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[cygna_hime]

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FIC: at caelum certe patet

[cygna_hime]

[Characters: Equius<3Tavros, Aradia, Vriska.

Tags: none used*

Summary: You want to know the truth at the heart of the labyrinth your father built. The knowledge is bread and water, and you are lost at sea.

*So, I'm personally unsure as to whether an abuse warning would be appropriate for this story; I would welcome your input!]

The story says that your father took and destroyed all the plans he ever made for the labyrinth, but you know your father better than any who live. It is not in him to destroy all record of a thing he has made, and no royal order could convince him to wipe from existence the secrets of his greatest marvel. You know the plans exist, though you have not seen them since you were eight. You have never looked.

You look now, in his room where not even servants are permitted. They would not dare, and if they did, they would find nothing, but you are your father’s son, the heir of his mind as well as his body. You find the master plan where you knew it must be.

You know your father too well to take the plan away with you. Though he may not have laid eyes on it for five years, he would miss it in an instant. Instead you read it carefully, the work of a week of afternoons as the yearning for knowledge gnaws at your insides, and commit it to memory. What is in your head is yours forever; this your father taught you.

Then you go the labyrinth.

Vriska is not what impels you over the threshold. Rather, her words awakened a curiosity that you cannot quench in any other way. You must see this being that Vriska calls a monster and Aradia calls her brother, this being around whose existence your life is built. You are not afraid; you are stronger than a monster. (If you were not the son of your father’s mind, you might be called monster too.)

The labyrinth is harder to navigate than you expected. The plans are hard to keep turned the right way in your head as the path beneath your feet twists, and your memory may be imperfect. You keep going. You are clever enough to find your way back again at need.

No sounds come in from outside. You can hear a few birds fly over in the sky above but nothing more. The palace is near, but it might as well not exist. You do not, cannot, find the silence pleasing. This is no place for civilized folk to linger.

You come around a corner, and the monster is there.

In your mind, it was huge, taller even than your father. In reality, it is not quite as tall as you. It is far less fearsome so. It is also sitting on the ground with a flock of birds perched on its admittedly deadly-looking horns.

You make an involuntary sound of surprise, and it turns round. The birds flutter away.

Its face is not human, quite, but it is not as monstrous as in your imagination. Though its face is dark and rough with small hairs, it has all the familiar features: mouth, ears (oddly shaped), nose (half a snout), eyes. Its eyes…they are the wrong color, a liquid gold that belongs to nothing that goes on two legs save, perhaps, a god, but the light in them can be nothing but human.

It speaks before you do – speaks as you do. “Who are you?”

You answer without thinking. “Equius.”

It’s not the right answer, and it – he – knows it. “I mean, what are you doing here, and, uh, how did you get in?”

“My father built the labyrinth,” you say. “I came –” All of a sudden you are no longer sure why you came. “I was curious about it,” you finish.

“You mean, curious about me,” he says.

You flush. Curiosity is nothing to be ashamed of, but it shames you anyway to admit that you came to stare at a monster who is also a boy of about your age, or perhaps a little younger. “I meant no offense,” you say.

“It’s not a problem,” he says. “Or, it’s not a problem for me, if I’m someone you were worried about offending. It’s not like, I get so many visitors, that I can’t find time for them all.”

“No, I suppose not.” You cast about for something to say. Nothing comes to mind but rude questions such as Vriska would ask. In the end, the most innocuous question you can find is, “How did you come by so many birds?”

He smiles. His teeth are flat, like a human’s or like a grazing animal’s. “They’re my friends. I call them, and they come, and we talk about what’s going on in their lives, and they bring me food.”

It has never occurred to you before that the monster must eat something other than hypothetical criminals. Whatever the birds bring (a marvel, to speak with birds, but monsters are marvelous) seems to agree with him: he appears to be in what for an ordinary boy would be excellent physical condition. At least, his upper body is; his legs bend the wrong way, and his feet are hooved, so you can’t be entirely sure what their condition is. He has a tail. It whisks out from the bottom of his chiton and wraps around one of his legs. You flush deeper when you realize that you’re staring.

The overall picture isn’t as strange as it should be. He is not something that should exist, but he looks as natural as you do. (More, perhaps, considering your perpetual awkwardness.)

“What do the birds say?” you ask. It’s not any of the things you are curious about, but it’s conversation. You are bad at conversation.

He doesn’t seem to notice. “They mostly talk about bird things, I guess, like where they’re building their nests, and what they found to eat, and how the eggs are doing, when they have eggs.”

He talks more about the birds, and the other small animals that make their homes in the labyrinth. You tell him of the fields and the town, but not of the palace. It doesn’t seem a proper subject for a first meeting. Too soon, to your surprise, the angle of the sun reminds you that the labyrinth is not, in fact, timeless. You will be missed.

“I must go,” you say instead of answering an innocuous question about the sea. “I’m sorry.” You hesitate. It is in violation of a thousand laws, and yet – “I could show you the way.”

He shakes his head. You can’t find it in you to be relieved. “I know the way. It’s just, it’s safer in here, for me. I’m not allowed to leave, because I’m a monster, but they don’t come in after me, if I stay here.”

“I – very well.” It is perfectly true, but. “What is your name?” It occurs to you too late that he may never have been given one.

But he smiles. “Tavros.”

“Tavros.” You turn the name over in your mind. “I could come back another day.”

He smiles brilliantly. No one taught him that smile. “I’d like that a lot.”

You’re very nearly late to dinner, you, who are never late. Vriska laughs at you. Aradia doesn’t. You wonder if she guesses, but she says nothing.

You come back.

You come back often, whenever you won’t be missed for a few hours. Tavros is unlike anyone else you know, his physical nature aside. You find spending time with him relaxing. You are stronger than he, but not by much. He does not comment on your lack of control. He smiles often. Sometimes, he reminds you of Aradia. You speak of her to him, though you don’t mean to. He says she leaves gifts at the entrance to the labyrinth sometimes, so you are sure she knows. You don’t speak of him to her, though you sometimes mean to.

You bring him gifts yourself, whatever won’t be missed: bread, old clothing in something closer to his size, a bracelet you never wear. You wish you could bring more. Every time you see him, you want to bring him out of the labyrinth more and care for the consequences less. Every time you have to return and lie about where you’ve been, you find that you care little for the king and less for the queen. Tavros may not be his true son, but he is certainly hers. Blood should mean more than that.

Your father never comments. You don’t know what he sees. He is working, often, on projects for the king. He may have missed your comings and goings, or attributed them to some mundane source, or he may have chosen for his own reasons not to speak of them. You know your father’s mind often, but his heart seldom.

For a few years this goes on in something like peace, as tension stretches further across your shoulders with every time you must leave Tavros and go sit in his father’s hall. You continue to loathe Vriska. Having little to do with her makes her only a little more tolerable. You continue to love Aradia, but as you see her less, you think of her less. One day you realize that she is Tavros’s sister, and a girl you once loved, but no more. From the thawing of a certain coldness between you, you can tell that she knows your feelings. You have never been subtle.

You are almost seventeen when the peace ends.

Aradia is the one who tells you. She runs into your workroom, startling you. Before you can ask, she tells you the whole.

The king has made it known that the bloodthirsty monster imprisoned in the labyrinth can only be sated by the lives of seven youths and seven maidens, to be brought from the lands he has conquered and turned loose in the labyrinth as the prey of the beast.

“But – Tavros wouldn’t –” You don’t catch on at first.

“Of course Tavros wouldn’t!” It’s good that no one disturbs your workroom; you and Aradia are speaking treason just by saying his name. “The first one to smuggle a sword in with them will kill him, and then Father will reward them for their heroism.”

Now you see: a way out of the dilemma that led to the labyrinth in the first place, for the king to kill his perhaps-son without the Fury-hounded risk of spilling the blood of kindred. If he does not tell someone to kill Tavros, then it is not his doing, and he will be free of the stain on his line. Horns or no, tail or no, there has never been any proof that Tavros is not his heir. You are half-surprised he has borne the shame so long.

He is the king. The destruction of monsters is his business. It is not your place to object. You have told yourself so for years.

You don’t believe it. “I have to –” You stop short of saying that you’re going to see him. Even now, you balk at admitting it aloud.

Aradia nods. “Go, now! Mother will be looking for me.”

No one tries to stop you. You’re glad; you don’t know what you would do, save that you wouldn’t be stopped by anyone.

Tavros isn’t expecting you: it’s later than you ever come to visit. But he’s not hard to find.

His eyes are luminous in the low evening light. “Equius? What’s wrong?”

You tell him.

He isn’t shocked. That’s what pierces you. He isn’t angry, or afraid. He just nods. “I figured something like that, was going to happen. It’s okay.”

“It isn’t.” Your words surprise you. You’ve tried not to even think what you’re saying. “You are no more a monster than any of your family, and less than most. You are no less deserving of life. You could go,” you say impulsively, “before they come for you.”

He smiles but shakes his head. “That’s a nice thought, but there isn’t really anywhere, that I could go. I couldn’t leave the island by land, obviously, and nobody would let me on a boat…” Above your heads, a gull cries. Tavros looks up at it. “If I were a monster that could fly, I might go, but I’m not, so there’s really no point, is there?”

You too look up at the gull. It turns on the wind, wings outspread, and an idea seeps into your mind. It is impossible, certainly, but you are your father’s son. There is no such thing as impossible.

“But if you could fly,” you say, trying not to frighten the thought away, “you would go?”

Tavros must hear the idea in your voice. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m not quite sure yet.”

It takes a long time for the king’s decree to be disseminated and the tribute to be put reluctantly on ships, but no time could be long enough. Your world narrows: the labyrinth, your workroom, and when absolutely necessary the rest of the palace. You say you’re working on a project that you wish to be a surprise in case it doesn’t work. The king allows you secrecy. He is fond of stunning revelations, and that works in your favor. You tell your father the nature of your project, but not its purpose, and he asks no more. You wonder, still, how much he knows or cares.

You ask Tavros to call scores of different birds so you can examine the structure of their wings. The great sea-birds interest you most; these wings will need to carry a large body long distances. You reconstruct them in canvas, but while you can see that the shape is right, the canvas is too heavy and unwieldy. You need something lighter, something better.

The birds bring their shed feathers, if Tavros asks. You suspect they bring more than that. His wellbeing is important to all who know him, even beasts. You save them, carefully preserved on shelf after shelf in your workshop as you make and remake your design. Even so, when you think you have the principles down and make the first pair, you break far more than you would like in the first test. You remake the wings, larger, made of the lightest substances you know or can contrive, and then they do carry you.

If they carry you, they will carry Tavros. It is best that he go as soon as possible, to give a head start before they enter the maze and find it empty. It is only rational. That doesn’t mean you like it.

Before the dawn, you rise and taking the wings with you, go to the labyrinth. You aren’t sure when its stone walls ceased to feel oppressive. It has become precious to you, more than it was ever precious to the men who ordered or designed it. You could find it in you to hate them for destroying it, were you not about to do so first.

“Tavros,” you call as soon as you pass the threshold. “Tavros, are you awake?”

He is, of course; he has slept little lately. Whatever he says, the fear shows in the angle of his ears and the twitching of his tail. You hold out the wings and their harness to him wordlessly. He could not look more amazed if a god were standing before him offering to take him away from here. It is almost enough to wipe away the rust aching in your joints. “Is this, I mean, do they really fly?”

“Yes. I do not know for how long, but they should carry you to another island.”

Stumbling in the dark, you leave the labyrinth together for the first and last time. You dare to hold his hand.

No boats anchor by the northern cliffs, and there is height to begin from. He hesitates. “It’s, um, very high.”

“These wings will not lift you from the ground alone, but with a drop they catch. It’s quite safe, as long as you don’t go too low to the water or too high to the sun.” You tested them here last night.

“Then, I guess, I should get going, before someone sees us, and gets you in trouble.”

“Yes.” More than one word sticks in your throat.

His face is strange, inhuman, and utterly perfect. “I wish you could come with me…”

You want to tell him to wait, just a little while, until you can make a second set of wings. But that would be a risk, and you have taken too many risks already. Instead you say, “I would follow you, if you truly want me.”

“I do,” he says, as though it is an easy thing to say. “You’re my best friend, and I, well, I would like that. I could, I guess, when I find somewhere, ask the birds to show you where, if you follow them.”

“I will.” Your skin is hot, and your tongue feels dry as dust in your mouth.

“Then, I’ll hold you to that, and see you, someday soon!” With one last smile he turns and tilts over the cliff. The wings catch halfway down. You watch him until he is gone.

You sit in your workshop, with your wood, and your wax, and your feathers. There isn’t much time before the empty labyrinth is discovered. You hope to be done before then.