ever loved a more mortal creature.

Finnegan was no longer an elf.

Now he shunned the daylight and slept behind tightly drawn curtains. At night, he plucked up his lute, one of those cruel things he’d been allowed to keep as Barovia collapsed in on itself, and he played the saddest of love songs - a man forced to live and live and live without his lover, yet never again be alive. Such was the lot of a vampire.

This inn was not too picky about its clientele, thank sweet and blessed Hanali, and so Finnegan stayed longer than usual, resting by day and at night earning his keep and seducing the odd patron to let him feed from their veins. Eventually, he’d have to go. He always did. But tonight his neatly trimmed claws strummed the lute and he sang in the voice of a performer. His greatest performance was, of course, the fact that he did not choke on his words with sobs. Especially as he saw the golden-haired youth in traveling clothes, eyeing him in a way that felt more like sunshine than anything Finnegan’s been allowed in a hundred years. Like sunshine, it might kill him. As badly as he wanted to die, he let himself burn a little more in the young man’s company, tuning his instrument against the bar, hovering in his proximity.

There was something a little more red than gold about his hair, now that they stood close together. His eyes were bluer in a way that would usually make Finnegan suspect fey blood. But there was no flower crown and no twisted mound of flesh to touch with reverent fingertips as Victor skimmed his hands across the planes of Finnegan’s scales. Somehow, Finnegan didn’t want to know those family stories. Somehow, he felt certain he’d written a few of them himself. This was not Victor, but it could be a son or a grandson or an uncommonly handsome stranger. He never expected to grieve the passage of time. Then again, he’d never expected to live out his days in the Shadowfell at the beck of a strange and powerful master. However, he always expected Victor to die before him. He simply always expected to bury him with his own hands, to return him to the earth as elves returned their beloveds’ bodies to the earth, to wait foolishly as others waited properly for their beloveds’ return. It was stupid to look for Victor in a stranger. It was stupid to dream that he might have been allowed to say goodbye.

It was stupid to brood on it when there was a pretty young thing and he could imagine getting lost in his kiss, draining him, holding him, feeling almost satisfied. Why shouldn’t he? He tilted his head, smiling toothily at the young thing - a warning as much as an invitation - before he spoke.

Five minutes. Five sodding minutes Rudyard had called for Georgie to answer the door before remembering she was at the mayor’s office today. He didn’t particularly want to answer the door. After the brawl at the Earnshaw funeral and being told that he “would hear from” the widow’s “lawyer soon”, Rudyard couldn’t be too careful. She’d even threatened Reverend Wavering with legal action. 

“If only there was more than one lawyer on the island,” Reverend Wavering had said with a heavy sigh. “It might be best to lay low for a few days, Rudyard. Take care...”

He hadn’t heard from the Reverend or the widow or the lawyer since. It was all very worrisome. Now, however, Rudyard was most worried about looking like a moron to whoever stood on the other side of the door. At least Antigone was in the mortuary and Calliope was in school. It was one thing for his sister to witness him making a fool of himself - Antigone had been doing that since before they were born - but an entirely different thing for his daughter to see him hiding. Rudyard didn’t want her to think he was a coward.  He straightened his rumpled suit and fixed his face with a stern look. If it was the lawyer or the widow, he wanted to be prepared. 

And if by some miracle it was someone looking for a funeral, he wanted to look somber. 

After all, a Funn Funeral was meant to be a somber occasion. Unlike -

Oh, God, what if it was Chapman? Rudyard hadn’t spared his rival much thought today and suddenly he imagined getting that condescendingly well-meaning advice Eric Chapman always thought Rudyard needed. He could handle anything but that smug, pompous-

He flung the door open.

“Now, look here,” he started. “What-”

Rudyard couldn’t finish his thought. As he studied the man on his doorstep, a familiar ache spread outwards from his ribcage. He knew this man. He’d known this man since he had been very young. Once upon a time, he’d loved this man.

Maybe he still did. 

Recently, Rudyard had found the love letters he’d received and kept from Victor Trevor sitting on his bedside table. He usually kept them in the bedside table drawer, but he assumed that Antigone had come into his room to look for something and hadn’t put it back. Very careless of her. He’d spent the afternoon pouring over the familiar handwriting, the professions of love, the dizzying hopes for a future together, until he reached the end of the letters, which ended with Victor’s confession that he was engaged and very sorry. It shouldn’t have felt like his heart being torn apart by fishhooks all over again, but it had and Rudyard had spent a solid thirty minutes incapacitated on his bed, clutching the box of letters to his chest. 

It wasn’t that he hadn’t had a fulfilling life without Victor Trevor. He’d been married, too, for a time. Cordelia had come to Piffling Vale to open a music shop and teach lessons and they’d been good friends and something like love followed. It was quieter than what Rudyard had felt for Victor, but it had been strong enough to build a foundation upon, a family, dreams. When she died five years ago, it had been a tragedy, but it had been expected after a year-long illness. Explaining death to their then five-year-old daughter had been the hardest part because Calliope kept wanting to help Antigone put her mother to rest. Maybe Rudyard shouldn’t have let her, but it sparked a love for the family business and, well, maybe it hadn’t been so difficult after all. The ache of loss eased in ways losing Victor never had. Perhaps his love for Cordelia had been merely a deep friendship. Perhaps having a piece of her - though that piece resembled himself more and more each day - made it easier to have lost her. Perhaps Rudyard had simply never been a good husband. He didn’t have time to speculate about that now. No, what he wondered now was why was it after twenty years, Victor Trevor stood on his doorstep, looking so devastatingly handsome that it broke Rudyard’s heart again. What right did Victor Trevor have to be in Piffling Vale after the way he’d quitted Rudyard’s life twenty years ago?

Thank God Calliope was at school.

Rudyard sucked in a deep breath, hollowing out his cheeks in the process as he tried to kill the giddy smile on his lips. Why did he still feel like a bloody schoolboy when he saw Victor? Why did he want to reach out and touch a man who had made it painfully clear that he was not Rudyard’s to touch? It had taken Rudyard nearly a decade to overcome the heartbreak and now, faced with Victor once more, he wasn’t sure he ever had. All other worries - about lawyers and widows and Chapman - faded away. He could only marvel at the surrealness of Victor’s presence here and now.

It infuriated Rudyard that he still yearned for Victor. What right did he have to be here? What right did he have to look so handsome? To smile at Rudyard so earnestly?

Thank God Calliope was at school.

Clearing his throat, Rudyard placed his hands on his hips and squared his wiry shoulders as best he could. 

send me a ▲ & i will put our character’s names into this generator and write a starter based on the scenario that comes up! }{ accepting 

There was blood dripping down his chin, staining the collar of his starched shirt. His hands were completely drenched, so much so that blood was dripping off of them and onto the floor. Thank goodness no one had witnessed his mishap with his travel mug. If he’d paid more attention in the morning, then maybe the lid wouldn’t have fallen off. 

At least he hadn’t made it too far from home. He could take the back alleyways back to the flat, change into something clean and, you know, not completely soiled in blood, and make it to class on time. --And thank goodness no one had seen him. 

[ cont. ]

“When you say ‘you could hack into its feed’, are you suggesting I hand you my laptop, or are you going to talk me through it?”

SHWOOSH!The snowball flew through the air and exploded against Victor’s back with a very satisfying ‘splat’. Victor teetered forward, arms flying out at his sides as he flailed to try and keep his balance. A step forward saved him, and Victor turned around with a look of surprise and then a grin. “Oh, so it’s going to be like that, is it?” He stooped down to gather snow in his hands, packing it tightly as he repositioned himself to be in a better stance for throwing.“I must warn you, Professor, we did not play for sport at school.” His eyes flashed with a certain chaotic light, half good humor and half thirst for victory at all costs. “Do not start something you are not prepared to finish.”

“What kind of school did you go to?” Jane asked as she scooped up more snow. Even if he was a trained tactition, Trevor had another thing coming if he thought he could intimidate her into a mistake. “Most people play games for fun you know!” 

tinfoiltemplar

“I don’t know what that means.” Nor did he understand what she meant by sweet. What was going on?

Muses as Arthurian Characters

Victor Trevor as Sir Agrivaine

Sir Agraivaine is not a likable character.

The second son of King Lot and Queen Morgause, one would be hard pressed to find an outright positive story about Sir Gawain’s younger brother. In the legends, he is remembered as proud and heroic, handsome, capable, witty, chivalrous and even respectable. However, he is also said to be petty, arrogant, jealous and hard. Most often he is cited as a knight who is angry. Angry to have his brothers knighted before him. Angry about Lancelot sleeping with Guenivere. Angry about his mother’s affairs behind his father’s back. He bonded with his half-brother Mordred (an “abomination” who would kill King Arthur), betrayed Lancelot to King Arthur, and even killed his own mother when he walked in on her in bed with a man who wasn’t his father. 

Despite the deluge of evidence that would suggest that Agrivaine is a disaster as a knight, it could also be said that in the Arthurian legends that Agrivaine represents the letter of the law, or justice as a practical thing and not an ideal. While Agrivaine is deeply angry, he is never angry without cause. To knight his brothers before him at the order of prophecy is inconsistent (since Arthur only listened to about 20% of the prophetic advice he ever got) and highly insulting. Normally the brothers would have been knighted by order of birth, and not to do so shamed him when there was no viable reason to do so. While Agrivaine does not at all like Lancelot and could be seen as revealing his affair with the queen out of revenge, it could also be seen as an action that he felt necessary for the protection of the crown since it could call into question the honor of Camelot, Arthur’s strength, the legitimacy of any heirs, and since Arthur relied so heavily on Lancelot- the safety of the realm. Agrivaine did kill his own mother- and while this is terrible, it would have been necessary to save his father’s reputation and more than that Morgause’s infidelity was an act of treason since it could call into question the legitimacy of all five of her sons and throw the petty kingdom into a succession crisis. Treason is punishable by death- thus he quickly and quietly carried out the law.

Sir Agrivaine was one of the few knights who stayed loyal to King Arthur in the end. True. Arthur was losing his mind. And also true, Lancelot would have made a better king. However for Agrivaine, it wasn’t about who was more likable, it was about honor. In the end, he and his brothers had sworn to live and die as Arthur’s men and so he would. And did.