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What's Seregil like, you ask. Now that's a hard question to answer. He's always been a mass of contridictions, like an onion with many different layers that flake off and break apart into pieces if you poke at them too hard. Just when you think you've got to the core of him, something will happen and that will break away too.
I've known Seregil most of my adult life and consider him as much a part of my family as my wife and children. In some ways he and I are closer than even Kari and me, though she is and always has been my heart. There are things we've experienced, adventures we've had that no one else could ever possibly understand. And yet I don't think that even I have seen through all his layers. There are secrets he keeps close, sheltered under his multiple skins that I can only guess at from the hints I see reflected in the many and varied faces he shows the world.
There was a time I despaired of Seregil ever letting anyone close enough to see fully behind the identities he pulls on as other men pull on clothes. I think he despaired of it too -- that he would ever find someone who would want all that he could give, the good and the bad. I could see it in his eyes sometimes as he watched me and Kari together, a sadness and a yearning so great that I would have to turn away. There wasn't anything I could do to ease it, save hope that he would find someone some day that will be for him what Kari is for me.
When I first met Alec, it did not even cross my mind that he could be the answer to that hope. Oh, it was obvious from the start that he was different than the usual strays Seregil offhandedly helped. Alec was special and not just because of his 'faie heritage that was plain to see in his features. The boy was pretty, yes, but more than that, he was quick of wit and brave of heart and I don't know if I had seen his equal with a bow even then. Once I had a chance to take his measure myself I could understand why Seregil took him on as an apprentice, even if, the very idea had seemed so out of character it had shocked me into silence when Seregil had first mentioned it.
But what I didn't see Alec as was a match for Seregil, not back then, not in that way, the way Kari is a match for me. Mostly, I think because for all his talents and potential, he just seemed so young. Alec was close to being of age with my eldest daughter and that made me look at him through, if anything, a father's eyes and so perhaps I missed signs that were there from the beginning.
And there were signs. So much so that when months later it became evident that Seregil had fallen in love with Alec, there had been a sense of inevitability to it all. Though even then Seregil did not really allow himself to hope. He thought he had just set himself up for more heartbreak and I sadly had to agree. With his youth and his Dalnan upbringing, I doubted it would even occur to Alec to see Seregil in that light.
Fortunately, we were both underestimating Alec completely. Neither his young age or the beliefs he was raised with proved to be barriers to returning Seregil's feelings. In fact, in the end it was Seregil himself that proved to be the biggest barrier to their coming together that way.
For all of Seregil's wit and passion and light, there has always been a certain fragility to him and his emotions, his soul if you will. Seregil's spirit burned as bright as any I've ever seen, but there had always been a darkness that lurked just underneath, an abyss that threatened to swallow him should that light ever dim enough. I'd watched him dance along the edge of it over the years, sometimes slipping enough that I could practically see it lapping at his feet, almost but never quite managing to pull him under. At least, not until Nysander.
We were all affected by Nysander's death, by the events that took place on that horrid rocky beach, but none more than Seregil who had been forced to deliver the killing blow. It was as if his sword had not only slain Nysander, but Seregil's own spirit as well and we could all almost visibly see him fade day by day as that wave of despair rose ever higher. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before it drowned him.
So I wasn't surprised when I woke up the morning after my son was born to find Seregil gone, having left a letter of farewell behind that sounded ominously final. Sad, scared, and angry, yes, but not surprised. I high tailed it after him, but really I didn't think I expected to catch him. Seregil had always been able to disappear when he really wanted to.
But I hadn't been the only one who had awakened to a letter and no Seregil and had immediately gone after him. And if there was anyone who was a match for Seregil in stubborness, it was Alec. There had been no way he was going to be left behind with only words on a paper -- there had been no way he was going to be left behind at all.
When I found them, they were sitting on a log beside the stream, Seregil sopping wet and Alec almost as bad. It was very clear, by the state of their clothes and the slightly stunned and sheepish air about Seregil that Alec had explained to Seregil exactly that in terms that even he could understand. Moreover, judging from how close they were sitting and the high color in their cheeks, other things had been made clear as well. If I had known that that would be the outcome, I would have encouraged Alec to dunk Seregil in the stream weeks earlier.
They left the next morning, but I was no longer worried that Seregil was going to disappear off somewhere to die, not with the looks he and Alec were exchanging. I knew it was the same kind of look that Kari and I often exchanged, the kind that had prompted the silent yearning from Seregil in the past. The kind you only give to the one who holds your heart.
It was why I only felt a mild pang when they rode out without me, knowing that my days of travelling with Seregil were for all intents and purposes at an end. I wouldn't worry about Seregil like I would have if I'd stayed behind in earlier times.
Alec would have his back, in more and better ways than I was ever able to. He'd already proven that Seregil can't hide from him. Alec could see through all those masks, break through all those layers, until he held the essence of Seregil in his clever fingers, and just as easily gave his own heart into Seregil's keeping.
All anyone has to do is look at them to know that there's no safer place for either.