Chapter Four
Zyr
Voice and voices and voices.
Lackey. Lickspittle. Traitor.
As if two millennia of resistance meant nothing, because he would not welcome pawing at his collection. Already, his collection had been invaded. What was his, taken. And now they wanted more.
A click from behind him, shutting away the sound. And that was better. More fine in the kitchen. That’s what the human had said.
He was in the kitchen with the Summer King’s brother, who tasted of salt and fresh-brewed coffee. A soul match, as little as Zyr welcomed the realization. Irritating, but also, definitionally comfortable to be around. Most people pricked against Zyr’s awareness, a subtle but unending friction.
The human didn’t. But it didn’t matter. Zyr was too angry, his skin sparking, his tail lashing, barb out and venom ready. He didn’t wish to harm this human, who had challenged him, then taken his side. Better he–
Another crisp rap of knuckles, like before. This time, on the marble countertop. The sound louder, sharper, without the din of argument.
“Ass on the counter. Human kitchen protocol says feet don’t need to be on the floor if asses are on counters.”
Said with the same sharp expectation as “Beithir. Feet on the floor.”
It was either listen or kill the man. Zyr was too on edge to come up with a third option. He didn’t want to kill the human, who felt like clean sheets snapping in a sea wind and met challenge with challenge.
“You’re very pushy.” The words came out broken by his unsteady breathing, but he managed them. Managed, as well, to sit.
“Bend your head down,” the man said, stepping toward him. Like that made any sense at all.
Zyr bent his head. Again, it was better than killing the man. It was the cat-sith he wanted dead.
“I should have done it,” Zyr muttered. “You have to kill them nine times for it to take. Once would hardly count.”
His claws scratched marble, while the barb of his tail dug at the dark wood of the floor.
Traitor. They’d called him traitor.
“The kitty’s lucky you didn’t strike him the full nine then and there.” Words offered without censure. “I’m going to touch you.”
Touch him? No. The man had already gotten himself shocked.
Zyr started to lift his head, to object, but the man was already reaching for him, hand gloved in some thick, dark material.
He grabbed Zyr’s horn and didn’t jerk back or hiss in pain.
The weight of it, of his firm, steady grip, wasn’t unpleasant.
That was the obnoxious thing about soul matches.
One couldn’t help but wish to touch them.
Be touched by them. Confused, and still fighting back rage, Zyr struggled for words as the human moved in closer.
His other hand found the back of Zyr’s neck, something cool there, against his skin and scales.
“We’re going to count to nine now. And breathe only when in between numbers. One.”
What could Zyr do, but breathe?
“Two.”
And breathe again.
The Summer King’s brother set the pace, and Zyr merely followed it, head bent and a persistent chill against his neck. A hand at his horn.
Ragged breathing forced into a rhythm. That cornered, lash out, defend yourself, urgency ebbing. The human an anchor into the moment, into the now, and Zyr was not accustomed to now.
Six. A breath.
It was very, very strange.
He was still angry. They’d dared to imply–
Seven. And a breath.
Quiet here. Except for the counting.
What a rare creature this human was. Pushy. Controlled. And–
Eight. And a breath.
The threatening crackle in the air died away.
Robin. The Winter King had called this human Robin.
Nine.
Robin’s hands remained. One on his horn. The other an oddly comfortable weight on the back of his neck, still a cool cloth between it and Zyr’s skin. Odd, that he would wish it otherwise. Everything about this, decidedly odd.
“Good. That was good.” Robin shifted in, until his chest was pressed to the curve of Zyr’s horns. “Keep your head like this. Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Because I told you to.”
Zyr huffed, a not-quite laugh at the man’s presumption.
Audacious. And novel. Zyr was willing, for the moment, to simply give into that novelty.
To allow Robin to continue to push, because whatever odd magic he was weaving with solid hands and simple commands felt significantly better than losing himself to his own sense of betrayal and anger.
He closed his eyes. Like Robin’s touch, the dark felt more pleasant than it had any right to.
“Somehow, I don’t think Plutchik’s wheel has made it to Faerie yet.” Robin shifted his grip on Zyr’s horn, and Zyr could feel his fingers, instead of thick fabric. “Would you like to hear about it?”
“You’re unusual, Summer King’s brother,” Zyr said, thunder no longer threatening in his words. “Does this wheel explain your behavior? I am interested in that.”
“Robin. You call me Robin,” Robin emphasized the demand with a slight tug at Zyr’s horn and a squeeze at his neck.
Pushy and grabby. The smell of him like a new day.
Zyr reached with his tail, barb safely sheathed, until he felt the line of Robin’s legs, long and wiry like the rest of him.
The curve of a calf to rest against. If the man was going to grab at him, he would show he wasn’t entirely incapable of grabbing back.
“You seem more hawk than robin,” he said. “You’ve the eyes of a hunter, behind those glasses, not of prey. Or perhaps one of the clever birds. A raven. Yes. That suits. Raven-Robin.”
Robin laughed, the sound as pleasant as his mild tenor. He tapped his fingers on Zyr’s neck just hard enough to be felt through the cloth.
“Don’t call me that where anyone else can hear. It’s okay here,” he said, with another tap, light emphasizing his words. “Raven-Robin. Alright.”
And, just like that, it was a joke between them. Or, at least, something shared and private. An intimacy between himself and pushy, grabby Raven-Robin, who thought nothing of holding a beithir by the horns.
“The wheel is about definitions and specifics in behavior. I use it a lot.” Robin’s words drew Zyr’s thoughts from wondering over intimacies, back to the now.
“You like knowing things. You listened and breathed for me. Now I’m going to tell you about something other fae likely don’t know of.
You might learn about my behavior along the way. ”
“Then I’m listening.”
Robin was right, after all. Zyr liked knowing things. Especially, at this moment, things that might solve the mystery of the man whose hands rested on his horn and at the back of his neck.
“Plutchik was a human who believed that all emotions could be boiled down to eight, with each pair having two sides of an extreme. Used to explain reactions to outside things happening. Like anger versus fear. Get threatened, the brain sees danger, which is a fear response.” Robin’s words were quiet, ordered.
So unlike the riot of interrupting voices from before.
“Fascinating stuff. Brain picking. People hear ‘fear’ and think someone is scared, which isn’t always true.
But there’s more to it than that. Cause and effect.
Rhyme and reason. I don’t know about you, but I like specifics.
So, there’s another wheel I use with Plutchik. ”
Cause and effect.
Cause: Counted breaths and a grip on his horn.
Effect: Confused fascination and tenuous calm.
Fascinating stuff.
“You’re a…” What was the word? “Man and His Symbols. Jung. A psykiater. Psychiatrist.” Yes, that was it.
“Not a psychiatrist, just been to a lot of them. I’ve got a chemical imbalance that fucks me up a bit. So a lot of therapy with various kinds of shrinks and medication. I like to read about things that pertain to me.”
Chemicals, Zyr knew. And balances. But what that might have to do with psychiatrists, he didn’t know.
“Keep talking, Raven-Robin. They’ll come hunting me soon enough, and I’d learn of this before I am required to repeatedly kill a cat.”
The barest hint of thunder in his voice, as he tensed again, thinking of it. Answered with a tap-tap-tap of fingers against the cloth over the back of Zyr’s neck.
“While your eyes are closed and we’re like this, we don’t talk about the cat until further notice. You’ve got guest rights unless Bo, Everil, or I decide otherwise. They come through that door, they regret it.”
“Exceptionally pushy,” Zyr observed. But if not speaking of the cat meant the continued peace of darkness, and the further unwrapping of this strange, insistent human, he was willing to hold his tongue.
It was an exchange, of sorts, and Zyr was as fae as any.
He understood the nature of give and take.
“Very well. You were saying? Your chemical imbalance led you to this wheel.”
“I get far pushier. This is me being polite,” Robin said, sounding amused. Or maybe just pleased. “I’m bipolar. You mentioned Jung, so maybe you know it as manic depression. Contrasting archetypes, one brain, if we’re going full Jungian.”
“The ruler and the rebel. Or, perhaps, the Raven and the Robin.”
Robin answered with another squeeze and an exhale that sounded almost like a laugh.
“I’m here to take notes and see how right I was when I told Declan fae are shit at business meetings,” Robin countered.
“The auditor and the reluctantly fascinated. But bipolar’s shorter.
And yes, it led me to this wheel. Both wheels helped me figure things out when feelings got too big, too loud.
When the specifics came into view, it helped–helps–me work forward after working backward.
“We’re going to try it here. You’re going to listen to the options, and then give me the answer of what best matches this.
” Robin tapped again, a fingertip to the base of Zyr’s neck.
“If you have questions about what they mean, you ask me. First options are surprised, sad, angry, happy, bad, fearful, disgusted.”