Chapter Eight #3
“The Solstice Lords are not always ‘boyfriends,’ as you call them. Many have been female, and there’s record of two who did not fall within that binary. Nor does their sacrifice always take the … symbolic form your brother and the Holly King chose.”
“No blood sacrifices from Bo,” Robin said immediately, flat but without displeasure. “For the current Solstice party, though, desperate for new boyfriends, since there’s no actual death and they’re both men.”
“While there are a number of ways one may perform the duties of a Summer King, as far as I’ve been able to discover, only humans have held the title.
And the Winter King is always an unseelie fae.
The Solstice rites, Winter and Summer, are aligned with what it is to be unseelie by their very nature.
Blood and sex. No actual seelie is involved.
Only a chosen, willing mortal to play the necessary part.
Humans are seelie though, by pre-convergence reckoning.
But that’s more a matter of politics than nature. ”
“I’ll leave the kinky ‘falling to the Holly King’ side of Faerie to Bo, thanks.
Especially since there’s no way in any hell Everil would let Bo bleed without wanton destruction on his end.
” Robin shrugged, shoulder bumping against Zyr’s arm.
“I’d put my money on humans being a different side altogether.
Triangles are the strongest shape, right?
It doesn’t make sense if humans are seelie, but fae seelie can’t be a Solstice King. Not that Faerie makes sense.”
Robin paused and squinted at the ceiling, offering a, “No offense.”
“That’s very well inferred, yes.” Zyr made no effort to hide the pleasure in his voice.
It was so rare to speak with someone worth the effort.
“Humanity and the fae are linked, but it’s arrogance to attempt to sort you into our systems, when we reflect you.
It’s like asking which child a parent resembles.
The foundation of the question itself is incorrect. ”
“So, we’ve a Venn diagram of the Courts.
Seelie, unseelie, and humans in the middle.
But we’re not sure if the middle is because of the circles, or circles because of the middle,” Robin murmured.
“Sorry, I just– I’ve heard that rhinos were the origins of the unicorns, or that seals and strange women on shorelines are why selkie stories are around.
Circles because of the middle. Right. And the seelie somehow hate us now because we’re … not seelie enough?”
Rhinos. Zyr resolved to make that comparison next time he met a unicorn. Self-righteous pricks.
“The genesis of the fae, and humanity’s rationalizations, are subjects beyond my ken.
But perhaps, think of it less of circles and more of a prism.
” He manifested one, and held it out to Robin, a glittering piece of glass held between careful claws.
“Humanity is the white light, and fae are the rainbow. And from there, we can be sorted into warm colors, the seelie, and cold colors, the unseelie. As to hatred, the question brings us back to the convergence. If you feel you understand the Courts well enough?”
“I absolutely do not understand the Courts well enough.” Robin took the prism with a soft huh of curiosity, thumb sliding over its surface. “Though they sound like something I’ll only really figure out by putting them into context. Let’s talk convergence.”
Pleased with that blunt honesty, Zyr flicked Robin in the ankle with his tail. It was only mostly an excuse to touch him.
“I also do not understand the Courts well enough. Thus, my collection. But, for expediency, Winter is the court of what humanity fears. Summer is the court of what it celebrates. There is nothing good or evil about drowning in a river. It simply happens. Nor is catching a fish righteous. Yet a kelpie, that which drowns, is ‘evil’ and a naiad, that which brings the plenty of the waters, is ‘good.’ Change. Stability. The danger is in the extremes.”
“I’m not a fan of extremes. Too many people willing to do what is, arguably, evil shit to other people over extremes.
” Robin’s voice took on an appealing edge of hostility, a real, rooted anger that Zyr thought it best not to probe.
“Right, so, fear, celebration, and humanity. Then the convergence happened.”
“Two courts, both prone to extremes. Each serving as a counterbalance to the other. Once, bonds between seelie and unseelie were common. It’s said that if you look back far enough, the Courts changed with the seasons.
Though that may be mere myth.” He shrugged, and perhaps left his tail where it was, nearly touching Robin’s leg.
“Both Courts vied for supremacy, to lengthen their reign. Eventually, the Winter Court won the upper hand decisively. An unseelie monarch took a human as her ‘seelie’ bond and claimed her court represented Winter and Summer both. It didn’t last long, perhaps a hundred years.
But in that time, Winter reigned unchecked.
Unbalanced. Humans died. Seelie died. Unseelie died.
Again, all people are meat. Disruption is not the best ruling philosophy.
They were followed by another Winter court.
And another. Each more prone to excess than the last.”
Zyr pressed his lips together, to stem the flow of words. He was circling. Restated things. Trying again and again to make the same simple point.
Unseelie are not evil, handsome bird. I am not evil.
Childish. Move on.
“Eventually, turning all your subjects into prey has consequences. The Monarchs, our current Monarchs, took power. The convergence. No more Courts. No more balance. And the slow, but very deliberate, elimination of those unseelie who survived. The other extreme. Stability becomes stasis, and Faerie dies by inches.”
“The Monarchs are both seelie who’d been alive for a hot minute, I’m guessing? Unless it was really easy to overthrow the Courts and they got lucky, no experience or planning needed.”
“The Monarchs are…” Zyr flicked his tail away, the barb out. Remembering them always put him on edge. “A subject I’ve chosen not to study. I fear I can’t tell you their ages. Though you’re likely correct.”
“Makes sense they’d bring the hammer down. Live a certain way, be scared long enough, and it’s easy to excuse doing disgusting stuff. Probably called it ‘preemptive measures’ between themselves, too. Nowhere near an excuse.”
It was not. Zyr settled his tail and kept his gaze on Robin. The man required him to attend.
“Will you follow me upstairs?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
He led Zyr up as if it were of no great matter. As if it were a space that anyone but Zyr had ever been permitted, even before his allotment was solely his.
Upstairs, everything felt closer. Fewer shelves. Fewer texts. Softer light, though he’d never been able to determine why Faerie arranged it thus. Perhaps the texts themselves, heavy with what the world had tried to forget, attracted darkness.
“I was born just after,” he said, his own voice softening like the light.
“When reeducation was still a fresh priority. We unseelie children were to learn to behave. Taken from unsavory influences, like our parents. Starved, so we wouldn’t develop a taste for meat.
And texts like these, our history, were denied us.
Systematically destroyed. It’s possible I’ve overcompensated for the lack.
” He turned to look at Robin, a faint, bitter smile on his lips.
“My heart, as promised, Raven-Robin. If it’s anywhere, it’s here. ”
He wasn’t expecting Robin’s reaction. A comment on the books, perhaps.
Further questions about the courts or the convergence.
But not Robin’s fingers threading through his own, or the man’s forehead pressed to his shoulder.
A grounding presence in the now, just as Zyr’s thoughts started wandering toward the past.
Back and back and back, but fae memories were suited to their lifespan. And Zyr’s had always been particularly good. Still, it was more than a long time ago. And Zyr had learned not to hurt from it. Or he had made himself a home within the hurt.
“History is a palimpsest, written over by the victors,” he said, at last. “I didn’t wish to be rewritten. Everything here, my collection, all I value, it’s not whim. It’s my counterargument. Like you, it grounds me.”
“I'm not sure if you're emphasizing the whim part because someone has told you that before, or because of the fixated comment I made earlier.” Robin’s voice still holding that crisp precision. Zyr wouldn’t have known what to do, had it gentled into pity.
“But it's overall a fantastic counterargument.”
“So intense,” said a voice in memory, condescendingly fond. “Always so intense.”
And, as with everything, he had refused to be anything but. Refused to be different for anyone’s sake. Sometimes, even for his own.
Memory. It had teeth. Zyr tapped Robin’s ankle with his tail, and didn’t say, Will you take my horns again, Raven-Robin? Will you talk me back down into the dark? I think more clearly there.
“Fixated is fine. I do fixate. Brood. Obsess.” He kept his gaze on Robin, who he so needed to understand this.
“But I wanted to show you that what’s here isn’t merely a tool for your brother’s use.
Some of these books are full of old and dangerous magic.
Others are mere scraps. Children’s journals.
Love letters. Flicker diaries. But they are all invaluable to me.
As are you, and that’s why you’re welcome here.
You may be, as you said, ‘a dime a dozen.’ I won’t refute your perceptions.
To mine, you are the most singular person in two worlds. ”
He watched it sink in. Watched Robin go still as he finally understood what Zyr, and the Solstice Kings, and no doubt random fae he’d passed on his way, had attempted to tell him. That Zyr meant what he’d said from the beginning.
Not metaphorically. Not somewhat. Utterly, and completely. Robin was as much a treasure as any Zyr held. Because he’d taken his horns and led him back into himself. Because he tasted like time.
“I don't know how to process that right now,” Robin said, each word a little more remote than the last. “Not in a bad way.
Or at least not in a running for the hills way.
So I'm going to say ‘got it’ and let you know I'll probably bring it up again at a very awkward time after I stay up chewing on everything. And, uh, thank you for telling me.”
Zyr supposed it could have gone worse. But not, perhaps, much worse. Very carefully, he released Robin’s hand. The man hadn’t known what he was reaching for. Who he was allowing to taste him.
“Of course,” he said, with a slow step back. “I think the Summer King would like to know that you’re not being held against your will.”
“Zyr,” Robin said, then stopped, lips pressed together.
“With your permission, I’ll allow you to acquaint yourself with my collection. And I will inform the Solstice Kings that they’re welcome to hospitality.”
Would the man remain or leave with his brother? Zyr suspected the latter. The idea of it, of Robin being gone, of never again being led to that dark, settled place, hurt as nothing had in generations.
Let it hurt, then. You couldn’t force a person to want what they did not. He’d learned that truth the hard way.