Ni'Srilan: The Desert: To: Baraqel, Voraer, Fish.

The thorns he spares when the rose is taken;
The rocks are left when he wastes the plain;
The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken,
These remain.

Were they serious? Perhaps, perhaps not. There are so many layers to truth and lies, as his father would’ve said. Well, one of them; the other would’ve smiled and kept silent – the kind of silence that says more than any amount of truths and lies.

But he knows, Alerion, that he has gone too far, when he feels that shift of tension beneath Fish’s skin, that sensibility one gains from observation and caring. It is then that his flighty, ditzy blond act ends, as he turns to Voraer with a smile (a shy little smile, no more than a quirk of lips).

“Not today, I don’t think,” he laughs, soft, and then, all cockiness dissipates from him like a mist; he turns to Fish, his Fish, pink and beautiful, close, but never touching.

He’d said the truth; he’d like that.

In his youth and ignorance – and, perhaps, breeding – it’d never occur to him that others would not see things as he does, that others might not feel as comfortable with their… impulses… as he is. He would never – never – make a lie out of what he is and what he isn’t.

He is a cripple. He knows it.

He feels pain. He knows it, too, even laughing and joking harmlessly with his fellow warriors.

He’s about as gay as a bluebird in spring; he knew that from the moment he hit maturity and his eyes never instinctively turned for the female form.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, this time serious – well, as serious as he can be – canting his head to the side. “I didn’t mean to get you uncomfortable.”

Ah, but he does. Want other things.

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of eros and of dust