Shadow Mountain Wire

I call for you, @Lestan.

The howl started near Swiftcurrent, a few miles out. Then another came, a while later.

Lestan.

This one was somehow further away, an echo of the first.

Lestan.

The time and distance lengthened between songs, leading away, away, miles and miles away.

Lestan, I call for you.

The winter naga waited in a shadow of a squat mountain, and the cold night fast approached. It would be dark on this side of the mountains before anywhere else. The year’s last dying crickets took up their violins.

winter's wake had recently been the subject of profligate devour when it came to the attentiveness of lestan's memory to the details of their meeting.
almost in the manner of a blushing belle waiting to be announced as debutante, he waited, placing special care in his routine of chamomile dosage and perhaps even arranging his fur more pleasantly —
great heavens! and the bundle of things he was carrying went quite to the side as lestan goggled toward that song arcing merrily through the sky.
flustered, radiant, shy — bedraggled in his hurry — lestan traveled timidly to where the snowpanther waited. "how were your travels?" and a thousand blessings to arlette for helping to control the malady of his tongue!

To be capable of compelling a wolf he’d only met once into roaming far from their safest sanctuary was a power that Wake did not wield lightly. He pulled gently on the tether he had placed upon the Mayfair, reeling in the summerwolf until those sunblue eyes flashed in the lowlight and bathed him with shy regard.

Lestan, the rogue sighed in relief, tail brushing against the ground a moment before he stood, swallowing the distance between them. My travels? Enjoyable, I suppose. It is difficult to think about, now that you are here.

He circled the russet academic, much closer than he had dared before, and hovered a mesmerized nose over the wolf’s hackles. What is that enthralling scent you wear? You smell of a garden.

i'm being medicated did not quite have the ring that lestan wanted to convey. "one of the healers, and leaders, arlette, she's as-asked me to find some lavender on excursion." shy tendrils of wonder creeping his face. "i was in the garden. and i was j-just heading out, actually."
toeing the footholds of the round mountain, the mayfair picked his way up to help close the distance between them. once there, wake's eyes recaptured him anew, sending a glissade of —
difficult to think about? because of him?
"did you l-learn anything?" lestan murmured in question, trying not to seem overeager as well as properly enthused and not too distant, a balancing act which quickly drummed up the start of a headache.

Begrudgingly, Wake searched his thoughts. Oh yes, the reindeer-chasers, he murmured, absolutely reluctant to turn his mind to things that were not related to digesting Lestan.

Yes, he said more clearly. I met Sun Eater, chieftain to the hunters. You were right to be concerned. They are a wasteful, selfish lot, under his helm. Or perhaps it has nothing to do with him at all. But do not let them fill you with distress. Their buzzing is of flies, rather than hornets. I do not think them dangerous… so long as they are left to their hunting.

He seemed bored to speak of it, his eyes wandering freely across his companion’s lovely features. They are simple folk. They will follow the reindeer until death, I presume. They seem to crave nothing more.

Myself, however? The serpent smiled. I crave plenty.

seeing his face claim mon dieu

winter's wake watched lestan as if he were some puff pastry filled with some tantalizing flavor. this sensation grew and grew until it expanded to encompass him and the space between.
mesmerizing, those eyes. not only pretty, emphasizing a knowledge that lestan was not even certain he had of himself.
vindicated, a moment of distraction crossed the soft features. it hurt his heart more than he expected to know that these saatsine killed so much, and for no reason. "sun eater! how l-lofty," he mumbled beneath his breath in a reined fit of indignation. "th-thank you, in any case." he was both set at ease and newly unnerved, though that last had more to do with him than anything else.
long blink gave him a moment to hide his eyes and gather himself from the troubling revelation. "and wh-what will you do with the remainder of your day, now that you've m-made your report?" the mayfair asked, wanting to tease, caught instead in a honeyed dream.

yesssss - just when i thought my problematic favs roster was completely full, here come sam reid playin lestat *O*

Lestan Mayfair was beguiling to the bellwether; his mind a riveting maze for Wake to navigate. The summerstar seemed constantly on tenterhooks, and his expressions warred often between softhearted empathy and bitterfaced judgement. Oscillating between hopefulness and fright and contempt. All his moods made for an utterly fascinating puzzle for the rogue to dotingly piece together.

What do you mean? I have already done what I intended, he went on cryptically. I have lured you from your home with the intent of having you all to myself for the evening. The question now lies with you, my dear Lestan. A head tilt, a casual look.

Will you stay?

waiting on edge for season three with HELD BREATH

a flourish. an invitation. lestan no longer found the ability to ignore such an expression, the gaze that scrutinized his own with a specific intrigue.
all for himself! for the evening! and not even to speak at length of the caribou murderers.
quietly he allowed himself to glance with lingering wonder into the sculpted face, lingering with a particularly raptured nature upon the singularly adorant mouth forming words that still confused lestan. 
but there was no sleight-of-hand in the magnificent Mephistopheles; in fact, winter's wake spoke with such direction that even an easily bowled-over man such as the mayfair might comprehend to a degree unignorable.
"yes," and his voice was a shy sunny thing in the frigid atmosphere. "i should l-like to know more about you," lestan admitted, a thrill tingling to life in his trepidatious belly, holding those eyes as long as he dared.

me to the showrunners:

Had he needed to ask? Of course not. It was plain to any observer that Lestan had no desire to see them parted so soon. But…

Winter’s Wake wanted to hear the affirmation all the same. That soft yes, in the Mayfair’s delicate manner. It was music, the sweetest lullaby, to hear such unquestioning consent to damnation.

He gazed at him, mouth curved into a prim smile, as if withholding a happy secret. Come, he flicked his tail, leading his companion of eternal summer up the forgiving slopes. At all times, he kept that angelic visage in the corner of his eye. Ask me anything your heart desires.

AMEN get a move on

anything? it was suddenly as if lestan had never had a single thought in his head, a ragged little coquette who was able only to blink his eyes and breathe. winter's wake moved away on lithe legs, and the mayfair hurried at once to catch up.
the mountain was not steep, but it seemed his legs ached all the same. "why me?" and another note of thanks praised that he was in rein, though in the asking he felt its boldness and almost gasped openly at himself.

Of course he wanted to know why! Why the attention, why the gazing, why him.

Because you do not seem to be aware of your worth. The answer came without thought or preamble. The winterwolf might have laughed that it needed to be asked, but such was Lestan’s overwhelming insecurity. Because I prefer the task of unearthing my treasures. The digging, the discovering, the polishing, the mantling. Winter’s Wake did not shy from hard work.

But mostly because you look at me like that. That barely restrained desire, that bubbling nervousness, that glint of inner fright. His skin shivered as he gazed upon Lestan’s lovely shyness. He wished to see him nervous only for him and nothing else.

"m-maybe — i daresay it's because n-no one has spoken to me quite like this before," lestan managed. three times he was struck dumb! a grin overtook him, then another, until beneath the sweetened onslaught he was flushed right to the tips of his very ears.
"you're not — you don't m-mean to toy with me," he murmured, more an observation than a request. gratefully he gazed out over the edge of the mountain as they traveled, though as always! always, his eyes were drawn back to winter's wake.
"w-wouldn't you want to f-find something more — something polished already?" came his weak protestations, for lestan could simply not fathom attraction in himself, let alone from so — from someone like the devil before him.

Lestan had earned a laugh this time. And allow someone else to have all the fun on my behalf? Wake scoffed at the notion. Whether polished by themselves or by others, he knew he could never be satisfied by another’s work.

I am the only one capable of polishing to my standards.

He breathed deep in the twilit air, the sun more than half gone from their view. The atmosphere here was perfumed with snow and ice and promise. He could scent the summer here, and it smelled of the Mayfair.

What is meant for me is already mine. It was spoken like a mantra, a cantrip; an irrevocable edict onto the universe. And that panther smile never waned. Yet, I work tirelessly for what I desire, so that I know truly it is worth having.

a laugh tumbled out of lestan, and suddenly; suddenly he was pressing back. "and you think i am meant for you?" honeyblue eyes did not harden; they searched only for the ineffable truth: that this was a game.
no black-eyed man with a god's tongue would ever want lestan. this truth had suited and satisfied him long enough to have sparked acceptance.
the mayfair as an object of desire simply set his mental engine to sputtering with pure indignation.
and so it was with a silken new vulnerability that he glanced at wake again in the same seeking way. 
"h-how do you — how will you polish me?" its risque sound rang against lestan's own ears and set his face to burning, but almost in defiance he lifted his chin, wanting to know.

I think I will find out, Wake said back, solemn as a vow.

He saw how Lestan eyed him with mild-mannered skepticism. The disbelief in that sunring’d gaze delighted him, as the snowrunner knew he would enjoy wiping it all away, smudge by pitiful smudge.

He laughed again, amused and filled with a warmth so deep that no winter wind could touch him. Does everything you wish to know about me relate to you in some way? It was easy to tease this bookish man, so buried in his studies that he could not fathom his own beauty, his own intellect — his own worth. But he would answer anyway.

I am doing so already, Lestan. Have you ever dared to ask such a question before? His eyes flashed with a playful challenge. Have you ever wanted to?

Tell me I am the only one.

"you m-made it about me, when you sang my name and c-called me away," lestan protested again, though his mouth was dancing along with the eyes that had become bluebell light. again, sundered, discomposed in the strangest of ways, the mayfair stared at the starfall companion.
"never," he said at last with surety, and eyeblink betraying the old fatigue of past romances he still carried like a thorn in a lion's paw.
but! he would not become disconsolately academic in the face of such a libertine. even his time before had not been such an electrical zing to his very heart.
"b-but no, to answer your question, winter's wake. i w-want to know more things less in relation to myself. who you are. where you come f-from. the name of your mother," mouth twitching as he realized, belatedly, that he had stopped walking.