Chapter Text
Elgar'nan spread his arms.
The sun kissed him in return, the golden rays a humble benediction that caressed his skin. The warmth of it all, the power; a sweet delight, to accept all that might into his core. His magic sang, and his body joined in revel. Strong muscles, blood and vigor. Elgar'nan lifted up his hand to admire it: the tendons, the knuckles, its large shape. A hand to conquer with. His hue had darkened over the centuries as well, gone from youthful wheat to a deeper, burnished nut-brown. The fruits of his labor. Underneath his balcony Arlathan spread out in its full splendor, emerald and golden, beautiful and vibrant. His kingdom, for now and forever more.
Then—an interruption. A dark stormcloud of a presence, crackling with purpose as it raced its way up Elgar'nan's grand spire. He followed its path with a frown, sensing the magical signature batter against his own enchantments. His acolytes flinched and cowered at the sudden intrusion, but this unannounced guest clearly wasn't focused on them. It flew higher and higher, faster and faster, until it finally burst open the door's to Elgar'nan's chambers with a crash.
Elgar'nan tossed a glare over his shoulder, unimpressed. "You're leaking emotion, brother."
The cloud reshaped itself into a body. Tall and slim, with storm-grey eyes and the customary glower. Solas, his hair tied back in the martial style, his clothes glinting with nestled armor pieces. Dressed all in black too, as severe as his expression. The color ill-suited his pale skin.
"You're building temples?" Solas demanded, his voice strong and indignant—as it ever was when addressing Elgar'nan. "Is it not enough to call yourself First among us, that you now need to ascend to self-declared divinity?”
Elgar'nan sighed. He stepped into his room without bothering to change his robes, leaving the smooth silk to trail upon the floor. His hair he left unbound as well, long and loose. Let the wolf snap and snarl if he wished to; Elgar'nan had no need to go to battle. "Do you object to places of worship now? And here I thought your heart bled for the People."
"I object when what they worship is you." Solas strode forward like the floor itself had wronged him. "Have you gone mad? The arrogance of it! To claim godhood for yourself—where does it end, Elgar'nan? Have you started believing your own tall talk?"
"I never claimed to be a god." Elgar'nan waved and a goblet flew elegantly to his hand, the accompanying bottle pouring sparkling red liquid mid-air. A hundred spirits of Devotion spent a thousand nights to produce just one thimbleful of the stuff, the magic in it so intricate and feather-light it danced upon the tongue. Elgar’nan took a sip and smirked. “But if a god is what our subjects want, well, who am I to deny them? I am nothing if not gracious.” He snapped his fingers. “Drink?”
Solas slapped the approaching goblet from the air. Such a dramatic gesture—and so wasteful too, the wine pooling on the floor like freshly spilled blood. Elgar’nan clicked his tongue. “And you call me careless.”
“I call you many things. Impatient, heartless, short-sighted—”
“By all means, don’t hold back,” Elgar’nan muttered, feeling the first pricklings of irritation spider-crawl over his shoulders.
“—but even for you, this is beyond the pale. What next? Who will hold you back once you have no equal among the rest of us—once you start convincing yourself that you know better than everyone?” Solas’s voice deepened, took the timbre of one of his insufferable sermons. “To seek power for power’s sake is to forever remain unslaked. You will never be satisfied—and you will drag all of us down to the abyss with you.”
“I seek power for our sake,” Elgar’nan said, firming up his own voice. He could lecture just as well. “A strong leader makes for a strong kingdom. We must be as immovable as the shield, as unbending as the spear, and as ruthless as the tip of the hidden dagger. Only then will our enemies be forever vanquished, and true peace will reign.”
“What enemies?” Solas shot back, throwing up his arms. “You have already defeated them all! You wage war against the Earth itself, and when she bows her head you twist the knife directly in her wound.”
“Not this again.” Elgar’nan walked away from the argument, exasperated and with diminishing patience. The candles in his room flickered and pulsed with his passage. “I’ve told you before: the Titans are nothing but dumb beasts, no more intelligent than the the oxen that till the fields. All we’ve done is harness that raw, primordial chaos and turn it into order— into power, into progress, all for the world’s benefit. Will you defend the waterfalls next, and demand I make them change their course?”
“The Titans may not speak, but they communicate,” Solas argued, as obstinate as ever. “They sing. They dream. They mourn. The durgen’len already feel the effects of that dirge; half of them have fallen into listlessness, the other into madness. In time they might all perish entirely.”
“I don’t give a halla’s tight ass about the Titans’ drippings.” Elgar’nan drained his cup in one sharp move and slammed it on his desk, hunching over it as he braced his weight against it. “The day I feel sorry for them is the day I eulogize a roach before I squash it.”
Solas’s anger prickled at the air like a gathering storm, flooding the space between them with the smell of ozone. “And when the People become as lowly as ants to you from your lofty vantage point, will you squash them to death as well? For progress, of course!” he added, voice heavy with bitter irony. “For their own benefit!”
Elgar’nan whirled around. “They already benefit! Everything I do, I do for us! Look,” he said, pointing at the balcony, at the green buildings snaking down the valley. “Look at the prosperity flowing through the streets like currents made of gold! Look at our power, at our magic. The world won’t simply bow down and let you take it—you must get down in the mud and claim it. I will not deny my people their rightful glory.”
“Your kingdom lies upon rotten foundations, and sooner or later it will collapse in on itself. You must know this, Elgar’nan. Why do you insist on willful ignorance? You brought me into this world for my counsel—”
“—I did not; you were Mythal’s pathetic pet, always have been—”
“I am Wisdom!” Solas shouted, a thunderclap of a sound. “Heed my words, or rue it!”
“Enough!” Elgar’nan roared back. The torches on the wall flared to the beat of his anger, the fire rising up in thick, shadow-throwing pillars. His breaths came out as harsh as a bull’s; they fed the rage in his belly with each exhale. His magic ached to burn the place until nothing remained but ash, until this very tower melted down to its foundation and scarred the earth in one savage coal-black crater. The wolf itched for a fight so very badly? Perhaps Elgar’nan should give it to him.
But with great effort he cooled his anger down, wrested down his fire piece by hard-earned piece. Logic surfaced murkily in his thoughts, undeniable in its cold clarity. To kill Mythal’s companion, even in passion—even when provoked!—would incur her considerable wrath, and Elgar’nan had enough problems in his life already. So he took control of his breathing, smoothed his expression to glass-like neutrality, and tried another track.
“You haven’t been Wisdom in a very long time. You are Pride,” he said, his tone even and reasonable, his palm raised conciliatorily as he stepped forward. “Prickly, stubborn Pride, too busy drowning in your own righteousness to accept the realities of life. You struggle against your nature, against nature itself.” He brought that palm up to Solas’s cheek, dug his fingers firm and steady under his ear, and went for the finishing blow. “My friend, you haven’t even managed to convince Mythal; what makes you think you can convince the rest of us?”
The hit registered. Elgar’nan saw it in Solas’s tightened brow, in the twitch of his lips. “Mythal—stands by me,” Solas said, still mulish—but unbalanced as well. Doubtful, though he would not admit it, not even to himself. “I talked to her, and she said as much.”
“Of course,” Elgar’nan allowed indulgently. “She stands by you when you bend her ear. Then she comes to me, and listens, and stands by me instead.” He leaned in intimately to murmur his poison. “Quite the weather wane, our lady love, isn’t she? One might even call her inconstant. A hypocrite.”
Indignation gripped Solas’s frame, the instinctive protectiveness of a lapdog for its master. “Don’t you dare disrespect her,” he hissed in quiet fury. “Mythal is the wisest—the greatest—of us all.”
“Perhaps in the past she was so, when we all floated in the Fade like so much loose yarn. But no more.” Elgar’nan brought up his other hand until Solas’s face was tightly cradled within his palms. “Mythal understands now the imperfections inherent in embodied life. The careful, tightrope dance of what it means to rule. The real world demands compromise. Sacrifice. To enact change, you must first change yourself.”
Solas closed his eyes. When he opened them his gaze was solemn, halfway mournful. “I know that lesson well.”
“You have yet to learn it,” Elgar’nan said, and kissed him.
Solas bit him, a sharp, hot sting. Elgar’nan laughed with harsh delight and nipped him back, each kiss too quick, more breath and tongue and teeth than lips. Hard to gain a foothold in this struggle, when Solas kept the fullness of his mouth so maddeningly out of reach, but Elgar’nan persevered. He tightened his grip and took hold of Solas’s jaw, and finally delved within.
The body in front of him dematerialized. Electricity crackled between his now empty palms, loud and blinding. Elgar’nan followed suit, abandoning his body for the searing ember, the unrepentant fire. They clashed as primordial forces—the ceiling shook—the torches trembled—then in a blink they were flesh and blood again, and Elgar’nan had slammed Solas against the wall so hard it cracked and buckled.
He was stronger. He was stronger, and this victory was already guaranteed. Elgar’nan laughed again, deep with dark triumph, and grabbed Solas by the throat. In another blink he’d teleported them to the bed, and pushed down with his all his weight against Solas’s thrashing body.
“Is that the full strength of your conviction?” he teased, grabbing both of Solas’s wrists with just one hand. His bronze-skinned muscles looked deliciously magnificent next to Solas’s black color and skinny pale limbs, so Elgar’nan spelled his robes away with a thought. Naked flesh against cold armor—and him still the greatest force between the two. “Go on, keep trying. You might persuade me yet.”
“You are such a child,” Solas snapped, flushed from exertion and entirely out of breath. He tried to squirm out of Elgar’nan’s grasp, bucking his hips ineffectually. “You cannot solve all your problems through sheer brute force.”
“I can, I have, and I will.” Elgar’nan brought a hand between their bodies—the armor turned to softer fabric at the waist, to aid movement—and snaked it through the folds until he found Solas’s length. “My prowess is self-evident. My victories speak for themselves,” he said smugly, and pumped the burgeoning hardness.
“And what can you accomplish without other people propping you up?” Solas took advantage of the new position and freed an arm, using it to jab meanly at Elgar’nan’s liver. “I’ve seen the thralls you don’t even bother to keep hidden.”
“Acolytes,” Elgar’nan corrected. “And they come to me willingly.”
“Slaves. And you use them with impunity.”
Elgar’nan lined up their pricks so he could stroke them both with one seed-slick palm. “I grant them the privilege of purpose.”
“You brand them like cattle!” Solas’s hand found a thick strand of Elgar’nan’s hair and pulled—a childish, underhanded move—until Elgar’nan slapped it away. “You sacrifice their bodies and their spirits, you drain them of their magic, and when you’re done you toss them to the side like so much chaff.”
“And they thank me for it,” Elgar’nan laughed, rocking his hips in earnest now that he’d found the right angle. “You should see the way they kneel for me, with their arms outstretched and their eyes so yearning. They beg me, they need me, they offer up their whole beings for me. They take my blessing with tears of joy streaking down their sanctified cheeks.” Pleasure pulsed deep within his loins. “They open up their ready mouths and take it.”
A response was clearly ready on Solas’s lips, but Elgar’nan didn’t give it time to form. He kissed him deeply, licking into his mouth the way he couldn’t before. His own hardness was getting insistent, tugging at his awareness with impatience. He groaned at the heady friction, bit Solas at the vulnerable spot that carried his quick pulse. Solas’s body felt so hot, so vital and untiring in its fight; it stoked the fire in Elgar’nan’s belly to an inferno, made him want to crack him open with his teeth and swallow him alive.
“Leave Mythal.” The words rushed out of Elgar’nan’s mouth without prompting, an order and a request in one. “She runs too cold for you. Join me in the sun’s heat; join me in his glory. Add your passion to mine, and together we will change the world entire.”
He waited for the outrage, for the fierce Never and the offended snarl. But instead Solas’s gaze was steady and serious, his voice heavy with the weight of premonition. “You are my antithesis, the things I despise the most. We would destroy ourselves.”
“Or we would ascend. Become stronger together than we ever were alone and separate. The things I could do with the fire of your resolve! The People would spread and prosper till the end of time, if you just stood by me.”
“Under you, you mean.”
Elgar’nan chuckled. “And is that such an awful place to be?” He licked the bruise his teeth had left on Solas’s throat, sucked at it some more. What else to do next? The options spread out in front of him like a sumptuous feast: he could bend Solas like a bow and plunder him right there, meet him eye to eye and see the moment he finally broke; he could manhandle him and bounce him on his lap, enjoy the view of his scowling face and his bobbing prick; or—and here Elgar’nan own prick twitched at the idea—he could force him down on his belly and take him like an animal, thrust hard enough to wrench some moans from that stubborn mouth.
“Take off your armor,” Elgar’nan said. “I want you naked.”
“No.”
Elgar’nan’s irritation returned with a vengeance, puncturing holes in his ardor. “Do it or I will do it for you,” he warned.
Solas just glared, his petulant, eternal move. “You will do what you want regardless.”
A growl built up in Elgar’nan’s chest, pulling his lips into a snarl. He was tempted to do just that, to blast the metal until pale flesh emerged, battered and bleeding. But—no, that would be playing into Solas’s goad. The wolf wasn’t the only one capable of cunning. So Elgar’nan abandoned his position and went lower, relishing the sound of Solas’s surprise, and brought his mouth directly over the uncovered weak point.
It worked beautifully. Solas’s struggling turned helpless now, his gasps choked-out and so much more honest than his words. Elgar’nan showed him no mercy; he devoured him whole, the full throbbing length of him, molten hot and salty on his tongue. Each plunge was a ruthless conquest, a bottomless display of prowess. Elgar’nan sucked at tender skin with punishing force, and when Solas’s hips finally surrendered upwards—he took away his heat, and captured the source of his advantage in a tight grip.
“Beg me for release,” he challenged, looking up.
Solas was flushed all over, panting and glassy-eyed, his frustration for once of a simpler kind. “Must you turn everything into a power struggle?” he asked, exasperated.
“You are the one who’s always picking fights.” Elgar’nan licked a generous swipe up the shaft, pressed a thumb against the leaking glans. “Well?”
Solas’s mouth twitched, his hands fisting on the sheets. He met Elgar’nan’s gaze for a few long seconds—but then he lay back fully on the pillow and frowned up at the ceiling, his jaw stubbornly clenched. “Do as you will.”
Anger seared its way through Elgar’nan’s core, hot enough to make his being sizzle. It made him want to hurt something; it made him want to burn. “Fine,” he snarled. “You wish to playact the martyr? I will oblige.”
He grabbed Solas and flipped him roughly, shoving him face down. The armor he cracked and melted with one strike of his white-hot palm, and the rest he ripped and sundered without magic, with just his body’s strength. Solas’s backside looked vulnerable amidst the ruins—though the man himself pointedly refused to move, his face turned away and his arms still by his sides.
So be it; Elgar’nan would do it for him. He spread the skinny buttocks with both hands and shoved into Solas’s hole, barely bothering to slick himself with magic. No more fine treatment. He pushed in ruthlessly, inexorably, invading that tight heat without a second’s pause. Deeper, deeper, until he was sheathed full to the hilt, his triumph erupting from his lungs in one guttural groan.
And now the proper lesson. Elgar’nan thrust his hips with the full measure of his strength, viciously fast. He had to rest his weight on his hands, and the rolling motion made him sweat and growl, the bed slamming against the wall in an endless, violent rhythm. Underneath him Solas smothered his own gasps, though the muscles tensed and flexed on his long back. Elgar’nan brought his teeth to Solas’s nape and bit down hard enough to bleed.
But soon enough the pleasure outpaced his ire, and Elgar’nan slowed his pace to savor it. He grabbed a fistful of Solas’s hair for leverage and ground his hips, slow and thorough, sweet and deep. He kept biting every available space on Solas’s neck and back, leaving slick red bruises on his skin. With each bite Solas clenched, and Elgar’nan felt drunk on the sensation, on the action and reaction that built up the thrilling tension in his loins. And all of it thanks to his ingenious skill. He picked up the rhythm all over again, faster and faster until the sound of slapping flesh resounded in the air.
His climax was approaching with swift urgency. Elgar’nan abandoned all control and blindly rutted, until—he gave a mighty push and yelled his satisfaction, then breathlessly laughed as he pumped out his seed, so hot and plentiful it overflowed, squelched so vulgarly between them. More, and more, until he felt all warm and empty, his body trembling from the hard work of release.
One last thrust to chase the lingering pleasure, then Elgar’nan sighed with gratified finality. He dismounted and dropped on the bed, stretching grandly on his back. Solas quietly shifted and turned on his back as well, though other than covering himself he did nothing else but lie there and breathe.
Blessed silence at last. Elgar’nan basked in the warm sense of contentment that suffused his body. Now that he’d taken his first taste his mind wandered over other delights of the flesh, his appetite whetting. Perhaps he could summon up his acolytes for a more sustained event. He remembered a woman that had caught his eye, tall and strong-limbed, with a talented mouth and his symbol carved in crimson ink so bold it covered half her face. She could nestle that face between Elgar’nan’s legs and lick and nuzzle, clean him up and bring him back to hardness. His prick stirred at the idea.
”Solas, stay a while,” Elgar’nan said, his voice now kindly with the honey of forgiveness. “I’ll tell my acolytes to join us, and we can make a fine evening out of it. I have just the girls for you too—small and sweet, the way you like them.”
The sheets whispered as Solas sat upright, still frowning. Some of his hair had escaped its braid, the messy strands a visible protest of their previous mistreatment. His mouth looked unhappy. Unimpressed. “I thought this was an argument.”
Elgar’nan blinked. “It was.” Then he smiled his most charming grin, spreading his arms. “And now it’s resolved. Peacefully, I might add,” he said, and reached over to take hold of Solas’s wrist. “Come, my spirit-brother. We are one family; we shouldn’t fight. Strength comes through unity.”
Solas jerked his arm away. “I should not have come here,” he said, shaking his head as he stood up. His armor smoothly knitted itself back into wholeness, the fabric once more draping his lithe frame. “You stand beyond reason, beyond words. I have no choice but to speak to you in the only language you can understand.” His gaze cut sharp as a blade, fiery and piercing and so very, very focused. “I will not allow you to hurt the People any longer. Since you refuse to mend your ways, I will do it for you.”
Elgar’nan’s blood froze at the insult; then it erupted, burned him up from head to heel. “You think because I’ve treated you leniently so far, I will hesitate to demolish you? Know your place!” He whirled upright, his solid, nude body a weapon all by itself. “To go against me means to be the enemy of Elvhenan, and to be our enemy means total annihilation. Not even the wisps of your remains will survive after I’m done with you!”
The threats had no effect. Solas was uncowed, his bearing austere and disciplined. He met Elgar’nan’s gaze head-on with cool, determined eyes. “Don’t call me brother,” he said, a simple and cutting farewell, then turned around and walked away.
Elgar’nan saw white in his pure and blinding fury. “Traitor!” He threw a scorching blast of fire at Solas’s retreating back, but when the smoke cleared the space was empty, crackling with the afterimage of lighting. Elgar’nan ran to the door and screamed down the empty corridor. “I will destroy you! I will obliterate you!” He was gripping the door frame so hard it bent and sizzled under his fingers. “Come back and face me, you fucking coward!”
No reply. Elgar’nan stalked back and forth in his room like a frenzied animal, his fists clenched, his muscles bunching. His breath came out in violent puffs, so loud they eclipsed all other sound in his ears. Blood pounded at his temples. He thrashed a chair against the wall, then another, then blasted their remains to cinders. It wasn’t enough.
Come to me, he barked over his psychic connection. Now!
An acolyte burst into being in front of him, their magic still fizzling from their hurry. It was the woman Elgar’nan had been thinking about, with the generous lips and the ink as dark as blood. Her eyes were gratifyingly wide and panicked as she bowed to him. “My lord?” she stammered.
“Take off your clothes,” Elgar’nan commanded. He pointed at his desk. “Bend over.”
He took her from behind, with such force the furniture rattled. The woman cried out in time with his thrusts, loud, high-pitched moans that sounded wrung out of her very core. But despite her good performance, Elgar’nan would kill her. He would suck her essence and bleed her like a carcass, squeeze out every last drop of energy her body and soul held, then truss her up like a morbid gift and send her to Solas’s doorstep. On your head be it, traitor, he cursed at him, grinding his teeth in bitter fury. All the blood I spill, will spill; you are its architect. May you choke and drown in it.
But that was for later. For now it was this venial act, and his godly anger, and the strength of his unstoppable, conquering body. Out over the balcony Arlathan lived and breathed and shimmered, tranquil in its ignorance, peaceful in its glory.
Elgar’nan would keep it that way.