![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterDamn, it's been a while since I posted fic :) This one was written for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yuletide, which will be awarded its own post soon. It really was too much fun.
With thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alighiera for the beta and fyrie for encouragement, as always. Suggestions for a better title would be welcome.
Fandom: Lions of Al-Rassan
Pairing: Ammar/multiple
Rating: PG-13 for pretentiousness
Lion, Hound, Eagle, Owl
Three men had been loved by Ammar ibn Khairan of Aljais.
There had been others, pursued and pursuing, and nights spent tangled in sheets. There had been a boy once in Aljais, on a rare journey home, who had dropped the oranges he'd been carrying to approach at his sign. That was a pleasant memory, in a deck of others. Few enough of them that he remembered each one, unlike the women.
The first man loved by Ammar had been a lion. That was the first image: the minor courtiers of the khalif at Silvenes scattering as the Cartadan emissary walked through the courtyard. Ammar had reined in his horse in a crowd, but by the time Almalik reached him, they were in an empty space.
Are you that poet, Almalik had asked. The one who called Cartada a kennel.
Ammar had laughed then, and declared that if he ever devoted his verses to the future governor of Cartada, he would call him a lion.
Ammar had been reckless then. His sixteen summers had not yet taught him that he was mortal. Part of that lesson was learned later, when a blind man reached out towards his blade. In the Garden of Desire, the most perfect of Silvenes of the khalifs, the most remote from the world and its prose.
The other part of that lesson was only learned seven years after Muzafar, twelve after that first meeting. He remembered the way the setting sun had shone on the girl. Zabira was older then than Ammar had been during his first visit in Cartada, and perhaps she was wiser as well. Or perhaps it was that she was a woman.
He had never understood women well.
They both praised her beauty between them, Ammar and Almalik, though they both known that Almalik would be the one to take her to his bed. It was only later, after Zabira's first night under Almalik's roof, that Ammar knew how deep the change run.
Almalik told him that he would from now be the mentor and guardian of the heir, the young prince. And for the first time in twelve years their eyes did not meet.
The second man, Ammar had watched grow from boy into man. In a world where weakness was carefully hidden and boys did their best to pretend they were warriors, Almalik ibn Almalik did not lie to himself that way. He was boy enough to ask Ammar to tell him stories, of the khalifs and of even older ghosts, of horse races in Sarantium in the east, but man enough, later, to ask for teachings of a different sort.
At first, Ammar had not burdened the son with his quarrels with the father. But Malik listened and accepted, and a connection was formed in the courtyard under the sun, in the darkness hidden from the stars, in the talks of legends of Fiñar as the moons rose into the sky. They taught each other, then, and Ammar learned again how it felt to be immortal, to look no further than himself.
It had lingered, this emotion, and even long past the proclamation of exile, announced as the sun rolled towards noon and the body of Almalik's father cooled next to the dais, there was fondness between them. A long time later, Ammar knew that if word had carried of the exchange of glances between captain and courtier on an autumn day in Ragosa, of the fight later and the harmony found there, Malik would have acted differently. The boy had been well-taught, after all.
Ammar's third love had been the most sudden.
No, not in that courtyard in Ragosa, with the stream's shimmering sound in their ears, because that was only recognition of one predator for another. Nor in the afternoon, fighting side by side, though it stunned them both by its ease and harmony. It took until the night, with their eyes clouded by drink, arguing the tactics of the last successful Asharite raid into Jaddite territory, that Ammar ibn Khairan looked at Rodrigo Belmonte and saw both a reflection and a completion. Together, he knew, they would have no rivals, and maybe there could even be a hope of saving what Ammar valued in his world from the change and the fall.
Hopeless daydreams, Ammar knew, because fate would not have them on the same side once the stones started falling. There were too many old loves behind them, reaching out to hold them back. Rodrigo told him about Miranda, and later, after many drinks, also of Raimundo the bold, laughing, fighting, a petulant child one moment and an idol the next.
They had had the shortest time of all together, half an autumn and a winter and a single day of spring, but it had not mattered less for that. How could it, when thought was quicker than words, when sharing plans could be done at a glance? And perhaps knowing that this love, the third love, would be brief, made them savour it more. Never, ever, words between them; as on the battlefield, they could do better without them.
With Ammar's previous loves, there had been the grace of a fall before the death. But not then, not until the sunset, a year and more after their last meeting.
There was a hand on his arm, and Ammar ibn Khairan turned in his bed, facing his wife.
"He'd have told you to go on," Jehane said. "To drink wine in his name."
"No." Ammar could see Rodrigo, laughing, the awareness of the end in his eyes. "He'd have told me to enjoy having you."
Jehane's hair was loose on the pillows, and he would comb out the tangles for her later, but now he spread it as far as he could reach, breathing in the scent as he touched her. Her legs closed around his hips, and she made a single sound, and if they were not each other's only love, theirs was sweeter for the knowledge of difference, and loss.
Three men had been loved by Ammar ibn Khairan of Aljais, and one woman.
FINIS
yuletide, which will be awarded its own post soon. It really was too much fun.With thanks to
alighiera for the beta and fyrie for encouragement, as always. Suggestions for a better title would be welcome.Fandom: Lions of Al-Rassan
Pairing: Ammar/multiple
Rating: PG-13 for pretentiousness
Lion, Hound, Eagle, Owl
Three men had been loved by Ammar ibn Khairan of Aljais.
There had been others, pursued and pursuing, and nights spent tangled in sheets. There had been a boy once in Aljais, on a rare journey home, who had dropped the oranges he'd been carrying to approach at his sign. That was a pleasant memory, in a deck of others. Few enough of them that he remembered each one, unlike the women.
The first man loved by Ammar had been a lion. That was the first image: the minor courtiers of the khalif at Silvenes scattering as the Cartadan emissary walked through the courtyard. Ammar had reined in his horse in a crowd, but by the time Almalik reached him, they were in an empty space.
Are you that poet, Almalik had asked. The one who called Cartada a kennel.
Ammar had laughed then, and declared that if he ever devoted his verses to the future governor of Cartada, he would call him a lion.
Ammar had been reckless then. His sixteen summers had not yet taught him that he was mortal. Part of that lesson was learned later, when a blind man reached out towards his blade. In the Garden of Desire, the most perfect of Silvenes of the khalifs, the most remote from the world and its prose.
The other part of that lesson was only learned seven years after Muzafar, twelve after that first meeting. He remembered the way the setting sun had shone on the girl. Zabira was older then than Ammar had been during his first visit in Cartada, and perhaps she was wiser as well. Or perhaps it was that she was a woman.
He had never understood women well.
They both praised her beauty between them, Ammar and Almalik, though they both known that Almalik would be the one to take her to his bed. It was only later, after Zabira's first night under Almalik's roof, that Ammar knew how deep the change run.
Almalik told him that he would from now be the mentor and guardian of the heir, the young prince. And for the first time in twelve years their eyes did not meet.
The second man, Ammar had watched grow from boy into man. In a world where weakness was carefully hidden and boys did their best to pretend they were warriors, Almalik ibn Almalik did not lie to himself that way. He was boy enough to ask Ammar to tell him stories, of the khalifs and of even older ghosts, of horse races in Sarantium in the east, but man enough, later, to ask for teachings of a different sort.
At first, Ammar had not burdened the son with his quarrels with the father. But Malik listened and accepted, and a connection was formed in the courtyard under the sun, in the darkness hidden from the stars, in the talks of legends of Fiñar as the moons rose into the sky. They taught each other, then, and Ammar learned again how it felt to be immortal, to look no further than himself.
It had lingered, this emotion, and even long past the proclamation of exile, announced as the sun rolled towards noon and the body of Almalik's father cooled next to the dais, there was fondness between them. A long time later, Ammar knew that if word had carried of the exchange of glances between captain and courtier on an autumn day in Ragosa, of the fight later and the harmony found there, Malik would have acted differently. The boy had been well-taught, after all.
Ammar's third love had been the most sudden.
No, not in that courtyard in Ragosa, with the stream's shimmering sound in their ears, because that was only recognition of one predator for another. Nor in the afternoon, fighting side by side, though it stunned them both by its ease and harmony. It took until the night, with their eyes clouded by drink, arguing the tactics of the last successful Asharite raid into Jaddite territory, that Ammar ibn Khairan looked at Rodrigo Belmonte and saw both a reflection and a completion. Together, he knew, they would have no rivals, and maybe there could even be a hope of saving what Ammar valued in his world from the change and the fall.
Hopeless daydreams, Ammar knew, because fate would not have them on the same side once the stones started falling. There were too many old loves behind them, reaching out to hold them back. Rodrigo told him about Miranda, and later, after many drinks, also of Raimundo the bold, laughing, fighting, a petulant child one moment and an idol the next.
They had had the shortest time of all together, half an autumn and a winter and a single day of spring, but it had not mattered less for that. How could it, when thought was quicker than words, when sharing plans could be done at a glance? And perhaps knowing that this love, the third love, would be brief, made them savour it more. Never, ever, words between them; as on the battlefield, they could do better without them.
With Ammar's previous loves, there had been the grace of a fall before the death. But not then, not until the sunset, a year and more after their last meeting.
There was a hand on his arm, and Ammar ibn Khairan turned in his bed, facing his wife.
"He'd have told you to go on," Jehane said. "To drink wine in his name."
"No." Ammar could see Rodrigo, laughing, the awareness of the end in his eyes. "He'd have told me to enjoy having you."
Jehane's hair was loose on the pillows, and he would comb out the tangles for her later, but now he spread it as far as he could reach, breathing in the scent as he touched her. Her legs closed around his hips, and she made a single sound, and if they were not each other's only love, theirs was sweeter for the knowledge of difference, and loss.
Three men had been loved by Ammar ibn Khairan of Aljais, and one woman.
FINIS