(Slight warning that Stefen might be a little ooc here; he was certainly not this assertive in canon, but I headcanon that once Yfandes started talking to him she figured she might as well impart all her "Vanyel management" tips and tricks, the first of which being "letting Vanyel brood for too long never leads to anything good", as evidenced by his fatalistic acceptance of his "glorious destiny" :/)
(Also, this is not gen. In fact, it is very NSFW ;))
Chapter One
The first thing Vanyel became aware off was a wet sort of warmth. It was a very familiar sensation, but his fever-dulled mind took approximately one hundred years to realize that was because he was at a place that had hot springs. He couldn’t be in k’Treva, could he? He was actually lying in warm water, and there was a rotten-egg tang in the air.
Then came a bright, swirling yellow-green energy that was similar to Moondance’s aura, in that they were both primarily Healers by nature, but that was the only similarity. This felt utterly foreign; the touch of it on his wounds felt almost ticklish-painful, completely unlike Moondance’s soothing coolness.
Stefen was with him. Stefen was singing to him—that immediately calmed him. If Stef was with him, they were safe, or as safe as could be. An enemy would not let Stef stay at his side. He realized now that Stef was supporting him in the water, gently bathing him while the strange Healer repaired the worst of the damage Rendan and his gang had inflicted—
—best not to dwell on that. On the proud Bandit Lord helpless at his feet while Vanyel ruthlessly—
oh gods what did I do
:Hush, Chosen,:, Yfandes whispered in his mind, her mindvoice like a cool hand stroking his brow. :What’s done is done. And they were not blameless. Rest:
He took her words to heart.
***
Overhead, sky a dead and lightless black. To either side, walls of ice.
“Vanyel!”
Suddenly he was alone and exhausted, and chilled to the bone. An army filled the pass before him—
“Van, wake up!”
”You—you are—“
“Leareth.” The Tayledras word for “darkness”. The man smiled. “A quaint conceit, don’t you think?”
“Vanyel! It’s just a dream, please wake up!”
He came awake all at once, with a pained gasp. Stefen was leaning over him, but not touching him. His eyes were wide and frightened, and possibly on the verge of tears.
Vanyel himself was not faring much better. He knew it, felt it in his bones, that this was true Foresight, and not a merely allegorical warning.
And it was going to come to pass very, very soon.
“Stef,” he choked out, could not say any more than that around the lump in his throat.
Stefen needed no other encouragement. He lay down next to Van, and pulled Vanyel’s head onto his chest, and just held him. Vanyel couldn’t hold back the tears, the fear, the grief. He’d been holding it back for so long, at first because he was the strongest and best of the Herald-Mages, with far too many duties and responsibilities to indulge in self-pity, and now he was the last Herald-Mage. The only other person he would have let see him like this was gone, and it was his fault—
He was too tired for rage anymore. Too tired to pretend this was just another mission. Too tired to remember that he was supposed to be strong.
“Don’t worry about all that, Van-ashke. You don’t have to be strong right now. Just rest and get better. And—let yourself mourn her.”
That set off a fresh spate of weeping. Oh, Savil, I’m sorry, so sorry. He clung tighter to Stefen. And it may all come to naught in the end. I’m going to die too, and I can only hope Stef will actually bring the Guard in time—he choked a bit at that. Not for himself, but for Stefen. All the pain and loneliness I had to endure, feeling like I had a hole inside my chest. I don’t want Stef to go through that. And I had Yfandes to help me bear it all. How will Stef…?
With a sudden, ice cold feeling of dread, Vanyel knew exactly what Stefen would do after Vanyel’s passing. After all, hadn’t Vanyel tried to do the same?
“Stef,” he said, raising himself up to look down on his lifebonded. “Stefen, promise me you’ll stay safe. Promise me you won’t ever risk your life for some foolishness, or, or give in to despair.”
“Hey, now, Ashke, what’s all this?” Stefen asked, stroking hair back from Van’s forehead.
“Just promise, Stefen. Please.”
True concern washed over Stefen’s face, and he sat up. For the first time Vanyel noticed they were in a cave, or underground, and the cavern was lit with multihued mage lights drifting near the ceiling.
“Vanyel, what’s going on? Tell me what’s got you so upset,” he said, soothing but stern.
Vanyel just shook his head, fresh tears streaking down his cheeks. “Please. Please. I need you to promise. I need your word, you won’t ever try to harm yourself.”
Looking even more concerned, Stef asked, “Why would I try to harm myself? Vanyel? Ashke?”
But Vanyel wouldn’t, couldn’t speak of the dream right then. Laying his head in Stefen’s lap, he once again begged, “Please. Promise me. Please.”
A sigh overhead. “Alright then. I’ll promise to never try to harm myself. If,,” he said ominously, “you tell me why you think I might.”
Stefen stroked the back of Vanyel’s head; but Vanyel couldn’t raise his head. Couldn’t look his lifebonded in the eye and tell him he was dying, maybe they both were, unless Stefen promised. But if Stef knew, he wouldn’t promise; Vanyel wouldn’t have promised, after all.
So he just lay there and quietly cried, until the first notes of a familiar lullaby sent him back to sleep.
***
When Vanyel woke again, Stefen was sitting up next to him, a rough looking stone bowl held in his hands. Slowly, Vanyel sat up, carefully cataloguing all the aches and twinges of his half-Healed body. Silently, Stefen held out the bowl and Vanyel took it. Some kind of thin broth with chunks of meat and mushrooms floating about in it. He took a careful sip, still warm, but not hot enough to scald, and a bit bland, but as soon as he swallowed, his appetite returned with a vengeance.
The silence held while Vanyel ate. As soon as he finished Stef said, “If you need to take a piss, I can show you the cave Hyrryl said we should use.” At Vanyel’s nod, Stefen rose up with enviable grace. As Van struggled to his feet—grateful Stefen didn’t offer assistance—he ruefully reflected that not all his aches could be blamed on being injured.
“Hyrryl?” Vanyel asked, his voice a dry croak.
“She’s the shaman here. We ran into a kyree on the road. Yfandes told him you were wingbrother to k’Treva, and he said that meant they were honorbound to help us. Well, I say “he”. Aroon says he’s neuter, but calling him “it” seems rude, but he doesn’t seem very feminine, so.” He shrugged. “Aroon says there’s a third pronoun the kyree use for people like him, but that it doesn’t really translate into Valdemaran.”
Stefen kept up the onesided conversation, letting Vanyel know all that had happened since Vanyel escaped from the Bandit Keep, and stayed close to him, and once or twice put out a steadying hand when it seemed Vanyel might need it, but they managed the short trip to the designated cavern with no mishaps.
The necessities seen too, Vanyel opted to take a soak in one of the hotsprings. Stefen stripped as well and sank into the water with him, and without asking, pulled Vanyel back to chest. Vanyel let him; he never objected to displays of affection when they were alone, and in any case there was a quiet, entirely understandable feeling of desperation in the embrace.
For a while Stefen was content to let the silence hold, but then, quietly, he said, “Tell me what happened last night.” No asking, no tentativeness in the statement. For all that they were softly spoken, there was an implacable tone to them. Stefen wanted, needed to know what had prompted such an embarrassing emotional outburst—
Stefen huffed into Vanyel’s ear. “Not embarrassing, Van. Gods know you needed to let some of that out. But there was something more going on than just grief for Savil. You were terrified of something. You’ve never woken from a nightmare Feeling quite like that before.”
Feeling trapped, he made to move away, but Stefen tightened his hold on him.
“No, Vanyel.” Quiet command, but Vanyel had no choice but to heed it. “I let you have plenty of space before. I let you pull away, and keep things bottled up, and it didn’t do a damn thing to help either of us. Am I your partner,” he said, his voice getting hard. “Or your plaything?”
Vanyel remained tense for a few long moments, before the tension drained out of him and he sagged against Stefen.
“I’m going to die.” He said it flatly, with an undeniable sense of finality. This time it was Stefen’s turn to tense in shock. “I won’t survive the confrontation with the enemy. And I was afraid—not for myself, but for you. For what you might—do, after.”
“What makes you so sure—“
“I have the Gift of Foresight, Stefen,” he said angrily. “And I’ve had this dream before. Right after I was Chosen. And a few times since then. It always ends the same.”
He could feel it, then, Stefen’s despair, and frantic denial.
He still wouldn’t let go.
“I thought I’d made peace with it,” Vanyel said. He couldn’t keep the emotion from his voice. “Then you came along. I can’t—“ he broke off, unable to trust his voice. “I know I can do what needs to be done,” he said, regaining control. “But I need you to be safe. I need to know that you’ll be all right.”
“Well I damn well shouldn’t be all right if you’re dead, Vanyel,” he said angrily.
“Not immediately after, no,” Vanyel agreed, calmly. “But it gets bearable, after a time. You might find someone else—“
“There won’t be anyone fucking else.”
Vanyel waited for a few seconds before replying, “I once thought the same.” He turned in Stefen’s arms then, needed to look at him, make him understand. “I never thought to meet someone like you. I never thought I would be happy again. That I would get to know love again. It’s possible, beloved. No matter how much it hurts in the beginning.”
Stefen looked at him incredulously. Then he pulled Vanyel in for a bruising kiss.
“No,” Stefen said fiercely. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to make me love you and then just—I had plans. I thought I knew how my life would go, what I wanted. Then you came along and changed everything. Changed me. You had better just—“ he brought their lips together again. “You had better just figure out a way to not get killed, then. I only just found you.”
Vanyel wrapped his arms tight around Stefen, hating the circumstances that had brought them to this point. Why did it have to be now? he thought bitterly. Stef’s right, we haven’t even known each other a year. Couldn’t we have had a few years together before this happened?
Stefen continued kissing him, hands drifting under the waterline to cup his ass and bring their groins together. Vanyel gasped into Stefen’s mouth, always amused and thankful that Stef was so forward about sex. He reached between their bodies, cocks already halfway to hard. But the water was not so facilitating, and Vanyel had no idea how many of their supplies had been salvaged. Did they kyree have any use for oil or some other lubricant?
No matter. He urged Stefen out of the water, and Stef hoisted himself up and sat on the edge of the pool, knowing what Van was after. He spread his legs wantonly, but instead of the usual smirk, he looked down at Vanyel with pleading eyes. He gave himself a few strokes before Vanyel claimed him with his mouth, tongue swirling around the tip, before sinking down all the way to the base. The lifebond, coupled with his Empathy, weak though it was, meant that this was possibly one of Vanyel’s favorite things to do in bed. He could feel his own cock stirring and growing harder from the phantom sensation of his own mouth. Stefen hissed in pleasure, his hand resting on the back of Vanyel’s head, content to let Vanyel do as he pleased. He sucked for as long as he could manage, before pulling off and panting for air. Gentle, nibbling kisses followed, all along the shaft while Vanyel cupped Stefen’s balls and rolled them gently. Reaching the base once again, he licked a stripe right back to the head, tongue searching out the bitter taste of precome, teasing back the foreskin before diving right back down, and up, and down again. Stefen whimpered a bit, and Vanyel could Feel just how aroused he was, his own cock throbbing and jerking despite remaining untouched.
“Not going to last for much longer,” Stef moaned. Taking one last fortifying breath, Vanyel went down again, intent on bringing Stefen to completion, just as eager for release as he was—Vanyel moaned at the sensation of his lover’s quivering body, trying to simultaneously draw the pleasure out and bring it to it’s conclusion.
When Stefen finally came, he swallowed all of it, savoring every drop. He had no particular objection to the act, but knowing how much Stefen loved seeing him do it made him want to wring out every last bit of seed he could.
“Come here,” Stefen panted, beautifully flushed and languid. Vanyel climbed out of the pool and Stefen pounced, pushing him flat on his back and wasting no time on returning the favor. Phantom pleasure gave way to the warm, wet reality of Stefen’s talented mouth. Stefen didn’t waste much time on finesse; Vanyel had explained to him once just how his Gift of Empathy worked in this regard, so he knew that Vanyel would be as desperate, if not more, for his climax as Stefen had been.
They were both left trembling wrecks, Stefen’s head pillowed on Van’s stomach. For a moment Vanyel simply let himself stroke Stefen’s hair while he let his blissed out mind wander.
As always, though, reality came crashing back far sooner than either of them would have liked.
Fill, 1/? Vanyel, Gen, Magic's Price Fix-It
(Also, this is not gen. In fact, it is very NSFW ;))
Chapter One
The first thing Vanyel became aware off was a wet sort of warmth. It was a very familiar sensation, but his fever-dulled mind took approximately one hundred years to realize that was because he was at a place that had hot springs. He couldn’t be in k’Treva, could he? He was actually lying in warm water, and there was a rotten-egg tang in the air.
Then came a bright, swirling yellow-green energy that was similar to Moondance’s aura, in that they were both primarily Healers by nature, but that was the only similarity. This felt utterly foreign; the touch of it on his wounds felt almost ticklish-painful, completely unlike Moondance’s soothing coolness.
Stefen was with him. Stefen was singing to him—that immediately calmed him. If Stef was with him, they were safe, or as safe as could be. An enemy would not let Stef stay at his side. He realized now that Stef was supporting him in the water, gently bathing him while the strange Healer repaired the worst of the damage Rendan and his gang had inflicted—
—best not to dwell on that. On the proud Bandit Lord helpless at his feet while Vanyel ruthlessly—
oh gods what did I do
:Hush, Chosen,:, Yfandes whispered in his mind, her mindvoice like a cool hand stroking his brow. :What’s done is done. And they were not blameless. Rest:
He took her words to heart.
***
Overhead, sky a dead and lightless black. To either side, walls of ice.
“Vanyel!”
Suddenly he was alone and exhausted, and chilled to the bone. An army filled the pass before him—
“Van, wake up!”
”You—you are—“
“Leareth.” The Tayledras word for “darkness”. The man smiled. “A quaint conceit, don’t you think?”
“Vanyel! It’s just a dream, please wake up!”
He came awake all at once, with a pained gasp. Stefen was leaning over him, but not touching him. His eyes were wide and frightened, and possibly on the verge of tears.
Vanyel himself was not faring much better. He knew it, felt it in his bones, that this was true Foresight, and not a merely allegorical warning.
And it was going to come to pass very, very soon.
“Stef,” he choked out, could not say any more than that around the lump in his throat.
Stefen needed no other encouragement. He lay down next to Van, and pulled Vanyel’s head onto his chest, and just held him. Vanyel couldn’t hold back the tears, the fear, the grief. He’d been holding it back for so long, at first because he was the strongest and best of the Herald-Mages, with far too many duties and responsibilities to indulge in self-pity, and now he was the last Herald-Mage. The only other person he would have let see him like this was gone, and it was his fault—
He was too tired for rage anymore. Too tired to pretend this was just another mission. Too tired to remember that he was supposed to be strong.
“Don’t worry about all that, Van-ashke. You don’t have to be strong right now. Just rest and get better. And—let yourself mourn her.”
That set off a fresh spate of weeping. Oh, Savil, I’m sorry, so sorry. He clung tighter to Stefen. And it may all come to naught in the end. I’m going to die too, and I can only hope Stef will actually bring the Guard in time—he choked a bit at that. Not for himself, but for Stefen. All the pain and loneliness I had to endure, feeling like I had a hole inside my chest. I don’t want Stef to go through that. And I had Yfandes to help me bear it all. How will Stef…?
With a sudden, ice cold feeling of dread, Vanyel knew exactly what Stefen would do after Vanyel’s passing. After all, hadn’t Vanyel tried to do the same?
“Stef,” he said, raising himself up to look down on his lifebonded. “Stefen, promise me you’ll stay safe. Promise me you won’t ever risk your life for some foolishness, or, or give in to despair.”
“Hey, now, Ashke, what’s all this?” Stefen asked, stroking hair back from Van’s forehead.
“Just promise, Stefen. Please.”
True concern washed over Stefen’s face, and he sat up. For the first time Vanyel noticed they were in a cave, or underground, and the cavern was lit with multihued mage lights drifting near the ceiling.
“Vanyel, what’s going on? Tell me what’s got you so upset,” he said, soothing but stern.
Vanyel just shook his head, fresh tears streaking down his cheeks. “Please. Please. I need you to promise. I need your word, you won’t ever try to harm yourself.”
Looking even more concerned, Stef asked, “Why would I try to harm myself? Vanyel? Ashke?”
But Vanyel wouldn’t, couldn’t speak of the dream right then. Laying his head in Stefen’s lap, he once again begged, “Please. Promise me. Please.”
A sigh overhead. “Alright then. I’ll promise to never try to harm myself. If,,” he said ominously, “you tell me why you think I might.”
Stefen stroked the back of Vanyel’s head; but Vanyel couldn’t raise his head. Couldn’t look his lifebonded in the eye and tell him he was dying, maybe they both were, unless Stefen promised. But if Stef knew, he wouldn’t promise; Vanyel wouldn’t have promised, after all.
So he just lay there and quietly cried, until the first notes of a familiar lullaby sent him back to sleep.
***
When Vanyel woke again, Stefen was sitting up next to him, a rough looking stone bowl held in his hands. Slowly, Vanyel sat up, carefully cataloguing all the aches and twinges of his half-Healed body. Silently, Stefen held out the bowl and Vanyel took it. Some kind of thin broth with chunks of meat and mushrooms floating about in it. He took a careful sip, still warm, but not hot enough to scald, and a bit bland, but as soon as he swallowed, his appetite returned with a vengeance.
The silence held while Vanyel ate. As soon as he finished Stef said, “If you need to take a piss, I can show you the cave Hyrryl said we should use.” At Vanyel’s nod, Stefen rose up with enviable grace. As Van struggled to his feet—grateful Stefen didn’t offer assistance—he ruefully reflected that not all his aches could be blamed on being injured.
“Hyrryl?” Vanyel asked, his voice a dry croak.
“She’s the shaman here. We ran into a kyree on the road. Yfandes told him you were wingbrother to k’Treva, and he said that meant they were honorbound to help us. Well, I say “he”. Aroon says he’s neuter, but calling him “it” seems rude, but he doesn’t seem very feminine, so.” He shrugged. “Aroon says there’s a third pronoun the kyree use for people like him, but that it doesn’t really translate into Valdemaran.”
Stefen kept up the onesided conversation, letting Vanyel know all that had happened since Vanyel escaped from the Bandit Keep, and stayed close to him, and once or twice put out a steadying hand when it seemed Vanyel might need it, but they managed the short trip to the designated cavern with no mishaps.
The necessities seen too, Vanyel opted to take a soak in one of the hotsprings. Stefen stripped as well and sank into the water with him, and without asking, pulled Vanyel back to chest. Vanyel let him; he never objected to displays of affection when they were alone, and in any case there was a quiet, entirely understandable feeling of desperation in the embrace.
For a while Stefen was content to let the silence hold, but then, quietly, he said, “Tell me what happened last night.” No asking, no tentativeness in the statement. For all that they were softly spoken, there was an implacable tone to them. Stefen wanted, needed to know what had prompted such an embarrassing emotional outburst—
Stefen huffed into Vanyel’s ear. “Not embarrassing, Van. Gods know you needed to let some of that out. But there was something more going on than just grief for Savil. You were terrified of something. You’ve never woken from a nightmare Feeling quite like that before.”
Feeling trapped, he made to move away, but Stefen tightened his hold on him.
“No, Vanyel.” Quiet command, but Vanyel had no choice but to heed it. “I let you have plenty of space before. I let you pull away, and keep things bottled up, and it didn’t do a damn thing to help either of us. Am I your partner,” he said, his voice getting hard. “Or your plaything?”
Vanyel remained tense for a few long moments, before the tension drained out of him and he sagged against Stefen.
“I’m going to die.” He said it flatly, with an undeniable sense of finality. This time it was Stefen’s turn to tense in shock. “I won’t survive the confrontation with the enemy. And I was afraid—not for myself, but for you. For what you might—do, after.”
“What makes you so sure—“
“I have the Gift of Foresight, Stefen,” he said angrily. “And I’ve had this dream before. Right after I was Chosen. And a few times since then. It always ends the same.”
He could feel it, then, Stefen’s despair, and frantic denial.
He still wouldn’t let go.
“I thought I’d made peace with it,” Vanyel said. He couldn’t keep the emotion from his voice. “Then you came along. I can’t—“ he broke off, unable to trust his voice. “I know I can do what needs to be done,” he said, regaining control. “But I need you to be safe. I need to know that you’ll be all right.”
“Well I damn well shouldn’t be all right if you’re dead, Vanyel,” he said angrily.
“Not immediately after, no,” Vanyel agreed, calmly. “But it gets bearable, after a time. You might find someone else—“
“There won’t be anyone fucking else.”
Vanyel waited for a few seconds before replying, “I once thought the same.” He turned in Stefen’s arms then, needed to look at him, make him understand. “I never thought to meet someone like you. I never thought I would be happy again. That I would get to know love again. It’s possible, beloved. No matter how much it hurts in the beginning.”
Stefen looked at him incredulously. Then he pulled Vanyel in for a bruising kiss.
“No,” Stefen said fiercely. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to make me love you and then just—I had plans. I thought I knew how my life would go, what I wanted. Then you came along and changed everything. Changed me. You had better just—“ he brought their lips together again. “You had better just figure out a way to not get killed, then. I only just found you.”
Vanyel wrapped his arms tight around Stefen, hating the circumstances that had brought them to this point. Why did it have to be now? he thought bitterly. Stef’s right, we haven’t even known each other a year. Couldn’t we have had a few years together before this happened?
Stefen continued kissing him, hands drifting under the waterline to cup his ass and bring their groins together. Vanyel gasped into Stefen’s mouth, always amused and thankful that Stef was so forward about sex. He reached between their bodies, cocks already halfway to hard. But the water was not so facilitating, and Vanyel had no idea how many of their supplies had been salvaged. Did they kyree have any use for oil or some other lubricant?
No matter. He urged Stefen out of the water, and Stef hoisted himself up and sat on the edge of the pool, knowing what Van was after. He spread his legs wantonly, but instead of the usual smirk, he looked down at Vanyel with pleading eyes. He gave himself a few strokes before Vanyel claimed him with his mouth, tongue swirling around the tip, before sinking down all the way to the base. The lifebond, coupled with his Empathy, weak though it was, meant that this was possibly one of Vanyel’s favorite things to do in bed. He could feel his own cock stirring and growing harder from the phantom sensation of his own mouth. Stefen hissed in pleasure, his hand resting on the back of Vanyel’s head, content to let Vanyel do as he pleased. He sucked for as long as he could manage, before pulling off and panting for air. Gentle, nibbling kisses followed, all along the shaft while Vanyel cupped Stefen’s balls and rolled them gently. Reaching the base once again, he licked a stripe right back to the head, tongue searching out the bitter taste of precome, teasing back the foreskin before diving right back down, and up, and down again. Stefen whimpered a bit, and Vanyel could Feel just how aroused he was, his own cock throbbing and jerking despite remaining untouched.
“Not going to last for much longer,” Stef moaned. Taking one last fortifying breath, Vanyel went down again, intent on bringing Stefen to completion, just as eager for release as he was—Vanyel moaned at the sensation of his lover’s quivering body, trying to simultaneously draw the pleasure out and bring it to it’s conclusion.
When Stefen finally came, he swallowed all of it, savoring every drop. He had no particular objection to the act, but knowing how much Stefen loved seeing him do it made him want to wring out every last bit of seed he could.
“Come here,” Stefen panted, beautifully flushed and languid. Vanyel climbed out of the pool and Stefen pounced, pushing him flat on his back and wasting no time on returning the favor. Phantom pleasure gave way to the warm, wet reality of Stefen’s talented mouth. Stefen didn’t waste much time on finesse; Vanyel had explained to him once just how his Gift of Empathy worked in this regard, so he knew that Vanyel would be as desperate, if not more, for his climax as Stefen had been.
They were both left trembling wrecks, Stefen’s head pillowed on Van’s stomach. For a moment Vanyel simply let himself stroke Stefen’s hair while he let his blissed out mind wander.
As always, though, reality came crashing back far sooner than either of them would have liked.