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“Someone’s looking for you, Boss.”
“Someone’s always looking for me,” Sett grumbles. “Tell them to get in line.”
From his seat up above the ring, Sett watches as the crowd favorite takes a nasty hook to the jaw; she stumbles back and raises her fists to guard again but not before spitting out a mouthful of blood onto the pit floor. Her opponent, the newcomer underdog of the fight, throws a cross at her side, merciless. Sett whistles in appreciation. He’ll have to pay her more, especially coming in as a newbie and immediately delivering an upset to one of the town’s favorite brawlers.
“I don’t think he’s some regular schmuck looking for a fight,” Rhoanna continues, folding her arms across her chest. “Sticks out like a sore thumb. Not from here. Also he can’t seem to talk.”
“So he told you nothing about why he’s here to see me.”
“He had a little notepad and wrote on it. He looked a bit like a wet dog with a gun.”
“A gun,” Sett repeats, standing abruptly. “And you didn’t kick him out immediately?”
She stares at him. “As if you didn’t just give us a lecture about how to treat guests?”
Rhoanna’s right — she’s always right, it’s why Sett keeps her around, even with her big mouth and endless attitude. He sighs, defeated. “Fine, bring him in.”
His lieutenant leaves just as the newcomer lands a spinning kick right into the side of the reigning champion’s skull, the blow knocking her out immediately upon contact and her body slumping limp to the ground. The crowd erupts, the booing drowning out the cheers as the referee lifts up the arm of the underdog, winded but steely. Sett’s security guards start bellowing, pushing the roused crowd back as they jeer and shout.
The chaos of it all, the exhilaration. Of course he misses being down there, throwing the punches. The lifestyle is better as the boss of the place; the view above, managing the show, a conductor of his orchestra. No one can touch him up here. But the adrenaline is long gone, and sometimes Sett craves something dirty again, blood on his teeth, indulging the more carnal parts of his ancestry.
Rhoanna comes back with a pale, slim figure with a rifle the size of his body strapped to his back. The gun looks almost crystal. Eyeing the man, Sett decides that he must come from some kind of Ionian descent, with a chin that sharpens to a point and hooded eyes that look hollow and sunken with exhaustion. He wears an elaborate garb that screams the celestial pretense of the Targonians and even despite the weariness that the man carries himself with, he straightens his back and bows politely, stiff but elegant.
“Not often you get a Targonian around these parts,” Sett says, raising an eyebrow. “Who are you and why do you want to see me?”
The man opens up a bag slung over his shoulder to grab a notepad and a pen to scrawl his words, flipping it over to reveal slanted, practiced calligraphy. Aphelios. I’m looking for someone. I thought you might have information.
“You’re in the heart of the Navori underground,” Sett points out. “There’s plenty of information if you’re willing to pay the price. If you’re coming to me instead of the Council or the Kinkou, the person you’re looking for has to be pretty dangerous. Or someone you want to keep secret.”
Aphelios purses his lips. A pause as he writes out his next sentence. Is there somewhere more private where we can discuss?
Secret, then, Sett decides. Or secret and dangerous. Judging the rifle and the terse silence, Sett’s willing to bet half of his winnings on it being both. But Sett’s nothing but a businessman, and there’s nothing he won’t do at the right price, and if the request is coming from someone interesting… he might just give a discount.
“Hope you like shitty ale,” Sett says.
-
The back alley pub is dark, run-down, and most importantly it is deserted. With the only patrons of the establishment being Sett and his clientele, the barkeep already has two pints of a dark beer poured up and served fresh on the counter by the time the two of them sit down on the rickety stools at the bar. Sett leaves three gold pieces on the counter and takes a large swig from the glass.
“So, can you really not talk at all?” he starts, staring down at the notepad, ink scribbled all over the pages. “Or is it by choice?”
Complicated, Aphelios writes. He sips at his drink before writing again. Sometimes I can talk.
“I hope you can get enough details out on that paper for me to actually hear you out.”
Aphelios rolls his eyes just slightly before picking up his pen again. I’m looking for Diana, Aspect of the Moon. She’s on the run from Solari soldiers and we heard that she was last seen here.
Targonian religious scuffles are not something Sett is entirely too keen to get involved in. “Anything else? What does she look like? Why is she on the run? You’re going to have to give me more information than that.”
Aphelios grimaces. White hair probably. Lunari clothes, moon symbols everywhere. We’re at war and she needs to lead our people before we inevitably lose the numbers game against the Solari.
“When are you people not at war?”
Rich coming from someone running an underground brawling arena in a country torn apart by colonial invasion and military strife.
Sett blinks. “Whoa there.”
Aphelios doesn’t offer an apology, instead opting to take another sip.
The guy has a mouth on him and he didn’t even say a single word. Weirdly enough, Sett’s impressed. “Alright then,” he continues, clearing his throat. “That’s a fair point. Listen, I’m generally not the detective type. I hire out my fighters for protection and things like that. I could connect you to some of my associates, but I’m getting the feeling that you don’t want this spread around.”
The less people know the better. I know there are others looking for her here.
“Important lady.”
A nod from Aphelios, solemn in his agreement.
“Well, how about this,” Sett offers. “I can let you stay with me in the pits when you’re looking for her here. It’ll be better and more discreet to be underground than anything else out there.”
Immediately upon the words leaving his mouth, Sett is struck by the overwhelming urge to punch himself in the face. Offering shelter to a stranger with what appears to be a magical rifle isn’t exactly an act of self-preservation, and indeed, Aphelios looks startled by the proposition. And it’s not that Sett is afraid that Aphelios would actually manage to kill him — vastayan healing is miraculously swift and effective, and Sett’s taken a few bullets here and there and came out unscathed. And besides, he’s not the ringleader of the Navori underground for no reason.
But, Sett supposes, he’s always been weak to a pretty face. Not that he’ll ever admit it.
“For a price, of course,” Sett adds. Then frowns. “How much coin do you have, anyway? I hope it’s not the Targonian shit.”
Aphelios reaches into his bag and dumps out a gargantuan amount of gold coin onto the counter with a waterfall of clinks. It piles up into a nice mound, glinting even under the dim light of the oil lamps on the walls of the bar. The barkeep stops sweeping the floor to stare with Sett in awe at the money.
“Alright then,” Sett repeats, dumbfounded. “Okay, you can stay with me. I’m not going to ask where you got all that.”
Best keep it that way, Aphelios writes. Keep it up and we’re going to get along just fine.
“Pay up and I promise you we’re going to get along more than just fine,” Sett says, grinning. “Now, how much of that are you giving me?”
-
Sett doesn’t interact with Aphelios too much — he has the pits to run, and Aphelios is undoubtedly searching for Diana tirelessly. He leaves in the early morning, even before Sett’s own early wake up time of the first light of dawn, and quietly slips back well after Sett finishes up business at the ring after twilight. Every time, he gives Sett an acknowledging nod before tending to his own business, leaving Sett with more than enough space to pretend that Aphelios isn’t there.
Except Sett is painfully aware that Aphelios is there, and his throbbing curiosity threatens to eat him up alive. He notices things, like the fact that Aphelios has different guns, not just the monstrosity of the rifle that he first showed up with. The markings on his face aren’t tattoos, they’re ritualistic markings of his religion, which is something that Sett discovered coming back drunk late one night and walking into find Aphelios paint the crescent over his eyes meticulously and slowly. Sometimes Sett catches him drinking vials of a purple liquid apparently so heinous that he chokes and gargles on it and he has to rip his eyes away from the sight of Aphelios’s throat gulping it down.
One early morning, about a couple weeks after Aphelios first began staying in the pits, Sett hears his first word from him.
“Fuck,” Aphelios mutters.
Though quiet, the sound is so entirely unexpected that Sett nearly drops his glass of water in surprise. “What?”
Aphelios jolts, almost as if he didn’t entirely expect to hear himself speak, either. He scrambles for his notepad before Sett cuts him off and blurts, “Nuh-uh, I am not letting that be the only word you ever say to me. What happened to being mute?”
“I said I could talk sometimes, didn’t I?” Aphelios frowns, annoyed. His voice is a soft rasp out of unuse, hoarse yet still melodic, an upturned lilt to the end of his words that can only be attributed to the soft accents from Mount Targon. “I ran out of something important. You don’t happen to know any illegal apothecaries around town, do you?”
Sett does, but usually for the steroid and narcotic variety. “What are you looking for?”
“A very particular type of poison.”
“That explains absolutely nothing,” Sett grunts, before realizing. “Wait, those little bottles that you drink — are those poison?”
Aphelios glares but says nothing.
“Is that why you can’t talk?” Sett continues, mind racing. “Is this for some religious thing? You have to drink poison?”
“Yes,” Aphelios sighs. “Now do you know where I can get some noctum or not?”
“I don’t know about Lunari poison, but my guy has drugs from the fucking Freljord, so it’s not a long shot,” Sett trails off. Any more questions and he’s sure Aphelios would bring out one of the knife-guns. “Go tell him I sent you and he’ll show you the whole inventory.”
At that, Aphelios’s shoulder visibly drops a little, relaxing a bit. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Sett replies, feeling stupid.
He has questions. So many fucking questions. First and foremost: why does Aphelios need to drink a poison that renders him mute?
The second: if Sett tells him that his voice sounds nice would Aphelios stop drinking it and talk to him?
This is pathetic, he decides, when has the Boss ever let something he wanted get away from him?
The sound of the door creaks into a decrescendo as Aphelios quietly shuts it behind him, and Sett slumps back on his bed. He looks up at his ceiling and tries to forget about it.
-
Later that night after he closes up the pits, Sett doesn’t see Aphelios again. But when he wakes up in the morning, he finds a note on his nightstand, carefully torn on the edges.
Sett,
I figured I owe you some sort of explanation, since you clearly had many questions for me and I do want to thank you for your hospitality, so let me do it this way. Please burn this note after reading.
I drink the poison in order to channel my sister who is in the spirit realm as a priestess and seer of the Lady of the Moon. The poison is painful but a necessary part of my duties as my sister is able to provide me with guidance and weaponry from the spiritual realm. It also tightens up my vocal chords in a way that makes me unable to speak. I am usually channeling my sister Alune at all times (she says hello).
I’m discovering traces of the Lunari here in Navori, which is why I believe that Diana has come here to Ionia. It’s also why I have to be under the noctum because I’m not the only one with this information — the Solari is aware of this as well, and I’ve been eradicating them as I come across them. Frankly, it is hampering my search to have to fight them all the time. But you see why the poison is important.
I am entirely aware that this sounds a bit foreign to those who may not be very familiar with Solari and Lunari relations, and I want to reiterate that Alune and I are both very grateful for the discreet and safe shelter you provide and that you were able to provide a contact for noctum. Surely coin is not enough to repay you. Should you have any enemies you need to eliminate I will seek them out.
Nevertheless, I hope this explanation is adequate and I thank you for trusting me enough to house me under these unique circumstances and should you have any request of me as payment, please do not hesitate to ask.
Sett snorts. Of course Aphelios is some kind of psychotic religious assassin hopped up on poisonous drugs, and of course Sett had to go find him attractive. It’s cute that he’s willing to kill people for him though, even as debt payment.
He fishes a lighter out of his pocket and flicks the flame alight, setting it to the corner and watching the note turn into ash. Then, he goes over and rummages through his desk for pen and paper and writes back a note of his own:
Thanks, you didn’t need to explain anything but I appreciate that you did
How about dinner, then? Alune’s invited but it’s easier to have a conversation if maybe she isn’t there?
And if you need help with the bad guys just ask. I wouldn’t mind getting my knuckles bloody again, I do miss it
-
To his surprise, Aphelios does not take the poison for their dinner. But he still takes out the notepad and places it gently beside his fork.
“No sister?” Sett says, raising an eyebrow.
“Figured you would want some privacy,” Aphelios says back, voice still gravelly in a way that raises the hairs on Sett’s neck. “Was I wrong?”
“Nah,” Sett affirms, nervousness suddenly creeping into his chest. “Though it does feel a little weird knowing that your sister has met me before I knew about her. What’d she think?”
“Of you?” Aphelios questions, a smile flitting across your face. “Why, insecure?”
Is Aphelios teasing him? Is he going to come out of this dinner in one piece? So many questions.
“Well, she has been in my house and seen me sleep, probably, so… yeah?”
“I don’t watch you sleep, for the record.” Aphelio’s voice crackles and diminishes to a softer whisper, the sound struggling to make its way out of his throat. Frowning, he picks up the pen and paper and writes the rest out instead. Sorry, I don’t use my voice much. Hope you don’t mind reading a little bit.
“I’m not illiterate,” Sett snorts.
Aphelios raises an eyebrow. She likes you. Thinks you’re very nice to us, though she was suspicious for you for a bit, as was I.
“I’m totally an upstanding guy.”
An eye-roll. Yes, and we’re all very surprised by it. What’s an upstanding guy like you doing running the Ionian underground?
Sett blinks, taken aback by Aphelios’s interest. “Long story. Dad was a fighter. And also a piece of shit. He left my ma and I to go fight somewhere else after the Noxians took over Navori and so I picked it up. Fought my way to the top, and now I run the joint, and some other things along with it.”
Aphelios points to his head, motioning to Sett’s ears.
“Oh, yeah. I’m half-vastayan, if you couldn’t tell. He’s the human one.”
What’s that like?
“Awful, honestly… I grew up an outcast in both human and vastayan communities. But now they can’t say shit about me, so whatever, right?”
Aphelios hums, poking at his potatoes with a fork. The conversation comes to a comfortable pause, Sett taking the chance to slice off a piece of his steak and shove it into his mouth, quietly wondering at how surreal this all is.
“You probably don’t know much about the vastaya,” Sett volunteers. “And to be honest, I don’t either. Ma didn’t talk about it too much, other than the fact that we’re wolven. There’s a bunch of different types from around Runeterra, though I think most of them have origins in Ionia.”
“Dog, huh?” Aphelios says, speaking up again. “Makes sense.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
You shake your hair like one, when you come out of the shower.
Sett can’t stop the grin from spreading across his face. “You watch me come out of the shower?”
Aphelios’s cheeks flush a light dusty pink and he clears his throat, putting the pen down gingerly and saying nothing with neither his mouth nor his hands. Then he takes a large drink of his wine and Sett openly stares now, watching the curve of his throat bob up and down as he gulps. Sett wants so badly to slide his fingers across the length of his neck, feeling the ridges of the trachea, the veins on the side, the fragile skin there. Run his teeth across and bite something sinful into the slope of where his neck meets his shoulder.
“You have both your voice and your notepad to answer that, Aphelios,” Sett says, clearing his throat.
“Yes, yes,” Aphelios mumbles, before picking up the pen once more. And it’s not as if I can’t see the way you look at me either. Alune can, as well.
That jolts Sett out of his fantasies immediately. “Oh, gods.”
Her not being here tonight was frankly her suggestion.
Sett is not making out of this dinner alive. He sinks a little into his chair, humiliated. “You are absolutely killing me here.”
Aphelios clears his throat as well. I did agree to this, you know. I wouldn’t have unless the interest was… reciprocated.
“Well,” Sett says, staring down at their food. Then, he looks back up at Aphelios, who stares at him with such a burning intensity that Sett feels like his gaze alone can strip him bare, vulnerable and ready to be picked apart. “You still hungry?”
“No,” Aphelios murmurs.
Right. “Right,” Sett says, hurrying to his feet and throwing down whatever money he had in his pocket — too much, he’s sure, but he doesn’t give a fuck, because how can he, when Aphelios is looking at him like that, like he’s starving, like he’s worshipping, like he can’t look away, the coldness from his expression completely melted away by something much more raw.
“Let’s head back?” Sett croaks.
“Lead the way,” Aphelios replies, smiling.
-
And Aphelios does touch him like he’s starving. He tells Sett, I’ve never done this before, a low confession in his ear, the sound of his voice still so novel that it immediately sends ripples of shivers down his spine, like tremors, quaking his very earths. I hope you can teach me, and forgive me if I can’t speak too much.
So Sett goes slow at first. Excruciatingly, blindingly slow. He runs his mouth over that tortured throat. Takes his mouth and runs it over that curve of his shoulder, lips barely touching skin, and watches as Aphelios shivers too, sensitive and utterly untouched. Sett wants to ruin him. Rip him apart into something new, claw into him until the only reason why he needs his voice is to pant, to beg, to plead. But he doesn’t. He goes slow and watches how Aphelios squirms when Sett discovers exactly where on his body he likes to be touched: the small of his back, the dip of his hips, the strip of skin right along his inner thigh.
The moans are quiet, broken: Sett closes his eyes and drinks the sound in, drowning in it, before returning shattered noises of his own, repeating his name in arrhythmic chant: Aphelios, Aphelios. I wish you could see how you look right now, Aphelios. Aphelios, Phel, you’re so—
You don’t have to be gentle, Aphelios whispers.
And something in him snaps, soft restraint breaking way into something carnal, and feels as Aphelios splits open and apart for him. Mouth open, wordless.
-
Half-man, half-beast. Bad dog, mean dog, bared fangs, running fast. Of course his desire would be something animal. A wolf, howling at the moon. It was always going to come down to this.
-
They don’t talk about it. Aphelios starts coming back earlier and leaving later. Sett starts making too much coffee for one person.
Aphelios never drinks it. They don’t talk about it.
-
Are all you vastaya always so ravenous?
"You met Ahri, huh?" Sett says.
It's a rhetorical question: Ahri's the only other vastaya in Ionia who would even be in the same room as Aphelios, much less actually talk to him. Xayah and Rakan are probably off somewhere committing war crimes and ever-noble Wukong is automatically wary of any outsiders, especially the ones associated with Sett and the underground. And none of that was any of his business, so long as they stayed out of his. Unfortunately, he can't say the same for the fox.
She's very… interesting.
"That's a fox vastayan for you. All lies and tricks and schmooze. Ahri probably especially though. Her whole thing is feeding off of human souls."
Great. Aphelios's hands flick and flourish across the paper. Do I need to worry about that around you?
"You would shoot me with one of your fancy guns before I even had the chance to think about it."
"Touché," Aphelios says out loud, smirking, before scribbling the rest of his sentence. As if you wouldn't fight back.
"Hold on, Phel. I never said I would lose, did I?”
Guess not. Aphelios writes with a shrug. A pause in their conversation as he writes out the rest of his message. She seems like she knows something about Diana, though I’m not sure what, and I’m not sure what price I would need to pay to get the information.
Sett’s irritation bubbles in the pit of his stomach at the thought of Ahri leading Aphelios away and astray, taunting him with half-promises and misdirection. Sett knows that Aphelios is no fool, especially with his sister’s guidance, but he is an outsider, unfamiliar with the trickery and particular brand of bloodthirst that lurks in Navori, a city torn apart and held together by nothing other than vengeance.
But, he supposes, Aphelios is no stranger to vengeance either.
So he says, “The bitch is like nine hundred years old. She knows everything. And she’s always traveling on other continents to see the world and scheming or whatever. She’s probably your best lead, but…”
Sett trails off, and when Aphelios raises an eyebrow at him expectantly, he grunts and continues, “Might do you more harm than good, chasing the fox like that.”
Aphelios goes stone still, shoulders hardening into a line. I have to try.
“Duty, huh,” Sett says.
“Yes,” Aphelios rasps, standing up.
Did you forget why I was here?
Aphelios does not say the words, nor does he write them, but Sett feels them anyway in the shape of his back as he walks away, his body turning away like a moon rotating into dark, eclipsing into something cold.
-
“Your boyfriend is awfully interesting, Boss.”
Ahri’s tails whip behind her playfully as she saunters up to the seat overseeing the arena. His security and lieutenants don’t even bother to look at her, much less stop her; she goes where she pleases and every single person in the pit knows it. Sett wants to throttle her and then himself.
“Get your claws off of him, fox,” Sett snarls. “I don’t really have time for you or your games.”
“Sour,” Ahri quips. “I’m not interested in dog food.”
Sett could feel a vein in his neck pulse and pop, gripping the armrest of his chair so hard that he feels the splinters of the wood break under his fingers. “What the hell do you want?”
“Just passing along the information that I told him. Evening out the playing field for you two.”
“Get on with it, then.”
Ahri raises an eyebrow. “Gee, you really are touchy today. Relax, Settrigh. I really am not interested in him. Or getting involved with religious warfare.”
“But you told him something, didn’t you?” Sett mutters, but slumps back in his chair a bit, lowering his guard just a little. Ahri’s always been one of the better vastayas to him, taking pity and sympathizing with his solitude. Doesn’t mean she isn’t full of shit, but Sett supposes that’s beside the point. “He’s not my boyfriend, by the way.”
“Yes, yes, I might have pretended to believe you if you had denied it earlier and didn’t leap to his defense like a knight in shining armor. Which is cute, by the way, I didn’t know you had it in you.” Ahri cocks her head to the side. “There’s another vastaya looking for her here in Ionia. Her name is Nami.”
“Okay,” Sett says, uncertain. Seemed fairly innocuous and relatively helpful, but. “Is she evil or something?”
“Heavens no, not to my knowledge. I don’t even know where she is, but it’s a lead for him, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Sett grimaces. “What else?”
“That Diana used to be one of the Solari before defecting and subsequently slaughtering many of her former friends and classmates, and she’s out to reunite the two tribes under one religion because her ex-girlfriend is the Aspect of the Sun.”
His blood runs cold.
“What?” Sett hisses. “How the fuck is that supposed to help him?”
“I don’t know,” Ahri says, shrugging. “But it’s information that I think it’s important for him to have. Wouldn’t you want to know if the person you were looking for turned out not to be the person that you thought?”
“What is that supposed to mean, Ahri,” Sett retorts, anger starting to rise hotly in his stomach again. “This is exactly why I didn’t want him to talk to you. You couldn’t have just given him the information about the vastaya and left it at that?”
“Why are you so angry, Sett?” Ahri snaps back. “Afraid he’s going to abandon his mission and leave?”
Sett freezes. Is that even a possibility? He didn’t even really consider it, not really, until now. It’s been about two months since Aphelios started living with him in the back rooms of the pits. Though the situation was always supposed to be temporary, wasn’t it? Aphelios was always going to search for Diana and either leave to return to the Lunari when he finds her or search elsewhere when Alune tells him to. The intimacy is just a surprise. Sett is just collateral damage. A coincidence. Unexpected, maybe pleasant, but ultimately unimportant to the larger picture.
He can’t even find it in himself to be angry at Ahri anymore. She notices and softens.
“Settrigh,” she sighs. “You know I’ve always liked you. I don’t want to see you like this.”
He hears the message underneath: cut yourself off, before it’s too late.
“I’m not like you,” Sett says, standing up from his seat. “But thanks, for what it’s worth.”
Ahri just stares at him, a near-millenia worth of life hardened behind her eyes, and she looks like she’s about to say something. But she doesn’t. Instead, she smiles once more and turns around to leave.
The night’s coming to a close. Aphelios will be back soon.
-
He comes back after twilight, just like he did at the start. Sett watches him as he goes through the usual routine: laying down his weapons, before shrugging off his cloak and wiping away the ritual makeup, the purple moon fading under a wet washcloth and revealing the skin underneath. He watches as Aphelios closes his eyes in prayer, unmoving from meditation as he speaks to Alune, the poison surely still in his veins. He watches these movements that he’s come to know so well. Sett has been watching him since the first night, memorizing every action, every detail. And even after it all imprints into memory, he watches him still.
Aphelios stands and looks at him expectantly.
“You spoke to Ahri,” Sett starts. “I spoke to her too. She told me about the Diana thing, and how she doesn’t want to go to war with the Solari.”
Aphelios nods once, sharp.
“What are you going to do?” Sett asks, voice raw in his throat. “Isn’t that everything you’ve ever worked for?”
Aphelios takes his notebook and places it on his lap. He looks down upon the blank page for a minute, hand hovering over the page before writing three words: I don’t know.
“Right,” Sett mutters. “I mean, I wouldn’t know what to do either. Did Alune have anything to say on it?”
She’s working on it, he writes. She doesn’t know either. The information fucked up everything that we had ever assumed. I guess you were right about talking to Ahri.
“See.”
An eye-roll from Aphelios, which tugs a laugh out of Sett; he is always so sarcastic, underneath all that silence. Then, he swallows.
“You know, she also told me about Nami, if you were going to look for her and ask more questions. Or if you wanted to stay here a little longer, figure things out before you go back to Targon… you’re welcome to, you know.”
That gets him to snap up and stare. Without payment?
“You stopped paying for rent a month ago,” Sett points out. And then, weakly, he says, “Do you really think I would let you stay for so long so you could owe me something?”
Well, no, but frankly, I thought you just thought I was pretty.
“You are pretty, Phel, but for God’s sake, I’m not that shitty. I just like you.”
There it is. Sett feels like he’s been suckerpunched in the way he can’t breathe. Aphelios stares at him with such open surprise that it makes Sett feel like a kid again, lonely, vulnerable. Is desire always supposed to be this ugly, this naked? He feels like a dog, rolling over on his back, waiting for attention. Is it always supposed to feel this disgusting?
To make things worse, Aphelios holds a finger up as if to say one moment, and starts writing what must be an essay in the way he hastily scrawls on the paper. After an agonizing minute, he tears off the sheet and hands it to Sett, the handwriting messier than usual:
Alune said you would freak out if I didn’t put this first: you’re not so bad yourself, Sett, and I’m fond of you too.
Sett exhales a shaky breath and thanks every god in Targon for Alune’s existence, and continues reading.
Now that’s out of the way:
We’re not really sure what to do yet. Of course Diana is still a priority, and we still need to find and talk to her. We also need to consult with the elders back in Targon, so we will need to return, and that’s probably the first order of business. But we’ve also found Lunari in hiding here in Ionia, scattered, and we also need to work on building a safe sanctuary here for them, and it’ll be easier to do that if we’re here, obviously. So we’ll have to go, but we’ll be back, both to track down Diana and also the other Lunari in hiding.
“So you’re leaving,” Sett murmurs.
Please stop looking like a kicked puppy. It’s killing me. I’ll be back, I swear.
“When are you going?” he asks, probably still looking like a kicked puppy. He certainly feels like one.
Aphelios sighs, breath escaping out of his lips. Then he puts the notepad down and slowly wraps his arms around Sett’s torso, pressing his head against his chest, as if to say not now. Soon, but not now.
And that’s enough for him. Sett closes his eyes and leans into the embrace.
-
Hey, Phel. Did you know that wolves howl to declare to the world of their hunger, snouts pointing up to direct the sound skyward, proclaiming to the world of their desire? And look at you. The weapon of the Lunari, the violence of the moon. It was always going to come down to this, wasn’t it? You and me. The wolf and his moon. Something animal. Something natural. There’s something instinctual embedded in my blood that draws me to you. And even as you wave goodbye for the dawn and leave in your orbit, I know when night comes, you’ll be here, circling around back to me.
Don’t you think that’s something beautiful?