“About that.”Declan sipped at his drink, turning the words over in his mind.Hyacinth, the patient bastard, waited with that lazy smile, eyes gone keen.“It was poorly done of me, to cut and run the way I did.”
“Everyone needs a rest now and then.You said deathsight was a drain.”
“Poorly done of me,” Declan repeated, answering Hyacinth’s resulting eyebrow arch with a twisted half smile of his own.“It’s not the death that hurts those caught in the vision the most.It’s thehelplessnessthat does it.At first, it’s all you can feel.It’s part of the sight.Overwhelming helplessness in the wake of that knowledge, that inevitable death.”
That was how most sluagh died.They were more likely to fade from sinking too much into their aspect, rather than from losing the tether to it.The yawning chasm of being unable to change the course of their lives, with little joy to live for.
Declan clung to the time and love he had with Antonio, however little they saw of one another.He had promised the man centuries.
“Sounds like a shit party trick.”
“Oh, aye.The last night, I was on–voids–LSD, I think.Three deathsight visions in a row.They were… I’ve seen things, before and since.I’vedonethings.One of those visions still haunts me.And you and I, we understand each other, aye?Of a sort.”
Hyacinth lifted his chin in acknowledgment, or encouragement to keep talking, or maybe, simply to move.The rest of him was very still, expression unreadable; that smile rarely said anything, when set as the default.They did, after all, understand each other.
“Too many people we knew were dying.And that sort of helplessness is not one I’d willingly inflict on you.Or your crew or Wyte.Myself.And it wasn’t as if we met up in Faerie on the regular.”Declan shrugged.“I suppose, now, all the humans we used to know are dead, or no longer around enough to trigger.”
“Our Rabbit’s got his bruiser back,” Hyacinth said, easy, stillness gone in favor of a careless recline, tumbler held loose in his fingers.“For a while, now.”
“So he does.Seems quite pleased about it too.”
Hyacinth tapped his glass lightly, then raised it with a rolling shrug.“It’s good to have you back.You won’t make the call for me, next time.”
Declan bloody well would, but he raised his glass in turn.“Out of the things that have arisen from this void-cursed Council position, being in a place for there tobea next time with you is one of the better ones.”
“That’s still got me.You and Wyte both on the Council.Winter’s icy tits, man.Never took either of you for masochists.”He smirked.“Not that kind.”
“Me, not so much.”Declan smiled faintly, if a little bitter.“Something needed to change, and I thought I could.That there was something important to break against and burn for.”
“And now?”
“Now?I’ve succeeded in getting what I wanted.I’ve set a precedent and put myself in a position to fix the system.Except the system isn’t broken.It’s working just as intended.”Declan shot him a smile, thin and razor keen.“And I grossly overestimated the thickness of my own skin.”
Got what he wanted, and lost Antonio at his side, the weight of his arm around Declan’s shoulders.His smile.Instead, he learned that the best way to not hurt when Antonio came to Faerie was to expect the renewed anger and fear, and focus on the relief that came with his closeness.However brief.
Hyacinth fell silent, glancing out the window at the gray sky before turning his attention back to Declan.No pity, there.Consideration again, but heavier.Serious.
“I’m saying this as a friend,” he said at last.“You’re meant to fail.To break or burn or die, so the Council can point to you and talk about how ‘poor death aligned’ simply don’t have the constitution for leadership.Stasis despises entropy.There was no Convergence.There was a coup.”
“My family went from about twenty to one,” Declan agreed.
“You’re playing a rigged game, Declan.You can’t win it.”
He had known that.He hadn’t wanted towin.It had been about making apoint.About taking something and setting it on fire because it needed to be.
Light it up and spread the ashes.Destruction wasn’t winning.
“If they succeed in closing the veil, we all die.”Everyone, including those changelings flung into the mortal realm gone as if they never existed.Antonio’s sacrifices and hurt, scorned.“What would you do, in my situation?”
“Burn it down,” Hyacinth said, with an easy shrug.“All of it.Not just the Council.Rot’s at the center, sluagh.Anything you build on what is will go to shit.Have to start again from the ashes.Solves the boyfriend problem too.Hates Faerie?Build him one custom.”
“I’m not sure I’ve the stomach the Monarchs did.The establishment, yes.But all of it?”Declan shook his head.
“You always did have your line.”
“I draw it at infanticide and cutting swathes out of a population.Reducing twenty to one.”
“Good line to have.”Hyacinth’s sharp smile came quick, thin as Declan’s.“Bitch of a time, figuring out what you’re built for.”
