Page 10 of Prior Claim
They never had, and never would. Sevastyan was a golden eagle. To clip his wings would be to shred his beauty and make a mockery of his trust. And yet he continued to give them the choice, even now.
Ten years. He couldn’t know, truly know, who they were.
This wasn’t trust.
Ellisandre absorbed the knowledge, guided it through their body, breathed in the pain of the knowing and passed it out their belly, through their chest, down their arms and out into their hands, releasing it from their palms.
This was desperation.
Memory.
Heartbreak.
Ellisandre stood and moved behind Sevastyan, still holding the wrist he had offered. Sevastyan’s breath caught and then his head fell forward.
Tying his arms behind his back was simple. Ellisandre doubled the rope, working with dual strands to protect the nerves and tendons, creating wide lines of flat pressure. Rope should be an embrace, an extension of their hands on Sevastyan’s body. Single strands could turn into knifelike lines cutting into the skin. There were knives for that, if necessary. Knives were controlled. A blade would deliver exactly the punishment wanted. A single strand rope tie could break skin, damage nerves, and strain tendons, all without art or conscious intent. There was no room for such carelessness now. Not with their lost boy.
Ellisandre worked the ropes flat, laying down second wraps of the hemp around his wrists and upper arms, checking the tension with their fingers as they went.
It was meditation. Hours they had spent, alone, working through knots and patterns. It had been their solitary practice over the last decade. Wrapping the rope around a warm, breathing body was transcendent. A dance. Each shift, each breath, the flex of hands as muscle and bone bent, gave, or pushed back. Ellisandre drew the bonds with firmness. The art was in the freedom of the restriction. To create passage for breath while cutting off motion, to allow blood to flow while denying limbs the freedom turn.
He was theirs. He was held. He was here.
Sevastyan’s body relaxed into their control. With each twist and wrap, Ellisandre took a choice from him and his breath grew deeper. His head bent forward, absorbing the shift in his weight, accepting the posture into which he was being clasped by the pattern of the hemp.
Ellisandre checked their boy’s fingers for circulation. He was as flexible now as he had been before. Behind his back, his hands easily cupped the opposite elbow on each side, his forearms pressed against each other perpendicular to his spine. It left his front bare and vulnerable. A choice. One he would recognize.
Ellisandre caressed the double column tie keeping his forearms pressed together. Double strands of rope threaded through the vertical columns of his upper arms taking the stress off his shoulders by pulling them together behind his back.
This will be long. Ellisandre took their time. His skin was a world of its own beneath their fingers. His body felt different now. Stronger. Older. There were small scars and a few larger. Spots where the sun had marked his fair skin. The freckle behind his right shoulder remained. Reading the depth of this history was not for the present. Ellisandre kept their fingers to the task and the task alone.
Sevastyan could relax into the rope now without keeping his shoulders pulled back. Safe from the need to struggle, his wrists guarded safe from strain.
Ellisandre tied a harness over his shoulders and around his chest, one that pulled his arms upward, spreading out the weight of holding them in place around his shoulders and chest. He couldn’t lower his arms, couldn’t pull his elbows forward, but neither would the weight of his immobile limbs rest on any one point.
Ellisandre stepped back. The parchment rope shot through with gold thread looked beautiful against Sevastyan’s skin. The effect was beyond what they had anticipated. Ellisandre spread their hands over his shoulders, feeling the state of his muscles, listening to his breath. The skin between two points of the rope begged for a kiss.
And yet too much was still unsaid.
Too many things were unknown.
The two of them no longer knew if their myths aligned.
Was Bal still a living piece of Sevastyan’s soul? Had Sevastyan killed the light of Asgard in their beloved, leaving only Vast? Who else had been born with the death of his god and goddess? What piece of him had been forced into being as he heard the bombs fall and Ragnoräk end?
Did Ellisandre themselves care?
No, because they loved all the parts of their lost boy—be he man or boy. And yes, because they wished to know one so precious.
Ellisandre moved to stand in front of Sevastyan. He was still kneeling. Impressively.
“Goddess,” he whispered.
Ellisandre almost corrected him. They touched the crown of his bent head with the tips of all four fingers and the thumb of their right hand. A breath, and a pause. A moment of communion. They dragged their fingers down the side of his head and across his jaw.
He pressed a kiss to their hand. “God.”
Ellisandre had woven the rope, but Sevastyan was weaving a spell. They studied him, aware of the dreamlike frisson running over their skin, the sense of the world existing at a far distance in every point except those where the two of them touched.
