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The summer night over the sage’s manor is thick, the air hazy as moonlight bathed over the heavy walls. It was a lonely sort of night, the type that held ghosts of lovers past. It was lonely in the way that loss was lonely, in the absence of; it was an echo of a song that never played. And by all means, Shylock Bennett was a lonely man. A man as sweet as the taste of liquor between one's lips, as biting as the salt dusted on the rim. A man aged as time, yet as foolish as a calf. A man of the summer night, his body close to him, his heart sticking to his skin.
And so he sat alone, out in the courtyard where the trees bent out towards the reach of the sun, where the stones slept in curious anticipation for whatever steps would befall them come day. Out in the thrum of the world, in the quiet heart of the eve, where it was only him, the mad man, and the moon, that tempestuous lover who devoured all he loved whole.
Perhaps it wasn't love that was stolen, but blossomed upon the stars. Shylock could have loved what was lost, or he loved it because it was lost. He loved it because it had been his, or because it never could be. He loved it because it danced around him, waltzing along his thoughts like a playful kitten, weaving in and out of the dance with joyful steps, its sweet flirting, that ever glowing kiss from above. Shylock loved the man who tasted like deepness, who contained vastness. If a man were a path, then Murr was a maze, the threads of Ariadne long buried within the vines along the walls. The thrill made you feel that you were loved, that you were in love, that you were love.
Here in the quiet of the night, the Western wizards did not play among the sky, most of them busy with card games and bets inside. Cool air blew around the manor with a mission, as if they lived untouched by the world around them, as if all of them could be frozen in time there. Caught in a photograph, captured as they were. Shylock almost wishes to be greedy, wishes he could pause whatever this moment was.
He's run away from Murr once again, a feigned punishment after the philosopher had made quite a nasty spell as part of a losing bet. The Northern wizards had made their games to play cruel tricks on one another, and Murr had shown them he was cruelest of them all—he'd sent Shylock away.
Nobody had said anything, nobody dared to even breathe. The man who always came to Murr's side, who knelt and begged, who pleaded and prayed and kept his foolish love alive, cast away. It was foolish, they would say, sending off the one that would do anything to keep him there, and perhaps that was why he'd been sent off in the first place. Murr wanted to fall, to feel the thrills of the air with nobody there to catch him. He wanted to crash to know how it felt to burn, he wanted to wreck so he could destroy, so he could rebuild, so he could simply say he had. And Shylock had listened, because of course he had, there was no other option for him. He would always listen, would always follow whatever that stupid fool told him to do. No better than a dog, everyone had watched him hang his head, silently leaving as he tossed his cards onto the bar without a second glance.
Maybe there'd been an uproar. Maybe Murr had really gone and done it, and they'd be one wizard less when the morning sun rose. The thought brought both ease and anxiety to Shylock's bones, for he didn't know if either could ever truly calm his heart. Maybe they'd all said nothing, exchanging only knowing glances at one another, pitying the man who loved with all he had.
That felt most sickening of all, to be pitied. Shylock would choose this again and again, he knew he would walk the same path. He'd do it all again if it meant the days that Murr woke up, arms tight around his waist, a glint in his eye. The days that Shylock could pretend nothing had happened at all, when Murr captured his lips with something like hunger. Something like devotion, studying every corner of Shylock he could touch, hands that dug into skin and nails that dragged. Scars that stayed from stupid games they played just to show they could. All the sickening things that made Shylock believe in the day that his lovely, awful Murr would come and take him away.
But there is nothing but the stars and moon tonight. He sits quietly, the warm air swirling around him as the wind chased its own tail. Around him, small flowers glimmer in the dark, planted by Rutile and the children. It had been meant to light the spirits of those who needed it, paired with stepping stones that twinkled when stepped upon, but in the night, they only glowed with dim shimmers, looking more like scattered stardust along the ground.
It was fine as it was, though. The world was still, and Shylock felt he needed it to be this way. He could hold on to a memory here, hold on to a hand that never reached for his.
“What's a handsome man such as yourself doing here all alone?” A voice whispers, but no lips speak the words. It's in Murr’s voice, in one of his many, beautiful voices. The symphony they rise rings in Shylock's ears, and so his head jerks up from the patterns he'd been studying in the dirt.
Sure enough, in the summer night, there stands Murr. He isn't quite right, isn't quite how Shylock remembers him to be, his hair a bit tussled, his nose a bit short and his lips too long, but it's Murr. It's always Murr.
“Would you care more if I was one of the others?” Murr asks, humming to himself as he steps closer to Shylock. His gloved hand reaches out, the black mesh intertwined with jewels. Shylock takes it, and it feels like winter. “They're all inside, caught up in their reindeer games. He's there too, laughing right along.”
They don't need to say his name for them to both know who he means.
“You sent me away.” Shylock slides his fingers between Murr's, and they fit just right.
“You'd never let me play how I want.” The pull comes without shock, but Shylock still finds himself gasping as he's pulled into a dance, the motions engraved into his muscles.
“You'll play yourself to death,” Shylock hums, then speaks besides himself. “Darling.”
Murr laughs, for they both know what a sin it is to say such a name, to speak such a word, to pretend Shylock could own any part of him.
“That's half the fun.” Suddenly, they move as if in a frenzy. Their shoes kick at the stones beneath them, quiet rustling turned near-cacophony. It's dizzying, sickening, and so addicting that Shylock bites his tongue to ensure he hasn't been cast under some sleeping spell. He's wide awake, all at the mercy of a cruel, cruel man.
And when lips meet Shylock's, the haze leaves him as alone as he'd been before. Another fragment, gone as fast as it had come. His skin tingles with sweat, his legs now aching from the sudden waltz.
Lips fall open, and he laughs. He laughs, as tears fall from his eyes, and the summer heat swells. He laughs as if he has never laughed before—that's right, there had always been more. Nothing was to change until he changed, nothing in this cruel world that would not allow him just that. Perhaps he'd choose to be a man who never loved. Perhaps he'd stay the same man that loved like it was sweet as cherry wine.
But he'd have the path forward, that unending, winding road. He loved a ghost, but the living lived on. Alters rose for those who stayed. People came as they left, new faces filled where the old once sat.
Yes, that's right. There was new things to love, to find that one had fallen so deeply over, that let your ribs ache with the weight of all their love. There was so much to uncover, to carve into his skin, to let lead him now. Something vast beyond, for those who lived ages and beyond worlds, who knew nothing of what came next beyond what they chose to let. To the hearts who refused to die, who refused to end, to the sweet things they brought, to their laughter and their tears and their drunken sweetness.
All of it, dizzying, yet there was more to this than suffering. More than those they had lost, more than those who never stayed.
Yes, that's right. There was twice as many stars in the sky tonight, one beaming out so brightly at him that it hurt to look upon, even for eyes that had cast upon death and fear and the sun and the moon, eyes that had wept and eyes that had laid wide open, eyes that had prayed and eyes that had sinned, eyes that had seen it all on that summer night, who closed themselves, stood there on that stone, and stayed.