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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | After another appearance by the "Twilight Father," leaving no ambiguity of his identity, Mordecai returns home to speak with Colson about faith, and where the Light as a guiding cosmic force and a person's individual needs to be seen intersect. 2200~ words. Post-event log. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Chain: Morson
The stairs creak as Mordecai climbs them with his boots in one hand, and he goes still. No one emerges to yell at him for making noise. This is an experience of the past that has not happened in several years now. There's still that moment of hesitation, his hand going tight on the railing… but there are only two people who could possibly have heard him climbing the stairs, and the one that matters is already in their rented room, waiting for him. Mordecai runs the rest of the way up, tapping once on the door before pulling it open himself.
Colson doesn't startle, the steady ever-present calm of a man whose history and personality both incline him towards it, as he raises his head up from his work — a delicately formed inferno ruby glinting in the high powered gnomish light shone on it — his eyes magnified 30x their usual size so that they are enormous blue orbs framed by his work goggles.
The paladin still looks like a paladin in his crisp light blue button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up to an exactly appropriate point on his forearms, and the well-tailored dove gray slacks made by his sister from the rebuilt wardrobe over the past year since the Shattering.
"Hi," Colson says, setting down a chisel, and pushing his goggles up onto his forehead, as he smiles gently at Mordecai, assessing the priest with both a loving and medical look.
There are some good signs. First, Mordecai makes a noise of amusement and smiles at the sight of Colson in the goggles. Second, there are no visible injuries, his enchanted white and gold robes only a little creased from movement and free of damage or bloodstains. Third, there is nothing in his hair or on his face to indicate he was close enough for anything to spatter. If the fight they expected did happen, it wasn't a messy one, and Mordecai does not look upset.
Mordecai looks happy. He closes the door behind him and sets down his boots and his bag near the door as usual. "Hi. What are you working on?" He crosses to stand by the table and rests his hands on Colson's shoulders.
Colson takes his goggles off, setting them down gently on the table. He pauses halfway in a reaching to turn off the bright gnomish light, leaving it on for Mordecai to see it better. He leans his head into Mordecai's left hand, dropping a kiss to the back of his palm.
"Ah, this is a design for the inferno ruby," he explains. "It's created with intentionally delicate edges that activate an enchantment to enhance agility and speed."
Colson speaks true — the ruby has been cut into sharp facets, creating bright reflected light and deep shadows, the triangular slices made from the rotating stone sander tiny and precise.
He looks up at his husband, paying no attention now to this expensive project. "Welcome home."
"It's lovely," Mordecai says. "And it's good to be home." He bends down for his welcome home kiss.
Not to keep Colson in suspense, Mordecai reports quickly afterward: "The battle went well, considering how easily it could have gone worse. Everyone you know is fine. There were some losses among the dragons, but that much was expected."
Colson exhales slowly in relief, and also in sorrow of all loss acknowledged for the weight it carries, even if only in the unknown. "May they rest in the Light," he says sincerely. He keeps a hold of Mordecai's hand, looking up at his husband.
"May they rest in the Light," Mordecai murmurs. "I'm going to go take a quick shower. Why don't you finish this up? I won't be long."
Colson searches Mordecai's expression, a man trailing invisible fingers across a well-known path, finding comfort in the familiar. He nods. "As you wish," he says, taking up the goggles to fit them over his head again. Hello again enormous blue eyes.
Mordecai smiles and gently boops Colson on the nose for his goodbye touch. "I love you." He gathers up some pajamas and towels and leaves the room.
In about fifteen minutes, Mordecai returns. He is now wearing his pajamas, one towel wrapped around his hair like a messy turban, a bundle of the day's clothes in his arms. He puts everything away in the laundry bag that they keep in their room, humming to himself.
Colson is already in the Clean Up phase of his work, meticulously putting each piece back into place lawfully and orderly, breaking from the task only briefly to smile at Mordecai on his return. As his husband hums, Colson picks up the tune on a repetition, adding a soft, understated harmony.
Mordecai squeezes some moisture out of his hair with the towel and then wraps the towel around his shoulders. He fetches a comb and sits cross-legged on the edge of the bed, waiting for Colson. "We've reclaimed Wyrmrest Temple," Mordecai says. That's the good news. "Benedictus was there. I… spoke with him. He escaped." He does not sound upset - if anything, he sounds thoughtful.
"Hm," Colson says thoughtfully in response. "What did you speak on with him?"
"I asked him what turned him away from the Light," Mordecai says. He starts halfheartedly combing his own hair out. "He told me…" Mordecai closes his eyes, trying to recall. "That I didn't understand the tyranny of the Light. That it demands perfect order and obedience, but only serves us mortals 'for its own purposes'. That the Void was no more dangerous than the Light. Will you comb my hair?"
It is very likely that Archbishop Benedictus did not ask Mordecai to comb his hair.
Colson hears the change with the ease of a man familiar with his husband, as he closes the jewelry box, rising gracefully and crossing the room to Mordecai.
"Of course," he agrees, reaching for the comb and sitting next to Mordecai, turning at the waist. His eyes are soft, even with the faint lines that show the tension around his mouth and across his brow. "'The Tyranny of the Light.' Hm."
Mordecai does a half-scoot closer and rests a hand on Colson's knee. "It sounded as though… he needed something to blame. A reason why bad things happen. I asked him if he felt as if the Light had failed him and Azeroth, and he said he did."
Colson works the comb carefully through Mordecai's wet curls, the care of a man who does not rush and does not mind a task taking a long time.
"Ah. I have heard that point of view before. There are some who feel as though they must assign a humanity to the Light, as though it is a person as we are, to envision how it can be as it is.
"They need the Light to be a person who has our motivations and our flaws, and who loves the way we do. Knowing a perfect cosmic power that holds truths of absolutes within it can be distancing for those who want it to be more, to be seen personally by a personal being.
"The Light offers a path, and a place within a perfect grace for our failings, but that does not stop us from experiencing pain and sorrow, even as a servant of it," Colson says softly, a man of faith.
Mordecai holds his head still and makes a noise of agreement. "I think that might have been the start of it, his initial loss of faith. But now he has truly turned to the Void, and to the Twilight's Hammer. 'Once your eyes are opened, you'll see,'" Mordecai quotes. "'The Void does not forget or abandon its followers.'"
"I see. He has forgotten the truth immutable that the Light does not forget or abandon its children," Colson says gently. "He has lost his way, and he cannot see the Light is still there, behind the Void he has let cloud his sight, that would accept him back if he would only reach out a hand for it."
The phrasing sets off a brief reflex as Colson clenches the comb harder in his right hand, as if his palm suddenly itched.
"I tried to reach him," Mordecai says. "I'm glad that I had the chance to try. Now I know." He looks gravely at Colson. "Short of a miracle, I believe he is already lost to us."
"Then there is still a chance," Colson says, as a man who believes in miracles. "But I fear that whether or not that miracle happens is a matter of the Light's servants bringing it into existence, and 'we are imperfect vessels channeling a perfect Light,'" he quotes from both a long-ago lesson and the words that he had marked permanently on his body encircling his arm. "Until his death, that chance remains, but we cannot let him destroy the world to give him a miracle. I am proud of you for trying, for that chance to remind him that the Light is still there, a beacon for him to follow if there is any part left in him that can see it."
"Exactly," Mordecai agrees, as a man who also believes in miracles. "He spoke of his 'new church,' that he would welcome me into it. That 'the master would come soon enough.'"
Colson carefully threads his finger through a curl caught on a snag in the comb, picking at the strands delicately until it releases.
"They have always maintained that faith that the 'master' will arrive, that the 'hammer will fall.' With Deathwing's rise, and the shattering of the world pillar, I am afraid they are no longer speaking of a distant future that we must guard against," he says calmly. "I wonder if there is not some hope unexpected in that wording though, a 'new church,' for the implication that he does not see the Church of the Holy Light in its current state as 'his.' A recognition, perhaps, that the faithful to the Light still hold the majority, and he has not turned it entirely to his purpose, and he knows it."
Mordecai looks at Colson. "I thought I would feel worse," he admits. "I feared I might never get… a resolution, of sorts. Answers. Whether or not the Archbishop Benedictus I used to know was always one of them. But now, having spoken to him under no more pretenses… I think this is relatively new."
Colson considers the words seriously, taking a moment to press the backs of his knuckles gently on Mordecai's cheek, his hands warm.
"I understand," he says softly. "I have never had the answer to the question of when did Sir Dathrohan fall, and when the dreadlord took his form. I do not know when I spoke to him, the last time, if it was him or not. He seemed to be, but I know all too well how powerful and convincing the elite demons can be.
"The corruption of the Old Gods being something more than simple beliefs has always been the root of its deepest danger, and now at least you have reason to believe he may have walked slowly towards a vulnerable place, but he took the last at a leap."
Mordecai leans into the touch. "I wish you could know. About Sir Dathrohan. I've been thinking about that a lot."
"Hm. It's something I have made my peace with, as much any flawed mortal can. If his soul watches over what has become of those who trained in the way of the Holy Libram, then perhaps he may judge me now for what I am, what I became. If so, I pray that in those farseeing eyes from the other side of death, I am no longer a disappointment. However, I believe, and trust in faith, that in the eyes of the Light that I never will be," Colson says. "If I am judged, let it be by what I serve, to 'stand in the Light, and be seen for who I am.'"
Mordecai half-turns, combing momentarily forgotten. "You are never a disappointment to me, either," he says, not for the first time. "I see you always, and I am so proud of you."
Colson smiles back at him, a basking of a man in a glow only he can see and feel but is no less real for it. "I believe you," he affirms. He finishes the combing, resting his hand down on his knee as he takes Mordecai's hand with the other. "And I believe in you. What has come to pass with the 'Twilight Father' will not be what it might have been, because you are here to hold a light."
"I have witnesses, now," Mordecai says. "It's not just me who saw him. I need to tell the Church. And the people. Fallon first, though, I owe him a report."
"Of course," Colson agrees with a nod. "And what of right now? What would you like to do today, for the moment?"
Mordecai gives him a considering look. "I'd like to kiss you," he says, "and then I think I should take a nap, but maybe you could lie down with me for a little while, and then we could go out for dinner later?"
"As you wish," Colson agrees, leaning in to begin that exact series of events.