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January 17 - January 20, 2024
“I can tell him you need to share. Only one room left, et cetera.”
“Do you mean Buru Tovo’s husband?” Basil laughed uproariously. “Good in bed, he said.” Cliopher was appalled to realize he was blushing. “No!” “I’m sure he did.” “He said he was chosen by him. All it means is he likes men! He’s got that hermit—” Basil gave him a pitying glance. “Who did you think that efelauni of his was?”
PLSSSS okay so he didn’t know. AMAZING
“Of course, of course, I have wanted to hear you play ever since Cliopher taught me Shaian using Aurora and your songs about Jullanar of the Sea.”
You took him there and he is not certain?
When faced with a challenge, you had to meet it, surpass what was asked of you. That was how you won: and Cliopher had always liked winning.
The book of censored poetry was the only thing he’d ever stolen from the Palace. Well. Except for the government, of course.
amazing line
“I stole my copy from the Censors.”
“Where did you keep it?” Rhodin asked, frowning. “I know where you keep your copy of Aurora—” “Do you?” his Radiancy asked, almost normally. “It’s bound as the last volume of the Law-Code of Astandalas,” Rhodin informed him, which made Jullanar and Basil both catch their breath on laughter.
His fanoa, Basil’s voice sounded once more in his ear.
He had spent a long time very deliberately not thinking about that word. And yet he had told the Mother of the Mountains he would face any darkness for the chance to find such a shell on the other side.
His Radiancy made a soft noise,
His voice was rough, full of an ancient grief. Cliopher set his hand on his Radiancy’s shoulder, as he would for Basil or Rhodin. His Radiancy’s breath hitched.
cannot stop SMIRKING
“I’ve been listening to Uncle Kip play the past few weeks,” Clio returned immediately, “and I’ll be hearing you a lot, won’t I? Since you’re Uncle Kip’s—” Cliopher coughed, and Clio gave him a strange look, then continued, “fanoa.” He just said it.
omfg.
for some reason i had thought it was gaudy who said this. but OMG. i saw the bookmark on this page and i was like ? what’s this about ? and then OH
His Radiancy shut his mouth sharply—Cliopher heard his teeth click together—and
what is going through his head!!!!
“But you are not alone, my dear Kip.”
TEHEHEHEHE
And he reached out—he reached out—and took not Cliopher’s arm but his hand, and he drew him out into the open space of the green.
“What does fanoa mean?”
this is giving jim learning t’hy’la
LMAO bindi kaplan ur so silly. BUT ALSO OOOOOOOP
Fanoa, fanoa, fanoa. The very stream seemed to be whispering it as it rushed over the rocks to the cascade.
“It seems as if Clio meant something other than a small clam-shell, such as one might find on a beach,” his Radiancy observed, peering down at the stream and then stepping carefully onto a flat stone above the water. “Since he does not, as far as I can tell, have any experience of beaches bar the anecdotal.”
bro is like i know there’s something here but i’m gonna act casual as fuck about it
“I like archaic words,” his Radiancy murmured, stopping in the very middle of the stream.
“It’s an old word for friend,” he said, for he would not start lying to his Radiancy now. “A … pair. Two halves of a shell.”
He fell— His Radiancy’s hand was tight in his. They fell.
Interlude Falling (ii)
everyone cheered
The water dragged at his clothes, his sandals. He should kick off his sandals … He made to let go of his Radiancy’s hand, but his Radiancy was having none of it. His Radiancy, Fitzroy Angursell, was a great mage and had been on many strange adventures. If he wanted to keep holding hands … Cliopher held hands.
What had Cliopher done? No one—not even Fitzroy Angursell—had ever wanted to write a song about his postal system reforms.
calm down sir
“The Sea and the Land?” Fitzroy suggested, smiling. “They were right at the edge of both.” “They’re not lovers,” Cliopher replied instantly, out of some deep, disregarded certainty. “Ani and Vou’a are friends.” Fanoa, in fact. The first fanoa; the model for all who came after.
The fanoa who had been Cliopher’s image and dream and ideal of friendship his entire life long. They had been making love in the surf. They were not— That was not what fanoa meant. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.
awwww poor guy
second read:
literally such a devestating moment and such an interesting representation of what representation means to people and also how queer battles and struggles morph over time. i think about this all the time
Cliopher had not been right, after all, about what fanoa meant. Not right at all. He felt sick with loss, as if his heart had been pierced and all his wistful dreams had gushed out of it, disappearing into the sand below their feet.
kip :((((((
(They had not described his eyebrows. They were so much like Bertie’s.)
It had always been a strange and difficult idea that one might love a friend that deeply. The kind of friendship meant by the word fanoa had always been a strange and difficult concept. Archaic, he had told his Radiancy. Little-used.
And—and Cliopher was not ready to talk about what fanoa had come to mean for him. They would not like that their love had been … diminished. That was how people always talked about romantic, sexual love. As if that sort of love was necessarily better, greater, more, than friendship. As if being the greatest of friends was a step down.
It had always been so important to Cliopher that Elonoa’a and Aurelius Magnus were celebrated for their great friendship, and that no one had ever hinted at that sort of romance. Even for the Islanders there were many stories of lovers loving that profoundly … and there was this one story of the greatest of friends, the human iteration of Ani and Vou’a’s friendship. Cliopher had never thought it was a step down.
“Indeed,” his Radiancy said, smiling at Cliopher,
rn he’s thinking oh fanoa means kip and i can fuck on the beach? sign me up
“Now that we have determined that you and El are each of such exquisite courtesy that you refused to say anything so that the other might have the honour of being first,
One of the crew members said, “A Mdang from Loaloa? We must be cousins!”
the best payoff fucking ever
“I have always wondered about that,” his Radiancy murmured beside him.
awwwww. i just love him THINKING about kip!!! pondering him!!!
The ancient tanà said, “You say that very confidently. You do not think it will be hard to change something that has stood for so many centuries?” Cliopher could not resist a glance at his Radiancy. They simultaneously burst out laughing.
awwww!!! they are so in sync (telepathic as rhodin would say)
“We—my lord and I—had begun to circle the island, to see if there were anyone else here, and we saw you. On the beach, that is. Before we knew who you were.” Elonoa’a actually blushed. “We didn’t notice you.” “You did seem quite thoroughly preoccupied,” Cliopher said immediately, immediately hoping the small joke would be well received.
“You are, in fact, that most terrible of creatures: a patient revolutionary.”
desultory,
damn she is so into this word dhdjjdj
Albeit Cliopher had always assumed his Radiancy did not spend as much of the rest of his day thinking about Cliopher as Cliopher necessarily thought about him—that being a very large part of his job—and of course they had become friends—)
oh he 100% was thinking about you so much
He glanced under his eyelashes at Cliopher.
i’m so real for highlighting this
What could Cliopher offer in return?
bruh you’ve offered so much
“Well, I did learn to turn into a crow.”
“You’ve been together long?” Aurelius asked. Fitzroy’s hand gripped Cliopher’s shoulder tightly for a moment. “Yes,” Fitzroy said, his voice warm, clear, strong as the brilliant waters of Sky Ocean. “Half our lives.” He turned his head and smiled at Cliopher, who could only regard him silently, his heart open as the proverbial clam on the beach.
tehehehehehehe
Cliopher nodded, taken once more aback, and then privately resolved he was going to find an equally awkward title for Elonoa’a. Perhaps ezaru—the word for a former chief—would do.
bitch pleaseeeeee
“I am the tanà,” he said softly. “When the hearth of the world was cold and dark, I lit a new fire and held it until it blazed well enough to give to another to tend.”
“There’s a shrine to you there. I was mistaken for you on my last visit, which was somewhat … informal.”
hahaha nice
“You know, don’t you? It’s much easier when you love.” Aurelius’s love for Elonoa’a had been renowned for two thousand years in the histories of two cultures. “Yes,” said Fitzroy. “It is.”
so important he’d enshrined hairstyles and head coverings as something that could not be regulated by employers.
so true bestie!!! what an ally
