A Fyren in love with a Haelan. Absurd. Farcical. Impossible.
He was a fool. He was a cretin. He was the author of his own misery. Gods save him.
Gods save him,please, he added as an afterthought.
The gods were unresponsive. Which was fair; Osric did little to please them as a general rule, and oft took their names in vain, frequently in conjunction with asides about their tits.
A Fyren in love with a Haelan. Lucky he hadn’t told her. What would she have done? Collapsed into shrieks of ungovernable laughter, probably. Or thrown herself out the window.
Osric reached for the desiccated orchid. He caught sight of the tacn on his open palm as he did so—the red hellhound skull that branded him a member of the Fyren Order. The skull grinned at him. Normally he wielded his tacn with pride; it had been earned through decades of sweat and blood, and gave him his power. Tonight, however, the fanged grin mocked him. It reminded him that, upon her palm, Fairhrim bore a white swan—the tacn of the Haelan Order—and that the two could never meet.
Osric was not used to dealing with impossibility. Prior to Aurienne Fairhrim, he hadn’t been confronted by impossibilities in life. Difficulties, yes, but they were always surmountable through the judicious application of money or of a blade at someone’s throat.
This problem was not so readily solved. The blade was intriguing, but Osric was not certain whose neck it would best be applied to, to rectify the issue. His? Hers?
The fire flickered sullenly in the hearth. He threw the orchid into it. So delicate were its petals that they ignited before touching the flames. They fluttered into the chimney’s updraught, unquiet embers amid black ash. Then they vanished, much like Osric’s will to live.
Days passed. Osric moped. He was generally depressed. He cast himself onto several divans in several tragic poses. He was meant to send his deofol to Fairhrim to organise their break-in of the Druidic enclaveknown as the Færwundor, but he didn’t, because everything was her fault, and he had no wish to contact her or see her ever again.
Mrs. Parson, his steward, asked what was the matter, because he wasn’t eating, “Only moping and oozing about, sir.”
Osric instructed her, crossly, to let him suffer his Agonies in peace.
Mrs. Parson, with annoying perceptiveness, asked whether it was about Haelan Fairhrim.
Osric said he wished he had never been born.
“I’m going to nip out to the shops,” said Mrs. Parson. “Do you want anything?”
“To die and be devoured by worms.”
“Right,” said Mrs. Parson. “Just the milk, then.”
Osric’s dogs whined and pushed wet noses into his hand. Rigor Mortis the Great Dane sat on him, which made it difficult to breathe, but Osric, unfortunately, did not die. He suffered his Agonies. Mrs. Parson brought him soup. Mr. Parson, the groundsman, poured him a stiff drink. Osric slumped off the sofa until his head was on the floor. Mrs. Parson asked whether she should send for mourners. Osric said he wished to become one with the mud. He lay face-down upon the carpet and marinated in self-pity. Fairhrim’s deofol prickled his tacn several times, but he ignored it. The critique cricket, an annoying insect whose raison d’être was directing rude remarks towards Osric, called him a wanker. He said nothing, because he could not deny it. The critique cricket, shocked, retreated into silence.
Thus passed the great Torment of Osric Mordaunt.
Fairhrim might have been anoutstanding healer, but Time was the greatest healer of all, and with the passage of days, the memory of Fairhrim’s touch and her barely there smile and her bright eyes faded, and the spell was lifted from Osric.
He emerged from his marinade. He deserved better than this, he told himself when he caught sight of his reflection in the looking glass. His hair deserved better.
He showered. He made himself pretty. He ordered clothes that he did not need from his couturier. He plunged himself into his usual pursuits—thefts, assassinations, general hedonism.
He talked himself into sense. Love was meant to be beautiful. This was a kind of dying. Ergo, it was not love. It was the same fit of desire he fell into when he discovered a particularly lovely painting that he didn’t own. It was a Flight of Fancy. And it was normal: he always wanted, he always coveted. It was why he collected art and instruments and rare weapons. Fairhrim was precious to him because she was helping him and necessary to him—and was, admittedly, lovely, and he had never encountered this specific triumvirate of qualities before in his life, and had leapt to the panicky conclusion that these feelings were love. They were not. He needed her to cure his seith rot. She was a rare, exceptional Haelan, and so he coveted her. He conceded that he was attracted to her. That was all this was.
As far as conclusions go, it was perfect. It sidestepped the impossibility altogether. He did not love her. He was relieved. He could go back to normal.
He took on extra jobs because whenever he was feeling poorly, a bit of murder sorted him out.
Having recovered his will to live, Osric joined his Fyren colleagues at their preferred pub, the Dog’s Bollocks in London. He was asked where he’d been and why he looked like he’d lost a stone or two of weight, and he said something vague about a few days of conduct unbecoming of a gentleman.
“Twinkle your way over here, darling,” said Sacramore, making room at the table. With respect to Osric’s smoking jacket, he asked, “Real gold in the brocade?”
“Obviously,” said Osric.
Sacramore was the Fyren Order’s second-in-command and an outstanding fencer and fence. Also present were Leofric, general gobshite and Osric’s occasional partner in crime; Lirain, a copper-haired, green-eyed femme fatale, in the most literal sense offatale; and Beaufort, the Fyren blaecsmith, also the possessor of a marvellous streak of white through otherwise black hair, of which Osric was jealous.
Osric plonked a bottle of Launceston’s Finest onto the table.
