The Past Comes Calling - Alistair

[Vivian]

10th of Ash, 4623

Vivian settled in front of the fire, Laurent tucked securely across his chest in a sling made from one of Degare's shirts. He sighed, settling back into the old couch and watching the flames he'd painstakingly stoked. Thank gods the fireplace had only needed a light sweeping; Degare's servants had shut up the house respectably. Whether out of respect or terror for their former master, Vivian couldn't tell. All he knew was the giant house had lain dormant since the last owners had been chased off, sometime while he was in Radenor. Good riddance, in his opinion. Degare had bathed the house in blood and secrets, and that served Vivian just fine. Thieves clearly thought the place was haunted; half the china was still in place, and Degare's clothing was as dusty as the day they'd shut up his room and thrown his things in trunks in the attic.

All Vivian knew was the house was now his. He had taken over his old room, leaving Degare's shadows securely in their own wing, and cleaned out the stable to make it habitable for Bara. The mule, content with his old paddock, had settled in quickly. Vivian was alone, in the house he had first called home after the brothel, counting on rumors of hauntings and killings to keep his squat a secret. This home was his. Degare owed it to him after all the abuse. After what he had done. This house was his birthright, where he had first prayed to Azunath and where he had first imprinted his insects. But how to steal it? The deed was locked up with Degare's accounts, and no doubt the city's nobility either ignored the cash and deeds or were simply still going through the legal motions.

If Degare came back, however...

Vivian suppressed a shudder. The last time he had attempted to steal Degare's face, he had shadows of red eyes and silver hair following him for months. The man's sadistic laugh in his head every time he vomited or sweated through a night terror. Vivian gritted his teeth. He'd raise the old bastard from the dead, and look him in the eyes long enough to steal his face. Any gaps he could fill in from memory, and Degare hadn't been a terribly social bastard. He had no friends, and very few allies. That worked to Vivian's favor. He could steal the man's face, take his deeds and money, and restore the house to its former glory. He'd have to wear Degare's face, but it would mean a few steps closer to finding the mage who had initiated him.

If his theories were correct... the other mage would also have a taste for animals outside the norm.

Vivian laid his head back with a sigh. He was freshly bathed, clothed in a simple linen shirt opened at the buttons in case Laurent wanted to nurse, and Degare's black pants. He'd forgone boots; the floors had suffered enough dust and filth. The warmth of the fire washed over him. Laurent was asleep, murmuring softly against his chest, occasionally rooting around for his nipple. The boy was on solid food, but hadn't quite yet weaned all the way. Vivian shifted to allow him to latch, wincing as Laurent's new teeth clamped down on him. "I still have to make money with this body, you know." he mumbled, smirking.

It was nice to relax like this. On a soft couch, clean and warm, with his son healthy and happy.

[Alistair]

Dear Catherine,

I've searched for you for so many years, now. My mission to find you has invited much ruin upon me: I have lost my home in Genteven, and have found myself scrambling to stay alive. You told me the Purgatory from Zahn was deep in the Badlands, and that I could find you somewhere along the path... but I do not know where. I wish you had given me some insight, some inkling of where you had gone. Had I known this road would be so contrived, I do not know that I would have embarked upon it. The auror is a worthy find, but it isn't worth my life. Very few things are.

Especially now. I have a child now, Catherine, a family. I know this might sound strange or impossible, but a man and I brought a child into the world through Malformity. His name is Vivian, and our son's name... tragic as this may sound, I do not know. I hope they are still alive, and doing well. I've decided to end my search for you to find them: my child and my lover, who I told I would marry before the birth of our child. I suppose I've never been too great at keeping my word, but this time I wanted to.

Unfortunately, things always get the better of me. I killed a woman, a Veir of the Entente, and her father hunted me like a dog across the Empire. I had to flee to Radenor, and of course my lovely man gave chase. After that--well, everything sort of collapsed on me, see. I connected with the Veravian Coven and sorted out the Veir, but lost Vivian, and my son. I tried to find them, but it seemed like time was never on my side. I was always a step too far behind, lamenting my decisions that cost me that time; lamenting my comforts, too, as they kept me from catching up on the trail. I relied on my Moondial to find Vivian, but it did not suffice. I've lost so much time. Every day, I imagine myself immersed in that warmth: my son wrapped in my arms, Vivian too, the three of us one contiguous entity, in a way. I imagine myself knowing what it is to experience companionship again, something that always eludes me by my own decision.

I spent what has been a year, now, looking for him. Finally, I think I am near. When I look into the pool, I see the reflection of his face. It's no longer blurred--it has his features, and the blurred outline of the boy I so want to know and see. The blur I want to apply a name to: the future of the House of Reid.

Alistair

- - -



The desert consumed all, but it was also his path to redemption. It wasn't the ornate, ivy towers of Daravin that guided him back: it was the rusted chains and monuments of a broken land, which was as merciless and simultaneously as welcoming as a man could dream. Veravian sent him there, and in that desert--the Badlands--Alistair found his key. He became more of both a warrior and a man, the journey teaching him how to fight for things that mattered more than he ever had.

It wasn't without sacrifice, though. He wasn't the elegant statue he was before--Alistair's handsomeness had not changed, but his attire had become muddied and eventually destroyed. He was tanner and even bulkier now, and he wore the armaments of a soldier, breastplate and all. He had thrived in the hunt, and in being hunted, and now he was here. There wasn't much he could do now beyond completing his journey, his mission. His time in Amoren had so far been short, and it was spent asking other Corvo where his old companion might have been. They and his Dials had guided him all the way, through checkpoint after checkpoint, steps and trails through his journey to return to his remnant of a home.

It was a momentous moment, being there in front of that regal, onyx door. He stepped before it and breathed in and out, and then he pounded on it with resonant force.

"Vivian," he said in a husky, deep tone. "I'm here."

[Vivian]

Vivian jerked awake as the pounding reverberated through the old house. It sounded just as cavernous and forboding as when the master of the house was in residence, and of course had been designed that way. Laurent began to fuss, startled at the noise, and Vivian stared in the direction of the sound. A knock. Muffled words. Gods. He had only spent a few days here, were the guards already onto the scheme? A glare crawled across his face. He wasn't some waif now, not some weakling spitting out spells. He was a master of his craft, a man who grafted monsters, and he would kill anyone intruding. After all, he was no stranger to using others for nourishment now.

He slowly unfastened the sling from around his neck, and swaddled Laurent securely. The baby whimpered and kicked, picking up on the defensive energy his mother was putting out. Vivian had to act fast before it turned into full on wailing. "Quiet, quiet for me? Please." he whispered to the babe, kissing his forehead. "Mommy just has to go rip the head off whoever interrupted our nap."

Unconvinced, the babe blinked at him, sniffling. Vivian had to whip up something terrifying, and terrifying he did. He stood, settling Laurent on the couch, and his face contorted. The horrifying visage of the hammerhead worm came forth, dissolving his features into a mass of wet, neurotoxic flesh, hungry teeth and striped skin. He covered his body with it, his fingertips melting into hardened claws as he meshed the armor of the flea into the form. Dapples of bioluminescence covered his flesh, and consumed his eyes in an unearthly blue light. He shed his clothing, walking into the hallway looking every bit like a nightmare. Surely, it was his own form with a few extra things tacked on...but enough to scare the daylights out of any guard and reinforce the rumors of ghouls and monsters.

He let out a gutteral hiss as he approached the door, curling his clawed fingers around it and tearing it open. He had been working up to a proper unholy scream, something blended from insect and man alike, when he saw exactly who it was. The scream died in his throat, and shock filtered through his veins. Almost unconsciously, he let the ether bleed away, his features settling back into a perfectly shocked, and perfectly naked, Vivian.

Alistair. It was Alistair. The man who's name he had whimpered like a prayer during labor. He had begged, pleaded for him. Lied just to get letters to him. He had tracked him across Daravin to Radenor, searching desperately in the hopes of preventing his son from becoming a bastard. His heart had ached...he had struggled over the last months with the realization that he had been abandoned, like every other whore with a noble whispering in her ear. He had just been getting over the man.

Rage doused the shock just as quickly.

"You son of a fucking-" He swung a fist for that beautiful face.

[Alistair]

There was no hate between them. Anger, perhaps, from Vivian to him--and even in some way from Alistair to Vivian; anger that the other man had eluded him for so long, as much as he tried to find him, even though it was unknowing. At the end of that chase was fatigue... a long-winded tiredness that bled into bitterness, and even something alike to apathy. As Vivian met his features from that doorway, the man stared back at him quietly and empathetically. His periphery was covered in the naked features of the man he had created a child with, but his focal point was at his face. He was handsome--he was certain he'd gotten even handsomer. And now, his handsome face was twisted with rage, and his fist rose and drew back like a battering ram.

And he swung. Alistair allowed the hit--it struck him bluntly, his features reeling for a moment as he stepped back, maintaining his balance through a brief stumble before rubbing his fingertips over his bloodied lip and his cheek, already readying to bruise. He stared quietly and idly. There was no anger in his features--he was instead, completely wordless and still, as if the life had gone from him. Really, though, he simply understood how Vivian felt, and allowed him to feel all of his rage in that moment.

And then he settled, standing straighter and taller, and he cleared his throat.

"I've been searching for you for a year, now. I hadn't hoped for that to be the anchor point of our reunion, but I expected it." Alistair's steel-green eyes searched the Doppelganger up-and-down, and his features flattened. There was a whole lot of waiting in his eyes, and anticipation, but little of it made it beyond the empty surface he allowed himself to portray. He just wasn't sure what to feel, or how to feel it, at the moment. He had become so muted to these things in the past months.

"Can I see him?" he asked.

[Vivian]

Vivian's small moment of victory seeing Alistair's lip split open quelled some of his anger. Good. The man was right to take that hit and stare at him as though asking for another. Vivian was tempted to give it to him, if only his knuckles didn't ache so god damn badly. Who would have thought punching someone across the mouth would hurt the puncher so badly? He wrung out his wrist, glaring at Alistair. "You're lucky a punch is all you're getting." he snarled. "You fucking bastard!"

Searching for him for a year? Could it really be so simple? As much as Vivian had wanted to hate Alistair, as much as he wanted to believe the man was yet another fool bastard who would sire a child and run...he couldn't. His jaw tightened and he drew himself up, refusing to appear weak in front of Alistair. He could hear Laurent fussing from the sitting room, slowly working himself into a full blown wail at all the noises and the lack of company. More than that, they were going to attract attention. Attention that Vivian didn't want when he was hiding an occupied home and an unregistered infant from the guards.

"Get the fuck in here. Now! Before someone calls the guards." he hissed, stepping aside so Alistair could come in. "Shut the door after you, and don't light any damn lights." He turned, and hurried back down the hallway to the drawing room. He threw the linen shirt back over his head, and scooped the sobbing infant off the couch. Laurent reached for him, green eyes filled with tears, and Vivian tucked him securely to his chest. He was a pretty child, with big green eyes and wisps of mahogany hair that were growing thicker with every passing week. The only thing not perfect about him was that clubbed left foot....Vivian hurried to cover it before Alistair saw, hushing the babe.

He stood, silent and waiting, for Alistair to come join him in front of the fire. He didn't dare hope. He wanted to shove down that little voice that told him he had been right all along, that Alistair had come for him...finally.

[Alistair]

Everything felt so surreal, and yet so detached, to him. He could feel Vivian's wroth on the one hand, but internally he felt so unwilling to absorb it or react to it. He was in sort of a daze, unlike anything he was really familiar with before the last term of his life. Things had changed so much, so quickly, and his priorities had shifted so far away from the things they used to be affixed to. It was difficult to be in this city, surrounded by all of the gardens and estates. It was difficult to be in this noble quarter, with all of its lights and festivities, wine and wealth. Amoren was always so bustling and loud; he could not imagine that it could differ any more from the quiet of the Imperial Badlands, and the poverty, and the thirst. Even though he could pull water from air, he often felt so thirsty out there.

And now here he was, in an estate, the air brisk and cool with paintings lining the walkways... the walls gilded, the drapes satin and elegant, everything so decadent. It was enough to make his mind cave into itself. He grew up with wealth far more imposing than this... he was the heir of House Reid, one of the wealthiest and most powerful families on their earth. And yet, he was an alien.

He followed Vivian, his face still sunken in its own way, his eyes often avoiding him so as to not confront whatever violent clash their feelings were bound to have. He wanted to defer and delay it, because he was not mentally in a state of readiness, even though he had tried to prepare on the walk. Those preparations were dashed by city lights, smells and fineries. It was all so overwhelming.

And to top it all... his son. He saw his visage, and then nearer, as Vivian picked him up from the sofa, swaddling him to his chest. Alistair easily joined him, a stride surging into his step at the sight of his son. His eyes were glossed with a wet sort of veil, and he did not bother trying to hide that. He felt emotional in this moment--if there was ever a time for a man to cry, it was now. Tears were not streaming, but they were slowly and quietly forming.

There were so many things he wanted to ask: why Vivian seemed so desperate and so hidden, why he was so... paranoid, why he was living in this estate. He'd heard a few rumors from the Veravians, but he wasn't certain of the veracity of any of them. He did not consider many of those queries a priority, though, and his mind shifted and re-prioritized until he carried forward one, important ask.

"What's his name, Vivian?" Alistair questioned, his lips flattening. "I don't know if you sent me a letter telling me--I stopped receiving them after I left the Coven in Jorikford. They told me the Mages Guild had captured someone like you. I found out later that they were hunting a Doppelganger: I can't believe how far you've come. I did not imagine I would end up having a child with one of the most talented mages on Atharen," he said. There was--more than anything--a sense of pride in his voice.

[Vivian]

They stood there in silence, the unspoken words and fear stretching between them. Vivian could see the tears, sparkling in firelight, making tracks down Alistair's face as he looked at his child. The silence broke. Alistair sounded so proud of him. He had at least gotten a few of the letters that he had sent, by the sound of it. The letters had stopped after the five day timer that Hakon had put on him. The five days that had driven him to do something as mad as an Ascension ritual in the middle of active labor. All the shards of the other mages he had consumed, ripping them out of their pots like a deranged gardener and stuffing them down his throat. If he focused hard enough he could still feel the gritty soil on his tongue. He took a deep, shuddering breath in as he calmed Laurent and got him to lapse into a series of sniffles and whimpers. With the screaming quieted, they could talk.

"I ascended to save your son." Vivian spoke quietly. "The Guild found me in an inn. I tried to hide there, thinking I could birth him in secret, but they found me. They told me they were going to rip him away from me, that I couldn't keep him, dump him in some backwater orphanage in Radenor..." his voice grew tight as he spoke, tears welling up in his own eyes. "...I consumed the magic but I couldn't make it down the stairs when he came...I stayed quiet. If they knew what I'd done they'd have run me through. Better dead than fled."

Vivian was sobbing openly now, trying to keep the flood of emotion he'd choked down for a year at bay. "I stole a face...one of their trusted dogs...and I ran after he was born." he hiccuped, as much as he wanted to strangle himself for it. Instead he buried his face against Laurent's hair and cried. As much as he was a strong, talented mage...he was also a broken man who had gone through far too much in the past year.

"How...the fuck...did you find me? I was screaming in those letters for you....if I hadn't....if i hadn't been strong enough....they'd have abandoned him. They'd have given him to someone or let him starve because of his-" Vivian sucked in a deep breath. His legs couldn't hold him. He sank down onto the rug beneath him, holding the baby close.

[Alistair]

He felt a vague tinge of irritation as Vivian withheld the boy's name from him, but that faded as the other's emotions boiled and slowly surfaced, eventually culminating in tears as anxiety unraveled much of the cool that he attempted to wield as a guise. Vivian was always an interesting one: he was frustrating and even infuriating, but he could also be sweet and loving. Clearly, he was also loyal. He had every opportunity to abort or abandon that child to make life easier for himself, but he chose not to. Alistair wondered where the source of that loyalty lied: was it loyalty to him, loyalty to their son, or loyalty to his own desires? He supposed he would discover that over time, if Vivian permitted him to remain.

"You were--brave, to do all of that," he whispered, the mage's lips curling as he peered towards the other. His arms rested in a crossed formation at his chest, though despite the rigidity of his posture, his features began to loosen and had gradually become more expressive. "And impressive. I cannot imagine how difficult it might be to Ascend, let alone to do all of that while being hunted; while trying to escape your demise."

He dared not to touch the other, still, but he wanted to step forward and embrace him. He wanted to reassure him, and to tell him just how proud of him he was... how impressed he was. First, though, he wanted to illuminate things... both what Vivian asked, and other things he'd wanted to say when they met again.

"I found you through the Moondial," Alistair said, as Vivian slowly began to sink, his posture waning. The man followed him down, first kneeling and then onto his knees, and then further still as he slid forward and sat directly before the other man, and their son. "I am a Master of Baptism, and men like me can use the Dial to explore many more things than an amateur. The Doors open fully to us; we can look into the secrets and the desires of those we want to observe, and we can find them, or at least... hints that can take us there. I watched you through each dive into the basin, and I saw little snippets of things: your pain, your love for our son, your fear and worry. I saw moments of you that you held in private--they weren't perfectly constructed, but they were clear enough to feel, and vividly recall. I searched for signs and names, faces, accents, and through each immersion into the Dial I came a little nearer to you. The issue was... you managed to make it back to Daravin right before I caught up to you, and I had a bloodmark on my name. I had to take care of that, or I'd compromise all of our safety."

The man stared down, almost analytically scrolling through his words, as if he were directly transcribing them from his memories. He exhaled, and then looked back up towards Vivian with his light, pale-green eyes. "I did not lie to you, Vivian. I did not promise you falsely: I intended to keep everything that I owed, both by fathering our child and marrying you, and whatever else waited for us along our story. I do not want all of this... time and feeling to be for nothing. Can we--can we fix all of this brokenness?"

[Vivian]

Vivian listened, shifting Laurent to one arm so he could rub away the tears spilling down his cheeks. Could they? Could they fix this? He looked up at Alistair. He had tried to follow him, from Radenor to Daravin. Gods, if he hadn't been so scared and running so quickly, Alistair might have caught up with him on the road. Somehow it was right that they were finding each other here, where his journey with magic had started. His blue eyes caught Alistair's, and he blinked away the last of his tears. Alistair had come for him. He had returned. It would have been so easy to brush Vivian off as just another whore he'd spent a choice few nights with. He hadn't. He had come for him despite everything.

Vivian settled back onto his heels, sighing. A year of pain, everything from freezing to starving to fighting, left him in that sigh. Everything else could be fixed. "If I let you stay here...you don't abandon me or your son again. Whatever happens, whatever you think is best for us, you don't leave me without explaining things. Alright?" He stroked his fingers over the bundle in his arms. Alistair deserved to see his son, and Laurent deserved to have a father.

"Laurent." he said softly, and pulled the baby away from his chest so Alistair could see him. "His name is Laurent." He bit his lip. "It will...it will take time for me to trust you again." Vivian looked down at his son, who was staring up at Alistair in curious wonder. "He has your eyes...always has. Do you want to hold him?" He hesitated, unsure. Alistair still seemed to be absorbing everything, as he was. Perhaps he wasn't quite ready to hold his child. There was still the matter of his clubbed left foot, but for a moment Vivian wanted Alistair to see Laurent as perfectly, and as beautifully, as he did. He held the baby out to his father.

[Alistair]

38th of Glade, 4616

His eyes fluttered to a close, as wisps of wind stroked along the edges of his features in the night. The man's face extended forward slightly, and he withdrew his hands to settle on the small surface left between his upright back and his elevated, bent knees. It smelled nicely that night: of early spring, of the petals of flowers and the rebirth of trees. Beside him was a friend--a lover-friend, but he had lots of those. He always had: not for the pleasures of sex, really, but for the familiarity of company; for the feeling of love and connectedness. His mind tried to erase the fact that he didn't entirely trust those people . . . that he didn't really know them. That they were afraid of him--that they envied him, even, and that they were also a threat to him.

Every intimate word he spoke was a threat to himself, and it was so difficult to trust the will and whims of the handsome young men that crowded to him. He never knew exactly what it was that they wanted, or even perhaps who hired them. He'd been betrayed in such a way before.

But this man... he liked this man. He trusted him, in a way he hadn't most others. His name was Jacob Bowler, an impressive young athlete--lacrosse--from the Duchy of Pike. He was fortunately not related or associated with any Vernon, or the Reid doubted they ever would have connected beyond a hello. He was barely upper middle-class, which was two classes below the Lord he'd become acquainted to. Perhaps that was the origin of their trust: his ambitions had always appeared simple, a common feature of those outside of the ivory upper-cities.

"I'd always wished that I'd known him," he muttered out, the man's eyes coming to a slow opening as he peered out towards the night. The two of them were sat upon a hill, wearing the elegant gentleman's clothes of Grisic: white button-up shirts with ties, black slacks, brown belts and shoes, and vests over them with the colors and emblems of their family. Beside them was a bottle of wine for each, some bread and other delicacies. They'd traveled fairly far to this hill in the night, and they intended not to leave until late in the eve.

"Your father?" Jacob asked, a handsome perplexity attached to his features.

"Yeah," Alistair whispered. "Never got the chance. I lived with him in close reach for... I don't know, seventeen years, but he and I rarely ever spoke. He was always so... distant; it was like he wasn't even there. A specter of a man, never speaking to me truthfully, never providing me any insight into anything. He would smile at me and then immediately seek distance from me; when I'd tell him things I was interested in or proud of, he would say... 'that's great to hear,' followed by 'I must be going'. There was just a hollowness--to the point where I wondered if he was even a real person, with real emotion. I thought perhaps that he hated me, but that thought wore out. He didn't hate me... he just... did not care, at all. About me--at all."

Jacob pressed his lips together, before they sunk into a frown. "Do you wish now that he'd cared about you then? Does it still really matter to you?"

"Yes," the Reid answered without any thought required. "I think if I had known love from him, I would know how to give it now. But I don't... know how. I don't know how to be a good person. That's my one regret: that I didn't even try to learn."

- - - - -
Present Day

Abandon. He did not want to agree with that word--he'd never thought of himself as an abandoner, but merely someone prone to uncontrollable circumstances that were often far too great to overcome. He did not contest Vivian's words, though; Alistair was too tired for argumentation. He just wanted stability and peace. He wanted to fulfill the role of being a father, whatever that meant, and he hoped it would not be too foreign for him... but he knew it would be. He would manage, though: he'd decided some time ago that he would.

The man nodded his head, quietly lowering his face and taking in a steady breath. He reached out, grabbed his son and almost nervously swaddled him against the edge of his chest, gently rocking him back-and-forth as he peered into his eyes, which matched his own in color and shade. "Laurent," he repeated. "Laurent Reid. It is a decidedly Daravinic name . . . but I suppose that's where we are now, right? I don't know that I'll ever be able to go home to Grisic. We might as well adapt to where we are."

He smiled solemnly. It had been a long time--a long hunt of a year, though it felt far longer. It was all for this moment. He tried to savor it while he could.

"I never meant to fail you the way I did, Vivian. I am sorry. I tried to be the man I said I would be... but my attempts were not enough." That was a familiar story, for him. "There's much we can do, now, though. We're back together; we're both incredibly powerful mages, and we have a son. Whatever you desire our life to become, I will work alongside you to achieve. So tell me--what is it that you want from me?"