it's hard to give, it's hard to get
Sep. 7th, 2010 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yukie***
Thanatos was, as usual, taking up the entire divan by sprawling all across it. He seemed to be all legs and arms now. And hair. How he was comfortable when he was upside-down and sideways that way was beyond Tahran's ken.
"Brother," said Tahran, smiling at him, "are you hard at work napping, or can I ask your help with something?"
The other god opened one eye. "I was busy napping, but I certainly have time to help my luminescent sibling out. What is it?"
"Well - can I ask you to be serious about it, before I go on?" Tahran asked. Thanatos had taken to teasing him a great deal as of late, to either make him splutter or blush or both. What that was all about was beyond Tahran, but it was not as if he minded terribly; he could give as good as he took, and it was hardly malicious. Just odd. But so was his brother.
Said brother nodded. "Of course."
"It's about my priests."
Thanatos blinked blue-in-blue eyes, rolled onto his stomach, and then sat up; the tiny violet crystals dangling from his earrings chimed quietly against one another as he moved, leaning forward. His violet robes were slipping slightly off his shoulder, but he seemed not to notice (Tahran certainly did). "Has something happened to them? What's wrong? You're upset."
There was no hiding from the eye of his brother's heart. Tahran was grateful for this, always. Even when he hadn't the words, somehow, his brother understood. 'Nothing is wrong with them as such. They'e not hurt, they're not abandoning their fellows and running amok without clothes on or any such thing before you get silly anyhow to make me relax. But…they're afraid."
"Of what?"
Tahran sighed. "That, I don't know. I was hoping you could help me glean what affects them."
"I can do my best." Thanatos's voice was soothing and quiet. "It's nothing you've done. Hearts are confusing - and usually it's something in the heart that causes fear."
"Thank you. I just feel completely foolish about this."
"You are hardly foolish." Another faint chiming sound as Thanatos stood and closed the distance between them, then embraced Tahran. "We simply understand different things; I feel absurd when you discuss some things and they fly over my head at great speed. But in sharing understanding with one another, well - we won't feel foolish after a while, right, once we understand?"
Tahran smiled and tugged the askew robes back into place. "True enough. Will you come with me, then, to see my people?"
"Of course," said Thanatos, but then he paused and bit his lower lip slightly. "…They won't - fear my presence, will they?"
"Are people still…?"
"Some places. At times."
Tahran huffed. "Well, it's not your fault they've decided to be foolish. …Come on. I can't do this without you, and I certainly won't allow anyone to call you ridiculous names."
Thanatos took his hand. "Thank you. That means the world to me."
"Well, you and our sister mean the world to me," Tahran replied.
***
It didn't take terribly long for Thanatos to work out what the priests feared.
"Their hearts?" Tahran queried, blinking. "but why?"
"Not their hearts as such, but what's inside them. The things I govern. Some things our sister does too but mostly the hidden things. Desires they aren't aware of, or that they don't wish to show to others. They're frightened by those. How vivid some of these wants are, and how some of them aren't acceptable to society, or 'right'. …But they're just wants. It isn't the desire that's the problem. it's how you act on it. It's the same with the wants that Chrystalis has domain over, the 'known' and open ones. You can certainly act on THOSE strangely too…" He trailed off, fiddling with his favourite pendant . He wore may most of the time; the one he liked most had been a gift from their sister. "I'm pontificating. I'm pontificating and I'm supposed to be thinking so I can help you. Glorious…"
"Your sleeve's falling down again," Tahran said, and tugged his brother's robe straight once more.
Thanatos gave him a somewhat impish grin. "Maybe I liked it that way."
"You're being ridiculous," said Tahran, but his tone was fond. Thanatos was also being distracting - and probably on purpose. But - Tahran couldn't find it in himself to be upset.
He'd always thought himself very everyday. Ordinary. Expected. Next to his brother, a wandering embodiment of the truest mystery, he felt downright stodgy.
Yet, in spite of this, Thanatos wanted to distract him. Drive him up a wall. Get his attention, annoy him, spend time with him. He looked at Tahran the same way he looked at Chrystalis - with desire, with adoration, with admiration. There was nothing in those blue-in-blue eyes that spoke of ennui.
Thanatos was looking at him through lowered lashes now. This had greater effect when Thanatos was sitting down and Tahran standing, since in that case Thanatos could actually look UP at him. When they both stood Thanatos had a good palm-width's worth of height on him. Even so, it was extremely hard to focus on much when Thanatos was doing that.
"What are you moony-eyed at me for?"
"Because you're there."
"Featherbrain," Tahran snorted. "What will we do about my priests…? I won't be able to focus on how long your eyelashes are like you want me to until I help them."
"I was thinking about that, too. I can hold more than one thought in my mind at once." Thanatos pouted at him a bit and then looked distant again, fidgeting with the pendant once more. He paced a bit, and then he froze mid-stride, one set of white toes still off the floor. "Oh. And I happened to have a very good idea just now."
"Would you care to tell me what that is?" Tahran grinned.
Thanatos beamed back at him and held up the pendant.
Tahran looked from it to his brother and back. "That's your obsidian mirror, you love that thing. So?"
"What do you see when you look into it?"
Tahran went closer and squinted. He had a feeling he was walking into one of his brother's daft jokes but just in case he wasn't… "My eye, or more like the shadow of my eye. Kind of."
Thanatos tilted the pendant slightly and Tahran jumped at the sudden distortion of his reflection, his familiar eye turning into something unfamiliar and unnerving at the tilt of the black glass. "Warn me before you do that. That looked damned eerie--!"
"It's still just you," said Thanatos. "but since your perspective's off then you see a demon and you reject your own self. … I suppose I shouldn't say 'just' you since you're not 'just' anyone but you know what I meant, don't you?"
:Not the foggiest."
"Tahran," Thanatos complained, looking as if he might stomp as he did when they were very small.
"I'm serious," Tahran said, patting his arm. "it's not that you're not making sense? it's just you'e gone all esoteric symbolic subject-leapy again as you're sometimes wont to do and I really have no idea when you do that."
"Sorry." Thanatos coughed delicately. He thought a moment about how to phrase it in such a way that people other than him could understand it. Tahran wasn't unwise, it was just that he and Thanatos thought so differently. "If your view of yourself is distorted by something - by fear or anger or sorrow - then you start rejecting your own self. Does that make sense? You begin to see your hidden desires as all of you. Your whole world is like the inside of my pendant. You believe that's all you really are. That your 'good' self is only a shell over something frightening. So you reject all that, try to pretend it doesn't exist, and you start to hate what you think you are and think you shouldn't be."
Tahran's eyes widened. "Right. NOW that makes sense. Thanks for putting it more plainly. I see what you mean now." he thought a bit. "So then…so then they feel they're lying to everyone and they think I'm angry with them, because I'm Truth and they're living a lie. Or they believe they are. The 'dark' bits are just as much them as the 'light' bits and the dark stuff isn't bad. It's just - well, everyone has good and bad habits and weak and strong points, and we make up for others weak point with our strong ones. Just like you and I do for one another and our sister does for us."
"I know that, and you certainly know that, and you'd never hate them for moments of weakness or 'bad thoughts'…"
"But they think I would…" Tahran sighed. "Why?"
"I guess - for the same reason they fear me? We have more power than them and sometimes people with power use it wrongly and unfairly."
Tahran bit his lip and wished the knot in his stomach would go away. "I don't want them scared of me, Thanatos. or of you - "
Thanatos hugged him again. Jingle. And now Tahran knew his brother was hugging his head on purpose, to be ridiculous and thus cheer him up.
Thanatos murmured into his ear, "We'll find a way to help them overcome that fear, so they wont be afraid of you or their hearts any more. All right?"
Tahran curled his toes as a shiver went up and down his back. "Stop that with my ear, you tickle."
Thanatos stuck his nose into Tahran's ear like a big ridiculous cat and then danced back laughing when Tahran swatted at him in an equally feline way. Tahran, undeterred, dove to tackle Thanatos, who cheated and hid in Tahran's shadow.
Tahran spluttered as his shadow started giggling. "Thanatos, get out of there."
Thanatos PEEKED at him. "Why?"
"Because I can't focus on your big glorious brilliant ideas if I'm laughing at the fact that you're peeking out of the floor."
"Oh, right."
Tahran watched him clamber out of the shadow as if it were a strangely dry bathtub. His robes were falling all askew again.
"My idea, Thanatos said, "is to show them that their 'dark' side is as true as their 'light' one. An that they don't have to fear or hate it because you don't. And that…well…that the only way to know who you truly are, and be your strongest - "
" - Is to accept everything you are," Tahran finished. "No - love everything you are. not just tolerate it. Not kick yourself for being angry or hurt over silly little things, or thoughts you think you shouldn't be thinking…oh, that sounded SO awkward."
"It was cute."
Tahran crossed his eyes at Thanatos and the latter dissolved into giggles.
***
Together, they crafted a mirror. It was like Thanatos's pendant - the reflection anyone saw when they looked into it was a shadowy thing, and frightening - composed of everything the seer thought was weak or wicked in themselves.
When called the reflection would leave the mirror.
"if they try to fight this, and deny it's part of them - if they try to kill it - then they've not understood and they'll have to try again," Tahran said.
Thanatos nodded, both palms flat on the mirror and long lashes lowered as he focused on sealing his power into the mirror, on combining and linking his magic with that of his brother's that already dwelt in the enchanted glass. Once bound to each other thus, their magics would not degrade - they would last eternally. The mirror itself would be eternal, so that any seeker of the truth might go to it and find their heart of hearts, their truest strength - and then, in knowing the Truth, their fear would fall unto Death.
"You're so kind," Thanatos whispered. "More than me. I would have lost patience - I don't like being feared…but maybe…maybe it's selfish to think this, but…if they understand themselves better..."
The glass of the mirror had deepened to a rich, dark violet, the colour of the midnight sky without the moon. Lifting his hands, Thanatos sat back in his heels.
"If they understand themselves more, and stop fearing, maybe they won't fear me…?"
"That's not selfish," said Tahran, and hugged his brother hard. "That's wanting to be loved. Everyone wants that."
Thanatos nuzzled his arm gently. (Giant cat.) "It's finished. …Tahran, it's beautiful, look at it. Look at what we made together…"
Tahran smiled as his brother made purring noises. "It really is. That's the same colour your eyes are. I like it."
To his surprise Thanatos turned brilliant pink and hid in his hair. "…When they call out, their shadow will answer…they'll find the Truth, and their fear will End."
"And learn of another true kind of Love."
"Yes." Thanatos smiled to at Tahran.
Tahran helped him to his feet. "Come on. I know a good safe place to put this - a place that belongs to both of us because of where it is and what it is. Help me set it up there?"
Thanatos suddenly leaned forward and kissed Tahran's cheek. "Of course." He looked seriously at his brother. "Tahran. if it takes time for them to learn, don't blame yourself. it's hard to love yourself for who you are. It isn't you keeping them from love."
Tahran leaned on his brother and closed his eyes. "I know. But - thank you for reminding me."
***
It would be many years before the first seeker undertook the Ordeal of the sacred mountain. It would be many more years before these seekers took the name of 'Paladin'. Over time, the knowledge of the mirror's true origin was forgotten by many.
It was not, however, by Tahran.
Thanatos was, as usual, taking up the entire divan by sprawling all across it. He seemed to be all legs and arms now. And hair. How he was comfortable when he was upside-down and sideways that way was beyond Tahran's ken.
"Brother," said Tahran, smiling at him, "are you hard at work napping, or can I ask your help with something?"
The other god opened one eye. "I was busy napping, but I certainly have time to help my luminescent sibling out. What is it?"
"Well - can I ask you to be serious about it, before I go on?" Tahran asked. Thanatos had taken to teasing him a great deal as of late, to either make him splutter or blush or both. What that was all about was beyond Tahran, but it was not as if he minded terribly; he could give as good as he took, and it was hardly malicious. Just odd. But so was his brother.
Said brother nodded. "Of course."
"It's about my priests."
Thanatos blinked blue-in-blue eyes, rolled onto his stomach, and then sat up; the tiny violet crystals dangling from his earrings chimed quietly against one another as he moved, leaning forward. His violet robes were slipping slightly off his shoulder, but he seemed not to notice (Tahran certainly did). "Has something happened to them? What's wrong? You're upset."
There was no hiding from the eye of his brother's heart. Tahran was grateful for this, always. Even when he hadn't the words, somehow, his brother understood. 'Nothing is wrong with them as such. They'e not hurt, they're not abandoning their fellows and running amok without clothes on or any such thing before you get silly anyhow to make me relax. But…they're afraid."
"Of what?"
Tahran sighed. "That, I don't know. I was hoping you could help me glean what affects them."
"I can do my best." Thanatos's voice was soothing and quiet. "It's nothing you've done. Hearts are confusing - and usually it's something in the heart that causes fear."
"Thank you. I just feel completely foolish about this."
"You are hardly foolish." Another faint chiming sound as Thanatos stood and closed the distance between them, then embraced Tahran. "We simply understand different things; I feel absurd when you discuss some things and they fly over my head at great speed. But in sharing understanding with one another, well - we won't feel foolish after a while, right, once we understand?"
Tahran smiled and tugged the askew robes back into place. "True enough. Will you come with me, then, to see my people?"
"Of course," said Thanatos, but then he paused and bit his lower lip slightly. "…They won't - fear my presence, will they?"
"Are people still…?"
"Some places. At times."
Tahran huffed. "Well, it's not your fault they've decided to be foolish. …Come on. I can't do this without you, and I certainly won't allow anyone to call you ridiculous names."
Thanatos took his hand. "Thank you. That means the world to me."
"Well, you and our sister mean the world to me," Tahran replied.
***
It didn't take terribly long for Thanatos to work out what the priests feared.
"Their hearts?" Tahran queried, blinking. "but why?"
"Not their hearts as such, but what's inside them. The things I govern. Some things our sister does too but mostly the hidden things. Desires they aren't aware of, or that they don't wish to show to others. They're frightened by those. How vivid some of these wants are, and how some of them aren't acceptable to society, or 'right'. …But they're just wants. It isn't the desire that's the problem. it's how you act on it. It's the same with the wants that Chrystalis has domain over, the 'known' and open ones. You can certainly act on THOSE strangely too…" He trailed off, fiddling with his favourite pendant . He wore may most of the time; the one he liked most had been a gift from their sister. "I'm pontificating. I'm pontificating and I'm supposed to be thinking so I can help you. Glorious…"
"Your sleeve's falling down again," Tahran said, and tugged his brother's robe straight once more.
Thanatos gave him a somewhat impish grin. "Maybe I liked it that way."
"You're being ridiculous," said Tahran, but his tone was fond. Thanatos was also being distracting - and probably on purpose. But - Tahran couldn't find it in himself to be upset.
He'd always thought himself very everyday. Ordinary. Expected. Next to his brother, a wandering embodiment of the truest mystery, he felt downright stodgy.
Yet, in spite of this, Thanatos wanted to distract him. Drive him up a wall. Get his attention, annoy him, spend time with him. He looked at Tahran the same way he looked at Chrystalis - with desire, with adoration, with admiration. There was nothing in those blue-in-blue eyes that spoke of ennui.
Thanatos was looking at him through lowered lashes now. This had greater effect when Thanatos was sitting down and Tahran standing, since in that case Thanatos could actually look UP at him. When they both stood Thanatos had a good palm-width's worth of height on him. Even so, it was extremely hard to focus on much when Thanatos was doing that.
"What are you moony-eyed at me for?"
"Because you're there."
"Featherbrain," Tahran snorted. "What will we do about my priests…? I won't be able to focus on how long your eyelashes are like you want me to until I help them."
"I was thinking about that, too. I can hold more than one thought in my mind at once." Thanatos pouted at him a bit and then looked distant again, fidgeting with the pendant once more. He paced a bit, and then he froze mid-stride, one set of white toes still off the floor. "Oh. And I happened to have a very good idea just now."
"Would you care to tell me what that is?" Tahran grinned.
Thanatos beamed back at him and held up the pendant.
Tahran looked from it to his brother and back. "That's your obsidian mirror, you love that thing. So?"
"What do you see when you look into it?"
Tahran went closer and squinted. He had a feeling he was walking into one of his brother's daft jokes but just in case he wasn't… "My eye, or more like the shadow of my eye. Kind of."
Thanatos tilted the pendant slightly and Tahran jumped at the sudden distortion of his reflection, his familiar eye turning into something unfamiliar and unnerving at the tilt of the black glass. "Warn me before you do that. That looked damned eerie--!"
"It's still just you," said Thanatos. "but since your perspective's off then you see a demon and you reject your own self. … I suppose I shouldn't say 'just' you since you're not 'just' anyone but you know what I meant, don't you?"
:Not the foggiest."
"Tahran," Thanatos complained, looking as if he might stomp as he did when they were very small.
"I'm serious," Tahran said, patting his arm. "it's not that you're not making sense? it's just you'e gone all esoteric symbolic subject-leapy again as you're sometimes wont to do and I really have no idea when you do that."
"Sorry." Thanatos coughed delicately. He thought a moment about how to phrase it in such a way that people other than him could understand it. Tahran wasn't unwise, it was just that he and Thanatos thought so differently. "If your view of yourself is distorted by something - by fear or anger or sorrow - then you start rejecting your own self. Does that make sense? You begin to see your hidden desires as all of you. Your whole world is like the inside of my pendant. You believe that's all you really are. That your 'good' self is only a shell over something frightening. So you reject all that, try to pretend it doesn't exist, and you start to hate what you think you are and think you shouldn't be."
Tahran's eyes widened. "Right. NOW that makes sense. Thanks for putting it more plainly. I see what you mean now." he thought a bit. "So then…so then they feel they're lying to everyone and they think I'm angry with them, because I'm Truth and they're living a lie. Or they believe they are. The 'dark' bits are just as much them as the 'light' bits and the dark stuff isn't bad. It's just - well, everyone has good and bad habits and weak and strong points, and we make up for others weak point with our strong ones. Just like you and I do for one another and our sister does for us."
"I know that, and you certainly know that, and you'd never hate them for moments of weakness or 'bad thoughts'…"
"But they think I would…" Tahran sighed. "Why?"
"I guess - for the same reason they fear me? We have more power than them and sometimes people with power use it wrongly and unfairly."
Tahran bit his lip and wished the knot in his stomach would go away. "I don't want them scared of me, Thanatos. or of you - "
Thanatos hugged him again. Jingle. And now Tahran knew his brother was hugging his head on purpose, to be ridiculous and thus cheer him up.
Thanatos murmured into his ear, "We'll find a way to help them overcome that fear, so they wont be afraid of you or their hearts any more. All right?"
Tahran curled his toes as a shiver went up and down his back. "Stop that with my ear, you tickle."
Thanatos stuck his nose into Tahran's ear like a big ridiculous cat and then danced back laughing when Tahran swatted at him in an equally feline way. Tahran, undeterred, dove to tackle Thanatos, who cheated and hid in Tahran's shadow.
Tahran spluttered as his shadow started giggling. "Thanatos, get out of there."
Thanatos PEEKED at him. "Why?"
"Because I can't focus on your big glorious brilliant ideas if I'm laughing at the fact that you're peeking out of the floor."
"Oh, right."
Tahran watched him clamber out of the shadow as if it were a strangely dry bathtub. His robes were falling all askew again.
"My idea, Thanatos said, "is to show them that their 'dark' side is as true as their 'light' one. An that they don't have to fear or hate it because you don't. And that…well…that the only way to know who you truly are, and be your strongest - "
" - Is to accept everything you are," Tahran finished. "No - love everything you are. not just tolerate it. Not kick yourself for being angry or hurt over silly little things, or thoughts you think you shouldn't be thinking…oh, that sounded SO awkward."
"It was cute."
Tahran crossed his eyes at Thanatos and the latter dissolved into giggles.
***
Together, they crafted a mirror. It was like Thanatos's pendant - the reflection anyone saw when they looked into it was a shadowy thing, and frightening - composed of everything the seer thought was weak or wicked in themselves.
When called the reflection would leave the mirror.
"if they try to fight this, and deny it's part of them - if they try to kill it - then they've not understood and they'll have to try again," Tahran said.
Thanatos nodded, both palms flat on the mirror and long lashes lowered as he focused on sealing his power into the mirror, on combining and linking his magic with that of his brother's that already dwelt in the enchanted glass. Once bound to each other thus, their magics would not degrade - they would last eternally. The mirror itself would be eternal, so that any seeker of the truth might go to it and find their heart of hearts, their truest strength - and then, in knowing the Truth, their fear would fall unto Death.
"You're so kind," Thanatos whispered. "More than me. I would have lost patience - I don't like being feared…but maybe…maybe it's selfish to think this, but…if they understand themselves better..."
The glass of the mirror had deepened to a rich, dark violet, the colour of the midnight sky without the moon. Lifting his hands, Thanatos sat back in his heels.
"If they understand themselves more, and stop fearing, maybe they won't fear me…?"
"That's not selfish," said Tahran, and hugged his brother hard. "That's wanting to be loved. Everyone wants that."
Thanatos nuzzled his arm gently. (Giant cat.) "It's finished. …Tahran, it's beautiful, look at it. Look at what we made together…"
Tahran smiled as his brother made purring noises. "It really is. That's the same colour your eyes are. I like it."
To his surprise Thanatos turned brilliant pink and hid in his hair. "…When they call out, their shadow will answer…they'll find the Truth, and their fear will End."
"And learn of another true kind of Love."
"Yes." Thanatos smiled to at Tahran.
Tahran helped him to his feet. "Come on. I know a good safe place to put this - a place that belongs to both of us because of where it is and what it is. Help me set it up there?"
Thanatos suddenly leaned forward and kissed Tahran's cheek. "Of course." He looked seriously at his brother. "Tahran. if it takes time for them to learn, don't blame yourself. it's hard to love yourself for who you are. It isn't you keeping them from love."
Tahran leaned on his brother and closed his eyes. "I know. But - thank you for reminding me."
***
It would be many years before the first seeker undertook the Ordeal of the sacred mountain. It would be many more years before these seekers took the name of 'Paladin'. Over time, the knowledge of the mirror's true origin was forgotten by many.
It was not, however, by Tahran.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-08 04:02 am (UTC)He's smiling, btw.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-08 04:03 am (UTC)(Thanatos goes ♥)